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FUTURE OF DAYS PAST

Part 1: What a wondrous thing was Man....

See the girl run.

Run over the gutted bodies, and the burned-out hulks of cars and buses, and the shattered ruins of city blocks' worth of buildings. Run over the smoking corpse of New York City.

Run, girl, run.

See the robots fly.

Fly over the abattoir that is St. Mark's Place, and the endless ranks of cars, filled to overflowing with corpses; fly along Fifth Avenue, and the holes in the ground where the Village once stood.

Hear the girl as she runs: "Ah-huh....ah-huh....ah-huh....oh, gawwwwwd....."

See the girl run across rain-slicked streets and leap over forty-foot holes in the street and mounds of rubble twenty feet high. See the girl dodge (barely) the robot's lasers. See the burns on her back and thighs where she wasn't quick enough in dodging.

Run, girl. Run.

In the far-away places of the Earth, life went on. Without humans.

In the ruins of Nagasaki - irradiated again - foxes played and mated, gave birth, lived and died, all the while ignoring the thousands of human bodies strewn across the streets.

In Kenya the lions and hyenas and wild dogs wandered west, from what had been the Tsavo National Park, and east, from the Rift Valley, and made their way into Nairobi. For weeks afterward challenges and replies could be heard echoing off what was left of Nairobi's skyscrapers, as scavengers argued over a particularly choice find. The flamingos of Lake Nakuru had a field day on the now-common and very-strange-tasting algae; it was only later that the radiated algae did what man's pollution could not, and killed the hundreds of thousands of flamingos who had made Lake Nakuru their home.

In Siberia, along the Omolon River, the mink, who no longer had to be wary of trappers, multiplied rapidly; the following winter and summer proved rich feeding for the meat-eating things that had escaped from Sergei Krylov's old labs.

On Tuvalu, on the atolls that weren't swamped when the polar ice caps were slagged, the albatrosses and petrels found better refuge than they had in generations, for there was no one to hunt them.

In the streets of Atlantis the mutant jellyfish - six feet in diameter, with tentacles over a hundred feet long - which Warlord Krang had had developed for use against Namor's troops found particularly rich feeding. And no resistance.

And in Avengers Mansion, things went from bad to worse.

"Report."

"Same as always. Sir."

"That is not satisfactory."

"Too bad. Sir."

"You try my patience, lackey. That is most unwise."

"*yawn.*"

"Before this is over, Falcon, you will--"

"Spare me, Doom. We're too shorthanded for you to waste me, and you know it. So shut up and get on with it."

Silence, accompanied by the low hum of Doom's armor.

Finally--

"Your insolence will not go unpunished, Falcon. But your punishment can wait for another day. Has last night's patrol reported back?"

"Nope. Cap's last communication came around 3:30; he said they'd run into a little interference - but, knowing Cap--"

"His tendency towards understatement is of no use in situations such as this. I need exact data, not affected modesty."

"What-ever. Cap also said they'd found what was left of Machinesmith, though."

"Perdition! He was necessary to my scheme."

"Our scheme, Doom."

"Do not presume above your station, Falcon. You know nothing of what I do, and still less of my brilliance and how necessary I am to our salvation."

*Belch.*

"Your attempt at wit is useless, Falcon. Do you have naught else to tell me?"

"Yeah. Fabian says that they tried to hack into his systems as soon as he went outside the Mansion's shields. He said he's holding them off, but that they're reconfiguring their attack and that he doesn't think he should be leaving the Mansion for much longer."

"Stankowicz's intellect is acceptable. I will accept his judgment. However, it is imperative that we have Iron Man's armor before proceed. If Stankowicz is not available to access it, than we must use someone who can."

"Someone - but not you, eh?"

"I am obviously far too valuable to risk in such a manner."

"Well...who's that leave, then?

"Roger Bochs is the only one of you left, since the Fixer was taken. He must go out on tonight's foray."

"I'll let him know."

"Do so. And if Captain America should report in, tell him that I am moving the date of the first trip up. To tomorrow."

"WHAT? Doom, you can't be serious! I thought we'd agreed--"

"SILENCE!"

*beep*

"Silence this, Doom - we let you in because you agreed to play by the rules. You breakin' them, now. That was the emergency recall button I just pushed now - Cap's gonna know that something's wrong, and if he comes back and finds me missing, he'll know you did it. No way, Doom, no way!"

"Listen to me and understand, Falcon. Please."

"I---huh?"

"Even a von Doom must accept the inevitable, Falcon. Our enemy has taken all but a handful of those who would oppose him. They are all with us, else we would have found them by now. And though we continue to hold out, that cannot last forever. The Mansion's shields are beginning to weaken, even with the improvements I've made upon your defense systems. My armor is the greatest single weapon ever devised by man - yet even von Doom cannot fight an entire world of Sentinels. Not in addition to those others that our enemy controls. Our end is near, Falcon; there is a greater than 88% percent chance that we will fall in a week's time. The jump must be done soon, or there will be no one left to do it."

"I....uh...."

"Enough. Tell Captain America to return - I will discuss this further with him. He, at least, will see the wisdom of my decision."

Along what had been Pitkin Ave, in Bed-Stuy, things went from worse to worst.

"This way, Cap."

"Pete, how much farther is it? Henry's leg can't take this pace."

"Just around this--whoah!"

"Ah-huh...ah-huh...oh, thank god! Cap, you gotta help me!"

"Jolt? Good heavens - we thought you died with the rest of the Thunderbolts!"

"I got out just before - Cap, we gotta run! They're right behind--"

*THOOM*

"Uh-oh..."

"In here - quickly!"

"Oh, lord...look at them all!"

"If this is the end, we're still going to do the Avengers' name proud. Positions, everyone - here they come!"

The 1990s and early 2000s were marked, for those from decades and centuries before them, by noise and speed.

Everything seemed to move faster than before - communications, relationships, politics, entertainment - everything about human life and society seemed to be accelerating at nearly a break-neck pace. And - especially compared to the placid quiet of earlier decades - everything was louder - music, movies, television. Even the people themselves were louder.

And now, in 2003?

Silence.

Silence in the rubble of an oddly-shaped house in Greenwich Village; mystic shields proof against the strongest of magic attacks had offered little resistance to a simple low-yield atomic bomb.

Silence in the ruins of New Attilan, broken only by the hum of patrolling robots; the multi-dimensional building across the Blue Area had absorbed many of the robots, and their new orders were to avoid it at all costs, and to focus instead finding and killing the surviving Inhumans.

Silence in what was left of Lemuria; those aquatic lifeforms who ventured too close to it were killed either by the city's vicious radiation or by those robots now standing sentry.

Silence in the air above Wakanda; in the tunnels and mines below it could be heard the sounds of many robots, digging for vibranium - but in the service of a different master than the Wakandans.

Silence in the caverns where the Lava Men and the Subterraneans had once battled for supremacy; a simple tailored retrovirus had finally killed the last of the seemingly endless hordes of Subterraneans, while the Lava Men had discovered that even their bodies were not immune to the Overkill Horn.

Silence.

Except in Bed-Stuy, in an alleyway off Pitkin Ave. There - if there were ears to hear it - one could hear many different sounds. Metal striking metal, as Captain America's shield, banking off two alley walls, slices through the chest of a Sentinel Mark-I unit, destroying its CPU and rendering it useless. Flesh on brick, as the wounded Hank Pym (blood leaking from only partially-cauterized particle beam wounds on his leg - and, if you listen closely, you can hear the plip-plip-plip of his blood, slowly falling to the ground) throws himself to the side of the alley and narrowly avoids the electrified web another Sentinel shoots at him. Plasma on metal, as Fabian Stankowicz's neural-guided weaponry burns through two more Sentinels looming over the alley. The tortured squeal of metal being shredded as the blur that is Quicksilver drives a spike, at superspeed, through another of the Sentinels, disrupting its programming web. And the pad of feet on concrete, as the Avengers are forced back towards the rear of the alley by the rest of the Sentinels, who ignore their fallen comrades and press forward.

Captain America, shield held before him in a defensive-ready posture and mind calculating the 14 attack options open to him, said, out of the corner of his mouth and in a low whisper, "Pete, now would be a good time."

Pete Petruski, one hand supporting Hank Pym, kept his other hand on his trigger mechanism. "Almost there, Cap...a few more feet...almost...there...."

Then, from behind them, a welcome sound: the voice of Layna Petrovna - Darkstar. "Never fear, Steve; we have come to, as you say, save your bacon."

Captain America, eyes still steady on the slowly advancing Sentinels (too slowly - could they know it was a trap?), said "Who do you have with you, Layna?"

Layna did not speak at first, concentrating as she was on simultaneously keeping the darkforce warpgate open behind her while preparing a few bolts; the Sentinels were strong, but the Mark-Is - and that seemed to be all that was facing them - had no protection against the darkforce. Finally, her weapons ready, she said, "Immortal, the Demon, and Roger."

Pete Petruski, carefully watching the Sentinels, who seemed to have stopped advancing, said, "It's not that we aren't grateful, Layna, but....how did you know we needed you?"

Layna Petrovna laughed; although it was a particularly humorless laugh, the Trapster was glad to hear it anyhow. "The Thinker said you'd be in trouble; he said there was a 98% chance that the Sentinels would have found you by now. I had hopes that he would at last be wrong....but so much for that, eh?"

The Speed Demon cut in. "Why are we wasting time talking? Let's get out of here before they decide we're more use to them dead than alive - c'mon, Cap, let's go!"

Captain America nodded once, briefly. "You're right; if they were gonna attack by now, they would have. Here's what we're gonna do: Pete, you get Hank and Jolt home and find out why Sam triggered the emergency beacon - Pietro and I and the Speed Demon will cover for you. Pete, trigger your--"

Some inner sense, honed by long years of combat, told Steve Rogers that something was wrong behind him. He risked a quick glance - the Sentinels hadn't moved in over a minute - and saw the other Avengers backing towards him, and away from Darkstar.

Quicksilver was the first to say it. "Captain...she is--"

"Yes, Pietro, I see."

Her body gone rigid, Darkstar began convulsing, gouts of dark energy spewing from her eyes. The warpgate behind her seemed to shift and flow as the Avengers watched; looking too closely hurt the eyes, but it seemed like it was growing in size. Darkstar gave one final jerk, and went still, hovering in mid-air. That was when the Bad Thing happened.

jess - next issue: "Apocalypse Then."