The Ultimates: Against All Enemies

THE ULTIMATES: AGAINST ALL 
ENEMIES

Alex Irvine

1

Status Report

The period of retrenchment undertaken in the after-math of the events 1.07617 solar year ago ends as of this directive. Survivors of our forces from off-planet, together with our assimilated members untouched by the engagement, are being rearranged into a viable force structure. The human opponent has proved more difficult to surmount than we had anticipated. Steps must be, and are being, taken to eliminate this problem. It will be an ongoing process, and the resourcefulness of the human oppo-nent cannot be underestimated, but early signals from operatives in place indicate that current plans are proceeding per directive. Prospects for the imposition of order are improving both here and in other locations where our enemies have failed to dislodge us. Evacuation to the lower fourth dimension is no longer necessary or desirable. We can, and will, continue to perform our duties. As of now, operational directives will be issued from the Western Spiral Arm.

A breeding program is in place, concurrent with assimilations and technological development. Force increase is assisted by improved cloning technology. We are approaching a viable population. If events do not demand immediate action, we anticipate being able to initiate full-scale operations in approximately ten solar years.

One of the lessons of the setback is that we must avoid concentrating our forces where the humans can bring concentrated firepower to bear. Rather, we should recall that their impulse to act in large forces served us well in the

Currently we are maintaining low-profile deployments in a number of North American and European locations. Our primary goal with these deployments is surveillance of human security measures, with a secondary goal of influencing policy where deployment makes that possible. The addition of nonhuman scouts has complicated communication channels somewhat, since a shift in form is necessary prior to any communication; however, these challenges are being addressed.

The elimination of created a temporary leadership vacuum that has since been filled. Current command structure is more efficient than what existed under , and more flexible in its approach.

, due to an unfortunate indulgence of desire for revenge, placed too much emphasis on the miniscule but formidable portion of the human population which has undergone genetic or technological augmentation, specifically and colleagues known as the . New leadership is refocusing on the ideal of order, without counterproductive individual grudges and pre-dispositions.

We are no longer focused on human political centers in and ; the events leading up to the setback made clear that our surveillance must be diversified, encompassing human technological research and cultural production as well as the standard intelligence targets of military and political activity. The host understood that the imposition of order requires domination and control of cultural production as well as military strength; we are redoubling our efforts on this front. Much of this effort consists of suborning existing structures, such as film production, to increase the dissemination of material that prepares the human mind for the idea of order. Consolidation of cultural production in fewer and fewer hands has made this endeavor much easier. To take one example, filmmaking has absorbed the idea of order— translated, in human terms, as "traditional values"—far more easily than we might have expected given the chaotic and inconsistent history of that industry. The political discourse, by and large, has followed this trend as well.

What remains is to take these existing political and cultural trends and systematize them. Developments in ordnance, asset strength, and facilities will parallel this exploration of human cultural production. 2

At the table in the Triskelion meeting room down the hall from Nick Fury's office sat six people and a video monitor. The monitor, situated between Clint Barton and Janet Pym, showed the hangdog face of Bruce Banner. On the other side of the table, Tony Stark sat between Steve Rogers and Nick. Every time we walk into this room, thought Tony, something bad happens, or is set into motion. Usually he got juiced, almost high, when he was headed into a meeting. There were deals to be done, money to be made, angles to figure. Today, however, Tony's carefully cultivated cynicism was threatening to mutate into genuine misgivings, which was strange since the presentation he was about to give could only be considered good news.

In any case, it was time to get things started. He stood up and said, "Okay, so there's good news and there's bad news. First, the bad. I couldn't get security upstairs to let me bring martinis down from the helipad."

Nobody laughed. Perfect, Tony thought. They weren't supposed to. He started to feel better. A little self-deprecation, an intentionally unfunny joke, and before they knew it, the audience was liking him despite themselves. On the other hand, this was not a typical pitch audience, in that he knew them all already; also, here he wasn't Tony Stark, multibillionaire industrialist. Here he was Tony Stark, dissipated but necessary in-habitant of the Iron Man suit.

Steve looked annoyed. "Can we-—"

"We can, and we will, Cap," Tony said. "The good news is that due to the enormous black-budget opportunity given Stark Industries in the aftermath of the Hulk incident—thanks again, Bruce—I stand here be-fore you to announce that I've got a prototype imaging technology that will be of great interest to all of us."

Tony saw Steve and Nick exchange a glance. Military, he thought. No patience for the art of presentation. On the video monitor, Banner's face remained glum. I know what you're thinking, Brucie, Tony thought. We threw you out of a plane when we needed you, and now you're back in this cell until we might need you again. Well, it's true. But you brought it on yourself when you shot that needle into your arm and created Captain AmeriHulk.

Then again it wasn't like Banner was the only one whose character could be considered... murky. They all had secrets. Going clockwise around the table...

Who knew what sins Hawkeye would be atoning for when he finally met his maker? Years in SHIELD'S

black ops would have piled them up by the dozen. And Janet, ah, Janet. Darling, Tony thought, nobody likes a mutant. Yet here you are. Steve, Captain America, you brought your proto-fascist politics with you out of the iceberg, even though they have thus far stayed hidden behind those blue eyes and that charming naivete. Nick, our fixer, which of us will you throw under the bus the next time you need a favor from Capitol Hill? Banner's already gone. How long before you need another sacrificial lamb?

It won't be me, Tony thought. I don't need these people. This is my world. I command resources that would be the envy of most of the world's nations. Also I am fairly damn sexy, and cynical enough to avoid the gee-whiz save-the -world complex that most of the rest of my Super Hero counterparts suffer from.

Before he let himself get further carried away with self-analysis, Tony returned to his meeting patter.

"Imaging technology? Who needs it?" he asked, letting the obvious rhetorical question hang for just a moment. 'Well, we do. SHIELD'S got great satellite coverage, and the best street-level cameras around, but there are times when you need to look a little more deeply."

He'd lost Nick. "Sometimes I hope that God will one day decide that you can only shovel so much bullshit," Nick said, "and then he's going to strike you dead."

"He might," Tony said. "He just might. But before he does, let's go into another room where I've set up a little presentation. Sorry, Bruce. We'll have to tell you about this part later." He opened the door and with a nod and a smile indicated that everyone should exit. They filed out without comment, but Tony caught a couple of looks that told him he'd gotten what he wanted. They were bored already, which would make the coming surprise that much better.

"Ta, Bruce," Tony said to the monitor. He led the party down the hall to another meeting room, selected for its north-facing windows and general congeniality. Stopping the party at the door, he said, "You won't see much at first, but don't worry. Like the Jamaicans say, patience make de day come quick." As Nick walked past, Tony clapped him on the shoulder and said, "You know me, General. The play's the thing. God, would it be boring just to show you machines."

"I could stand a little boredom," Fury said, pausing for a moment to let Steve by. Then he shrugged Tony's hand off They started forward together, and Tony angled himself to go through the doorway first, counting on Fury's ingrained military courtesy toward civilians.

This was the part where Tony had relied on the word of a staffer downstairs that Nick Fury hadn't been in this particular conference room since the Triskelion was built. Just inside the doorway, an extra framework was erected, shaped roughly like an airport screener but—in accordance with Stark Industries' design standards—much more attractive, utilizing mirror-polished metal alloys instead of utilitarian off-white plastics. As Fury entered the room, everyone else had already started to mill around inside, wondering where the presentation was.

The moment Fury's shaved skull passed below the screener's crossbar, a metal mesh deployed from both sides of the screener, snapping around his upper body. A split second later, automated clamps hooked around Fury's thighs and ankles, freezing him where he stood. Red lights flashed, and a Klaxon that wouldn't have been out of place in an old submarine movie started
ah-ooh-ga-ing
. Putting on a surprised face for the benefit of the other Ultimates, who looked like they were about to leap into action even though there was no visible opponent, Tony slowly turned around.

"What the—?" Fury's voice was nearly lost over the blaring of the Klaxon. He struggled in the clamps, but they were designed to restrain someone with the strength of Captain America. He didn't have a chance.

After letting the scene sink in for a few seconds, Tony stepped up to the screener, paused to make sure that everyone in the room could see what he was doing, and plucked a small metal hemisphere off the back of Fury's uniform. Inside it was approximately one gram of Chitauri tissue. He held the capsule up for all of them to see, keeping it within the screener's sensing field. "General Fury," he said. "I would never have imagined that you were a Chitauri in disguise." It was perfect. He had the rest of the group looking back toward the screening walk-through, and immediately to their left was the panoramic view of Upper Bay, punctuated by the Statue of Liberty. Presentation, Tony thought. That's how you close a deal.

Of course, you also closed a deal by coming up with a product that worked, and demonstrating conclusively and dramatically that it worked. He studied the looks on his teammates' faces. Steve was suspicious in his typical knuckle-dragging way, and the others looked plain baffled as they worked out what Tony-had just demonstrated for them. Fury, manacled and wincing at the Klaxons, was eyeing Tony with murder in his heart, but even he was obviously interested to see how Tony was going to explain himself. Perfect. "Now watch," Tony said, and with a flourish stepped away from the screener and dropped the capsule into his coat pocket.

As soon as he took the capsule out of the screener's range, the Klaxons cut out and the clamps relaxed. Now free, Fury stormed over to Tony and stabbed a finger into his chest. "Where the hell did you get that?"

"Ah, I do love that Klaxon," Tony said, deliberately misunderstanding the question.

"You will tell me where you got Chitauri tissue, or I will have you thrown into a goddamn cell with Banner," Fury growled. "Right now, Tony."

"General," Tony said, spreading his arms, and playing to the group, "I can't give away my sources like that. Stark Industries takes very seriously its security obligations under the contracts we signed with the federal government. What you just saw—what all of you saw— was a device that detects the presence of Chitauri DNA. It's a variation on your standard bomb sniffer, but a hell of a lot more sensitive, and with some extra goodies built in. Stark Industries can be building a thousand of them a day by next week." He removed the capsule from his pocket and handed it to Fury. "You can check the validity of the sample, just so you know I'm not trying to swindle you, General. I've got more." This last he accompanied with a wink to the others.

"This is kind of closing the barn door after the horse is gone, isn't it?" Clint said.

"Well, we would have thought that after World War II, wouldn't we?" Tony answered. "The Chitauri being what they are, I wouldn't discount the possibility that some of them are still out there. And if there are some of them, there will be more. The universe's immune system, isn't that how they described themselves? T-cells multiply in the area of an infection."