What Came Before: While responding to a distress signal from the Negative Zone, Reed Richards discovered the ruins of a futuristic city on an uncharted planet. He now works to rebuild it, hoping to both uncover the reasons for its decline and to regain his own flagging faith in technology…

Laughter was not a common sound among the tribesmen of Planet 32-I. Their lives were too short, too hard, to allow for it. Each day was a struggle for water, food, and survival on a harsh and dangerous world.

They made allowances, however, for the two strangers that now entered camp. After all, being gods, their ways were not always clear. Besides, some argued, why should they not laugh and be merry? They had defeated the demons that plagued the tribe and brought many miracles to the valley, giving them fresh water and a powerful magic that they called “electricity.”

Laughter seemed only natural for such carefree gods. Indeed, more than a few of the tribesmen shared private smiles of their own to see them coming.

“It’s only a matter of time, Andrea,” Reed was saying as he swung his knapsack down next to the equipment shed. “The layout isn’t even that complex. Once I figure out how the storage component works…”

The second figure, a slim woman whose curly brown hair had been tied back with a red kerchief, laughed. “Tell me, don’t you ever get tired?”

“When there’s so much work to do? So much to still accomplish?” He shook his head. “We rest enough when we’re dead.”

They had been here for over a month now and already the changes were incredible. The ruined city their camp sat outside of had begun to hum with life again. The generators had been repaired, much of the water system restored, and even a few of the magnetic rail cars were up and running again. It was an impressive amount of progress, especially for two people with only an untrained labor force for help.

The city was not the only thing that had changed. Reed, himself, looked different. Gone were the dark circles from under his eyes and the slump in his shoulders. He looked refreshed and alive, as though twenty years had fallen away.

For Andrea it reminded her of the young freshman she’d met in college, the eager student who wanted to learn everything from the first moment he stepped on campus. And had then proceeded to do so.

“Feeling literary are we?”

“Hm?”

“I will have an eternity to rest. Sergovia I believe.” She smiled. “Or his obituary. I forget.”

Reed smiled back but probably hadn’t heard her. He was already spreading their maps and blueprints out on the stone bench in front of them. Hunching down, he began to study his latest obsession -- the city’s old defense network.

“It still doesn’t make sense to me how such an advanced civilization could fail,” he said. “The weapons of these Ghost God terrors* were toys compared to what I’m seeing here. At their height, the people who lived in this city should been able to tackle them with ease.”

(See Fantastic Four v2 #3 for Reed’s first encounter - Al)

“It’s certainly a mystery,” Andrea said before ducking into one the tents. Returning with two cups, she poured a draught of dark liquid into each. She handed a glass to Reed.

“What’s this?”

“Bourbon,” she said with a wink. “From my own dwindling stores. I never go dimension hopping without it.”

“Hum.” Reed took a small sip and nodded. It was good. “What’s the occasion?”

“You’re the occasion. I’m celebrating the world’s greatest scientist doing what he does best. It’s a joy to finally see it up close.”

He laughed. “Thank you, but really, it’s not all that. Ask my family, I drive them half nuts most of the time.”

“That’s them,” she said softly, reaching out to top off his glass. As she did so her other hand grasped his, as though steadying the cup, and lingered there. “This is me.”

Reed smiled before noting the serious look in her eyes. He had never been much of a romantic but even he recognized what they were saying.

“Andrea,” he replied, pulling away, “I’m flattered but I can’t. I have a wife.”

“Who’s light years away and wouldn’t have to know. I’m not asking for anything.”

“I know,” he said, “but I still can’t. I took a vow.”

Andrea raised an eyebrow, as though suspecting he may be joking. When she saw that he was genuine a grin took its place. “And so honest and true on top of it all! Tell me, does it ever hurt? To be so perfect? To be Mr. Fantastic?”

“I’m not perfect. I just do what I think is right, as best I can, like everyone else.”

“Ooo, maybe there is a flaw. False modesty,” she joked, “is quite unbecoming…”

Reed didn’t know what to say to that and luckily he didn’t have to think on it long. A commotion arose in the camp as a runner came panting into view. The camp workers gathered around him as he sprinted towards the strangers’ tents.

“Sehod Richards,” he gasped, using the honorary title the tribe had given Reed. Andrea said it meant something like ‘Wise Conqueror’. It was a bit embarrassing in his opinion. “A scout has returned from a great distance away bearing terrible news.”

“Tell us, please,” Andrea said.

Reed had yet to learn more than the rudiments of the language. He simply hadn’t had the time. It was as much as he could handle just to make out what was being said.

“He says he has found the Ghost Gods’ home. The place where they come into the world.”

“Where?”

A fearful look came over the man’s face and he lowered his voice, as if fearing the very words he used would bring doom down on their heads. “A great silver lake where the demons come from the earth itself. He has seen it with his own eyes.”

Reed and Andrea exchanged glances.

“Can this man show us where the lake is?”

“No, Sehod, no! He is scared out of his wits. He is no condition to return to such an awful place.”

Reed grabbed a pencil and a loose sheet of paper from the table. He turned towards Andrea with a determined expression.

“Tell him that the scout will have to draw us a map then.”

“Do you think that’s wise?”

“It’s more than wise,” he said with a tight smile, “it’s about damn time. This little mystery has gone on long enough for my tastes.”

She nodded, uncertain how prudent such a plan was but accepting that Reed knew his business. The leader of the Fantastic Four had faced enough danger in his life to know to do deal with it.

“We’re going to meet the Ghost Gods face to face.”

Much later, the two scientists stood atop a tall mesa, gazing over the charred landscape.

They’d circled the area over a half-dozen times and there was still no sign of any lake. Already the sun was dipping low in the sky and, once it set, what little light they had would disappear. Taking out his binoculars, Reed again scanned the horizon.

“Perhaps,” Andrea suggested, “we misread the map?”

That would have been easy enough to do. The best the scout had been able to give them was a rough approximation of landmarks and distance. To Reed, very little of it meant anything at all and Andrea was in an only slightly better position.

The scout’s trip, part of a food scavenging expedition, had taken him several weeks. With the use of the two-man Nega-Pod the Fantastic Four had left them, they were able to make much better time. If they’d read the signs right, Reed believed they were now in the right area.

The problem was they weren’t entirely sure what they were looking for.

“I haven’t seen any large bodies of water since I arrived here, let alone a lake.”

“We may be looking for something much smaller in reality,” she suggested. “Perhaps a pond or crater with some moisture collection.”

Reed nodded, refocusing the binoculars. As he placed his eyes back against the sockets, a bright sliver of light made him wince. Thinking it was glare from the lenses, he swiped his thumb over them and tried again. The light was still there.

“Here! Look. ” He passed the field glasses to Andrea.

“What is it?”

“I’m not certain. It looks like a reflection. Off something metal maybe. Perhaps that’s why we missed it before, the sun was in the wrong position to catch it.”

She nodded.

“Do you think it may be our friend’s silver lake?”

Reed stood up, tucking the binoculars away before climbing into the cockpit. He offered his hand to Andrea to help her back inside.

“Only one way to find out.”

They located the source of the sheen on a small hillock, surrounded by thick granite rocks. At a height, Reed was unable to recognize what it was but as the Nega-Pod gradually descended, he began to put it together.

“It looks a bit like a door,” Andrea ventured.

“Yes, large too. An underground hangar perhaps. Judging by the rust, I’d guess it’s been here for quite some time.”

Reed activated the landing gear and felt the bounce of the shocks as they touched down. Stretching his arm around the seats and into the hold’s lockers, he pulled out two pulse rifles. He handed one to Andrea.

“Just in case.”

She nodded and they both leapt to the ground below.

The dust from their landing hung thick in the air as they approached the door. It was as wide across as a tanker truck and nearly as tall. Here and there spots of gray metal caught the light, but most of it was caked with heavy rust.

“Doesn’t look much like a silver lake, does it?”

“Hardly,” Reed said, wishing he’d brought along more equipment from camp. A sample might have allowed him to calculate the age of the metal. Scanning for radiation or other toxic emissions would have been a wise precaution as well, but it was bit too late to worry about that now.

“I don’t see how we’re going to get inside,” Andrea said, “unless there’s another entrance. There’s no way we’re forcing that.”

He nodded. All of the heavy cutting equipment was also back at camp for use in the rebuilding effort. Nothing on the Nega-Pod was powerful enough to even dent this, not that he would have risked it. There was no telling what lay behind those doors.

“Perhaps, we sh-”

A loud clanking interrupted Reed. The doors shuddered, sending flakes of rust into the air, and then a bone numbing screech rent their ears.

“I can’t see!” Andrea shouted, fighting to be heard over the clatter. A fissure had formed in the rusted metal and a blinding silver light seeped out.

Reed was in a similar dilemma, dots jumping before his eyes as he struggled to refocus them. He was just making out three lumpy figures haloed in light when the shooting started. The first blast passed inches from his left ear and he dove to the ground.

A second arc of light shot towards Andrea and she squatted down, firing back. One of the blurry figures was flung to the floor as the others turned her way. A third barrage lanced out at her and she spun to her left, crumpling to the ground.

Reed reacted quickly.

His body stretching outwards like taffy, he was on the figures before they could re-sight their guns. As he closed in, Reed noted they were the same sort of creatures the team had fought weeks ago -- four armed, spider-headed monsters with beaded green eyes.*

(M2K Fantastic Four v2 #3 - Al)

Swinging his rifle like a bat, Reed struck the first creature in the head. Both it and the weapon shattered in a spray of sparks. The second one brandished its rifle but Reed moved faster, wrapping his malleable arm around the gun and jerking it free. His other hand, expanded to the size of a wind sail, then swooped in and slapped the creature across the hangar. Crashing into one of the light panels that ringed the walls, it slumped to the ground in a shower of glass.

That was merely two. During the last conflict there had been dozens of attackers and, as Reed stared into the tunnel, he expected to see more racing their way. There was nothing there however, just a long span of corridor.

Reed turned back to the enemy at his feet. Where its head had been smashed, a mess of circuitry and fiber optics poured out onto the floor. Robots. The Ghost Gods were machines. He watched as their bodies slowly dissolved into acrid smoke--the result of some fail-safe mechanism--leaving only the usual foul-smelling rags behind.

The land grew quiet again. He realized Andrea had not gotten back up.

“Are you alright?”

Reed finished dressing Andrea’s wound with the First Aid Kit from the Nega-Pod. She had been struck in the left thigh, a painful injury but not a fatal one.

“If you mean will I live, I think so.”

“I mean are you well enough to be left on your own.”

Andrea raised an eyebrow. “You’re not suggesting you’re heading back in there?”

“I am. I have to find out what’s behind all of this.”

Recognizing the determined look in his eyes, she simply nodded and took the remaining rifle as he offered it.

“If you see anything at all,” he said, “fire a warning shot from the Nega-pod and get out of here. This ship should easily outrace anything of theirs.”

She was already sitting in the cockpit of the Pod and, even with her wounded leg, it would be no trouble for her to operate the controls. They both knew this, but she still hesitated.

“And leave you here? With those things?”

“I’ll be fine,” he said. “Besides, if something happens in there, you can’t save me. It’s better you inform the tribe--give them a chance to find cover--and send word to my teammates.”

No point arguing, Andrea realized, as she sank back in the chair. He had already decided. “Okay, Reed. Just be careful, alright?”

“I will.”

She watched as he turned to go, moving cautiously over the rocks and into the hangar. As he disappeared up the silvery tunnel, the door made another terrible screech and slowly eased shut.

An odd premonition struck her as the last of the hangar’s lights blinked out. Her fear, she found, wasn’t that Reed would fail but rather that he might succeed. Whatever the secret of 32-I was, Andrea had a growing suspicion that its discovery would not be a happy one.

The worst part was there was nothing she could do to prevent it.

As the hangar doors clanged shut, the lights flickered out, reducing Reed to just the handheld flashlight from his belt. Clicking it on, he proceeded up the tunnel.

The darkness didn’t matter much as there was little to see. Occasionally, he passed a few hover-cycles like they had seen before. None of them seemed to have been moved or operated in years, and they were layered in dust. The place smelled heavily of mildew and decay.

After about a mile, the tunnel branched off into several smaller hallways. Reed followed one that led to an expansive high-roofed factory cluttered with machinery. Like everything else, the machines looked antiquated, as though they’d been sitting untouched for decades, maybe longer. Throughout room, he found bins filled with arms, legs, heads, and other body synthetic parts, apparently used in construction of the Ghost Gods.

At the back of the factory, he discovered rows of completed robots hanging on racks. As his flashlight passed over their green eyes, they seemed to glow, but nothing stirred. They simply dangled before him like marionettes.

This technology, Reed realized, was very similar to what he’d been working with in the ruined city. None of it was as advanced, but it was adequate to its crude purposes. He had a feeling that whatever had built the one, had also built the other.

Exiting the factory, Reed entered another hall and was surprised to detect a bluish glow at the end of this one. He continued cautiously, expecting to trigger an alarm at any moment. No locks, shields or guards moved to block his passage though.

He entered the room with no difficulty. It was a large circular dome into which seven other hallways connected, like the spokes of a wheel. Reed guessed it was the center of the complex and what he saw there startled him.

Thousands, maybe millions, of video screens lined the walls. Each one displayed a different part of 32-I, every canyon, mesa, and blasted valley. As Reed moved among their blinking images, he discovered an entire section of feeds linking to the tribe’s home city. Their every movement was being studied.

Finally he stopped as he came across a row of screens that showed the ruined city. He recognized the tilted spires and crumpling walls, as well as the various additions and rebuilding efforts that had been completed since his arrival. Viewed through the screens, his work took on the eerie feel of a child’s erector set, as though it was little more than building blocks slapped together.

Suddenly the images on the screens disappeared. They were replaced by a flat blue screen with a simple row of text. Written thousands upon thousands of times in every direction he looked.

From somewhere above him a voice repeated the words.

It said: Hello, Reed Richards. Welcome home.

Next Issue: Namor visits the Big Apple. Times Square! Rockefeller Center! And…the Skrulls?!?

Fantastic Forum

Author note: What the hell?

That’s an understandable response. If not to the end of this issue, then certainly to the five month gap since my last release. Excuses? Just the usual -- real life and a nasty case of writer’s block. This issue in particular was a beast to write and edit. Originally almost twice as long as what you just read here, number six was meant to be far more revelatory. Unfortunately, it just wasn’t working the way it was written.

The silver lining is that things are now back on track (cross fingers, bite tongue) and you can expect to see more of the Negative Zone than originally planned, not just 32-I. Which should be fun. Also up ahead: more Namor, more Franklin & friends, and the reintroduction of the Frightful Four (last seen skulking through the pages of M2K’s FF way back in issues #25-26 of Volume I).

So thanks for reading, and an even bigger thanks to the editors (new and old) for their patience. - Al