Chapter 285: Chapter 285: Doors Open From Both Sides

Joint Dark Energy Mission Facility, Mojave Desert — May 1st, 2012

The alarms had been screaming for twenty minutes.

Deep beneath the Mojave Desert floor, the Joint Dark Energy Mission facility was in a state of controlled panic. Scientists scrambled between consoles, desperately trying to understand what was happening to the Tesseract.

The cube sat in its heavy containment apparatus at the center of the room. It was glowing with an unstable, pulsing blue light that felt distinctly wrong. This was not the steady, cold luminescence they had grown accustomed to over months of study. This was erratic. It looked hungry. The light surged and dimmed in irregular intervals, like a heartbeat losing its rhythm.

Dr. Erik Selvig stood at the primary console, his face lit blue by readings that made no sense. He had been working with the cube for months. He had grown comfortable with it, perhaps even fond of its peculiarities. That comfort was entirely gone now. The cube was acting on its own.

Nick Fury strode out of the main elevator without breaking his stride. His dark leather coat flared behind him as he aggressively bypassed the fleeing technicians. He kept both of his eyes locked on the glowing artifact at the center of the room.

“Talk to me, Doctor,” Fury barked over the noise.

“Director,” Selvig replied, his voice tight with stress. “It is misbehaving. The energy output has been climbing for the past fifteen minutes with no plateau in sight.”

“Did you try pulling the plug?” Fury asked.

“That was the very first thing we did,” Selvig replied, gesturing helplessly at the massive, severed power cables resting dead on the metal floor. “We completely cut the power to the containment field. It just reignited immediately. The cube is generating its own power source now.”

Fury frowned deeply. He studied the cube. The blue light reflected off his face as his eyes

narrowed.

“Where is Agent Barton?”

“The Hawk?” Selvig glanced upward. “Up in his nest. As usual.”

Fury followed his gaze. High above the main floor, on the narrow observation catwalk that ran along the ceiling of the chamber, Clint Barton sat in his perch. His legs were dangling over the edge. His bow rested casually across his lap. He was watching everything below with the quiet, predatory patience of a man who trusted elevated positions far more than he trusted people.

“Barton. Get down here.”

Barton rappelled down to the floor in four seconds. He landed lightly and walked over to Fury without hurrying his pace.

“Report.”

“Nobody touched it,” Barton said. “I have had eyes on the target all night. No unauthorized personnel entered the room. No one tampered with the equipment. If there is a breach, it is not happening from this side.”

Fury looked at him. “What do you mean, ’this end’?”

Barton shrugged. “The cube is a doorway to the other end of space, right? Doors open from both sides.”

The sentence hit Fury like a fist to the sternum.

Four months. Arthur’s cryptic words on the observation platform at Cape Canaveral, spoken in that infuriatingly calm tone, crashed back into Fury’s mind with perfect, terrible clarity.

Someone on Earth is actively sending out an invitation. They are opening a door for very dangerous people in space to walk right through.

Fury had pressed for details. Arthur had simply walked away. Carol had smiled and said nothing. Fury had spent four long months trying to figure out what Arthur knew that he did not.

Now the door was opening.

Fury wanted to curse, but there was no time. The Tesseract erupted.

A blinding beam of energy lanced from the cube, striking the receiving array at the far end of the chamber. The air inside the beam began to boil. It twisted and folded inward upon itself until a ragged, crackling portal violently tore open. Through the shimmering opening lay nothing but the terrifying, absolute cold void of deep space.

Fury hit the secure communications button on his collar.

“Coulson!” Fury shouted over the rising whine of the portal.

“Here, Director,” Agent Phil Coulson’s perfectly calm voice replied instantly in Fury’s earpiece.

“Call Hayes,” Fury ordered, his eyes locked on the violently shaking containment chamber. “Call him right now. Tell him the danger he was expecting is finally here.”

There was a brief, highly calculated pause on the line.

“I will contact Mrs. Hayes immediately, Sir,” Coulson replied.

Fury did not bother to argue. Coulson knew exactly how the Hayes household operated. Arthur was a ghost who ignored phones and lived across multiple planets. Eileen Hayes was the absolute best way to summon her husband when the world was ending.

The portal expanded violently. A wave of blue energy burst outward like a shockwave, slamming into consoles and knocking armed soldiers sideways. Fury braced against it. Barton dropped to one knee behind a thick support column. Selvig was thrown backward behind his monitors.

Then, with a deafening crack of thunder, the portal collapsed.

The blinding light died down. The deafening whine faded into an eerie, ringing silence.

Where the portal had been, a lone figure now stood amidst the smoking debris.

He was tall and lean, dressed in intricate armor of dark green leather and shining Asgardian gold. His black hair was slicked back, and a cruel, entirely confident smile played across his pale face. In his right hand, he gripped a long golden scepter. The wicked blade at its tip glowed with the exact same unearthly blue light as the Tesseract.

The man slowly raised his head. He casually surveyed the armed SHIELD agents leveling their assault rifles at his chest. He did not look threatened in the slightest. He looked profoundly amused.

Fury drew his sidearm smoothly, but he did not fire. His eyes locked onto the intruder’s arrogant face, and his mind rapidly cross-referenced the intelligence dossier Arthur had provided after the Thor incident. He remembered the detailed files outlining the key players of Asgard.

Fury recognized the horned motifs on the armor. He recognized the condescending sneer. He recognized the God of Mischief.

Loki of Asgard. Thor’s adopted brother.

Clearly not dead.

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