Target: Kree: A Marvel: Crisis Protocol Novel by Stuart Moore

Author:Stuart Moore [Moore, Stuart]
Language: eng
Format: azw3
Tags: action and adventure, Superheroes, Marvel
Publisher: Aconyte
Published: 2021-07-06T00:00:00+00:00

Part Four

After the Fall

Chapter 27

Tony Stark hung in the air like a god, staring down. His movements were dronelike, inhuman. He was in shock.

The building’s roof had been burned halfway off in a surprisingly clean break. Inside those thin metal walls, dozens – no, hundreds of Kree sat, stood, milled around, or slept curled up in crowded, dirty spaces. One side of the building consisted of living quarters, a large area subdivided by temporary metal walls, curtains, and in a few cases chicken wire. Some of the rooms had as many as eight bunks crammed into them. They had doors made of plywood or just curtains, no windows, and most of the bedclothes looked threadbare and unwashed.

In one room, an argument was raging between two men. In another, a woman tried to corral six screaming children. In a third, three young women struggled to move a chunk of the steaming roof that had fallen in on them. A few more Kree stared up at the sky; one of them pointed at Tony and shook his head in disgust.

Tony wafted up a bit; he couldn’t force himself to meet the man’s gaze. He jetted sideways to gain a three-quarters view of the living area, which was actually three stories high, with ladders down the side providing access to the higher levels. Each storey couldn’t have been more than six feet high, from floor to temporary ceiling.

No windows. No privacy. From the look of it, barely any ventilation – until now, at least. It looked like an anthill, a beehive.

How? he thought. How could this happen? Here, in my father’s house?

He wanted to look away, to pretend this horror didn’t exist. But he couldn’t. The lenses built into his helmet spared him no detail.

Ladders led down from the living quarters into a large open area. One corner held a few CRT-screen computers; a ring of young people circled around, waiting their turns. But most of the space served as a sort of communal dining room, with long picnic tables arrayed in rows along the bare floor. Kree of all ages sat hunched over bowls of food, eating rapidly, furtively. Occasionally they glanced briefly up at the now-exposed sky, then turned quickly back to their food.

A small kitchen stood adjacent to the dining room. Rusted gas stoves, a loud whirring freezer. A few men and women rushed around, struggling to prepare food in a space that was clearly inadequate to the demand.

There was more. A room full of screaming children, guarded by a single ancient Kree woman. An infirmary with a mere three beds, all occupied; two more men laid out on mattresses on the floor. A trio of jumpsuited Kree moving from room to room carting away fallen chunks of fallen metal and plaster on a large, wheeled dolly.

Where the roof gap ended, Tony caught a glimpse of a large industrial area with steam leaking up and out. Beyond that, he couldn’t know.

I brought them here, he thought. I offered them work, housing, a new life.

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