Into the Dark Dimension: a Marvel: Crisis Protocol Novel by Stuart Moore

Author:Stuart Moore [Moore, Stuart]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Fiction, Media Tie-In, Superheroes, Science Fiction, Action & Adventure
ISBN: 9781839081989
Google: TH6BEAAAQBAJ
Publisher: Aconyte
Published: 2023-04-03T23:00:00+00:00

Eighteen

In the southern hemisphere of the moon, deep within the Copernicus crater… between the brightly lit peaks of the Harbinger Mountains and the former landing sites of Apollos 12 and 14… something stirred.

The creature shook, quivered, and stared up. Dark rocky walls surrounded it, stretching up more than two miles to reveal the distant lights in the sky. The creature had been asleep for a long time – decades? Centuries? It had no way of knowing.

Now it was awake. And it felt a call, a summoning it could not resist. Its shapeless body stretched upward, protoplasm curling slowly into a sharp, hooked claw. A second claw took shape, and with a shiver and a groan, the creature began to climb the walls of its airless prison.

When it reached the top, it vaulted over the lip of the crater and paused. Gray sand all around, rocky cliffs… and one severed wheel, half-buried in the shifting regolith. The remains of a vehicle left behind by visitors, decades ago.

The creature stood for a moment in silence, its form oozing and undulating in the solar wind. Its brain, scattered and decentralized throughout its ever-shifting body, ached with a longing it could not name. Something called to it, urging it onward – but where? Forward, miles away? Across the trackless gray sands?

No. Not forward.

Up.

High above, in the sharp clear sky, hung a large sphere swaddled in mist. Patches of green and blue showed through its distant cloud cover: glimpses of life, of water. This globe – this world – was the source of the call.

The creature formed sharp teeth, bared them at the sky, and hissed.

Then, like a salmon drawn helplessly upstream, it flexed new-formed muscles and leaped into the sky. Defying the moon’s gravity, it shot out into open space, arrowing straight for the white-swathed planet. And with every mile, every moment that passed, the call grew stronger.

Soon it was plunging through the mists, through the thick veil of oxygen and nitrogen, caught by the pull of the larger world. Clouds gave way to open air, revealing a maze of tall structures crowded together on a narrow island. One of those structures, the creature knew, was the source of the summoning. One of the tallest, in fact, nestled amid the others, a large metal circle just beginning to iris open on its roof…

The creature felt a surge of panic. It had been trapped, held captive, before, and suddenly it knew this was what was about to happen. It struggled, squirmed, formed random appendages as it plummeted down through the air. But it was no use. The pull was too strong, the summoning too true.

With a grunt and a squish, the first symbiote shot through the iris atop Stark Tower and was sucked into the accumulation chamber.

As the creature splattered down in a mass of protoplasm, Doctor Octopus looked upon his work and smiled. The newly built accumulation chamber dominated Stark’s workshop, filling two-thirds of the domed, multileveled room. The chamber was shaped like a beaker, its narrow spout vanishing into the ceiling where it led to the exterior iris.

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