"Reed? Something doesn't feel right to me."
The Fantasti-car hovered in the dead air. Through the reinforced windshield, the Fantastic Four stared out at the Baxter Building of Earth-2149. The architecture was slightly off—a heavy, retro 1960s aesthetic—but that wasn't what had Johnny Storm's skin crawling.
It was the pitch-black sky. And the smell.
The vehicle's air filtration system struggled and failed to scrub the thick, cloying stench of rotting meat and dried copper from the cabin. Johnny pinched the bridge of his nose, shifting uncomfortably in his seat. The entire environment felt entirely, viscerally wrong.
"Are you really sure we've come to the right place?" Johnny asked, his voice tight.
Reed Richards didn't answer immediately. His brow furrowed as his fingers flew across the dashboard console. He hacked into the local satellite network, pulling up global imaging data.
"Without a doubt," Reed said softly. "We have arrived at the exact coordinates of the Baxter Building on Earth-2149. The telemetry is flawless. In that case, there is only one logical possibility."
Reed swallowed hard, forcing himself to voice the absolute worst-case scenario. "The version of me in this world sent that distress signal as bait. He deceived us. He brought us here on purpose."
The main screen flickered, projecting the hijacked satellite feed onto the console glass. The cabin fell dead silent. Below them, the streets of New York were a hellscape. Buildings burned unchecked. And the streets were crawling with skeletal, rotting figures in tattered spandex. Superpowered corpses, tearing through the rubble with terrifying, coordinated efficiency.
Ben Grimm dragged a massive, rocky hand down his face. "So, we landed right in the middle of a George Romero flick. If that's the case, where's the local us? Why aren't they rolling out the red carpet for dinner?"
Reed didn't laugh. He kept typing.
Earth-616, Baxter Building.
"Look at this. Much more advanced than our world."
Zombie Reed Richards stretched his decaying, gray neck, taking in the pristine chrome and glass of the main laboratory. His jaw clicked loosely on a deteriorating hinge. He inhaled, a wet, rattling sound echoing in his ruined chest. "A brand new world. Our world now. And the air is just... thick with fresh meat."
"Enough sightseeing, Reed!" Zombie Johnny Storm ignited. His flames didn't burn bright and clean; they sputtered in a sickly, corrupted orange, fueled by necrotic energy. "I want meat! Fresh meat! Where is it?!"
"Patience, Johnny. Fresh meat is always available in a place like this," Zombie Reed muttered. His exposed finger bones tapped against the gleaming Stark-tech console. "Let me see... Ah. Automated delivery."
The heavy lab doors slid open with a soft hydraulic hiss. Three Baxter Building security guards stepped through, flashlights raised, responding to the perimeter breach alert.
They didn't even get the chance to scream.
Tendons snapped. Bones crunched. Blood sprayed in wide, violent arcs across the sterile white floorboards as the undead Fantastic Four descended on them.
High up in the corner of the ceiling, a small, square-headed robot hovered silently. H.E.R.B.I.E. whirred, its blue optical lens focusing on the carnage. The little machine processed the biometric anomalies, calculated the logical impossibilities of the scene below, and silently uploaded the live feed to the central mainframe for analysis.
Several floors down, Amadeus Cho leaned back in a rolling chair, chewing absentmindedly on the end of a stylus.
He hadn't taken the Baxter Building internship for the prestige. Following the stunt at the Puerto Rico tech exhibition, the U.S. military had been waving blank checks at him, trying to recruit him into their weapons divisions. Amadeus had zero interest in building bombs for generals. He just wanted to hide.
Transforming himself into an unremarkable high school intern, fetching coffee and running baseline diagnostics for the world's smartest man, was the perfect camouflage. Nobody looks twice at a small, narrow-shouldered teenager when Reed Richards is in the room.
Amadeus pulled up his task queue. He noticed a strange background program running hot. H.E.R.B.I.E.'s diagnostic feed was redlining, eating up massive amounts of processing power.
"What is Mr. Richards running up there?" Amadeus muttered. He tapped the keyboard, pulling up the little robot's visual feed.
The video window popped open on his monitor.
Amadeus's blood turned to ice.
Reed Richards was tearing a security guard's arm out of its socket. With his teeth.
Amadeus shoved backward so hard the rolling chair caught a floor cable. He tipped over, crashing heavily onto the linoleum. He scrambled up, lungs burning, his heart hammering against his ribs.
He had to run. He had to get out. But if he triggered the evacuation alarm, the monsters upstairs would know someone was in the building.
Amadeus slammed his hands onto the console. He didn't care. He bypassed the Baxter Building's outer security protocols in three seconds flat, directly hijacking the emergency PA system.
"Attention! All Baxter Building personnel!" Amadeus yelled into the desk microphone, his voice echoing through every corridor. "The Fantastic Four are compromised! They've turned into cannibalistic zombies! This is not a drill! Repeat, this is not a joke! Evacuate the building immediately!"
He hit the manual fire alarm, grabbed his phone, and bolted for the door. Elevators were death traps in a crisis. He needed the stairs.
Up in the main lab, Zombie Reed lifted his blood-drenched face. The PA announcement blared from the ceiling speakers. He blinked milky eyes, then spotted H.E.R.B.I.E. hovering near the ventilation shaft.
An elongated, gray arm snapped across the room like a whip, swatting the little robot into the wall where it shattered into sparks and twisted metal.
Zombie Reed turned to the main console. His rotting fingers stretched out, flying across the keyboard to initiate a total building lockdown. He wasn't going to let his fresh meat run out the front door.
He hit the execution command.
Access Denied.
Zombie Reed froze. A dry, rasping chuckle escaped his torn throat. "Well, isn't that interesting."
"What is it?" Zombie Ben Grimm growled, his rocky jaw dripping with gore.
"There's a top-tier hacker working in the basement," Zombie Reed said, tearing another bite of flesh from a guard's shoulder. "Johnny. Ben. Go fetch. Eat him up."
He glanced down at the mutilated security guards on the floor. One of them twitched, a low groan escaping its ruined throat. The infection was taking hold.
"Susan," Zombie Reed rasps, not looking back. "Blow their heads off. We don't need newly-turned trash cutting into our rations."
Down in the stairwell, Amadeus took the concrete steps three at a time. He kept his eyes locked on his phone screen, holding a live feed of the internal security cameras.
On the screen, the heavy fire doors on the top floor blew completely off their hinges. A streak of corrupted fire rocketed into the stairwell shaft, hurtling downward at terrifying speed.
Amadeus gripped the metal railing, skidding to a halt. "You have got to be kidding me."
Zombies weren't supposed to keep their superpowers. They definitely weren't supposed to retain their tactical intelligence. But the undead Human Torch was flying straight toward him.
The stairwell was compromised. Going down meant getting roasted alive. Amadeus pivoted on his heel, abandoning the exit route entirely. He needed a new plan, and he needed it in the next ten seconds.