Clearing the air

Gasping for air as she ran out the main lobby of the Baxter building, Susan stopped to gather her frazzled wits and looked around. She was lost; she did not know where she was, what time of day it was or where to go next. But what she DID know was anywhere else was better than where she was running away from. Turning left and running down the street, the woman looked up and around her surroundings, her confusion only getting worse the further she travelled. This looked like New York but, everything seemed so different. The billboards were all wrong, the cabs were a different colour, even the brands looked like knock offs of what she remembered back home. Just, where was she? How did she get here?

Seeing a yellow car parked nearby with the driver reading a newspaper, the sign on top told her it was a taxi. Taking a chance, she approached the driver and pulled out as much money that she had on her person and waved it in front of him to get his attention.

“Hey, are you a taxi?”

“Yeah… Where to sugah?” He asked in a thick Brooklyn accent, eyeing her up and down and liking what he saw.

“Take me as far as this will take me!” She asked, handing the man a handful of bills.

Plucking the money from Susan’s hand, the man quickly looked it over to see how much she was giving him when he immediately stopped and gave her the stink eye. Frowning, he waved the money back at her.

“Hey der lady, we don’t take no Monopoly money here.” He accused, shoving the bills back into her hand, leaving her to blink back in confusion.

“What are you talking about?”

“Hey! Unless Alexander Hamilton’s on the front uh dem bills, you don’t got no 10 dollars to give me.” Closing the window to his cab, the driver pulled out of his parking spot and drive off, leaving Susan standing confused to pocket her remaining money.

“Who?”

Looking around, she tried to find the next means of leaving the city, maybe try her luck with the subway if it were nearby. Running down the street again, she stopped dead in her tracks when she collided with something solid in front of her and fell on her rear. Shaking her head and looking around, she did not find anything in front of her. Getting back up to her feet, she took a step forward and was met with the same resistance as before. An invisible wall blocked her from going any further, no matter how hard she slapped her hands against the surface or kicked at it with her shoes. It even reached the point where she was starting to feel out the invisible wall in front of her to find a seam or a doorway for her to go through.

“You can stop that now, keep it up and people might start tossing money at your feet for the act you’re pulling.” She heard a familiar voice say behind her.

Turning around, she did not see anyone until a shimmer of the light revealed a woman standing behind her with her gloved hand raised. She was the same woman from the building she fled from, wearing a full body blue suit with white gloves and boots and a ‘4’ emblem on her chest. She looked just like her in every way and yet she wasn’t.

“Look, I don’t want any trouble, I don’t even know how I got here or where I am, just PLEASE don’t bring me back there with those monsters.” The woman said pleadingly, waving her hands in front of her in a mild panic attack. She expected the worst, just like that scary demon woman earlier, but instead this duplicate of hers just rolled her eyes and sighed, resting her hands at her hips.

“Look, I don’t know how you got here either, my husband’s trying to figure that out right now.” Offering a hand to the identical woman, the Invisible Woman smiled. “Just… Just come back with me and we’ll see if we can sort this all out, okay?”

Hugging herself tightly, the woman looked around, finding no one else was freaked out by the woman wearing a blue full body leotard out in the open, or the fact she came out of nowhere. Eventually, the woman nodded and joined Susan, the pair heading back to the Baxter building on foot. Making their way back slowly, the two traded looks, with the woman in pink giving her blue clad twin an eye of disbelief.

“You look just LIKE me, they all do. How is that possible?”

“Well… Just like Reed said before one of the ‘other’ Susans went on a rampage was that we are us from different realities. Each of you lived the same life but somewhere along the way you took a left turn while I took a right. Heh, isn’t that a head trip?” Susan smirked, making their way to the front doors of the Baxter building and heading back through the lobby. “Oh, and for the record; YOU look like ME.”

“Hello Miss Richards, uhm… Your husband left a message at the front desk, said something about things cooling down upstairs?” Asked the lobbyist, not knowing which Susan Storm he should be speaking to as they both traded looks with each other.

“Thanks Bill, we’re heading upstairs now.”

Pausing in front of the elevator, the two identical women watched and waited for their booth to descend. During that time, the well-dressed woman looked around the lobby itself, now that she was not panicking and running for her life, she found everyone coming and going looking back at the two with familiarity. The entire lobby was covered in memorabilia, all with her face along with those of the people she ran from upstairs. Posters of action scenes with the four, or photographs of charities they attended.

“So… Are… Are you a model too? Or an actress?”

“Model? Pff… I stepped away from modelling when I met Reed.” Susan answered, just as the ‘ping’ of the elevator doors opened and the two stepped inside, continuing their conversation. “We shared a passion for outer space, we even ended up training together to be astronauts and… Well… It led to this.”

Shrugging her shoulders, Susan Storm turned invisible right before the woman’s eyes, making her gasp in surprise when she reappeared in front of her. She almost giggled when the pink wearing version of her poked her shoulder just to make sure she was real.

“We got exposed to cosmic radiation on our first flight out, turned me into an ‘Invisible’ woman and my brother into the human torch.”

“Johnny?! That was Johnny?” Gasped the other Susan, her hands to her mouth in total disbelief. “He’s still… I mean, he looks so DIFFERENT!”

“Not really, apart from the fact he burns his clothes by accident from time to time and goes through dirt bikes like shoes, he’s still the same little brother as ever.”

“Heh… Yeah.”

Hugging herself more tightly and looking away, the other Susan looked away in thought. Something the Invisible Woman was not oblivious to but left it alone for the time being. Once the elevator doors reopened, the two walked down the hall to the Richard’s floor and stepped back inside the living room, where the others waiting turned and smiled to find the pair back from being outside.

“Oh good, you’re alright, we were afraid we lost you there.” Spoke Reed, moving up to hug his wife while their two kids joined to do the same.

The other Susan stood and watched the family embrace each other, slowly looking to the others in the room watch like she was. It was only when she spotted the winged version of her with horns move aside to approach her that she became apprehensive until the succubus stopped and stuck out her hand to her.

“I’m sorry I scared you off earlier, I guess this is a bit overwhelming for you, isn’t it?”

Smiling sheepishly, the woman combed her fingers through her blonde hair before extended her own hand to hers, the two finally shaking hands.

“I don’t know why you didn’t have ME go looking for her.” Spoke up the tall wendigo woman, looming over the two with her arms crossed under her bust. “I could smell her a mile away.”

“Right…” Chuckled the four-armed woman, giving the wendigo an incredulous look. “Like a yeti is going to calm her down better than she could.”

“I’m not a yeti, I’m a wendigo…”

“SURE you are, and I’m H.R. Giger’s wet dream.”