There are no ends, only new beginnings...

Two weeks… It had been over two weeks since Reed had come back from visiting his wife at the RAFT; the SHIELDS run super-maximum detention facility just outside of the New York bay. Since that time, he had barely left his lab, only ever leaving to get something to eat or use the rest room at the late hours of the night. His research had consumed him, not even his children had seen him within that time. It was making Ben and Johnny worry for the man, especially for his kids. Franklin and Valaria sat on the couch watching television with their uncle, but they were not really looking at the television screen where a football match was playing. Instead their eyes were on their father’s lab doors. Noticing the worried look on their faces, Johnny draped his arm over the two and hugged them close. “Hey kids, don’t worry, he’ll come out eventually.”

“When Uncle Johnny?”

Scratching his chin, the man looked away briefly before he got a save from Ben coming back from the kitchen with a drink in hand. “Yer Dad’s just had a lot on his mind kids, he’ll get over it soon. What I miss Johnny boy?”

“The score’s 4 to 5, it’s a close game so far.”

Move over’den, I wanna catch the last…”

“EAUREKA!!!!”

Startled by the scream from Reed’s lab, the four at the couch were surprised to find the doors open to reveal Mr. Fantastic scramble out to find his family in the living room. For the first time in over two weeks they got an idea of just how long the man had been working day and night in his research. His face was drawn with a heavy five o’clock shadow and his hair was matted from a lack of hygiene. Manic with elation he stumbled but regained his footing when he gently grabbed hold of Ben’s stony arm and tried to pull him off his chair. “I’ve FOUND it, you have to come and see!”

“Whoa Stretch, what is it…”

“No time! Better to just SHOW you!”

Following the elastic man as he practically bounded back into his lab, Reed was ecstatic when he waved his friends and children towards his work bench. Finally, inside his workspace, the Richards family got an idea of what Reed had been working on all this time. A holographic display of a genetic strand floated over a nearby table, with key segments highlighted and being analyzed by HERBIE. All around them the lab was a mess of notes and research, but the main console was where the most focus was put. There a microscope was showing a blown-up picture of a cluster of cells being shown on a display overhead.

“Dad, what’s all this?” Asked Franklin.

“All this time I’ve been trying to find a way to bring your mother back to us, I’ve spent WEEKS mapping the complex genome of the alien DNA with the help of HERBIE and even some of your mother’s notes!”

“Wait… She was tryin to cure herself too? How?”

“Yeah Reed, my sister’s smart but she ain’t no genius.”

“Well that’s the thing Johnny, she kind of is now, or at the very least she’s well versed.” Typing a command at the holographic display, Reed showed off Susan’s notes on her hormonal treatments and explained himself. “The alien DNA… It’s extraordinary! It granted her several extra-sensory abilities including psychometry, she could read a book’s contents just by touching it. She probably learned everything she needed to know when she passed by my medical book collection over there.” He pointed over to a bookshelf across the lab. “She noted that her instincts were so demanding, there were moments she just went on auto-pilot, she was trying to find a treatment to stunt those drives.”

“Didn’t work apparently…”

Leaning against his lab chair, Reed slowly nodded and rubbed the bridge of his nose, rubbing his eyes. “No, it didn’t, but I was able to go over a few things she missed, and I think I found a solution.”

“You found a way to cure mommy?” Asked Valaria, she and Franklin looking overjoyed until they both noticed their father’s sullen look.

“No kids… The DNA… It’s almost perfect; any attempt to alter it or remove it from the host genome is impossible, it replenishes and even REPAIRS itself almost instantly. It can’t be removed.”

Sharing in their father’s somber mood, the two kids moved to hug their father, a hug he reciprocated until he sat up and pointed back over to the microscope. “But it can be tricked.” Letting the overhead display zoom in on the cluster of three green coloured, hexagonal cells held in suspended animation on the slide. Reed explained himself. “These are some of the cells I gathered when Susan attacked us with her spawn. Watch what happens when I deactivate the suspension field and introduce some protein to the slide. HERBIE, will you do the honours?”

“Of Course, Professor Richards.” Deactivating the field, the family watched as the cells instantly came to life, squirming to life. Reed typed a command on his workstation and from their vantage point they watched as a spurt of fluid was added to the cells. Like an explosion, the cells soaked up the protein enzymes and rapidly began to divide, doubling in number several times a second until the entire display showed nothing but cells. “Ugh… Reed?”

No longer needing the microscope to see the smudge on the slide rapidly grow, Reed typed another command to his table and the slide was struck with a flash of intense light. The display now showing nothing but ash and crystallised elements. “The cells seem to adapt to any trauma they are exposed to, if you want to kill them, you have to get it right the first time. Disintegration is the only way.”

“Geez Reed…”

“NOW, watch what happens when I introduce the same cells to this… HERBIE, add my solution to the slide, then the same amount of protein 5 seconds later.”

“At once Professor Richards.” Called out the disembodied voice of the building’s AI. A new slide was prepped with another sample, and just as before went through the same process of freeing the cells from suspended animation and then introduced to a fluid of Reed’s concoction. When it was, the cells soaked up the fluid and turned a shade of sky blue but remained the same. When protein was added, the cells soaked up the nourishment… And did nothing. Looking between the display and back to Reed, everyone did not know what they were looking at.

“Nothing’s happening.”

“EXACTLY!” Turning his attention to another slide nearby, Reed showed another cluster of blue alien cells, there were more on the slide then the previous but nothing in comparison to the wild growth from before. Only five. “This was my success, THESE cells were exposed to my solution five days ago, like clockwork they began dividing thirty hours after being given nourishment, the same speed as a normal human being.”

“What are you trying to say Reed? I don’t get it.”

“The tiny meteorite that struck Susan in the chest was loaded with that alien DNA, but that had me wondering; how did it survive the vacuum of space if its metabolism as so explosively high? It would have burned up the second it was formed without a source of nourishment… Unless it was genetically hardwired to survive in a barren environment if food became non-existent.”

Pointing towards the holographic display nearby, Reed showed a segment of the genetic strand he was focussed on. “When the DNA realises there is no food available, it sends a genetic trigger to send itself into a **** metabolic shutdown, when new food sources are sensed, the cells revitalise. I just created a genetic trigger that puts the DNA in metabolic stasis and KEEPS it there. I even added a blue pigment as an indicator to know when its taken effect.”

Surprised, the rest of the Richards family looked to each other, impressed, that is until Valaria put her hand up for her father to take notice. “Daddy, if Mommy’s research didn’t last, how do you know this will?”

Nodding and raising a finger to agree to her point, Reed looked over to his son. “That’s where YOU come in Franklin, mind helping your father in another experiment?”

“O-okay.”

Typing a command from his console, Reed had the same blue cell cluster displayed on screen, then turned his attention back to Franklin. “Son, I want you to speed up time on the microscope, about… A day’s worth per second, can you do that?”

Taken back slightly, Franklin slowly raised his hands and pointed them at the microscope, bending time with his reality altering powers. The moment he did, the cells began dividing every second. Minutes passed by and the cells continued to split and multiply at the same speed, like clockwork. After fifteen minutes, Reed asked his son to stop. When he did, the display showed the screen filled with blue hexagonal cells, but even so not nearly as prolific as the first demonstration that **** Reed to sanitise the sample. “A day a second in the span of fifteen minutes, that comes to two and a half years. Keep going son.” Bending time again, the Richards family watched on as the minutes passed, the cells dividing slowly with each passing second. After what had to be an hour and looking down to his children with a smile that threatened to split his face, Reed was nearly in hysterics.

“I think we got it.”