Scott Lang's Arc

Chapter 2 of 5

The two guards' shadows stretched across the ramp. Scott stood at full size in the open. If they turned another second sooner, they would shout, and every door in the fortress would slam before he reached one. He had seconds to vanish. He dropped to beetle-size. The world exploded outward. The ramp became a cliff of stone. Grit the size of boulders littered the slope. Scott hit the ground running on six quick strides and threw himself into a seam between two blocks. His heart slammed. Above him, boots crunched closer. A guard stopped where Scott had just stood. The man's voice rolled down like thunder. "Thought I saw someone." The second guard answered. "Heat does that. Nobody's out here." They scanned the empty sand. From the seam, Scott watched their eyes pass right over his hiding spot. At this size he was nothing. A fleck. A grain. The guards turned and walked back up the ramp. Their shadows slid off him. Scott breathed again. But he couldn't just wait. The seam ran down into the dark, deeper than he expected, following the gap between stones. He had wanted to slip through the entrance. Now the entrance stood guarded above. The crack below might be another way in. Scott pulled the small fan from his pack. At beetle-size it was huge, but he braced it and switched it on. The blades spun. He aimed the air stream down into the crack. The breeze broke and curled around hidden edges far below. Air moved where there should be solid rock. The seam opened into hollow space. A tunnel. The fortress had gaps the builders never sealed. Scott killed the fan and shoved it into his pack. He started down the crack, sliding between stone faces slick with trapped heat. The deeper he went, the hotter it got. Sweat ran inside his helmet. The artifact was close. He could feel it baking the rock around him. The crack widened into a narrow shaft. Scott dropped the last stretch and landed on a floor of worn stone. He looked up. The sliver of daylight he'd entered through was gone, swallowed by the slope above. He stood inside the fortress now, at beetle-size, in a corridor that glowed faint orange from heat he couldn't see the source of. Then a draft hit him. Not from his fan. From ahead. Something large moved in the dark of the corridor, pushing air before it with every step. The floor trembled under boots far bigger than his whole body. Scott flattened against the wall. He had made it inside. But he was tiny, lost in the belly of the fortress, and something was walking straight toward him.