Scott Lang's Arc

Chapter 5 of 5

They burst from the fortress ramp into blinding sun. Behind them, boots pounded up the tunnel. Scott ran beside Emma and the others, the freed man leaning on his son. But Scott's legs buckled. Shrinking all day had drained him. His vision swam. He grew small and then full-size without meaning to, flickering like a dying bulb. He could not do it again. Not now. He needed rest, or he would collapse before he reached the artifact he came for. "There," Emma said. She pointed past the dunes to a low house with sturdy walls and shaded windows. A warm home built against the heat. They stumbled inside and barred the door. Scott dropped onto the cool stone floor and gasped. His whole body shook. Emma knelt beside him. In the fortress she had worn calm like armor. Now her white sleeves were gray with grit, and sweat beaded on her temple. She had spent her power keeping guards asleep, and it had cost her too. "You pushed too far," she said. "Your mind screamed it the whole way out. Rest. I will watch the door." "The artifact," Scott said. "It's still down there. The whole settlement is counting on me." He tried to shrink again. His body sparked and stayed the same size. He slumped back, useless. "You cannot steal it half-dead," Emma said. She pressed two fingers to her temple and faced the barred door. "The guards outside are searching the ramp. I will blur their thoughts. Send them the wrong way. But I can only hold a few minutes. Sleep while I do." Scott closed his eyes. He did not mean to drop off, but the dark took him fast. When he woke, the shaking was gone. His arms felt his own again. Through a crack in the shutter, the sun had sunk low. Emma sat against the wall, pale but steady. "They left," she said. "They think we fled east. You have one chance now, while the ramp is empty." Scott stood. His shrinking answered clean this time. He dropped to beetle-size and felt the old speed return. "The others?" he asked. "Safe here. The boy's father is weak but breathing." Emma's eyes met his. "Go. I will hold this house. If you are not back by full dark, we leave without the artifact." Scott slipped under the door and raced across the cooling sand. The ramp lay open, unguarded. He descended into the fortress, tiny and silent. Deep in the heat he found it at last: a stone pedestal, and above it a glowing shard that poured out furnace air. The thing keeping the whole land burning. Two guards dozed nearby, slow in the swelter. Scott climbed the pedestal at beetle-size, wrapped his small arms around the shard, and shrank it down with him. The heat died the instant he pulled it free. The air in the corridor cooled. Scott clutched the shrunken artifact and ran. No alarm rose. The guards never stirred. He burst from the ramp into evening air that already felt different, lighter, almost cool against the dunes. He reached the house as the last light faded. Emma unbarred the door. Scott grew to full height and held up the shard, now small enough to fit in his palm. "I got it," he said. The boy and his father looked up from the floor. The father smiled for the first time. Outside, a breeze moved across the sand that had not blown in months. The relentless sun no longer hammered the roof. Scott walked out and looked toward the horizon. Clouds gathered where there had been only glare. The heatwave was breaking. Far across the dunes lay the settlement, its forty people already recovering from the cure, and now they would wake to cooler mornings. Scott closed his hand around the cold shard. He had been sent to find a medicine and had ended up ending the heat itself. He was no longer just a man who could shrink. He was the one who brought the rain back. He turned to the others, and together they started the long walk home under a sky that was finally changing.