[center][img]https://i.imgur.com/vLyE4OE.png[/img][/center]
[right][color=0076a3]Foundations #1.01:[/color] [i]Laying the Foundation[/i][/right]
Location: Washington, D.C. — DARPA Headquarters, 7:42 AM
Before The Reach
[hr]

The lobby smelled of ozone and freshly brewed coffee. Reed Richards adjusted his tie for the fourth time in two minutes. His suit fit like a badly made halloween costume. He wasn't used to clothes like these, to him they served very little purpose. It had taken a fair bit of debate from Sue, Ben, and Johnny to convince him that the DARPA review panel wouldn't take a man in a lab coat seriously, no matter how many PhD's he had stitched into it. 

Beside him, Sue Storm stood perfectly upright, her powder-blue blazer tailored to perfection, hair pulled back, voice calm as a pond beneath the stress.
"You ready?" she asked quietly, sensing the unusual feeling of anxiety within her boyfriend.

"Two years. Three prototype failures. One half-built teleporter module we had to scrap. We're pitching everything, Sue."

She reached for his hand. "And we'll do great. Come on, how many lectures on quantum physics or localized wormhole generation have you aced with zero prep and a chalkboard that was falling apart?"

Reed managed the ghost of a smile. "This time the chalkboard can veto our entire budget."

They walked together down the long corridor, the echo of their footsteps swallowed by the thick carpet. Past the secured doors and the steely-eyed security personnel, past the framed photos of men and women shaking hands beside aircraft prototypes and black satellites never officially built.

They were nearing the briefing room at the heart of the Advanced Aerospace Threat and Response Command, a subdivision of DARPA most civilians didn't know existed. Reed had once called them "The Pentagon's science fiction book club with a billion-dollar allowance." and he'd meant it as a compliment.

"I still think we should've brought the module itself." he muttered, scanning the names listed outside the room: Director Mahoney (DARPA), Col. Esther Vang (USAF), Dr. Shankar (NSA), and others he didn't recognize. Probably black-budget gatekeepers.

Sue smirked. "And what? Rolled it in on a dolly like a science fair project?"

"It works better when you can show them. Equations...they don't always speak to people. Can you imagine explaining all of this to Johnny and expecting him to give us funding?"

"If Johnny managed to get a position on this board our country is in more trouble than we could imagine." She grinned. "Equations dont talk, but I do." Sue said with that unwavering confidence that made Reed fall for her the first day they met. "You just hit them with the future. I'll translate."

Reed let out a breath. "Okay. Let's go make history."

"That's more like it."

They stepped inside, the room was cold and impersonal. Bleached white walls, recessed lighting, a long, sterile conference table surrounded by seats occupied by individuals who, as far as Reed could tell, had perfected the art of looking unimpressed.

"Dr. Richards. Dr. Storm." came the clipped greeting from Director Mahoney at the head of the table, barely looking up at them from a tablet he was tapping away on. "Proceed." 

No preamble. No pleasantries. The floor was theirs. Sue connected the presentation remote to the monitor while Reed unfolded his notes, just in case the projector decided to glitch. He cleared his throat and started.

"Our proposal is simple in theory. In practice, it's unprecedented." he began, pacing slowly. "We believe we can create a stable Einstein-Rosen bridge, what some might call a 'wormhole' between two fixed points in space using artificial quantum lattice structures and a layered photonic field generator."

"That's not possible." Interrupted one of the physicists said flatly. "Not without destabilizing the target zone."

Sue stepped in. "That's where the photonic lattice comes in. It's self-correcting and reactive. It folds spacetime across multiple Planck-width layers, like stitching fabric instead of punching through it."

Reed continued. "What we're proposing isn't just theoretical. We've constructed and tested miniature versions. They've held for microseconds. Enough to transmit basic particles. And we believe, given the proper shielding and energy output, we can scale this up to a manned mission."

Another voice chimed in, Dr. Shankar. "You're talking about faster-than-light travel."

"No." Reed said. "We're talking about cheating the distance. The ship never exceeds light speed. It simply skips the space in between."

"Through uncharted, potentially volatile space-time." Mahoney added.

"Yes." Reed said, "But it's not blind. The sensors we've developed map gravitational anomalies and quantum inconsistencies. We'd be piloting the bridge like threading a needle with sonar."

"You don't just want to test this." Vang said, arms crossed. "You want to launch."

Reed hesitated. Sue answered for them.

"We believe in showing, not telling." she said. "The mission would launch from the edge of Earth's magnetosphere and target a stable region near Proxima Centauri. The ship would deploy with a four-person crew, remain tethered via quantum relay, and return with data from outside our solar system."

"And the test crew?"

Sue met the colonel’s eyes. "Us." She folded her arms. "Johnny Storm's completed every simulator run twice. Ben Grimm is a decorated pilot. I've mastered every technical subsystem. And as for Reed, he built the damn thing."

A silence fell. Reed continued. "We're not asking for blind faith. We're asking for partnership. Funding. Access to launch facilities. We'll bring everything else. The mission is ready. All it needs is clearance."

Mahoney tapped a pen against her tablet. "We'll deliberate." She looked finally looked up at them, catching their eyes. "If we agree to this, there is one thing we want though." Reed gulped quietly. "We understand that there is a Latverian at that Think-Tank of yours, Von Doom was it?" The two of them wanted to scream out. Of all the things they could ask for this was the worst. "I'm sure you've heard of the situation in the Latverian region. We think it would be great for our international relations to have a Latverian on your crew. Please wait in the lobby, we'll let you know when we've made our decision."

And just like that, it was over. No applause. No objections. Just the quiet hum of uncertainty. Back in the lobby, Reed sat down harder than he meant to. His suit jacket wrinkled like wet paper.

"That could've gone better." He muttered.

Sue stood in front of him, arms folded. "It could've gone worse."

"You think they'll say yes?"

"I think," she said, offering him a coffee from the machine, "you just told a room full of people who don't believe in miracles that you plan to build one. And I think some of them wanted to believe you."

He took the coffee, blinking behind his glasses. "You were amazing in there."

"Obviously."

He chuckled. "Once we're back...when it's all done...we should finally do it."

"Do what?" she teased.

"You know. The thing. The vows. Marriage."

She smiled but didn’t immediately answer. Instead, she stepped close, and took his free hand in hers. "Let's wait until we come back. That way we’ll have stories to tell our guests."

He nodded. "Okay. After the mission."

They never got the chance.

[hr]
Present day
The Baxter Annex
Manhattan
[hr]

The ring still fit. Funny how some things didn't change, even after the universe ended and tried to put itself back together. Sue Storm stared at the little velvet box sitting open in front of her on the desk, the ring glinting faintly in the low afternoon light filtering through the small, dust-smeared windows of the Baxter Annex.

It was Reed's. The one he'd offered her before they left. The one she said she'd wear when they got back. But in a world like this the right time never came. They got engaged before the Fantastic Four split, but without Johnny and Ben it just didn't feel right to have the wedding.

She reached out slowly, almost absentmindedly, and closed the box with a soft snap. Footsteps echoed down the metal walkway outside the lab. She recognized the gait before he even reached the door.

"Coffee!" Reed announced, pushing it open with a shoulder, balancing two mugs and a crumpled paper bag with his free hand. "Still lukewarm. Barely. But I tried to sweet-talk the barista into throwing in a muffin after I told her it was for a colleague saving the world."

Sue arched an eyebrow as she took the cup. "Did it work?"

He sank into the chair across from her, setting the bag between them. "I can't say it did. She said if you were really saving the world, you'd deserve two muffins." 

Sue smiled despite herself, wrapping both hands around the cup. "Probably for the best."

Reed moved over to the workbench, grabbing his goggles and pulling them over his eyes. "HERBIE Junior's motors were drifting again." he muttered, already elbow-deep in a tangle of circuit boards and spare servos. "He tried to sweep the floor last night and vacuumed up half of my notes." He gestured to a squat little robot parked in the corner with one eye-light blinking apologetically. "I think he's developing guilt."

Sue yawned. "Don't scare me. The last thing we need is to build a sentient robot and then give it daddy issues." 

Reed smiled for a moment, but then turned to her. "You didn't sleep, did you?" he asked.

"I did."

"Not long."

"Reed..."

"I'm not judging. Just concerned."

She sipped the coffee, eyes flicking back to her tablet, then the connected console. A quiet warning ping had triggered in the background several minutes ago, low-priority, probably nothing. She brought it forward anyway. The diagnostics were running on one of the residual scans from their last attempt to stabilize the failed Reach-drive prototype. Most of the data was corrupted, and what wasn't corrupted was inconclusive. Even for Reed deciphering Reach tech was proving complicated. But something was nagging her. A pattern that shouldn't have been there. She opened the waveform analysis module, keyed in a few adjustments, and watched the output realign.

"Reed."

He looked up, eyes narrowing behind his smudged goggles.

"Look at this." She spun the tablet around.

He set down the screwdriver he was toying with and leaned in. The image was a distorted readout, a pulse-shaped fluctuation captured inside a quantum compression field. At first glance it was noise. But then, it repeated. Once, then again. Like some sort of signal, almost like a distress call.

"That shouldn't be there." he murmured.

"It doesn't look like any readouts we've had from Reach tech." Sue turned toward Reed, her eyes still fixed on the looping signal. "It's repeating every 42 seconds."

Reed nodded, scrubbing the data again. "It's showing the same data every time too. It's closer to an SOS than a power fluctuation. Our systems are tuned to pick up Reach tech, how could something like this get through?"

"It shouldn't even be possible." Sue muttered. "These systems are shielded. Tuned to a completely different wavelength"

He glanced up at her. "Unless something, or someone found our frequency." A quiet fell between them, the whirr of HERBIE Junior's idle fans the only sound. "Location?" Reed asked.

Sue hesitated, then pulled up the map overlay again. "You're not going to like it."

Reed leaned closer, his eyes narrowing as the topography data began to cascade across the screen, line by line, the coordinates aligning to a single fixed point on a map of New York.

"Is that...under the old Baxter Building?"

Sue nodded grimly. "About two miles down. Beneath what used to be the sub-basement labs. Below even the geothermal barrier you installed back in Phase One."

"That's not possible. There's nothing down there but sealed foundation, bedrock and reinforced concrete. We scanned it a dozen times before Lord's people moved in."

She tapped a key and the monitor flicked, layering thermal, seismic, and energy signatures atop one another. Reed's brow furrowed deeper with every pass.

"Except now," Sue said "there is something."

A faint spike, barely noticeable, began pulsing in sync with the 42-second loop. Deep in the earth. He whispered, almost involuntarily: "What the hell is that?"

Sue crossed her arms. "Whatever it is, it's not natural." HERBIE Junior let out a soft boop from the corner, almost sounding concerned. 

Reed stood up, pacing now. "We sealed every lower chamber before we turned the site over. None of our old gear is even compatible with this kind of signal. This isn't just random tech interference, this thing is piggybacking on our old data. It has to be."

Sue pulled the signal through a decryption filter. The waveform subtly changed, but the pattern was clearer now. Still not readable, not in any language they recognized. There was a silence that followed, and shortly after Reed took his goggles off and tossed them on the workbench.

"well, Sue, I think its time to do some field work, don't you think?" 

She smiled back at him, rising from her chair and moving over towards the locker that held her nanoweave suit. "I thought you'd never ask."