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Sue was happily finishing packing the Argo as Reed tinkered with the underside of the hovering transport, unafraid of any eventuality in which the car would fall on him. It's not like he had any bones to break, in that instance he'd just flatten entirely and slide out from beneath it's weight. The two hadn't used the Argo in quite a while, and Reed was keen to upgrade it as much as he could before they left on their journey. Sue was just happy she got to drive the thing again, they rarely got the opportunity to use it.

She stopped for a moment, the excitment of the situation subsiding towards more long-term fears. "Reed, are you sure about this? What about Moleman, what about the Thinker?"

Reed didn't stop his improvements, stretching out an impossibly long arm and grabbing a wrench from the other room. "I'm sure. My readings picked up energy we've not seen since The Reach. If there's any chance of them coming back we need to be ready, I won't let what happened last time happen now."

Sue slid the last case into the Argo's storage compartment and rested her arms on its edge, watching Reed's shape ripple unnaturally as his arm retracted back to him. She found it creepy when he first started doing this all those years ago, now she found it endearing. "So it's definitely not just one of Lord's patrols? Some Agency black-site project leaking into the atmosphere? What if it's an ambush?"

Reed finally rolled out from beneath the craft, his form snapping back into a semblance of normal. He wiped his hands on a rag, thinking for a moment before continuing. "No. This isn't their handiwork. It's far too complex for anything Lord could do. The signature is messy. Layered in ways our dimension doesn't normally tolerate. It's almost as though reality tried to patch itself around the intrusion." He paused again for a second. "To tell you the truth, Sue, I haven't seen energy like this since our space mission."

Sue's arms dropped from the compartment, her brow furrowing. Memories of that mission still haunted her; the blinding light, the silence of space swallowing them whole, the transformation that followed. "So whatever fell through, it's carrying the same fingerprint?"

Reed gave a small nod, folding the rag neatly before setting it aside. "Not identical. Way more distorted. As if it's been stretched across an impossible distance and only just snapped back into place." His expression was resolute, no flicker of concern glanced across his brow. "It shouldn't be here. And yet it is."

Sue glanced at the Argo as its systems purred awake. She forced herself to match his resolve. "Then let's not wait around to see if Lord gets there first. If something that powerful's out there, he'll want it, and he'll want to twist it to suit him."

Reed let out a small laugh. "If Lord could find this as fast as I did he'd have to have hired some pretty smart people over the past month."

Sue slipped into the pilot's seat, running her fingers across familiar controls and grinning back at Reed's cockiness. The Argo stirred eagerly beneath her touch, thrumming with life. Reed climbed in beside her, already pulling up a holographic projection of the energy spikes - a fractured, glowing trail stretching northward.

Sue took a steadying breath and gripped the controls. "Canada, then." she said. "Into the woods. Just what I always dreamed of."

A faint smile tugged at Reed's lips. "You've had worse camping trips."

"You better just remember I want our honeymoon somewhere hot and with a beach. Northern Canada is very low on that list."

The Argo glided forward, its engines humming low as it slipped from the Baxter Building's concealed garage onto the street. For a moment it looked like some eccentric prototype car rolling out into late-night Manhattan traffic. Then its hull shimmered and vanished from sight. With a deep thrumming pulse it rose straight up, clearing the rooftops, the city lights shrinking to a carpet of stars below as it accelerated into the night sky.

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Hours later, the invisible craft hovered over the dense expanse of northern Canadian forest. Reed hunched over the console, the holographic display before him flickering with fractured bursts of light, the unstable energy signature dancing like static. He'd spent the whole journey analysing and updating his energy readings, and they only got more confusing and intriguing the more he delved into them.

Sue eased the Argo down toward a clearing, the treetops brushing the craft's underside before it settled soundlessly above the ground. "Readings are climbing again." she said, glancing toward Reed. "Whatever it is, it's moving southeast."

Reed tapped the scanner on his wrist, its pulse echoing the hologram. "The signature's still chaotic, but it's coalescing. The fact it's moving though is very strange."

Sue unbuckled her harness, standing as the Argo settled down onto the snow. "Reed have you considered that this reading might not be a 'what' but a 'who'?"

Reed followed her out of the transport. "I had not."

The cold Canadian air bit instantly at Sue’s cheeks as her boots crunched against the snow. She pulled her coat tighter, scanning the tree line. The forest seemed impossibly quiet, the kind of silence that created more anxiety than comfort. "Just makes it all the more important we get to it before Lord then."

Reed nodded. The scanner's glow lit his features in pale blue as he led the way, Sue close at his side. Together they pushed into the dark woods, following the fractured trail toward whatever awaited them in the Canadian wilderness.