It had been a long time since Hank Pym paid a visit to the headquarters of the company that bore his name. The security guard at the gate did a double take when he pulled up. “Dr. Pym?”

“Yes. I’m still alive,” Pym said, half-amused and half-irritated.

Inside, at the lobby checkpoint, he emptied his pockets into the tub for inspection and passed through the metal detector. “ID,” the guard said.

Pym nodded past the guard. “Perhaps that will suffice.”

Following Pym’s look, the guard noticed the huge oil portrait of a younger Hank Pym, hung prominently on the wall. “Very sorry, sir,” he said immediately. “Please come in.”

“Is that Hank Pym?” a younger worker said as Hank strolled through the inside lobby. Hank didn’t say anything. He was nervous about the day for a lot of reasons, and he wasn’t good at small talk even in the most relaxed circumstances.

A familiar voice caused him to turn. “Good morning, Hank.”

“Hope,” he said, greeting his daughter and again feeling the ache of guilt and regret that came from their estrangement. “Would it kill you to call me Dad?”

She ignored the question. “Well, Dr. Cross will be so pleased that you could find time to join us today.”

“More like thrilled,” said a grinning Darren Cross, approaching Hank with his hand stuck out.

“And I’m surprised to receive any kind of invitation from you, Darren,” Hank said, shaking Cross’s hand. There was bad blood between them having to do with Cross’s desire to run the company himself and take it in a direction Hank didn’t approve. “What’s the occasion?”

“Oh, you’ll see,” Cross said. “Won’t he, Hope?”

All she said was “We’re ready for you inside.” Then she turned and headed toward a locked door that led to an adjacent presentation room.

“Ouch!” Cross said, trying to commiserate but not quite coming across as genuine. “I guess some old wounds never heal, huh?” He guided Hank toward the door, where Hope waited. “Don’t worry. She’s in good hands. You’re in for a treat.”

Pym didn’t trust Cross, and he trusted him even less when he saw that one of the other attendees at this event was Mitchell Carson. “Long time no see, Dr. Pym,” Carson said, barely disguising his hostility. “How’s retirement?”

“How’s your face?” Pym answered. He wanted to take another swing at Carson, but this was 2015, not 1989.

Carson didn’t say anything, but the look he gave Pym was full of hate. Hope opened the door. “After you,” she said.

One of these days he and Carson would have to really settle things between them, Pym thought. But that day hadn’t quite arrived. Hope was a different and touchier issue. He still wanted to one day have a real relationship again, but he didn’t know how to begin.

Darren Cross led the small group of contractors and politicians into a lab space populated by white-coated techs and full of sophisticated machinery. Pym had designed much of it himself before retiring. He took pride in seeing it still in use after so many years. Cross went down a short staircase to the main lab floor and stood in the center of the room.

“Now, before we start, I’d like to introduce a very special guest,” he said. “This company’s founder and my mentor, Dr. Hank Pym.” Hank stood quietly as the techs and onlookers applauded him. He enjoyed the respect, but Cross’s tone also kind of made him feel like a relic of another time.

Then he saw that Cross was standing next to a tabletop resin model of the building in which all of them stood—only the Pym logo on the wall was replaced by the legend CROSS INDUSTRIES. Cross saw him notice, and he gave Pym a little smile. Now Hank wanted to punch him, too. Did he think he could just erase the name Pym from this company? If that was Cross’s plan, Hank Pym wasn’t going to make it easy. But first he would have to hear Cross out and understand what the plan really was.

“When I took over this company for Dr. Pym,” Cross went on, “I immediately started researching a particle that could change the distance between atoms while increasing density and strength. Why this revolutionary idea remained buried beneath the dust and cobwebs of Hank’s research, I couldn’t tell you. But just imagine. A soldier the size of an insect.”

He touched a remote control and three large video screens on the wall lit up. They played old footage of a battle between armed men and an invisible adversary who knocked them sprawling and threw them around the battlefield like they were toys. “The ultimate secret weapon,” Cross said.

Occasionally the footage paused and zeroed in on a tiny flying figure. You couldn’t see it when the footage moved at normal speed or when everything was in a regular perspective—but someone had done a lot of work to find the minuscule fighter in these old films and call attention to him. Hank got an uneasy feeling in the pit of his stomach.

“An ‘Ant-Man,’ ” Cross said, and chuckled at how silly his own phrase sounded. “That’s what they called you. Right, Hank?”

A murmur spread through the room as everyone present started to understand what Cross was really saying. Hank couldn’t bring himself to look at Mitchell Carson, who must have been in on the whole thing. Cross was forcing this out into the open, and Hank was caught unprepared. Now Hank knew why Cross had wanted him here, but it was too late to do anything about it.

Cross froze the video again, this time on a frame that showed the tiny figure in a silver-and-red suit, punching through a pane of glass and leaving a hole that looked like it might have been made by a BB gun. “Silly, I know. Propaganda. Tales to astonish!” He climbed the stairs and stood next to Hank before going on. “Hank, will you tell our guests what you told me every single time I asked you, ‘Was the Ant-Man real?’”

“Just a tall tale,” Hank said, playing to the crowd a little because he still wasn’t sure where Cross was going with this. He couldn’t be planning to take it public, but there were a lot of S.H.I.E.L.D. officials and defense-industry bigwigs in the room. Hank had a bad feeling.

“Right,” Cross said. He turned back to the room. “Because how could anything so miraculous possibly be real?”

The lab door opened and Cross led the group out. He didn’t say another word until they were in a smaller, darker chamber, circular in shape, its walls lined with screens playing loops of different objects being miniaturized. “Well, I was inspired by the legend of the Ant-Man,” he said. “And with my breakthrough, shrinking inorganic material, I thought, could it be possible to shrink a person? Could that be done? Well, it’s not a legend anymore.”

He touched a switch, and what looked like a large lens in a steel housing descended from the ceiling. A moment later, as Cross flicked through different resolutions, Hank figured out that the lens was actually a magnifying glass. Inside the housing, something came into view. A tiny yellow-and-black armored suit on a pedestal. “Distinguished guests, I am proud to present the end of warfare as we know it: the Yellowjacket.”

No, Hank thought. This was exactly what he had always feared. This was why he had kept the Pym Particle technology away from S.H.I.E.L.D. back in the ’80s.

Now Cross had found it. “The Yellowjacket is an all-purpose weapon of war,” he announced. “Capable of altering the size of the wearer for the ultimate combat advantage.”

Cross started a promo video featuring a deep voiceover that struck Hank as more than a little menacing. “We live in an era in which the weapons we use to protect ourselves are undermined by constant surveillance.” Fragmented camera views spilled across the screens. “It’s time to return to a simpler age, when the powers of freedom can once again operate openly to protect their interests.” Now the screens showed the Yellowjacket suit in action, with caption windows outlining its capabilities. Weapons systems, advanced sensors...and of course the ability to change its size to avoid detection. “An all-purpose peacekeeping vessel, the Yellowjacket can manage any conflict on the geopolitical landscape, completely unseen. Efficient in both preventative measures and tactical assault, practical applications include surveillance, industrial sabotage, and the elimination of obstructions on the road to peace.”

The Yellowjacket in the video crawled through keyholes, hacked encrypted systems...and invisibly attacked unsuspecting human targets. “A single Yellowjacket offers the user unlimited influence to carry out protective actions,” the voiceover went on. Then Hank got a deep chill as the video demonstrated what an army of Yellowjackets would look like deployed against human soldiers. “And one day soon, an army of Yellowjackets will create a sustainable environment of well being around the world.” As the voiceover ended, the Yellowjackets dissolved into an army of yellow dots spreading over a map of the earth—which then transformed into a Cross Technologies logo.

Hank looked over at Hope. From the expression on her face, he didn’t think she had known this was coming.

The assembled S.H.I.E.L.D. and defense contractors took a moment to consider what they had just seen. The first person to speak sounded skeptical. “So it’s a suit,” he said.

“Don’t be crude, Frank,” Cross said, sounding both amused and offended. “It’s not a suit, it’s a...it’s a vessel. What’s the matter, you’re not impressed?”

“Oh, I’m impressed,” Frank said. “I’m also concerned. Imagine what our enemies could do with this tech.”

“We should have a longer conversation about that, Frank. I really value your opinion,” Cross said in a tone that made it clear he meant the opposite. Then he turned to the rest of the room. “Thank you for coming. Hope?”

“Thank you very much, everybody,” Hope said. She indicated the way back to the lobby. “I will escort you out now. Thank you.”

As the rest of the group left, Cross and Hank were left alone. “You seem a bit shocked,” Cross said.

“Darren, there’s a reason I buried these secrets,” Hank said quietly. Having the Ant-Man technology in wide use...Who could tell what rogue states or groups could do with it? Hank hadn’t even trusted S.H.I.E.L.D. to do the right thing.

“So you finally admit it,” Darren said with real emotion in his voice. Hank remembered when Darren was younger, full of optimism and thirst for knowledge. He’d looked up to Hank...and Hank had disappointed him.

Just like he had Hope. “We could have done this together, Hank,” Cross went on. “But you ruined it.” Then Cross took a moment to recover his composure. Cocky and self-assured again, he finished his little speech. “That’s why you’re the past and I’m the future.”

“Don’t do this,” was all Hank could say.

“Dr. Cross,” Mitchell Carson said. He had hung back when the rest of the group left, but Hank hadn’t noticed until just then. “You sell to me first, twenty percent of your asking price, I can have the cash here in two weeks.”

“Deal,” Cross said immediately.

No, Hank thought. Not Mitchell Carson of all the people in the world. He had the ethics of a shark.

Cross and Carson left, and Hope was now the only other person in the room with Hank. When she was sure they were alone, she spoke quietly and urgently. “We have to make our move, Hank.”

“How close is he?” Hank asked.

“He still can’t shrink a live subject.” She looked at him, his daughter whom he loved but didn’t understand. “Just give me the suit,” she said, almost begging. “Let me finish this once and for all.”

“No,” Hank said. He couldn’t risk it. Couldn’t risk her.

“I have Cross’s complete trust,” she said.

Hank knew what she meant. She could cut Cross Technologies apart from the inside and prevent Cross from selling the Yellowjacket tech to anyone, let alone Mitchell Carson. But she was still his daughter. “It’s too dangerous.”

“We don’t have a choice.”

“Well, that’s not entirely true,” Hank said. Even though Cross had been trying to keep him at a distance from the company’s research, Hank had always suspected he would need to take action someday. So he’d started planning on his own. Hope wanted the suit, and he understood why, but Hank couldn’t bear the thought of putting his daughter’s life on the line. “I think I found a guy.”

Now Hope looked perplexed. Also angry. “Who?” XVfZQLkA+JycZ//69pXXTDnuflLAlGAuVFK2P+4eQelIKVdpYRt7h8Frp3fJBL0/