Nick Fury should have been on the Helicarrier handling his responsibilities as director of S.H.I.E.L.D. The world was full of threats, and the Phase Two Defense Initiative required all his attention. Instead, he was stepping off a helicopter in the New Mexico desert, with his right-hand agent, Maria Hill, right behind him.

Another of his trusted agents, Phil Coulson, met them on the landing pad. The massive S.H.I.E.L.D. research base loomed around them. It was a hive of activity, with low-level alarms sounding and an automated voice echoing over loudspeakers: “ All personnel, evacuation order has been confirmed. This is not a drill. ”

“How bad is it?” Fury asked, raising his voice over the beating rotors of the helicopter.

“That’s the problem, sir,” Coulson said. “We don’t know.”

He got them up to speed as they rode the elevator down into the subterranean lab complex where S.H.I.E.L.D. had been housing the artifact known as the Tesseract. During World War II, Hydra had tried to use it to power doomsday weapons. Later, Tony Stark’s father, Howard, one of S.H.I.E.L.D.’s founders, had recovered it. Ever since, S.H.I.E.L.D. had been trying to understand its secrets.

Last year, they had made a breakthrough with the assistance of Dr. Erik Selvig, an astrophysicist who had crossed paths with S.H.I.E.L.D. when his protégé Jane Foster had encountered a being from another world. The individual called himself Thor, named after the thunder god of Norse mythology—and, after what had happened following Thor’s arrival on Earth, Nick Fury believed he was legitimate. Whatever this being’s true origin, he had a powerful hammer and he came from a place called Asgard . . . and he had formidable enemies who’d followed him to Earth.

Those enemies were gone, but Fury had learned his lesson. S.H.I.E.L.D. could no longer focus only on threats coming from Earth. They had to be ready for threats coming from anywhere in the universe.

That was why they’d brought Dr. Selvig in to study the Tesseract. If they could harness its power . . .

“Dr. Selvig read an energy surge from the Tesseract four hours ago,” Coulson was saying.

“I didn’t approve going to testing,” Fury said.

Coulson nodded. “He wasn’t testing it. He wasn’t even in the room. Spontaneous event.”

“It just turned itself on?” Hill sounded skeptical.

Fury, as usual, was less interested in how they’d gotten there than in what they were going to do now. “What are the energy levels now?”

“Climbing. When we couldn’t shut it down, we ordered the evac,” Coulson said.

“How long before we get everyone out?”

“Campus should be clear in the next half an hour.”

“It better.”

Fury and Maria Hill continued on toward the main research area. “Sir,” she said as they walked, “evacuation may be futile.”

“We should tell them to go back to sleep?”

“If we can’t control the Tesseract’s energy, there may not be a minimum safe distance.”

“I need you to make sure the Phase Two prototypes are shipped out.”

“Sir, is that really a priority right now?”

“Until such time as the world ends, we will act as though it intends to spin on. Clear out the tech below. Every piece of Phase Two on a truck and gone.”

“Yes, sir.” She took some agents with her and headed for the separate area where the Phase Two prototypes were stored and tested.

Now Fury could focus on Erik Selvig. He stood surrounded by monitors and instruments designed to analyze the forces the Tesseract emitted. “Talk to me, Doctor,” he said.

Selvig acknowledged him briefly and then returned his attention to the monitoring equipment. “Director, the Tesseract is misbehaving.”

“Is that supposed to be funny?”

“No, it’s not funny at all. The Tesseract is not only active, she’s . . . behaving.”

Fury didn’t comment on the doctor characterizing the Tesseract as female. He also wasn’t interested in Selvig’s notions about its personality. It didn’t have a personality. It was a cube containing energy, and all Nick Fury wanted was to know how to control that energy. “I assume you pulled the plug.”

“She’s an energy source. We turn off the power, she turns it back on. If she reaches peak level—”

“We prepared for this, Doctor. Harnessing energy from space.”

“We’re not ready. My calculations are far from complete. And she’s throwing off interference radiation.”

Fury watched the Tesseract in its circular containment shell. Eight separate energy sensors built into a frame supporting that shell were designed to measure and conduct that energy. Those sensors in turn rested on stainless-steel support scaffolding. The whole setup sprouted cables and conduits. These were there to supply energy to the Tesseract in a controlled fashion so Dr. Selvig could analyze its reactions. Now they were all shut down, as Dr. Selvig had said, but even so, the Tesseract glowed with a fierce blue energy. It was starting to spill onto the sensors, arcing like electricity. But it wasn’t electricity. It was something much more exotic.

“Nothing harmful,” Selvig assured him. “Low levels of gamma radiation.”

Fury turned slowly to give him a look. “That can be harmful,” he said softly. S.H.I.E.L.D. knew of at least one instance where runaway gamma radiation had transformed an ordinary human being, Bruce Banner, into a practically indestructible monster, known as the Hulk. New York City was still recovering from the damage caused getting that one back under control.

“Where’s Agent Barton?” he asked.

“The Hawk?” Selvig scoffed, getting Barton’s nickname wrong. “In his nest, as usual.” He pointed up.

Fury looked where he had pointed but didn’t see anything. “Agent Barton,” he said into his mic, “report.” All S.H.I.E.L.D. agents and assets wore miniature microphones at all times. Fury was a big believer in communications.

Hawkeye came sliding down a rope from the distant upper reaches of the lab space. When he got to the ground, Fury was already walking. Hawkeye followed. “I gave you this detail so you could keep a close eye on things,” Fury said as they moved away from Selvig, leaving him to his work.

“Well, I see better from a distance.”

“Have you seen anything that might set this thing off?”

“Doctors,” a tech called from near them. “It’s spiking again.”

“No one’s come or gone, and Selvig’s clean,” Hawkeye said. He and Fury mounted the platform holding the Tesseract’s support structure as the cube crackled. “No contacts, no IMs. If there’s any tampering, sir, it’s not at this end.”

Fury shot him a look. “At this end?”

“Yeah, the cube is a doorway to the other end of space, right? Doors open from both sides.”

This was true , Fury thought. And he already knew that sometimes unwanted visitors came from space.

Behind him, Selvig cursed and pounded on his keyboard.

From the Tesseract came a fresh blast of energy. Everyone in the complex felt it. Those down in the lab could only watch as a vortex formed around the Tesseract, swirling and glowing. It tightened into a focused beam that shot across the length of the lab and blossomed into a sphere. The same blue energy roiled and sparked on the surface of the sphere. It grew, and the sound of the energy got louder. Inside it was a pure blackness, blotting out the test platform and railings where the sphere had appeared.

Something overloaded, and a wave of energy rolled out from it, flashing across the skin of Fury, Hawkeye, and the assembled scientists. They flinched, but they also wanted to see what was going on. . . .

When the energy had faded, a man was left on the platform. He was on one knee with his head tucked into his chest as if riding out a storm. In the silence, they approached him. The energy blast had scattered equipment and materials across the floor.

The man looked up at them and smiled as he stood. He was not a large man, not remarkable in any particular way. He had long black hair and wore black leather clothing, similar to what Fury was wearing. However, he wasn’t a S.H.I.EL.D. agent. Fury didn’t know where he had come from.

Also, the stranger held a kind of spear in his right hand. Set into its head, a gem glowed the same icy blue as the energy that had spilled from the Tesseract.

“Sir,” Fury called as armed S.H.I.E.L.D. agents closed nearer, “please put down the spear.”

The man looked at the spear as if he had only just noticed he had it. Then, slowly, he looked back up at Fury, and a vicious smile spread across his face.

He jabbed the spear in Fury’s direction, and a blast of energy from it knocked Fury and Hawkeye back through a bank of monitors and instruments. The S.H.I.E.L.D. agents opened fire, but the bullets didn’t seem to hurt the man. He leaped, spear held high, and cut a path through the agents. In a very short time, the only people left standing in the lab were him and Hawkeye, who had just scrambled back to his feet. Before Hawkeye could unholster and aim his gun, this strange enemy was somehow already across the room. He caught Hawkeye’s arm and said softly, “You have heart.”

The tip of his spear touched Hawkeye’s chest, not hard enough to hurt him. The gem glowed, and a strange expression came over Hawkeye’s face for a moment. He and the stranger looked each other in the eye, and Fury was amazed to see Hawkeye put his gun away.

Now Nick Fury really knew he was up against something . . . unusual. The only thing he could do was get the Tesseract and try to keep it safe while S.H.I.E.L.D. finished the evacuation and called in some special reinforcements. Tony had to hear about this.

Fury had the Tesseract in a steel carrying case and was taking a step toward the door when the stranger turned to him and said, “Please don’t. I still need that.”

“This doesn’t have to get any messier,” Fury said. He glanced quickly around, trying to figure the quickest way out.

“Of course it does,” the stranger said. “I’ve come too far for anything else.” He drew himself up a little straighter and said, “I am Loki, of Asgard, and I am burdened with glorious purpose.”

“Loki?” Dr. Selvig said. He stood up from helping one of his fellow doctors, who was barely awake. “Brother of Thor?”

“We have no quarrel with your people,” Fury said.

Loki acknowledged Selvig and then returned his attention to Fury. “An ant has no quarrel with a boot,” he said.

“Are you planning to step on us?” Fury asked. He already knew this encounter wasn’t going to end well, but if he made it out, he needed to know as much about this Loki as possible.

“I come with glad tidings,” Loki said. “Of a world made free.”

“Free from what?” Fury asked.

Turning back to him, Loki said simply, “Freedom. Freedom is life’s great lie. Once you accept that in your heart . . . ” As he spoke the word “heart,” he turned and touched Selvig’s chest with the tip of his spear, just as he had with Hawkeye. Selvig gasped, and the same change came over his face that Fury had seen in Hawkeye’s. “You will know peace.”

No way was Nick Fury going to let this Loki get close enough to do that to him. “Yeah, you say peace,” he said, “but I kind of think you mean the other thing.”

Hawkeye had been looking around the complex. Now he stepped up to Loki. “Sir, Director Fury is stalling. This place is about to blow and drop a hundred feet of rock on us. He means to bury us.”

Loki looked back at Fury, who said“Like the pharaohs of old.”

“He’s right, the portal is collapsing in on itself !” Selvig called out from the monitors. “We’ve got maybe two minutes before this goes critical.”

“Well then,” Loki said. He glanced over at Hawkeye.

Without a word, Hawkeye drew his gun and shot Nick Fury once, dead center in the chest.

Fury went down without a sound. Loki, Selvig, Hawkeye, and another S.H.I.E.L.D. agent under Loki’s control walked quickly out of the lab, Hawkeye carrying the steel briefcase. Inside it, the Tesseract glowed. hDJ2szjQfsiduQ1O3ibnYgZv9XS1+jB8s+uhkhvOIZ3dFALhdVH9z6bInKYABA74