Reed Richards opens his eyes slowly, blinking in an attempt to clear away his blurry vision. As his vision returns the soft yellow light morphs into a fluorescent light directly about him. Read groggily turned his head observing his surroundings, he's in some sort of hospital, or a science lab it would appear. Reed now tries to lift himself up off the bed but finds that his chest arms and legs are fastened down with straps. Reed twists and turns attempting to loosen them to no avail. Realising he cannot get himself free he examines the room for something to help. When it becomes apparent that there is nothing to help Reed sighs in frustration and begins struggling against the straps. This time he feels a loosening of the strap on his right arm, he pulls his arm back through the strap. As his arm escapes he looks down, for a second read is perplexed, his hand seem to be distorted, stretched even, but he ignores it and pulls off the remaining straps.

Reed gets to his feet but his is unstable, I must have been unconscious a while, my legs haven't recovered from space. The atrophy isn't too pronounced so I calculate approximately 3 days he thinks to himself. He stumbles out of his room into a large central room, almost like a lounge room except that the walls are all white and the furniture brand-new, just like an IKEA room. Reed slowly walks around inspecting the couch, table and large screen TV on the wall. He surveys the rest of the room, its stretches for at least 10 meters, there are doors identical to the one he just entered from along the left hand side, a different larger door on the back wall, an open plan kitchen on the right hand side and a large heavily armoured door to the right.

Read walks to the back of the room along the left hand side, he stops at the door next to the room he emerge from and gently turns the handle. The door opens and he enters cautiously, as he clears the doorway he notices a person strapped to a bed with no sheets. He recognises the person and runs over, "Johnny, are you alright? Wake up" he shakes him pulling off the straps as Johnny begins to stir.

"Whoa hey, I was trying to sleep" Johnny replies groggily.

"Thank god you're okay, I'll get these straps off you, we have to get our of here."

"Oh Reed, you're awake. It's about time."

"Come on Johnny, we need to leave now."

"Calm down, Reed, we're safe here, they're looking after us, it's you and Sue we worried about."

"Sue, is she…" Reed's voice trails off, "She's still asleep, like you were, the doctors said you two were the worst hit."

"Can I see her?" Reed asks, "Yeah sure, I'll take you."

The two men head into the next room where sue lays quietly "Doctors? Where are we?" Reed asks, Johnny explains they are in quarantine after their exposure to solar radiation, the doctors aren't allowing them out of the room, and have been doing tests on them.

Reed asks why they were both strapped to a bed, and why Johnny's had no sheets. Johnny just smiles at this question, "you'll find out tomorrow, but for now I'm gonna get some more sleep."

Johnny leaves the room as Reed takes a seat besides Sue's bed. Reed spends all night by her side holding her hand, talking to her willing her to wake up. After six hours of waiting Reed's eyelids become heavy, his head droops down and he begins to doze when Sue's hand tightens around his and she stirs.

Reed bolts up awake, "You're awake, thank god, you're awake."

Sue slowly rises her head slightly off the bed, looks across at Reed, "Reed, what's happening."

"It's ok, everything's ok, you're in hospital, everything will be alright" Sue places her head down and falls back asleep.

Reed waits patiently for another 3 hours until Sue wakes up and regains full consciousness. He's joined by Johnny and they help her out of bed and explain where they are. Johnny takes them of a tour of the facilities, he explains the doctors are running tests on them as their bodies have been transformed, Johnny explains that he spontaneously combusts and sometimes levitates, he can't control it and needs to be strapped to his bed at night.

As they walk towards the kitchen at the back of the room a door opens and someone in a large aluminium suit walks out. Reed falls over with fright, Sue and Johnny pull him up, the figure takes off his helmut and shows his face, it's Victor.

"Well you two made it through after all, not that you deserve it." Victor growls at Reed, "Hey watch yourself Victor, that's my sister."

"Your sister, and her dotting man child is the reason we're in here."

"Victor I'm sorry I.." Reed begins, "I don't want to hear it, the doctors tell me I only have month's to live, I have to wear this suit to dampen the radiation, slow the decay of my body."

"I thought there was enough time for Sue to get back, I calculated her expected velocity and the approach of the radiation, she should have made it."

"Well you were wrong genius, now I'm dying, and Ben, well, I think I'm the lucky one."

Victor storms off back into his room, Johnny points to the double doors down the end. Reed walks into Ben's room, a converted activity room, where he sees a large orange martian rock in the corner.

"Ben, are you in here?" he asks, then the rock moves and a face appears.

"Ben? Is that you?" Reed asks.

"Ben is dead, I'm not Ben, I'm not a man." he mumbles hiding his face from the world.

"Ben, you're.. you're a"

"I'm a MONSTER! Not a man, just a THING!"

Reed is shocked, "It must have been the cosmic rays, our exposure to them combined with"

"Get out" Ben yells, standing up showing the full size of his rock composite body. Reed is startled and backs out of the room.

"See what you've done, you've condemned me to death, Ben is now… a thing and John, well he was probably the luckiest out of us all, he died nice and quick, drowned in the Hudson" Victor has returned to continue his attack.

Reed backs away from Victor stumbling as he goes, horror fills him, what have I done he thinks. As he backs away he looses his balance and falls, as he does he reaches for a metal cabinet to stop his descent, it's too far away for his arm to reach but then something amazing happens, his arm stretches and he grabs the cabinet stopping his fall. The others in the group are silent, astonishment fills their faces.

Reed pulls himself up and stands back upright, examining his arms as it returns to normal size.

"What the hell was that?" Johnny asks, "He's got a super power too, like Ben, like me, we've all changed."

Sue and Johnny marvel at Reed's ability, he begins testing out his stretching ability, mainly just his limbs. Johnny sits down and contemplates controlling his ability, "I can't believe Reed is controlling it so easily, maybe all I need to do is concentrate" he clicks his fingers as he finishes and notices a little spark. He clicks his fingers again and again excitedly and the flames get bigger and bigger, "Look look everyone, I'm controlling the fire."

"So you've reached neanderthal stage then" Victor replies sarcastically.

Johnny continues clicking both hands making larger and larger flames until he can't control it, his whole body begins heating up and flames engulf his clothes and rise up off his body. "Help, help me" he yells as Reed and Sue run to their beds to grab blankets, Ben pokes his head out of his room to see what all the commotion is about. Suddenly the water sprinklers activate and saturate the entire room including the bedrooms.

When they stop Johnny's flames have subsided and everyone's beds and everything is drowned with water. Sue sits down and holds her head in her hands "What is all this, I just want to go back to normal" as she speaks aloud to herself she becomes invisible, "Hey Sue, where'd you go?" Ben asks in confusion. Sue is invisible but her clothes still are, she then reappears as everyone looks at her bemused, "What do you mean Ben?"

"Sis you just turned invisible, this is amazing, Ben is a rock man, I'm a fire guy, Reed is plastic man, sue is invisible girl," "Woman" Sue interrupts, "Sorry woman, and Victor is…" the four look at Victor in silence, "Dying, that's what I'm doing, dying, I'm glad that you are happy with all this, the two men who caused this, because of the girl who didn't obey protocol get super powers, and the three people who tried to do the right thing are dead, dying or now a thing.

"Hey!" Ben protests, "You know what I mean."

The group argue about the incident until a door opens and four armed security enter the room accompanied with two doctors, all dressed in hazmat suits.

"Where are we, what has happened to us?" Reed asks the doctors, "You've been exposed to high levels of cosmic radiation, fatal levels."

"Are we going to die?" Johnny asks, "No, extraordinarily you're suits helped absorb the radiation, and somehow it has altered your DNA."

Victor storms out of the room into his bedroom, "What's up with him?" Reed asks, "He was not wearing his suit during the incident, he wasn't protected from the radiation, that's why he's dying."

The doctor outlines that they cannot be released for a few months until they are certain that it's safe, and that there will be no contact with the outside world. Reed protests, "Why can't we speak to anyone, who do you work for? I know people who can help, I can help."

The doctor replies, "Yes Dr Richards, maybe you can, we will investigate and return." As the doctor begins to exit he stops and turns around, "It is strictly off limits to use these abilities in the room, we have built facilities to test them."

Johnny sits down disgruntled, "Can't believe I'm going to be stuck with Mr Doom and Gloom, a living rock, Reed "I'm on the spectrum" Richards and my older sister, someone please get me out of here."

Over the next few week the group are routinely taken to testing rooms within the facility and their abilities are tested to their limits. Blood tests are taken, Ben's blood is much harder to come by, they use a diamond tipped drill to make an incision and a mechanically powered pump to extract some blood.

Their space suits are given to them during their tests, the bio-synthetic make up has absorbed the properties of their extraordinary powers.

Johnny returns from his tests, "You guys won't believe it, I can fly, I can finally fly." Reed and Sue congratulate him, though Ben and Victor are less pleased. Victor returns to watching the TV and playing with electronic devices. He's spent the last week continually watching the news, pulling apart various electronic equipment and putting them together.

After Johnny explains the haphazard start to his flying career he heads over to the microwave to heat up some food. Johnny complains about the microwave not working, "What's going on guys, now the microwave doesn't work, along with the DVD player and the coffee tasting strange I'm gonna complain.

"Be quite stupid boy, everything is how it should be, keep your opinions to yourself."

Reed and Victor haven't spoken during the last week, Victor speaks only to Ben, they both hold a grudge against Reed for his decision during the incident.

Each morning, after his shower, Victor inspects the scar on his cheek, as he does his face drops with sadness. Today Victor goes through his routine as Reed enters, he shoots a dirty look in Reed's direction and leaves the bathroom "Victor is a perfectionist, both in his work and his looks, I don't think he can handle losing that perfection" Johnny tells Reed.

Victor exits the bathroom where Ben stands, "Look what he did to my face, I'm a monster" he complains, Ben who crosses his arms in disapproval, "I'm sorry Ben, he did us both wrong" he continues then leaves to his room.

Ben walks into the bathroom and sees Reed and Johnny talking and laughing, Ben frowns at them and enters the extra large shower. Johnny whispers to Reed, "You gotta make things right with them" Reed nods in agreement.

Later that day Reed knocks on Ben's door as he lays on his two king sized beds lying directly on the floor. "Hi Ben, could I speak with you?"

Ben looks up at him, gives him a scowl, looks away then replies "Fine."

Reed enters and sits down, "Ben, I can't imagine how hard this has been for you, I just want to say that I deeply believe my calculations were accurate, the margin for error was below 13 standard deviations and that if I could have recalculated Sue's momentum, the trajectory of the shuttle or…"

"Reed, Reed, ok I don't need War and Peace, I accept your apology."

Reed smiles, briefly, and begins to reply when Ben stops him, "Reed, I've known you forever, I know your heart is good and you'd never do or think ill of anyone, but your head rules your heart, always, every time, and you're normally always right, it's just well this time your heart ruled your head, and it aint as good at calculations."

Reed's head drops with disappointment, "I let you down, I failed, again, but I'm going to make it right, I'm going to fix this."

Ben laughs, "Reed, you can't fix this, what's done is done, just move on."

Reed processes this, still fixated on coming up with a solution, "Reed I don't need no fixin, lets just move on." Reed looks up at Ben and smiles, "Ok Ben, let's do that."

As Reed leaves the room Ben stops him, "Hey Reed, there's one other person you need to talk to, and he ain't gonna be as understanding as me."

Reed enters the lounge room where Victor sits in front of the TV with a pad scribbling down notes. "Victor, could I speak with you for a second?" Victor doesn't even acknowledge him, the rest of the group return to their rooms.

"Victor, I'd just like to say, that if I was aware of the difference in velocity and" Victor holds a finger up to Reed's mouth silencing him. "Reed, you're a bad scientist and a bad person, I don't care about your autistic apology or your need to feel good about what happened."

"Victor I…"

"Reed, what I need is for you to listen carefully, this isn't what we think it is, they aren't who they say they are."

"What do you"

"The news, the TV, its old, it's wrong, they've been cutting out parts, parts to do with our mission, our accident, but they missed one."

"What do you mean?" Reed asks, "The world thinks we're dead, they told the world there were no survivors, we aren't here for quarantine, we are prisoners, we are lab experiments."

Shock fills Reed's face, "No this can't be, I know people, government people, the director of….., they would know if a government had us captive, they would rescue us.

Victor laughs at Reed, "You don't know as much as you think, you don't know people Reed that's your problem."

Reed shakes his head in disbelief.

"I may be dying, you may have killed me, but I'm not dying in here, with you."

Reed stops shaking his head and looks towards Victor, "I don't believe you, how can you prove it."

"Ask to speak to someone outside, someone they can't refuse, then see what happens."

Reed thinks long and hard about Victors words, he then calls the head doctor and demands to speak to the outside world, but they reply it's too dangerous.

Reed argues with them until he finally convinces them to let him speak with Nick Fury, they agree but only if he'll work on a project they are trying to finish. Reed agrees and they organise a video conference in another room within the facility. Nick Fury speaks with Reed but during their conversation he notices some things missing, Fury is urging Reed to help finish building an instrument for them. Reed agrees but insists that they be allowed out. Fury tells him that they will be freed once their condition is confirmed as stable and the instrument finished.

Reed then at the end asks Fury a question about his colleague Selveig, "There's another man who can help, a Doctor Selveig, do you know him? Fury thinks for a second and replies "I don't know him but we can investigate,"

Reed continues, "Also lastly did you get that last email I sent, about that situation I needed help with? Did it get done?"

Fury pauses awkwardly, "Yes it's all fine, I have to go now, good luck."

Reed leaves the room and is escorted back to their quarters, That's not Nick Fury, we really are captives.