"These people have been dead for many years," Commissioner George Stacy said as he briefed Falcon on the case.
Sam Wilson had arrived at the police station ahead of Steve Rogers' return to New York to investigate. With the police files and Tony Stark's Artificial Intelligence, Friday, Sam Wilson quickly pulled up the victims' detailed information. "How is this possible?" He stared at the yellow-black skeletons laid out in the morgue. Even without a coroner's report, he could tell that the bones on the stainless-steel tables had endured the passage of time. He was experienced, just as he had assured the police commissioner.
"The callers claimed their family members were taken away only yesterday!" he said. "Then who have they been living with?"
"That's what has us most confused." Commissioner Stacy sighed. "Either that group has some way of making the victims' remains look as though they've been buried six feet under for a long time, or... something replaced the victims, and those soldiers in the Armored Personnel Carriers are hunting those things. We noticed one thing: every victim had moved, changed jobs, and rebuilt their social connections."
The police commissioner lowered his voice. "Around the time they were determined to have died."
The only listener felt every pore on his body stand on end.
"I've never seen anything this horrifying in my life. I've been to war, but this... is too bizarre." The morgue's chill had already been uncomfortable, but Commissioner George Stacy's words sent a cold shiver shooting from Sam Wilson's feet straight into his brain. Some fear buried deep within human genes had been unearthed, like the monster beneath the bed that had terrified him as a child. That fear had gradually been discarded as he grew older, yet now it had returned. This fear was called