"What the hell are you doing here?

[roseline371274]

So our boy sets off armed with a baseball bat, ready to beat up some crooks, when he comes face to face with... Reed Richards!

" "I need an R12 carburetor and a Fiat Panda battery for my machine. Please don't beat all my teeth out!
" "I should, though, considering your haircut. Okay, but otherwise, your machine, your teleporter... does it work?
" "Of course! Look, all your brother's friends have been teleported! We're alone outside, whereas there was a whole gang of them just a minute ago!"

Ben turns around and, indeed, all the extras have disappeared between scenes. This finally c level executive list convinces him.

“Okay, the Fiat Panda is over there, but I want to see your transporter!”

This is how our two friends find themselves in the Richards family garage, entirely occupied by a machine based on a Nintendo 64 assembly (true, don't ask me why, I don't even want to know), with in the center, a tiny platform where Reed places a small car.

A twist of the screwdriver here, two blows of the hammer there, bang, the red button and boom, the car disappears in a blue flash! And in its place are mysterious little orange pebbles...

"They're probably rocks from wherever I sent the little car.
" "Namely?
" "Well, I don't know.
" "You mean you're making a teleporter without arrival coordinates?
" "Of course not! What for?
" "But then how do you know if it works? Maybe you just invented a machine that turns cars into rocks?"
"Yeah, but I'm the hero, man."

Out of spite, Ben Grimm tries to choke on his big eyelids, but by the time he chews them, several years have passed. We find our two thieves at the end of their high school years (where, oddly enough, they still have the teacher they had when they were only 10 years old: I suspect they only repeated a year), during a science competition, where they present their teleporter and make a miniature model disappear before making it reappear, without impressing the jury who think it's a trick.

The trick is a bit much, but hey, it's true that it's more credible than two idiots claiming to have invented teleportation from a Nintendo 64 network.

Except someone believes what Reed and Ben just did: a certain Professor Franklin Storm, who loves to wander around high schools on weekends in search of the most beautiful resin volcano. He's accompanied by his daughter, Susan, who has about as much charisma as a door. Storm approaches the two high school students while his daughter imitates a dead seal, which she does very well, by the way.