I was staring at the page of options, exhausted. There wasn't a good defense against Ant-Man. Fundamentally, that meant that there was a permanent asymmetry between Pym and I. As long as Pym was willing to go on offense, I wasn't going to be able to defend against it - At least not well. His power was covert and subtle and if he wanted to drop a bomb into my room or into my head, he could.

I hadn't wanted to do this. I had to do this. There wasn't a choice. He'd shown he was willing to act against me.

Real persuasive, I thought with active malice towards myself.

"Andromeda," I said, crumpling the page and setting it on fire. It was in Farsi, so I doubted that she could read it.

"Yeah?"

"I need you to get rid of Hank Pym."

---

One benefit of being exorbitantly wealthy is that you can bribe a lot of the right people. Such as Russians with tapes of the old Ant-Man.

Senator Grace Farfield was the Republican senator from West Virginia. That made her somewhat idiosyncratic and a relatively small dog in the Senate, but she was the ranking Republican of the subcommittee on Security within the Commerce, Science, and Transportation. It was no exaggeration that the coal unions had burned me in effigy. As a Republican, Farfield was no doubt relishing the opportunity to get them fully onside.

"Mr. Trent," she said, holding up a file for C-Span, "You've given us a bunch of data on the process for activating the Micron Particles, pointing to sabotage. Could you point me to an independent researcher who backs up your findings on activation?"

This was an obvious play. "We have a proprietary right to the developmental process the Micron Particles. Still, we haven't kept an absolute stranglehold on the materials - The only licensing requirement is that it not be used for human testing." Functionally, anyone who defied me would be risking their license. But I highly doubted that Farfield had read the contracts and I also just wasn't suppressing any research on this front. "If any researchers have had different findings, I haven't heard of it. We have offered some to the U.S. government for free, in case it wants to verify my findings on activation."

"We may do that." She helpfully turned on the recording of my plant's implosion on a large demonstration screen. "Mr. Trent, do you feel it is appropriate to have built a facility that can explode in an inhabited area?"

"Our facility," I said very carefully, "Imploded. That means that it got smaller. The only risk was to my own staff and workers. We had thorough safety procedures in the event of sabotage or an accidental activation, which proved adequate to the occasion." That Hank Pym had thoughtfully avoided a single moment singularity was something I left out. "Regardless, I continue to believe that sabotage is the most likely culprit."

And then it was on to the next Senator. I had no idea how these kind of hearings were supposed to be productive - I could talk circles around any kind of real critique. I was smarter than they were and I knew the science better, the main reason I was here was that I needed to make sure that my name remained intact and we kept the restrictions on Pym Particles to a minimum.

"Mr. Trent, do you have any evidence anyone other than you possesses the knowledge of the process for the Micron Particle?" Stern asked. This wasn't his primary committee, but he managed to show up and be well-informed most of the time. Hydra - At least they do their damn homework.

The tale has been illicitly lifted; should you spot it on Amazon, report the violation.

This would have been easer if this universe had a sane FOIA equivalent but unfortunately in a world of memetic threats, freedom of information wasn't a treasured national value. "If you'll look over at our demonstration screen," I said, pointing to the TV with a Wizard tablet.

"We have strong evidence that shrinking live specimens induces psychosis. A few weeks ago, I was attacked by a miniature man." I played the old videos from the Cold War of the Ant-Man. "Somebody cracked that problem in the 1970s, working for the United States government. I had reason to believe that someone, either that person or somebody else, had cracked shrinking again. Unfortunately," I said, clicking over to the next video clip of my conversation with Hank Pym, "I don't think the original was involved."

Suing Hank Pym, dragging him before a military tribunal, would've been satisfying. But just about the only thing I remembered from the Ant-Man movies at this point was that Hank Pym's obedience to legal restraint was functionally zero. I could take away his stuff, but that would've made an enemy. And it would've created enemies and liabilities for me in the long term.

"Did you report this attack to the police?" Stern asked.

"I did," I said. "Not that they believed me of course. Why would they? A shrunken man? It sounded absurd. My own research had been that it was impossible. I went looking for answers anywhere I could find them - And I found these videos. So I warned the man I thought had been America's original Ant-Man, Hank Pym, and hoped for the best. And now Hank Pym is missing, has been for two days."

Going outside in the Marvel Universe when somebody serious wants you gone is always a mistake. I tried to maintain a reasonably thorough protective kit. Shrink ray, bulletproof suits, quick-don helmet, and a bug-out RV in case I was ready for a warning.

Hank Pym had gone outside and Andromeda got him with a handful of shrink bombs.

I didn't know exactly where he was, but I was pretty sure it was deep in the quantum realm, held in suspended animation. It was possible that he was also dead. Hope had managed to get over and spirit away the Ant-Man suit, largely thanks to my running interference with Hydra. The last thing I needed was them figuring out we could mass produce the damn things.

"President Ellis has said that we shouldn't take the most aggressive path. But my path is not one of aggression even if it is aggressive - I wanted to use this technology for peace, for the advancement of all mankind. I opposed shrinking men down and using them as spies. I believe that now, the enemies of America have let us know that they're not interested in a peaceful advancement for mankind."

"How do you propose we respond?"

"When I wrote my book on tail risks, the Super Soldier problem was a theoretical one. Now it's obvious that it isn't any more. We had this technology in the 1970s and now we don't because we let an old man sit on it for decades. Now the old man is missing. How many more major risks are we going to endure for the sake of meek reluctance? There is a virtue to being peaceable, but it's clear that we're under attack. It is past time that we reject this ostrich approach to America's security," I thumped the desk in front of me. "It is past time that we move into the future, past time that we act!"