Story continued from CAPTAIN AMERICA #441.
A.I.M.'s base on Boca Caliente: the boy
and his dog (from issue #387) discover Captain America and MODOK
trapped in the silo as the energy of a Cosmic Cube shoots up through
the Earth destroying the complex—and the entire island....
The Avengers reassemble, fighting
hurricane force winds, and see MODOK, resurrected to try to contain
the energy spikes, ascending the beam into the hole the Cube has torn
in the fabric of reality—and reality faces being completely
lost....
Elsewhere, the Red Skull rises from the
wreckage and goes to meet his destiny....
Captain America also emerges from the
ruined complex to learn that the boy who tried to rescue him is an
Adaptoid and the dog, an illusion, vanishing. The Adaptoid explains
how it was created to watch over the islanders in case of invasion
and it came to see the “possibility of the infinite” in them and
it envied them. That infinite almost became reality but now it is all
threatened. Superia appears, offering Cap the full antidote to his
fatal malady in exchange for a favor to be redeemed later. Cap
refuses, slapping the hypo out of her hand. It is caught by the Red
Skull who injects himself with it to prevent Cap's fate from
happening to him. Skull then blasts Superia and teleports out of
there....
Falcon joins the Avengers in effecting
the evacuation of the islanders from the deadly maelstrom. Soon Free
Spirit and Jack Flag arrive to help. Snapdragon unmasks to reveal
herself to be Diamondback and lends a hand as well (after being told
not to try to find Cap)....
Cap, whose paralysis has returned,
determines to close the breach and save the island; the Adaptoid
wishes to accompany him so Cap hauls the legless android with him up
an endless weakened staircase. The Adaptoid suggests that it
sacrifice its own existence to adapt into the containing wall and
lose its sentience, perhaps touching the infinite or even the
divine... Cap plunges from the heights but is caught by Falcon and
Giant-Man. “Cap saved us all!” No, says Cap, “All I did was
help someone find his dream....”