Moving Forward
Chapter 1
The SHIELD agent sighed into his cup of Kashmiri tea, both with contentment and boredom. An entire year he had been stationed in India, only a few weeks now in Srinagar, Kashmir. It had been Director Nick Fury's—excuse him, ex-director Nick Fury's idea: SHIELD would send agents to roam nearly every corner of the Earth in search of recruits.
While he loved the traveling and the sights—Kashmir was especially beautiful—he longed for something interesting to happen. He had been wandering up and down India, coming up empty handed all the way from Kerala to West Bengal to New Delhi.
He took another sip of the salty sweet, rose-colored drink, admiring the distant view of the mountains looming over the cityscape.
He took notice of a young woman, dressed in plain brown clothing. Her long shirt hung loose on her petite frame, the broad sleeves nearly reaching the tips of her fingers. Her trousers, obviously meant to be fitted, constantly tripped her sandal-clad feet. She wore a plain shawl around her head and shoulders, lightly covering the bottom half of her face. She shied away from the crowds in the market area, keeping her head down as she carried her basket.
The agent narrowed his eyes but made no other movement.
He watched as the woman stopped at a fruit stand and pointed at a pile of peaches. The man behind the stand reached out to hand her four peaches while the woman rummaged in a small sack. She held out her money and the man began to yell. The woman shrunk away, bowing her head. As the man's voice escalated, the woman's shaking became visible.
And that's when he saw it.
Three or four peaches off of the pile flew towards the wall behind the stand, smashing into an orange mess. The owner of the fruit stand stared at the ruined peaches, bewildered. The woman jerked back, looking around her frantically. Her hazel eyes met his and stared straight into his soul. She stepped back, turning and running into a crowd.
The agent jumped up from his seat, leaving his tea behind. He followed her slowly, his 6'2'' height giving him an advantage over the mainly 5'6'' average height of the people surrounding him. He watched as she boarded a waiting bus, looking over her shoulder as she stepped into the vehicle. He ducked behind another stand, not wanting her to realize that he was following her.
He sidled up to the bus and, after paying the driver, climbed to the roof of the bus with a handful of other passengers. They stared at the foreigner dressed in their own clothing. The bus drove on for a little over an hour, out of Srinagar and towards the northeast. Every time the bus made a stop, the agent would peer over the side and look to see if the woman had exited. Only when they stopped at Sonamarg did he see the woman step off the bus. He scrambled off of the bus himself, following her once again from a distance.
The sun sank below the mountains, the light diminishing rapidly from the sky. He followed her for half a mile on a dirt road that ran beside the Sindh River. She took a right turn and walked down a steep path to a small stone cottage with a tin roof. She opened the door and, momentarily, an older woman left the home. The agent waited until the light streaming from the singular window went out before pulling out his communication device, courtesy of Stark Industries.
He heard the other end of the line pick up but it remained silent.
"I've found one."
After another moment of silence, the agent heard another click. Despite the lack of response, the agent knew the Nick Fury had received his message and would send his recruiters very soon.