Loki turned her palm up and held her wrist tightly in his hand. A faint green orb appeared above her skin. She could feel its energy: Weak, but its power sent a cool tingle up her arm. His other arm wrapped around her and he splayed his hand under her chest, steadying her, his slender fingers caressing her slightly. Her pulse quickened and heat pooled low in her belly even as tears started to stream down her face, blurring the alien landscape around her. In front of them, a panting guard was rising from his knees, struggling to regain his balance, his gold armor glinting in the sun. Loki's mouth ghosted against the shell of her ear.
"You've already killed once," he whispered. "The second time is easier. You don't even have to think about it."
She was crying in earnest now, but also leaned back into him, finding a sense in his words. A peace that she'd longed to find for years. She tilted her head back and looked at him questioningly.
"Feel the power," he said, hand twisting her wrist slightly. "Find it. It's all around you. Pull it in."
She closed her eyes and focused on everything around her, finding a small hum between beats of her heart. She focused on that and felt Loki smile against her neck. His teeth nipped there lightly. When she opened her eyes, the orb had gone from a faint, watery green to a deep, vibrant emerald. It crackled with lethal power and made her whole body sing.
"Now," he said, guiding her hand towards the direction of the faltering guard. "All you have to do is tell it where to go."
Her eyes locked with the guard's, his pleading her not to do this. Behind her Loki whispered words of encouragement and endearment in her ear.
"Just let it go, pet. Let it do its work."
She did.
Three Weeks Earlier
She had tried to warn them. That had turned out to be a mistake and, while it was not her latest or greatest over the last few days, it was a large one. The dream had disturbed her, though, and for five nights in a row it had been the same: Terrible and unlike any other she'd had in her 23 years on Earth. The sky ripping open and...things...creatures pouring through the rift, followed by the sounds and smells of death and blood. People in chains...the city brought to it's knees.
She would wake with a scream; heart pounding, chest heaving, and force her fear numbed legs to the lone window of her small apartment to make sure the world wasn't burning. It wasn't yet, but it would be, that was only a matter of time. How much time, she wasn't sure, but each night the dream became more intense, more real, and it was leaving her in physical pain during her waking hours. Something was coming and it was coming fast. Had her mother been alive she would have told her to hold her tongue, not to interfere, and to let things play out as they will, but the panic had been building up inside of her for days. She couldn't eat and was terrified to sleep, though her eyes would eventually close out of pure exhaustion, only to be ripped open again by images she didn't understand and didn't want to see. So, she went to the police.
When she walked into the Midtown precinct, she was acutely aware of the image she cut: Clothes wrinkled and mismatched, dark hair matted and tangled around her shoulders, eyes not only bloodshot, but ringed with dark bruises from where she had pressed her fists against them, trying to force the images from her mind. She also hadn't bathed since the first time the dream had woken her, too afraid to move more than five feet from her bed, so she knew she smelled. To anyone there she would have looked like another crazy bum wandered in off the streets of New York City and she knew the news she had to tell wasn't going to change that perception.
She chose to approach the only female officer at the intake desk, whose badge named her as Officer Allen. She was pretty and soft, standing out against her stone-faced peers, and had obviously not been an officer for long. She had hoped that by virtue of their shared sex, Officer Allen might be more sympathetic than anyone else she might talk to. The look of unguarded disgust she got from the woman when she looked up to find her there was proof of her first mistake, she now realized.
"Can I help you?" the officer asked on an almost sneer.
"Yes," she said. "I'd like to speak to someone in charge, please."
"I can take any report you need to make," Allen replied. "If it needs to be passed up, it will be. What can I help you with?"
The emphasis was on the word "I" and she realized that whatever she told this woman would not be "passed up", nor would she be allowed to talk to anyone else. Still, she had to try. She attempted to gather her thoughts and find a reasonable way to say what she had come to say, but everything came pouring out, almost of its own accord.
"Something bad is going to happen," she said, words sharp and fast like gunfire. "Something very bad is coming. Soon."
Her last word had been too forceful and the officer flinched. When she replied, her tone was sarcastic and belittling, to make up for the fact that she had shown momentary weakness to someone she so clearly felt was beneath her.
"And what very bad thing is coming, Miss...?"
"Harper,'' she said, taking a deep breath. "Alice Harper. If I could just speak to someone in charge..."
"Look," Allen cut her off. "Make your statement or-"
"There's fire," Alice said, desperately. "Fire and buildings falling and...creatures...I don't know...They came out of a hole in the sky and people will die."
Allen stared at her, pale and stunned. The precinct had grown oddly quiet and every head was turned to her. She realized then that she had been yelling.
"Those who don't die," she whispered, beaten, "Those who don't die will be made to kneel."
Then she pressed her fist against her mouth and began crying uncontrollably. Neither Officer Allen nor any of the other suddenly interested officers could get any more out of her. She was spent. And that was how she ended up behind bars when the end of the world began.
They placed her in a solitary cell until they decided whether she was a threat, in danger, or needed to be taken to the nearest psychiatric center. Officer Allen and her colleagues hadn't been debating long when there was a great, ground shaking roar and a chorus of screams rang out from outside. With a quick look at Alice, Officer Allen and the others ran from the room containing the holding cells and back into the precinct, guns drawn.
An explosion sounded, somewhere very nearby and plaster dust rained down on her head. Alice pulled her t-shirt up over her mouth and nose and tried to regulate her breathing against the rising tide of panic and desperation. She closed her eyes tightly and willed it all to be over soon. Then, something hit the side of the precinct and her cell wall cracked open as easily as an egg. She jumped to her feet as daylight poured in and the screams from outside grew louder. A large chunk of plaster fell from the ceiling and knocked her off balance. Falling, she hit her head against the steel bench in the cell and then against the floor, her body going cold and limp. She could see people running outside and other things that her mind could not make sense of. It was this chaos that was the last thing she saw as her vision dimmed and the world went dark.
She woke slowly, almost peacefully, having rested for the first time in a week without the dream disturbing her. When she opened her eyes, she remembered why: It had happened. Whatever evil her dream foretold had arrived. She was alive, so that was something, but she had no clue what awaited her outside these four walls.However, as her eyes focused and she took in her surroundings, her sense of peace quickly dissipated.
She was no longer in a cell, but a bright white room. A television set bolted to the opposite wall was playing news coverage, showing parts of Manhattan destroyed. It drew her attention completely. In between shots of fire and rubble, people were being interviewed. There was mentions of heroes and aliens and a battle. Some were hailing the heroes as saviors of the city, others were condemning them as its destroyer. She thought for a moment that she had caught some disaster movie midway through, but then there was a long cut of Tony Stark in his Iron Man suit falling from the sky, descending from the rift she'd dreamed about. There was a great, flying armored serpent, that cut through the air like water, demolishing building as it went.
She tried to bring her hands to her aching head, her mind still foggy and unable to process all this information at once, and found them handcuffed to the rails of a hospital bed. She rattled both chains quickly, testing their strength, and heard a snort come from nearby. In a chair, next to her bed, Officer Allen sat, watching her with a cold, hard stare. There was a gruesome gash that ran from her forehead, across her nose and down to her chin. Her pretty face would be scarred forever, Alice thought, detached. The woman looked like she was going to say something to her and then thought better of it. Instead, she stood up, turned off the television and, with a quick, hate-filled glance, walked out the room. Alice quickly ran through her predicament in her head and her summation was that her situation had gone from bad to worse.
Officer Allen did not return quickly, as Alice had suspected her to, obviously confident about how secure Alice was. She could see hospital activity going on outside her door through a small glass pane, but no doctor or nurse came to check on her. Nor could she find a call button within reach. She had an IV in her arm and was connected by wires to various machines that beeped and whirred. Her head hurt, but other than that, she could not tell how badly she was injured. She wiggled her legs and her arms, and twisted her torso as much as the handcuffs would allow and didn't think anything was broken. She obviously wasn't going anywhere, so she settled in to wait.
Time passed slowly. At least she thought it did, as there was no clock on the wall to mark its passage. She counted the linoleum squares on the floor and then she counted the acoustic tiles on the ceiling. After she finished that, she counted all of the white cinder blocks that made up the three walls of the room she was able to see. Then she added those numbers together and averaged them. She was on her third round of this exercise when the door opened.
Officer Allen started to come in, but she was pushed back by two large men in full black uniform. They spoke quickly and quietly to Allen, who did not look happy at what they said, but did not argue. If Alice had to guess, should would have said Allen was afraid of them. These were not police officers. Every move they made was efficient and they were lean and muscled, like soldiers. Everything about them screamed: Dangerous. She was in deep shit.
The men separated, one on each side of the door and between them walked a woman who was probably in her early to mid 30's. She was dressed in full military dress and her dark hair was pulled severely back from her face in a tight pony tail. She carried with her a matte black brief case that looked like it could have withstood a nuclear attack. When she entered the room, one of the men closed the door behind her and resumed his sentry position to the side of the door. Officer Allen's face appeared briefly in the window of the door, but a quick glance from one of the men and she ducked out of sight.
The woman sat in the chair next to Alice's bed and placed the brief case on her lap. From it she removed a manila file that she opened and reviewed for what seemed like forever. When she was done, the file went back in the brief case and it was shut with a sharp snap. The woman folded her hands on top of it and for the first time, looked Alice in the eyes.
"Miss Harper," she said, all business. "My name is Maria Hill. I am an agent for a government agency called S.H.I.E.L.D. You've never heard of us. Most people never have and never will unless they absolutely need to. Unfortunately, you need to know, but how much you learn is dependent on how much you want to help. This meeting, though, is your personal epoch. There will be your life before this and your life after this and neither will resemble the other in the slightest."
As Hill spoke, she unlocked Alice's handcuffs. Alice pulled her wrists to her chest and rubbed the feeling back into her hands.
"Am I okay," Alice asked, motioning to the machines monitoring her.
Hill nodded.
"A nasty bump to the head," she said. "Mild concussion. A few scrapes and bruises and a twisted ankle. You'll live. That's better than some got today."
Hill looked haunted as she said this and Alice started to speak, but Hill snapped back to business, stopping any questions about that statement that Alice might have had.
"We are here," Hill continued, "Because something terrible and extraordinary has happened and we need your help."
"How can I help?" Alice squeaked.
Hill nodded and looked at Alice with deep appraisal.
"I knew your mother," she said. "This was years ago, before she... Well, before she-"
"Killed herself?" Alice suggested.
"Yes," Hill said. "That."
She looked down at her hands for a moment and then back up at Alice.
"I was still in law enforcement at the time and we had a case that we were having trouble with. A murder of a young girl. I was getting nowhere on the case and was taking it personally. It was consuming me. Someone suggested we call in your mother as a consult. I was hugely skeptical, but she was, in a word, amazing. Her talent was extraordinary and she helped to solve the case and give that poor girl's family closure. As well as myself. I was deeply saddened to hear of her death."
"Thank you," Alice said. "For opening that wound again. Hadn't quite closed."
Alice gave Hill a pointed look, waiting for her to apologize for bringing up her mother's death, but nothing came. She made a disgusted noise in the back of her throat.
"What does this have to do with me?"
"It seems," Hill replied "That you have inherited your mothers talents. The report I was given says that you tried to warn an officer at the Midtown station about things that were about to happen."
"You mean, I'm a psychic," Alice scoffed. "I already knew that."
Hill sighed.
"That's not a word we use. It has a bad connotation and I think you know it. We prefer sensitive or precognitive."
"Most people just say freak," Alice shot back.
"I can't imagine it's been easy for you," Hill said. "Especially without your mother."
At this mention of her mother, Alice glared at Hill. Hill's calm exterior did not crack and after a long beat Alice looked down and away.
"I dreamed this, whatever happened," Alice said. "I-"
Hill cut her off with a quick wave of her hand.
"What happened yesterday, while important, is irrelevant to you and S.H.I.E.L.D. now. Things are already being handled, cleaned up. What is relevant is any future threats and how your talents might serve to warn or gather information about them. This will not be an isolated incident and even though we've gained vast knowledge about things previously unknown to us in the last few days, we're still flying almost completely blind. Your talents would be a boon to our organization and we're interested in how they can be used to help in the future. More specifically, how they can be used to help S.H.I.E.L.D."
"Fuck S.H.I.E.L.D." Alice said, coldly, tired of this conversation and how her mother kept weaving in and out of it..
Again, Hill sighed.
"You are in a bit of a predicament, Alice. From what I've gathered from the Lieutenant on duty at the Midtown precinct, if I leave here without you, the best you can expect is to be taken to a psychiatric unit for evaluation. He is, however, very keen on finding something to charge you with."
"What?!" Alice exploded. "I didn't do anything! I tried to tell them-"
"Think about it, Alice," Hill interrupted. "Something has happened to them that they can't
explain or understand and before it even happened some girl comes in and starts yelling about it. They are trying to find reason in a situation that is completely without it. If you were them, how would it look?"
Alice quieted and paled. She looked at Hill and for the first time noticed a wound that was closed with a butterfly bandage high up on her brow. In one quick movement, Alice sat up, reached across the bed and grabbed her hand. The two men both leaped into action and stepped forward menacingly. Hill waved them back with her free hand as Alice closed her eyes and reached into Hill's mind. She was there for mere moments before what she saw made her head reel and she fell back onto the bed, hands over her eyes. Her whole body broke out into a cold sweat.
"The world is a much stranger place than even you can imagine, Miss Harper," Hill said. "We need your help to secure its safety."
Alice sat forward again and looked at Agent Hill calmly, quickly weighing her options. She smiled a fatalistic smile, carefully swung her legs over the side of the bed and pulled out her IV with a jerk.
"Where do I sign up?"
If Hill was surprised, she didn't show it.
"We can start the paperwork on the way, if you like," she said and began to detach Alice from the hospital's machines. A nurse came running in to protest this, the first time since she'd regained consciousness that one of the medical staff had shown any interest in her, but a look from one of Hill's bodyguard duo sent her scrambling back out the door.
Alice was given a change of clothes and allowed a few moments in the restroom to put them on. She stared at herself in the mirror, trying to convince her reflection that she had the whole situation under control. Both of them knew it was a lie.
There was a sharp knock and one of the men said her name once, warning her to hurry. When she exited the bathroom, Agent Hill held the door open for her and motioned for her to go ahead. She took an unsure step into the hallway and fell back next to Agent Hill when she noticed that almost everyone, save a few busy nurses was looking at her with a mixture of curiosity and fear. Agent Hill handed her medical chart to a doctor who didn't even glance at it as he put it on a counter, his eyes never leaving Alice.
On the other side of the hallway, Officer Allen was standing next to another officer, superior by his uniform, and she looked furious. He placed a restraining hand on Allen's shoulder as Alice, Hill, and the two men walked by, heading towards an elevator bay. He said a quick, quiet word into her ear and Allen clenched her jaw tightly. The look the superior officer gave Alice was not a friendly one, either. Neither of them, though, said a thing as Agent Hill led a limping Alice into the elevator and then out of the hospital and into a waiting black sedan.
"So, is this like a consultation," Alice asked as she buckled herself in.
The car pulled away from the hospital and the damage to downtown was immediately apparent. It was almost as surreal as watching it on television. It was still clearly chaos outside, though efforts were now focused on rescue and restoration rather than defense, but the inside of the car was calm and cool. Two extremes separated by a pane of glass and some molded steel.
"It's a job offer," Hill said. "A permanent one, if you're a good fit."
"If I'm not?"
Hill gave her a warm smile that did not reach her eyes.
"Let's hope that you are."