Thawed

November 23rd, 2077

North Carolina, U.S.A.

He had been up for what felt like an entire day. All he did was move that joystick like he would do when he was a kid. Sadly, this wasn't a video game he was playing; because those were actually fun. Moving a camera on the bottom of a lake floor is not what James would find quality entertainment. He was praying his partner, Anne, would wake up soon so they could switch places. His eyeballs were screaming at this point.

Their mission sounded extremely easy on paper; find the corpse of the target so he could receive a proper burial at the capital. Yeah, but of course Alvin wouldn't tell them that there were dozens of bodies already down there. The older man had only given them two articles that they should look for on a corpse; an orange sweater and a machete. Any clothing that would be on a body would surely be destroyed from the weather or the creatures inhabiting the lake. It would just be easier to pick up a random skeleton and just say it was whoever the hell they were looking for. No one would know except for them.

"You wanna switch?" Anne yawned and rubbed her eyes; practically stumbling over to the monitor. He moved his coffee mug out of the way so she wouldn't accidentally spill it everywhere.

"Yeah, here." He moved out and let her sit in the chair. She immediately began to play with the joy stick; causing the camera to spin all over the place. "Can you not do that…"

"Sorry…" She apologized and the camera went back to it's normal spot; gliding across the floor as usual. "Did you find anything?"

"Do decayed walkers count as something? God, if we were going to find this guy we would have found him by now. I'm pretty sure we searched the entire lake!" He ran a hand through his unkempt hair and groaned. "Maybe we should just give up… I mean, Team 2 never found that one guy's body at the trailer park."

"You don't think 'they' found that guy though, do you?" Anne sheepishly asked. "Trailer park, dude?"

"They only found a hat where the corpse should have been." He responded with a sigh. "Just an old, red hat… That was it."

"That's really weird…"

"Yeah."

The two stared at the screen in silence as they came across another skeleton. God, he was so sick of seeing this shit. Where the hell was there guy? Probably buried underneath dirt or eaten by whatever the hell lived in this godforsaken lake, he thought as he headed to the couch. For the last three nights they had been staying in a recently completed house right by the water. Even with the fire place going it was still freezing, and he swore he saw some blood stains on the floor. Sleeping on the couch wasn't the most optimal choice, but it was a hell of a lot better than sleeping in a tent outside.

"Hey, James! You might wanna get over here…" He groaned in annoyance at Anne disrupting his soon-to-be slumber. James lazily got off the couch and staggered to the younger girl.

"This better be good, Anne."

"Look at this, James." Her eyes were so wide James thought they would pop out of her skull. Of course, when he saw what was on the monitor, he couldn't blame her.

"Holy shit…"

After three days finding nothing their prayers had been answered. The body of their guy was right there in front of their faces, and in all honesty, they had no idea how to react to it. This was different than the skeletons or rotten corpses they had seen hundreds of times before; no, this was an actual person. This man didn't look like he was decomposing at the bottom of a lake for over seventy years. In fact, he didn't look like he had decomposed at all! He was beaten and bruised, but other than that he looked okay. Anne couldn't help but blush when she zoomed the camera in on his face. Stubble adorned his chin and lower lip; while his wavy, brown hair seemed to be unaffected by the motions of the water. His sweater was still in tact and the machete was lying on the floor.

"How?" Annie let out a shaky breath before trying to gain composure. "This is our guy?"

"Has to be our guy…"

"James, there's a walker gripping his leg." Annie started as she zoomed out to reveal the zombie getting ready to take a bite of his thigh. "This must have dragged him down…"

"Anne, call Alvin and tell him we got his guy." James replied as he walked over to the window; he watched the snow slowly fall outside. "Also, call the other teams over… we're gonna need back up."

A/N: Hey, y'all! I'm from tumblr, but I recently decided to get an account on here for one shots and fanfics like this. This was originally an AU of Captain America, so there will definitely be some plot points similar to it, but the story is expanding into it's own. Funfact: Luke's VA, Scott Porter, was one of the top choices to play Cap!