It's good to be back in the States, thought Skye. That trip over to Africa to drop off that infected helmet was enough craziness for a long time. For most jobs anyway. In this one, I'd be lucky if it lasted a week.
"Hey, Skye," said Fitz, poking his head through the doorway of her van, "Coulson is calling for us to gather in the briefing room. It looks big."
Speaking of which..., she thought as she closed down her laptop and followed the team's engineer upstairs. Almost everyone was already in the briefing room and standing around the central table. Simmons followed right behind her and Fitz.
"Sorry, the new rats didn't seem to want to go back in their cages."
"It's fine, Simmons," Phil Coulson said with a nod. "Now to business; we have been receiving reports of a hostile super being."
"What does this guy do?" asked Agent Ward.
"Actually, this one is different," said Agent May, arms crossed. "We aren't sure what it is, but it definitely isn't humanoid, let alone human."
"Wow, that's new," said Simmons.
"Wait a minute," said Skye, glancing around the table. "Do you mean new as in you haven't seen any, or-"
"Nope," interrupted Simmons, a grin on her face. "Every super being to date has been either human or alien. It's actually a big source of controversy in S.H.I.E.L.D. labs. Even Fitz and I disagree. I think it has to do with the extra space in the brain the Extremis uses that makes humans more likely to mutate into superhumans..."
"While I think it's just that humans spend more time around environments that lead to that kind of mutation," finished Fitz, his own grin rivaling Simmons'.
"But what about the people trying to make super powers? How come no one ever tests those on animals?" asked Skye.
"Because of Captain America," answered Coulson. "No one knows if Dr. Erskine tested on animals before Schmidt forced him to turn him into the Red Skull-"
"Wait, what?"
"-but ever since then, everyone figured that since the Cap was so successful they could skip straight to humans."
"But now," Simmons said, almost squealing in joy, "we can find out why so few animals turn super!"
"Well..." said Coulson with a grimace, "...the reports are inconsistent. While some of them say it is some smallish animal, others claim it is some sort of combat robot."
Fitz's smile shrank a tad. "Well, that would still be cool."
Simmon's smile shrank a lot. "Easy for you to say, you'd still get to figure out how it works!"
"That's assuming we can catch it without it dying or self-destructing," said Ward.
"First we have to find it," said Coulson, touching a point on the table and bringing a map to a screen on the wall. "This shows the list of confirmed sightings," he continued, gesturing to the zig-zag path. "Skye, Ward, and Fitz will cover the location of the first sighting and try to figure out where it came from. May, Simmons, and I will check the latest sighting, about half an hour ago."