Chapter 4: Secret Agent Man
"Cheshire Cat, have you located the target?" crackled the speaker in his ear.
"Ja," he whispered, trusting the mic near his jaw to pick it up. "But there are two hostiles in zhe room, one armed."
"Take them out without raising an alarm. We've detected armed guards just outside your location."
"Roger wilco."
Kurt moved across the ceiling like a spider, the low light rendering him invisible except for his glowing yellow eyes. One figure sat at the computer console below him, completely absorbed in whatever was on the screen. The other figure stood by the small room's door, an automatic rifle in his hands. Both were dressed in the black-and-blue uniforms of the US GCD, complete with body armor.
Kurt was sporting some of that himself. He wore a uniform that was so familiar by now that it was like a second skin: a light undershirt, tailored cargo pants, stealth boots specifically made for his feet, matching leather gloves, and a jacket rich in pockets and lined with Kevlar. He had his Psychic Suppressor around his waist, and clipped to that were a belt pouch, a knife, gas canisters, and a holstered pistol. The entire ensemble was in SHIELD's favorite color: black.
After taking out the security cameras, the first target was obvious: the one that was more alert and armed. Major red flags, there.
Kurt crept along the ceiling to the guard's position. In moments, he was clinging to a hanging lamp right above the man, close enough to see the brand name of his helmet.
Kurt reached his tail down behind the man and gently coiled it around his throat. As the guard began noticing, Kurt tightened the coil and pulled the man up by the neck. In one swift, practiced motion, he yanked the head against his chest, grabbed it by the temples with both hands, and twisted it until the spinal cord gave a soft snap.
Belatedly, he remembered the rifle, and shot out a hand to catch it before it clattered noisily to the floor. Then, with his tail and other hand, he lowered the dead body silently to the ground, hanging off the light fixture by his feet.
In one movement, he was back on the ceiling, crawling toward the control panel. He stopped above the other figure, coiling his tail down to do the same thing. However, as soon as his tail touched the shoulder, the man below grabbed it and yanked.
Kurt was pulled off the ceiling, and fell against the computer console with an "oof." The hostile stood and spun on him, drawing a pistol from inside his vest.
Kurt disappeared with a bamf and reappeared behind him. He grabbed the man in a headlock, using one hand to cover his mouth, while his tail swiftly took possession of the gun. One swift motion later, there was a crack, and Kurt was alone.
"Area secured," he whispered. "Proceeding wizh retrieval."
"Copy that, Cheshire Cat."
He stepped up to the computer console, pulled a disc out of a pocket inside his jacket, and slipped it into the computer. His hacking skills left much to be desired, so he was glad to see that the system was already open and ready for upload. He ran a quick check for security traps anyway, but didn't find any.
Once the disc had the data he needed, he ejected it and slipped it back inside his jacket, then pulled out another one. "Retrieval complete. Proceeding wizh second objective."
"Copy that."
He inserted the second disc, let the virus program download, and then swiftly pulled it out again. "Package delivered. Returning to… vas?"
A window had opened on the computer screen and started blinking red. Seconds later, a whooping alarm filled the room.
"What is that noise? Report."
"The virus triggered an alarm."
The door burst open and six armed figures in GCD uniforms rushed in, their guns pointed at him.
He sighed and leaned back against the console. "I'm caught. I've been seen."
"Porca miseria. Damn it, birichino."
Abruptly, the red flashing and alarm stopped, and the room lights went up. All six figures stopped moving, their programs shut off remotely.
A moment later, Sergeant Bianchi stepped into the room, her hands on her hips. She still wore her headset, giving Kurt an echo in his ear as she said, "You almost had it, but then you go and make a stupid mistake."
"I'm sorry. I vasn't sure how to shut off zhe alarm, and zhe response was so fast."
"As it will be in the real thing." She walked over to the android at the base of the computer console and kicked its head thoughtfully. "At least you started using deadly force. That took too long to train into you."
"You realize zhat I won't be able to kill on a real mission, right?"
"You will kill if they see you," she snapped. "If a single person identifies you and lives to tell, then the operation is jeopardized."
"All zhe more reason not to be seen," Kurt mumbled, staring down at the 'corpse'. He shivered, remembering a real neck that had cracked just as easily under his hands.
"That is a good way to think about it. Here is another: they will kill you if they have the chance. It is better to get to them first."
"In zhe X-men, ve didn't kill, no matter vhat."
"We are not the X-men, birichino. This is not a fight of ideals and principles. We are SHIELD, and this is a war. Therefore, we do what must be done, even if that means killing."
Kurt nodded sadly. "Still, I von't be able to do it. I… I can't. I'm not ready."
"By the time you have to, you will be."
He did not find that comforting.
"Vieni con me. Come with me. We have one more thing to do before dinner."
She turned and headed back out of the room, leaving him alone with eight eerily still, uncannily lifelike androids. Kurt shivered involuntarily, then teleported to his sergeant's side.
Together, they headed out of the scenario wing (or, as Kurt fondly called it, the Danger Room 2.0). Three agents passed them in the other direction, probably to collect the androids and start repairing them for the next run.
"Your reaction time to unexpected threats is improving. A month ago, that hidden weapon would have finished you."
"That was very tricky, by the way. Vas he programmed to be avare of me zhe entire time?"
"Only after you made a noise. Snapping the guard's neck, for example."
"Ah."
"Your tail dexterity is also much better. It is good to see you taking advantage of it."
As if it knew she was talking about it, Kurt's tail twitched. "Danke, I think."
They turned down a corridor Kurt wasn't familiar with, and stopped at a door. It opened with a whoosh, revealing a private sitting area with a wall-to-wall window opposite the door. Out of it, Kurt could see a beautiful night sky over mountains and fields. Cutting across the landscape was the Great Wall of China.
The sitting room itself was furnished better than most of the rest of the base. It had three armchairs and a sofa, clustered around a wood and glass coffee table, as well as an expensive-looking rug and oak side-tables along the walls. Sitting on the sofa was young Asian woman with long purple hair, sipping a cup of tea. She didn't even look up as they entered. A kettle and two other cups were set out on the coffee table.
After the door had whooshed shut behind them, Sgt Bianchi sat in an armchair diagonally located from the young woman and started pouring herself some tea. "Cheshire, this is the Queen of Hearts. Queen, this is the Cheshire Cat."
Kurt stood awkwardly across the coffee table from her, unsure of whether he was supposed to sit or not. "Guten abend."
The woman's eyes flickered up at him, and he had the oddest visual impression of energy around them, in the shape of butterfly wings. He blinked, and the impression vanished as she turned back to her tea. "For someone who dislikes killing so much," she said with a light British accent, "you certainly do it a lot."
Kurt made an indignant noise, staring at her.
"Sit down, birichino," Sergeant Bianchi said, drinking her tea with a lot less class than the new girl did. "And mind your manners, saccente."
"'Birichino'," the new girl mused. "An apt nickname."
Kurt sat down in the armchair across from the sergeant, putting the girl between them. "Why is zhat? Vhat does it mean?"
"'Little devil'. And before you ask, mine means 'know-it-all'."
Kurt cracked a smile in spite of himself. "Well, that doesn't seem very nice."
"She means them fondly, though you'll never get her to admit it."
The sergeant choked on her tea. Kurt muffled a laugh behind his, deciding he liked the new girl.
"I'm flattered," she said dryly, turning to him. "I'm Betsy Braddock. Telepath."
"Kurt Wagner. Teleporter… but you already know zhat, don't you?"
"Indeed. Your mental defenses are abysmal."
At that, Sgt Bianchi broke in. "That is why I brought him here. So we can start training him on mental blocking."
"Zhe Psychic Suppressor is not enough, then?"
Betsy took another sip of her tea, then said, "The Psychic Suppressors are designed to fool ambient noise and wide-range scans. If you get targeted at close range, a telepath will be able to get into your mind as easily as otherwise. And then any secrets you have are theirs."
"I never knew my head was a security risk," Kurt joked. Neither of the women seemed to appreciate it.
"Without psychic abilities of your own, there's no way to block telepathy, but I can teach you some tricks to avoid being easily read," Betsy continued. "It involves reorganizing and compartmentalizing your thoughts, so that secrets stay off the surface layer. There are also ways to repel an invading telepath by badgering them with unpleasant-but-ultimately-pointless thoughts. The White Rabbit favors a particularly annoying song. Works every time I try to get in there."
"Vhite Rabbit? So zhere are more of us on zhis mission?" He turned to Sergeant Bianchi, and she nodded.
"Yes. All of you work under me, but you work independently, so that is how we train you."
"Ah, okay. I vas beginning to wonder whether I was the only vun."
Betsy gave him a curious sideways look. "His accent keeps fading in and out. He's in the middle of speech training, I take it?"
"Si, saccente."
Kurt made another indignant noise into his tea.
"Oh, don't point those thoughts at me. I went through the same thing when I transferred to SHIELD. I'll have you know that I can now speak in three different American accents if I need to." She sipped her tea. "I just don't want to."
"Zhat is… good to know?"
Sgt Bianchi cleared her throat. "The Queen of Hearts can only be here for a couple days before she must return to her mission. In that time, I hope to see you mentally prepared to face psychic intrusion. We cannot have you spilling SHIELD secrets."
"Ja, okay. When do we start?"
"How about now?" The butterfly-shaped energy impression surrounded her eyes again, and that's what they did.
x-x-x-x-x-x-x
["Kurti? Are you in… ah!"] Jimaine's head poked into his tent, her smile as golden as her hair. ["Aha, I found you!"]
Kurt rolled smoothly out of his headstand, landing on his feet in front of the entrance. He flashed her an impish smile before reaching through the flap to grab her hand, and yanking her into the tent.
Jimaine Szardos gave a squeal, then laughed gaily as he waltzed her around the tent, narrowly missing both dressing table and hammock. The two made a striking visual impression. They both still wore their matching costumes, but the blues of his features contrasted starkly with the golds of hers.
["You are still wound up from the performance, I see!"] she said as he sent her into a twirl.
["The adrenaline! The applause! What's not to be wound up about?"] he easily rebuffed, taking a bow at an imaginary audience.
She laughed again, pulled out of his reach. He swiftly recaptured her hand and planted a kiss on the back, making her cheeks redden deliciously.
She pulled away with a grin. ["Now now, Kurti, none of that! My mother would hex off all your good parts."]
["Only if she catches us, dear,"] he said with a wink, then spun and continued dancing about, very much aware of how tempted she was to call his bluff. If it was, in fact, a bluff.
It had been that way between the two of them for months now. Each time, they came a little closer to saying it, dancing a little closer to the thing that they both dreamed of. At first, Kurt had restrained himself out of guilt, remembering another girl he'd left behind. Jimaine had felt his restraint, and taken it personally. But then, Kurt had come to accept that he would probably never see Amanda again. And so, slowly, tentatively, he'd let himself feel what he did.
["I don't think either of us could hide anything from my mother,"] Jimaine said. Kurt grinned at the note of disappointment in her voice. That alone was the reason nothing had happened yet. Madam Szardos was very protective of her children, and one simply did not cross Madam Szardos. ["Speaking of, that's why I'm here."]
["What is?"]
She grabbed his Image Inducer off his dressing table and tossed it to him. ["It's getting dark, and my brother's disappeared into town somewhere. Mama wants him back in time for a little fire-juggling."]
["Say no more,"] he said, snapping his Image Inducer around his wrist. He pressed the button, and his form flickered into that of the familiar pale-skinned, dark haired German boy who'd first appeared in Bayville so long ago, now grown into a young man. Kurt tried to ignore the unnerving fizzling sound the Inducer made as it switched on. It had been doing that for weeks. ["I shall hunt high and low for the wayward Stefan Szardos and rescue him from whatever peril he's gotten himself into. Because I'm a hero, and that's what we do."]
["If you say so, Kurti."] Her smile lit up the evening as they left the tent. ["Good luck."]
Kurt gave her one last bow before he turned and headed into the small town the troupe was camped near. In the distance, he could see a gothic cathedral, complete with steeple.
It took a while, but he finally located Stefan near the center of town. The gypsy man was standing at a large fountain that featured a stony trio of cherubim. He stared down into the water at the base of the fountain, enraptured by something. Kurt couldn't see his face, but something about his friend made his fur stand on end.
["Stefan?"] he called tentatively as he came up behind the young gypsy man.
["Kurt,"] was the response, soft and strange.
["Stefan, your mother wants you to head back to camp. They're going to do a fire show toni—GOD IN HEAVEN!"]
He'd drawn even with his friend, and seen what his friend was looking at: children. They'd been cut to pieces, so Kurt could only guess how many there were. Six, seven, eight… about eight dead children, remains scattered in the base of the fountain, staining the water crimson with blood.
["Heaven and hell. Demons and angels. It's all the same in the end,"] Stefan said quietly, his eyes trained calmly on the macabre scene.
["Stefan, this is terrible! We have to tell the authorities!"]
["Look at them, Kurt. Don't they look like little cherubim? Angels without wings, and you and I, the demons who cut them off."]
Kurt stared at Stefan, his stomach tight with fear. ["Stefan… what's happened to you? Did you… oh God… did you do this?"]
The man finally turned his head, making the bells on the ends of his bandana jingle, and Kurt stepped away from the odd light in his eyes. ["Did I? Did you? What does it matter when the angels are damned to the shadows while the demons hide in plain sight?"] His voice was growing louder now, conviction chasing away the eerie softness. He stepped up onto the edge of the fountain, and spun to face Kurt, gesturing broadly. ["I see it now. It's obvious; can't you see it, Kurt? It doesn't matter who, or what, or why. Good and evil. Angels and demons. It's all the same!"] He threw his head back and let out a harsh laugh that nearly made Kurt flee right there.
He would have liked to have said that this was unlike Stefan, but that would have been a lie. Stefan had been a good friend to him—his first since he lost his parents—but the man was prone to violent mood swings and occasional flights of bizarre fancy. He wore his passion and zest for life on his sleeve, but carried a bitterness deep inside him that only Kurt, a kindred soul, was able to recognize as rooted in loneliness and self-loathing.
["Stefan… Stefan, we have to get you back. Your mother will have something to calm you down."]
["My mother? HA! She, she, she is the worst of the lot! A witch, a wife of Satan, and me her son. Her son, his son, the son of Satan."] He laughed again, without humor. ["You and I are alike in that. Sons of Hell, the one in the body, the other in the mind, what a pair… what a pair…"] His voice faded off and he turned to look down at the bodies. There was sorrow in his eyes, but not for the children. ["It is all the same, Kurt. Can't you understand?"]
["Stefan, you're scaring me…"]
His head snapped up, dark eyes flashing at Kurt. ["I scare you. I scare you. No no, you don't get it. The fallen cherubim, Kurt. And you, the rising demon to balance them out!"]
["Wha-?"]
Without warning, Stefan launched himself off the fountain, brandishing one of his juggling knives. A knife that was still stained with congealing blood. Kurt dodged back as Stefan leapt at him, slashing at him frantically. Violence and madness had completely taken over his dark eyes.
["It's all the same, Kurt! You, them, me, her! All one and nothing and everything!"] Stefan jumped at him again, his voice sounding desperate to convey whatever mad point he was trying to make. Kurt threw up his arms to protect his face, and felt the knife slash across his right one.
["Stefan, please stop this! I don't want to hurt you!"]
["HOW CAN YOU HURT ME?"] Kurt dodged sideways, but not before the knife caught on his costume, ripping a tear down his shoulder. ["I am one too! The two of us, it's all the same! We are both evi-"]
Somehow, Kurt had gotten behind Stefan. He wrapped his arms tight around his neck, cutting off both words and air. After a brief struggle, Stefan went limp.
After a moment to catch his breath, Kurt allowed his grip to loosen. ["Kurt, Kurt. Kurt,"] Stefen said calmly, warmly. Kurt sighed, relieved that the madness had passed. He let his friend turn his head to meet his eye. Stefan wore a sorrowful smile.
["What a pair we make, eh? So sad that we are both so tarnished, so young. Servants of evil, to balance the good."]
["Stefan, my friend,"] Kurt said with an uncertain laugh, ["I have no idea what you're talking about."]
["You will,"] the man said quietly, sadly. ["And I'm sorry."]
["For wha—"] Suddenly, Stefan jerked violently, throwing them both back toward the fountain. Kurt's grip automatically tightened around his head, catching at his jaw as his fell back and landed in the fountain with a splash and an electronic sizzling sound.
Meanwhile, Stefan's body threw itself in a different direction. There was a sickening snap from the base of his neck, and his entire body went limp.
Kurt let go immediately, panic welling in him as he leaned over his friend's body. It was only as he was reaching down to check his pulse that he noticed that his two-fingered blue-furred hands were visible. His eyes immediately snapped to his left wrist, where the Image Inducer sparked feebly.
At some point during the fight, it had given out.
["Demon!"]
Kurt's head snapped up, and he saw a man standing ten meters away, brandishing a broom.
["Demon! You killed them! Monster!"]
Covered in blood, with his arms still around Stefan Szardos's dead body, he didn't think he could convince them otherwise. So, he did the only thing he could think to do.
As more people appeared on the street, some bearing farm implements and torches, Kurt slowly stood up, stepped out of the blood-tinged fountain, and ran.
As shouts pierced the night behind him, heralding the start of what would likely be a long chase, Kurt couldn't help but lament the lost chances that he'd have to leave behind. Again.
Maybe Stefan had been right, and he really was an agent of evil. Death seemed to follow him like a beloved dog.
Maybe it would be better for him to embrace that.
x-x-x-x-x-x-x
Seven months. That was the magic number: the amount of time it took to change a washed-up-hero-turned-circus-acrobat into a secret ops agent. Seven months.
He'd been drilled and tested and worked to exhaustion. Obscure knowledge floated through his head, occasionally surfacing to remind him about the function of the hypothalamus or the fastest way to hotwire a forklift. There were things that were second nature for him now that he probably would have been appalled at a year ago. Like the way he always scanned a room for cameras and exits upon entering (a completely automatic process, even in rooms he knew). And the way he lied without batting an eye whenever someone besides Sergeant Bianchi asked him a personal question.
Most special ops agents, he knew, took years of training. He was well aware that he was not up to their level… not yet, anyway. But he also knew that he was a step above the average gun-grunts that were called in when a mission went sour. All that individual attention from experts in the field had seen to that.
Now, there was just one last thing he had to do before he could graduate Basic Training: a final scenario to pass before he was cleared to finally work in the field.
"Cheshire Cat to Alice: I've located the target." His voice was barely a whisper of air into the headset mic.
"Position?"
"In transit along the sternside central corridor, heading aft. There are two bogeys with him."
"Does he have your objective?"
"Yes."
"Bene. Proceed with extreme caution. He will be armed."
"No duh."
The headset went silent, and Kurt edged his head to look out of the side corridor he'd been hiding in while giving his report. He could see the three men walking down the hallway away from him. Two of them were helmeted, uniformed, and following the third, whose long black coat flared out behind him.
Kurt grinned as they turned off into a side corridor. He slipped back into the shadows, then…. bamf!
He reappeared in an alcove in the corridor opposite the three men, far enough away that they wouldn't hear the sound of his teleporting. The lighting here was too strong to rely on his ability to hide in shadows, so he'd have to work fast. No one else was nearby, so he should take advantage of that now.
Heart hammering, he crawled up the wall to the ceiling, then sped silently after them.
Soon, he was just above and behind them. He wrapped his tail around the left guard's mouth, then dropped down and gave him a hard thwack to the throat. The guard on the right noticed and turned toward him, and Kurt delivered a kick to the side of his head that sent him flying back down the corridor.
The target spun around a moment later, guns drawn, but Kurt ducked down and stayed to the man's left side, taking advantage of the blind spot afforded by his eyepatch.
Before he could turn around again, Kurt leaned forward, plucked the toothpick out of the SHIELD director's mouth, and bamfed away. The only thing Nick Fury saw as he spun toward the threat was a flash of a mischievous smile before he disappeared.
"Damned Cheshire Cat," he mumbled, waving a hand to dispel the sulfurous smoke. Then, turning to continue his trek, he reached into his pocket and pulled out another toothpick.
Meanwhile, Kurt reappeared in the control room, holding the toothpick triumphantly. Various sergeants and researchers applauded, and he took an extravagant bow. The computer screens that had been hooked into the security cameras showed Colonel Fury heading off again while his men slowly picked themselves up behind him.
"Òttimo, birichino. Very good." Sgt Bianchi came about as close to beaming as she ever did. "Though you know very well that 'no duh' is not a regulation response to an order from a commanding officer."
Kurt just shrugged unapologetically, knowing she'd let it slide.
"Excellent tracking and reflexes," Owen Stolfski, one of the scientists, read from his clipboard. "Swift, efficient execution. The only thing you were marked down for was alerting the target to your presence."
"It was a necessary risk," Kurt responded, his accent much lighter than it had been those months ago. Verdammt speech lessons. "We didn't expect him to have others with him. I had to take them out, and I couldn't think of any way to do that without alerting him."
"You could have waited until he was alone," Sgt Bianchi suggested. "We did not put a time limit on this one."
"I know, but I had no way of knowing when that would be. So I saw a chance to do it without witnesses, and I took that instead."
"A fair analysis," said another of the researchers.
"And a definite pass," Owen agreed.
"What do you say, Cheshire Cat?" Sgt Bianchi said, a smile tugging at the corner of her lips. "You ready to sink your claws into the GCD?"
He grinned, flashing his pointed teeth. "Bring it on."