They walked through the old building the natural light almost completely gone with the setting of the sun casting an eerie ambiance around them.
"This is where I was trained." Steve commented as they looked around Natasha using her phone to scan the area.
"Change much?" Natasha asked.
"A little." Steve replied and for a moment got lost in the past.
"This is a dead end." Natasha broke him out of his thoughts. "Zero heat signatures, zero waves, not even radio."
"Whoever wrote the file must have used a router to throw people off." Cheshire said then saw Steve's look which was going right past her and Natasha. "What is it?"
"Army regulations forbid the storing of munitions within five hundred yards of the barracks." Steve said as he led them over to such a storage unit. "This building is in the wrong place."
Steve smashed the lock and let them in walking down a staircase into a hidden bunker.
"This is SHIELD." Natasha said as they looked around.
"Maybe where it started." Steve said as he opened a door leading them into a room full of shelves. Their eyes fell on three pictures that were just opposite the door.
"There's Starks father." Natasha commented.
"And Colonel Phillips." Cheshire said with a small smile.
"Who's the girl?" Natasha asked, but Steve made no reply walking away between the shelves.
Natasha looked to Cheshire who shook her head silently telling her to leave the subject be, before walking over to Steve. Suddenly Cheshire stopped taking a few sniffs of the air around them looking to a set of shelves to the right, Steve following her gaze.
"There's something back there." Cheshire said.
"If you're already working in a secret office…" Steve commented as he gripped the shelf and with Cheshire pushed it away to reveal an elevator. "…why do you need to hide the elevator?"
"SHIELD, even their secrets have secrets." Cheshire said as Natasha scanned the key pad getting the code for the elevator and opening it up. They got in riding it down to a room filled with a large very old fashioned computer that took up the whole floor. The lights came on automatically as they walked up to the control center.
"This can't be the data point. The technology is ancient." Natasha said as they looked around at the dust covered tech.
"But that's not, that's very new." Cheshire said pointing to the USB ports. Natasha walked over and plugged in the USB that Fury had given Steve causing the computer to online.
'Initiate System…'
"Y-E-S spells yes." Natasha typed in activating it. "Shall we play a game?" Natasha said in a creepy voice. "That's from a movie that was really…"
"I know, I saw it." Steve replied shooting Cheshire a look.
"Still sorry about that." Cheshire said with a wince. "I thought you'd like it more."
'Rogers, Steve, born 1918.'
'Romanoff, Natalia Alianovna, born 1984.'
'Petulengro, Anya, born 1920.'
"It knew my full name, how did it know that?" Cheshire said uneasily, she had guarded that secret pretty well so it was not common knowledge
"It's some kind of recording." Natasha said unconvincingly.
'I am not a recording Fraulein. I may not be the man I was when the Captain and Cheshire took me prisoner in 1945, but I am.' A picture of Zola appeared.
"You know this guy?" Natasha asked.
"Arnim Zola was a German scientist who worked for the Red Skull." Steve replied. "He's been dead for years.
"First correction, I am Swiss." Zola said. "Second, look around you, I have never been more alive."
"You're a bunch of wires, blinking lights, and dials left to rot in an army basement, I spill a drink in here and you're screwed." Cheshire commented with a raised eyebrow as Steve walked around the machine. "Which makes me have to ask, why?"
"In 1972, I received a terminal diagnosis, science could not save my body. My mind however, that was worth saving on 200,000 feet of databanks." Zola told them.
"Matter of opinion." Cheshire said, rocking on her heels.
"You are standing in my brain." Zola said went on ignoring her.
"Kind of small…" Cheshire commented flippantly, and this time she got a glare out of Zola which she grinned back at.
"How did you get here?" Steve asked.
"Invited." Zola replied.
"It was operation paperclip after WW2." Natasha said. "SHIELD recruited German scientist with strategic value."
"They thought I could help their cause. I also helped my own." Zola said.
"Hydra died with the Red Skull." Steve said.
"Cut off one head two more shall take its place." Zola shot back, the screen depicting this briefly.
"Prove it." Cheshire challenged.
"Accessing archive, HYDRA was founded on the belief that humanity could not be trusted with its own freedom." Zola showed them the accounts of HYDRA on screen. "What we did not realize was that if you try to take that freedom they resist."
"No really." Cheshire said sarcastically.
"The war taught us much." The scenes changed to Steve, Cheshire, and the howling commandoes. "Humanity needed to surrender its freedom willingly. After the war SHIELD was founded, and I was recruited. The new HYRDRA grew, a beautiful parasite inside SHIELD. For seventy years HYDRA has been secretly feeding crisis, reaping war, and when history did not cooperate, history was changed."
"That's impossible, SHIELD would have stopped you." Natasha said.
"Accidents will happen." Zola replied showing Howard Stark's death as well as Fury's. "HYDRA created a world so chaotic that humanity is finally ready to sacrifice its freedom to gain its security. Once a purification process is complete, HYDRA's new world order will arise. We won, Captain." Zola smiled. "Your death amounts to the same as your life, a zero sum." Steve punched the main screen shattering it, but Zola appeared in another. "As I was saying…"
"What's on this drive?!" Steve demanded.
"Project Insight requires insight." Zola replied. "So I wrote an algorithm."
"What kind of algorithm? What does it do?" Natasha questioned.
"The answer to your question is fascinating." Zola answered. "Unfortunately you shall be to dead to hear it."
The doors closed and locked behind them, Steve tried to stop them with his shield, but had no luck as it bounced back to him. Then Natasha got a beep from her phone.
"Guys, we got a bogey, short range ballistic." Natasha said reading off her phone. "30 seconds tops."
"Who fired it?!" Cheshire snapped.
"SHIELD." Natasha answered.
"I am afraid I have been stalling, captain." Zola said triumphantly. "Admit it, it's better this way, we are all of us out of time."
Steve ripped the grating off the floor revealing a hole which they all jumped into. Steve used his shield to cover them and Cheshire made sure that she was covering Natasha knowing Steve and she had the better chance of surviving the attack. The blast roared over them as Steve yelled straining to hold up is shield. Cheshire reached up bracing the shield as well keeping her free arm tightly around Natasha while debris rained down on them.
Steve and Cheshire pushed their way through the debris once it had settled finally breaking through to the outside. Steve poked his head out of the hole; looking around as Cheshire checked on Natasha.
"Natasha is pretty banged up." Cheshire said as he came back lifting Natasha into his arms. "They're going to be looking for bodies Steve."
"Then let's get out of here." Steve said as they made their way out as fast as they could keeping on the lookout for the enemy.
"Where are we going to go?" Cheshire asked.
"I have a place in mind." Steve replied and that's when they heard the sound of approaching ships and saw the search lights. They quickly ran before they got to them, just barely evading capture.