It's the FINAL COUNTDOWN! Da-da-da-dun da-da-da-da-dun! THE FINAL COUNTDOWN! I kid, I kid. Sorry for the pun, ladies and gentlemen. In all seriousness though, I'm down to the final five chapters after this one is over, so we're in the home stretch.

Chapter 24: Requesting Back-Up:

Trauma Zentrum

April 5, 2014

8:00 P.M. NZT

"Agent West," one of the few technicians left in the resistance group called out as he raced over from across the cafeteria. The Siege of Trauma Zentrum had been just entered its third day this morning, and casualties were beginning to mount up. HYDRA's invasion team was getting more creative in its attempts to break into the building. Each breach of the beleaguered defenses resulted in more and more dead bodies. The last strike alone claimed the lives of three nurses, two technicians, and a janitor. As of last night, the hospital's medical staff had been reduced by half. The defenders of Trauma Zentrum were hanging on by a very thin thread now.

It was too late now for Wally to shuttle everyone out with his speed. The day after the siege began, HYDRA set up some new model of high-tech turret aimed at the building. Wally didn't need to look at the blueprints to know that they had been designed to track him while he was running and pump him so full of bullets he'd bleed to death in minutes. I should have run everyone out when I had the change, Wally thought bitterly as he turned to face the technician. But HYDRA would still come after us, only then there would be a lot more bodies piling up. HYDRA doesn't care about civilian casualties. They'd have nuked Zurich and everyone in it just to take me out of the picture.

"This had better be good news," he said as he snapped his thoughts back to the present and shoved those regrets to the back of his mind. The technician was part of the team assigned to restoring the hospital's communications array so they could contact the outside world and take stock of the situation with HYDRA. Since he and Barton were the highest ranking S.H.I.E.L.D. Agents in Trauma Zentrum (Technically Agent Blake outranked them, but he was still recovering from surgery after being brutally beaten into critical condition by ex-S.H.I.E.L.D. Agent Mike Peterson, now the cyborg warrior known as Deathlok.

"We managed to get the communications array back online," the tech reported loudly. This set off around of cheering and celebrations from everyone in the cafeteria. But the tech who delivered the good news had an anxious look on his face. "Agent West, there's something you need to see." Wally frowned. He would prefer to have Clint here for this, but the archer was patrolling the first floor defenses, so the speedster had to see to this himself. He'd never been comfortable with all the cloak and dagger of S.H.I.E.L.D.'s day to day operations, but he could ignore it since he was only brought in to deal with crime scene analysis. Something told him that given the technician's anxiety he wouldn't like what he was about to see.

"Lead the way," Wally replied as he followed the tech, a man named Max Turner, and his escorts back to the room housing the hospitals' communications gear. The news that he did see rocked him. He'd been expecting things to be bad with the fight against HYDRA but he'd never expected the entire agency to have collapsed. This wasn't just HYDRA having a few moles in S.H.I.E.L.D. HYDRA had infiltrated S.H.I.E.L.D. at the very highest levels. Project Insight, which he'd heard of only in passing and never felt comfortable with it, so the reveal that HYDRA had created the Helicarriers for the purpose of killing anyone who stood in their way didn't come as a surprise to him.

He was impressed that Captain American and this new guy, Sam Wilson, had managed to bring down three Carriers with nothing but the tech savviness of Nick Fury and Maria Hill. And he was proud of Natasha's decision to dump all of S.H.I.E.L.D.'s documents onto the internet, airing her sordid past and metaphorical dirty laundry to the world. That took guts. Okay, Wally thought to himself. There's good news and there's bad news. The bad news is that S.H.I.E.L.D. is gone and HYDRA is everywhere. We can't count on Director Fury or Commander Hill to send in the cavalry.

"The good news," he finished aloud. "Is that now we can call the Avengers and see if we can get them come in and evacuate everyone here. HYDRA's guns can't hold a candle to Stark's Iron Man suit." The tech agreed, and Wally walked a few hundred feet back to the cafeteria to tell everyone what was going on. When he arrived, he found the place a buzz of activity. Everyone was cheering and clapping. A few of them were even singing the song "Deliver Us" from the movie Prince of Egypt as they eagerly awaited news that a S.H.I.E.L.D. rescue team was on the way. He silenced everyone with a whistle, and looked over at Artemis, who had a look of understanding on her face. She knew that he was about to be the bearer of bad news.

"I just checked the communications array," he shouted to everyone. "And it's not pretty. HYDRA has infiltrated S.H.I.E.L.D. at the highest level. Alexander Pierce himself is their leader." The handful of people sarcastically calling for Wally not to rain on the parade were immediately shocked into stunned silence at the revelation that the Secretary of S.H.I.E.L.D., the head of the World Security Council, and Director Fury's closest friend was in charge of HYDRA. "And it only gets worse from there," he continued. "Project Insight was created for the sole purpose of allowing HYDRA to take over the world in one fell swoop. Captain America stopped them, but S.H.I.E.L.D. as we know it as collapsed. The Triskellion has been destroyed. Nick Fury is dead. HYDRA has taken control of the Treehouse and our East African Headquarters."

"I know the situation seems hopeless," he went on. "We're on our own, under siege, and running out of food, weapons, and energy. But we just need to hold out until the Avengers get here. I'm going to call Stark and Romanov. The Avengers will come for us. We just need to hold HYDRA off for a few more hours and we'll all walk out of here alive. We can do this. We've survived this siege for three days now. What's a few more hours compared to that?" He expected complaints and shouts of protest and disbelief, but to Wally's surprise, his speech was met with a standing ovation. Artemis beamed at him and Jai clapped in imitation of everyone around him. Wally as about to walk over and eat breakfast with them when his phone buzzed in the bottom of his pocket.

"HYDRA collapsed yesterday," he commented dryly into the phone. "Why haven't you been answering my calls?"

"Sorry, banana split," Tony Stark replied sarcastically. Had to process Romanov's big info dump before fending off a HYDRA assault on the tower. Couldn't exactly focus on answering all my phone calls. So what's the giant multi-headed lizard doing to you that's made you so grouchy?"

"HYDRA tried to assassinate me three days ago and Artemis took the bullet for me," Wally answered. "She's paralyzed from the waist down. And now us, Jai, and Clint have been trapped inside S.H.I.E.L.D.'s medical facility in New Zealand for the last forty-eight hours. HYDRA developed some new artillery that can keep up with me so I can't run everyone out. I need you to bring in that Avengers Quinjet and evacuate everyone here."

"Roger that," Tony responded, his joking and sarcasm gone from his voice, replaced by complete, stone cold seriousness. "I can have it there in nine hours." This pronouncement, since Wally had the entire call on speaker, was greeted with a round of applause as Wally made his way over to his wife and gave her a celebratory kiss on the lips as she held Jai in her arms. They were all going to make it.

So Yeah, the Avengers are about to assemble to break HYDRA's siege. But will everyone make it out alive?