#HailToTheKing, #WakandaForever
Author's Note: Due to real life, plus COVID, and the MCU finally getting around to making a real She-Hulk live-action anything (proposed even back in 1990 with the made-for-television movie The Death of the Incredible Hulk), I'm going to get back to this story and give to you what I promised; a worthy story. Considering I'm the only thing in the MCU Fanfic with Jenn Walters (there are small things, but I'm the only heavyweight), I think I have an obligation to try and outdo Disney+. They'll win (it's Disney, after all), but if the Red Sox can beat the Yankees, maybe I can stand a chance?
You'd think after a year, I'd have written something more, but with the exception of a few notes, a few outlines, and about two chapters worth of goop, I'm starting fresh with this arc.
This chapter is dedicated to the late-and-great Chadwick Aaron Boseman, who lost his years-long battle to colon cancer on Friday, August 28, 2020 at the young age of 43. For those who looked up to him, he set a standard of dignity and professionalism. It occurs to me that he was doing movies while either in remission or fighting that good fight. An Alumni of Howard University (in DC) with a BFA in directing, Chadwick and several classmates attended the Oxford Mid-Summer Program British American Drama Academy in London (which was funding by Denzel Washington!). Playing in television roles (such as Lincoln Heights), Chadwick wrote theater plays and taught acting at the Schomburg Center in Harlem. Chadwick's silver screen breakthrough role was 42, portraying Jackie Robinson in a well-written role that highlighted the difficulties and struggles of that feat, as well as the kind of man that would be needed to accomplish it. For a man whose contemporaries and critics had nothing to say but praise for his personality, work ethic, and humor, Chadwick Boseman has been honored by many who have worked alongside him, remembered as the man he should be remembered as; as an artist as well as an inspiration for his generation and the next.
He is survived by his wife, Taylor Ledward.
ARC VI: BY OUR POWERS COMBINED
WNOW Studios, Hudson Square, Manhattan, New York City, New York, December 13, 2012
-2 Days before Rot Schrader deadline
RJ: Good morning, everyone! This is Rick Jones with the Rick Jones Show on WNOW, and with me always is the lovely Sarah Shane. Today we're going to talk about the absolute insanity that's been going on ever since Monday hit. If you've been living under a rock for the past three days, here's a recap.
RJ: Following the assassination of billionaire Tony Stark by what appeared to be three US Army Apache Helicopters on Monday afternoon, we've been getting reports and calls from Capitol Hill for the cessation and annulment of what the world knows as the Avengers from members of Congress for, and I kid you not, harboring a supposed known traitor as well as a known terrorist; two different people. There are also claims from different sectors, and I'm still trying to wrap my brain around this one, that Captain America is, in fact an impostor and publicity stunt! A few members of Congress and their offices are calling for the man who is wearing Cap's uniform to be ascertained if he really is the legendary World War Two Veteran and hero.
RJ: To top that off, we have various media sources who are trying to figure out what the eff is going on finding out that the Government is claiming that Natasha Romanoff is an active KGB Agent and an illegal immigrant, that someone is pushing the American Bar Association to revoke Jenn Walter's license to practice law, and that Clint Barton is wanted for the murder of something like two dozen Government Agents during or prior to the Battle of New York. Now can someone out there with a brain and some actual facts tell me what the eff is going on?
SS: It's been a weird week, Rick. I mean, someone tells me they're looking for a known traitor, I would expect to actually know them. Didn't we plaster McVeigh and Nichols' pictures all over everything once we figured out they bombed the Alfred Murrah Federal Building in Oklahoma City? We did that with Moussaoui with September Eleventh.
RJ: True, Sarah. This… Edward Snowden? Hackers and people that know him have put together a website that's pretty comprehensive stating that the guy's former Army Special Forces, former CIA, former NSA, and is a contracted worker for Booz Allen, a security company, who is high up in the pecking order for keeping America's cybersecurity up-to-snuff. Now the Government's telling us that he's a little-guy programmer that somehow got the keys to the kingdom, stole a bunch of secrets and classified documents, and is attempting to sell them to our enemies? And… he's with the Avengers at the same time? Am I the only one scratching my head at this one? How is he a known traitor if this just happened a few days ago? How did the government slip up and realize one of their employees, who looks like has been a big part of our cyberdefense for like a decade, squandered away with supposed terabytes of classified materials? I don't think I'm a dumb guy, but I'm a bit confused. Running to the Avengers with national secrets doesn't sound like treason, sounds like he found something disturbing and he went to people he could trust.
SS: Well they are saying Captain America is a fake. I'm trying to figure out how a guy who was witnessed smashing through aliens and spending two weeks pulling eighteen hour days in rescue and recovery operations in Midtown trying to find trapped people can be a fake. This Senator Stern is now saying that Captain America was never found, and that this supposed person is someone with the uniform as a publicity stunt. If that were true, wouldn't that be the Government who did that? He wasn't rescued by some whalers or something.
RJ: That's a good point, Sarah. Seven to eight months after his return, and all of a sudden he's an impostor in the last forty-eight hours? I like to think my listeners are bit smarter than just to believe whatever drivel comes out of someone's mouth, including mine.
SS: I'm still trying to get over the fact that the Government is calling a kid a terrorist. I've never heard of this girl.
RJ: I have, actually. For you listeners who weren't watching CNN last night, some mouthpiece in the government announced for the manhunt of a fifteen-year old girl from New Jersey. Kamala Khan of Jersey City, a straight-A student at Coles Academy, a magnet school that's pretty much one of the best high schools in America, was declared, get this, a known terrorist over public media. Now… I'm not a legal expect, but don't you have to commit an actual act of terrorism to be considered a terrorist? We've arrested people who've sent money and plans to known groups, but they're arrested for aiding terrorism, not being terrorists. And they certainly didn't announce any kind of actual crime either like they usually do whenever the big wigs wants someone nabbed.
SS: Wait, how did you know all about her?
RJ: There was a science competition back in late-May, the Tri-State Area Science Competition, where the best-of-the-best school-aged children make projects and compete against their age groups. Kamala Khan was the winner for the High School Category and crushed the competitors in three states; New York, New Jersey, and Pennsylvania. So in other words, she's a teenaged Tony Stark. Now the government is saying she's a known terrorist without saying how or why, and that she's currently with the Avengers… whom no one has seen since last Sunday. Tony Stark gets his house rocketed by what looks to be American helicopters, a NSA cybersecurity guru has upped and ran to the Avengers and is now being called a traitor, a fifteen-year old girl is being called a terrorist for reasons that aren't explained, and no one has seen the Avengers in nearly a week. I don't want to cause a panic…
RJ: But am I the only one thinking that winter is coming?
I-485/Capitol Beltway, Suitland, Maryland, December 13, 2012
-2 Days before Roten Shröder deadline
Three black 2013 Cadillac Escalade rentals drove upon the famous Capitol Beltway that encircled the District of Columbia as the vehicle drove eastward on I-495 Interstate Highway, the sixty-four mile loop that surrounded not only Washington, D.C., but several smaller unincorporated and incorporated towns connected to the national capitol of the United States of America. The vehicles drove through the normal morning rush hour traffic through one of the most traveled areas in America, where people came in from near and far for business, be it public, private, or government in one of the most iconic cities in the world, the New World's version of Rome existing in its own sixty-eight square mile defined territory. The District of Columbia and its surrounding area was the host of nearly every major component of the American Government, buildings that housed the three major branches of the first modern national democracy in the world, from architecture that ranged from Neoclassical to Neomodern. State buildings, museums, galleries, monuments, memorials, statues, businesses, libraries, and parks existed within the confines of the Beltway where the tallest building was a singular spire dedicated to the man who was elected the first President under the United States Constitution. Of the hundreds of agencies that existed or once existed, almost all had a home within or in the immediate vicinity of the highway known as the Beltway.
Including that of the Office of Naval Intelligence.
Created in 1882 to collect maritime intelligence on naval capabilities, cannon code, vessel construction and configuration, and to better serve her nation, ONI was America's first official intelligence-gathering agency, built on the concepts of the Pinkerton Detective Agency based upon using networks of informants and observers to detail information and return it for reporting and distribution. By the time of the invention of wireless radio and communication, ONI had been revamped into the first foreign intelligence-gathering agency due to the fact that it was the only agency in America that could send its agents to other countries prior to the invention of passenger planes. The Office of Naval Intelligence had been responsible for foreign intelligence gathering for the Office of Strategic Services and the Scientific Strategic Reserve, responsible for the planned capture of no less than five Nazi Germany ENIGMA cryptographic machines, the outright theft of German High Command orders thanks to a Naval spy, the safety and security of American diplomats and President Franklin Delano Roosevelt during their travels for the many meetings and efforts that brought them outside of America, and the delivering of both the first and second atomic weapons to their designated launch points with the Empire of Japan being none-the-wiser.
Its doors were officially closed in 1954 with the finished construction and inaugural ceremony of the Central Intelligence Agency.
Officially. Not actually.
Kamala Aisha Khan kept an eye on the progress of the three rental Escalades thanks to the intercepted signals of the many traffic cameras on the Beltway, both to report rush hour updates and to help law enforcement agents intercept potential threats. In one of the most heavily-guarded and highly-patrolled cities of the world, the fifteen-year old young woman was riding shotgun on the backbone of the system, given access thanks to the white hat hacker that sat next to her in the Command and Information Center known as 'the loft' aboard the Boeing C-17 Globemaster III Cargo Aircraft called "Gungnir", the Odinspear.
The Pakistani-American teenager kept an eye on the progress of the nine-Avenger team that was now traveling to the small inside-the-Beltway town known as Suitland, Maryland based upon the intelligence given to them by James Buchanan "Bucky" Barnes, and confirmed by former NSA hacker Edward Joseph Snowden. Construction blueprints and remodeling efforts had been hacked and gleaned thanks to Snowden, Mentor finding proof of security measures, layouts, floor designs, levels of security, entryways, power lines, and monitoring equipment. The past couple of days had been spent studying the documents and schematics in question, formulating a plan into breaking into a very highly-secured facility that had no governmental oversight or ownership, crafting and fabricating the items and equipment necessary to success, and even practicing for the upcoming mission.
Over two-and-a-half days had been used to prepare for what they were about to do, gathering as much information and intelligence for the planning and preparation phase as the now nine members of the Avengers practiced and trained for the ordeal ahead. They had one shot and one shot only to break into a HYDRA-controlled facility to access its main hard drive in the hopes to stop the deadline that would be happening in just two days' time. In order to save their country, they were going to have to break a few rules.
"Mongoose, take the next off-ramp and head down Pennsylvania Avenue." Kamala spoke into her headset, monitoring one holographic screen that displayed a topographical map of the Beltway's many roads, off-ramps, and intersection, while looking at another screen at the traffic feeds to not only monitor the progress of the ground team members, but also to keep an eye for traffic as well as any possible pursuers via a computer program Mentor had written that involved vehicle and license plate recognition. The teenager's youthful eyes moved from the traffic feeds to another set of holographic screens that were enhanced thanks to the set of Augmented Reality Overlay glasses she wore that showed the building in question that they were heading to, once known as the National Maritime Intelligence Center. Edward had found a satellite feed thanks to piggybacking onto a feed from a military monitoring satellite that monitored the Washington, D.C. area, seeing the area in question as well as a series of nearby cameras that had the building in question within its view. On the outside, it looked like a normal if well-aged office building, hardly noteworthy. A gentle hand touched her shoulder, and Kamala turned to see Jennifer Susan Walters standing behind her with a knowing smile on her face, looking at the young woman while giving her shoulder a soft yet supporting squeeze.
Yesterday, they had found out thanks to Doctor Henry Jonathan 'Hank' Pym looking through various news media sites that Kamala was now officially an orphan. There had been a great many tears from her, but she had done so burying her head into Jenn Walters' breast, who had held her through it all despite the seriousness of the upcoming mission.
Kamala had lost one family… but thankfully she had another.
[I hate these kinds of overpasses] Commander Nathanial Troy Dugan reported with a grumble, Kamala seeing that the off-ramp was a classic cloverleaf junction of looping on-ramps and off-ramps. It would make monitoring any possible following traffic tricky, but the Navy SEAL behind the wheel of the lead vehicle was trained at such things as the three rental Escalades took the exit at the very last second, merging into the turning lane by slightly crossing into the lined gore that split the lanes apart. The tech prodigy watched a nearby monitor for any possible pursuit to see if anyone else needed to shift lanes quickly to take the exit for several seconds, and breathed a sigh of relief when it appeared that no one was on their tail. Renting three anonymous vehicles that one could find anywhere, especially since the American Government loved the Cadillac Escalades as a modern chariot for leadership and prestige, meant that unless HYDRA knew exactly what to look for, even monitoring the traffic feeds closely would yield only the slimmest of chances of awareness or acknowledgment.
"No sign of pursuit, traffic is flowing good all the way to Suitland Parkway." Kamala relayed, her voice being sent not by radio frequency, broadband, wireless fidelity, or cellular tower protocol, but through the use of light-fidelity thanks to her Miss Marvel Project and the use of light communication technology that Tony Stark had invented as a means to communicate without having his transmissions hacked by possible competitors. Three Miss Marvel drones were connected to the top of the Escalades, their Life Model Decoy programs activated to camouflage them while receiving and transmitting the laser communication signal from the Gungnir that kept her in contact with the team without the possibility of being hacked or listened into unless something physically got in way of the invisible ultraviolet wavelength beam to receive it with the right technology and encryption. "Location looks clean and clear. No additional personnel compared to the previous two days, no change in scenery. Estimated time of arrival based on traffic conditions is twenty minutes."
[We'll get in contact as soon as we arrive in the designated start point] came the voice of Captain Steven Grant Rogers, who was in the middle Escalade, the nominal ground commander for the Avengers while the personnel on the Gungnir delivered to them anything and everything that they might need for the sake of the mission, be it information, video, intelligence, or even dropped supplies.
"I've already gotten several points softened up for the main effort." Doctor Hank Pym relayed from his own station, wearing a device on his ear that allowed him to relay electromagnetic communication with a wide variety of insects, mostly in the form of ants and wasps. The tiny creatures had been infiltrating the building in question for the past two day to loosen screws, widen gaps, build opportunities, and chew through electrical wires to send the on-site maintenance team into stressful fits from a plague of innocuous mishaps that were only somewhat security-related; there was no need to tip the personnel off that something was about to happen, just to make it look like a bad week in progress. Receiver/Transmitter Devices had been enlarged by Doctor Pym and his amazing invention known as the Pym Particle, a revolutionary electromagnetic transconfiguration source that either condensed or expanded the molecular bonding distances within and between atoms to either enlarge or shrink something to size with no loss of mass. Several R/T's had been emplaced by ants and rats onto optical wiring once the insulation had been chewed through to give them access to the systems security footage as well as remote access to the buildings' security system. It didn't give them access to everything, but it certainly gave them a great deal of penetration into the highly-guarded facility that had been mapped out by ants, wasps, and rats thanks to Doctors Pym and Doctor Doreen Allene Green.
"Big Momma? ETA is approximately ten minutes." Kamala relayed as she looked upon an app that Mentor had jailbreaked for her, the Google Map App that would give an estimated time of arrival thanks to distance and land speed. The cellular network connection had been disabled to avoid any possible electronic snooping or surveillance, and the ETA was determined by the surrounding traffic instead of the vehicles in question. In a day and age of massive and pervasive electronic surveillance that was sadly under the grips of an enemy long since thought dead, the members of the Avengers had spent their time not only planning and preparing for the mission that would have them access the highly-secured facility clandestinely owned and operated by HYDRA, but to strike out from the shadows in and effort that would leave them reeling from an unseen assault.
"Surveillance of front entrance shows nominal activity. No changes from yesterday or the day before." Edward Snowden relayed as he monitored the building itself through a series or camera views that he had hacked into, merely passively observing thanks to traffic cameras and intersection cameras. Mentor had written several data programs that would aid in the infiltration of the facility, creating a series of viruses and malicious software to either gain entrance into the building physically or electronically. Kamala knew some coding, and had watched as Mentor write and debug a script for a series of malware strikes such as Denial of Service Attacks, Electronic Evil Maid Attacks, Side-Channel Attacks, Man-in-the-Middle Programs, Remote Access Trojan Devices, Sniffer Software, and NetStreaming Counter Programs. The young woman had watched in awe as the former NSA hacker written the codes in several different languages, not knowing what might be used as he explained what which ones did and the philosophies behind them. It wasn't like the movies; it took hours of coding to write real viruses and pre-made hacks before infiltrating a system, as well as finding access points and back doors to spoof.
Edward had spent the past two days running a fairly detailed counter-surveillance upon the building in question to passively see where he could get access and what would be needed. At that level of security, Mentor had told her there would be security protocols one couldn't hack past despite Hollywood movies; physical Token chips or cards based on the Common Access Chips that one saw on Military ID Cards and debit cards, Onion Routes and Amnesiac Incognito Live System programs for bouncing intercepts through many routes with self-purging history, cookies and third-party programs, and Stand-Alone Complexes that were computers not connected to anything, where transfers were done with datadrives or hard drive swaps. It was this information that was Snowden's regular nine-to-five before being discovered in Kunia Tunnel stealing information from HYDRA's database. In terms of capabilities, it was likely that Mentor might be one of the best hacker on the planet.
Which was good that they had him on their side considering what they were about to do.
Kamala watched the linked-in traffic cam surveillance to monitor the progress of the vehicles that contained the ground team of the Avengers, using a different method of delivery than usual as a part of the deception of what they were going to hit and when; some military thing about switching roles, routes, and methods to keep the enemy guessing. Anyone normal would use a small convoy of vehicles; no one would expect Captain America to be driven right to the front door. She didn't select which ones to view so as to further spoof anyone that might be trying to figure out what was going on. Even with the light-fidelity communication that the Miss Marvel Project drones were using, the technology that Kamala and Edward were overriding was theirs, not the Avengers, and it was they who were the gatekeepers and key-carriers. Considering how many government buildings were in the area, another set of eyes might be missed, and Kamala was linked into a several block area for surveillance. Even if they could guess, there was a wide margin of error on their part.
Who was it that said 'You need to be lucky every time, we need only to be lucky once?', the teenager thought to herself as she swiped through the holographic monitors that kept her abreast for the mission. Yes, she wasn't ground team (thank the Prophet!) but her role was just as important as theirs; without her, they would never hope to get as far or as deep into such a secured facility that technically didn't exist to rob HYDRA of its goodies. If they pulled it off right, the shadow organization would discover the theft after the Avengers walked back out the proverbial front door.
Not that it would be that easy, but the payoff was worth it.
"Big Momma?" Kamala turned her head from her station to look at the taller woman who stood in the center of the loft, whose authority was final amongst the Avengers; trusting them to do their jobs as they trusted her to do her own. Jennifer Walters looked to Kamala.
"They've arrived."
"Huntsman?" That was the codename for Captain Steven Grant Rogers for the mission, the moniker 'Captain America' a little tacky at this point in time. Plus there was an AI looking up and flagging codewords to prevent this sort of thing. The new codename had been made up by Kamala Khan in respect to the television show and movie series Mission: Impossible and its main protagonist, Ethan Hunt.
[Go ahead for Huntsman], Captain America's voice came out slightly distorted just in case there was voice recognition programs to worry about.
"Phase One is go." The Chief Executive Officer of the Avengers responded, and Kamala interlaced her fingers before pushing her palms out to crack her knuckles in preparation for what the Avengers were about to do.
Break into a HYDRA-controlled facility that had the wealth of America's clandestine, covert, and illegally-tapped electronic surveillance information and take it for themselves.
Natasha Alianovna Romanoff walked into a rather nondescript building wearing a government-oriented feminine suit with a black jacket and white silk blouse, a pair of adorable Buddy Holly glasses, her dark hair curled just enough while held back by a hairband, and the right shade of bubblegum pink lipstick. Her high heels clacked on the hard pseudo-marble floor as she walked in through the front door along with several others who likely were employees for the five-story structure that was surreptitiously known as the Naval Maritime Intelligence Services publicly but had ONI on the glass doors at the front. The architecture was unassuming and looked like just about every other business building in a metropolitan downtown area; straight lines, concrete and glass, with little in the way of flavor and color. Anonymous and unassuming, the perfect disguise for a building that was a secured government facility not run or owned by the American Government, named after a defunct intelligence agency. And the so-called Mistress of Disguises walked into the building in an ensemble that Edward Snowden called nerd kryptonite.
With the help of the ladies on Gungnir, Natasha Romanoff now looked like a woman with dark skin, dark hair, dark eyes, and a cockney accent.
"Identification, please."
The gorilla at the electronic turnstile, wearing a black military-styled uniform and obviously armed with a Beretta Firearms' M9A1 Compact INOX pistol on his right hip, the haircut pure USMC as a dark-haired, dark-skinned, dark-eyed woman with a British accent and a United States Navy Uniform, patterned after the Navy Working Uniform Type I; a God-awful multi-colored digital camouflage that was a horrendous riot of blue and gray. It made a sailor stand out horribly (thus negating the word camouflage) and drew the eye instead of deterred it. Yet Commander Nathaniel Troy Dugan had insisted on getting it from a local Army-Navy Store with the correct name tapes and tags because (as Mongoose laid it out) it was exactly what a spy or infiltrator wouldn't be caught dead in.
Perfect, in other words.
"Here you go, sir." Natasha said in her perfected Bostonian accent, handing over a Military ID that had the picture of her cover as well as a working Common Access Card chip that identified her level of access for the United States Military. "I'm afraid it's my first day. I have my orders if you need them." The not-redhead held up her attache case to show that she also had a piece of luggage that would need to be searched. The gorilla scanned her ID card in a magnetic strip that read the QR Code that was also on the card, matching the identity she had. Nat missed the days of forging documents with a linoleum knife and a rubber stamp. There was a positive beep on the computer (thanks to Mentor hacking into the DOD database to create her covers' credentials) as the man indicated for her to put her attache case on the conveyor belt that led to the x-ray machine next to the turnstile. Romanoff placed the case on the belt (gently) as it went through the housing unit in which let him view the (mostly) benign contents of the apparel, being several sheets of paper, a tube of lipstick, a compact, and a couple of tampon sticks inserted to embarrass men. The case went through without a hitch as Nat walked through the turnstile that doubled as a metal detector as well, breezing through after dumping the contents of her pockets into a provided basket; car keys, a man's leather bifold wallet, a pack of bubble gum, and her Navy-oriented service cover. That went through the x-ray machine as well.
So far, so good.
Nat collected her belongings after thanking the gorilla (she watched him check her out and gave him a shy wink of encouragement) as she walked into the main lobby of the misidentified Naval Maritime Intelligence Services in which a ground design had been centered in the lobby's floor, an anchor over the globe (the old logo for the Office of Naval Intelligence, Nat noted) as her high heels clacked against the faux-marble floor along with a dozen or so others walking through the main lobby with its colonnades at each of the corners and plenty of American propo artwork glorifying democracy and liberty. It looked just like an American government building.
Except it wasn't. And it wasn't owned by the US Government in any way. It made Nat think of that room.
Shouldering her attache case, Romanoff reached the elevator bank that would let her access the upper floors of the building, waiting diligently as she opened her attache case and pulled out a tube of lipstick, uncapping the cosmetic item to redo her lips like a woman might. She even did, for posterity's sakes.
And out from the cap, two things flew out.
As Natasha Romanoff boarded an elevator with four other people to go up to the third floor, she started whistling the chorus line to Bush's The Little Things That Kill.
"Hollywood movies are bullshit."
Clinton Francis Barton looked over to his temporary partner with amusement as Jessica Campbell Jones complained for about the fourth time inside of a minute. Actually, he didn't blame her considering that they had picked up sewer duty as a portion of their mission.
And the sewer was all one could imagine it to being; filled with scummy water and trash and smelling like it, too.
"Remind me to tell you the time I infiltrated a terrorist training camp in the back of a cargo truck wedged in between a bunch of corpses that Islamic State executed because they didn't just kiss the insurgents' asses on sight." The archer said as he forded through the muck with his bow held above his head as he waded about diaphragm-deep in the questionable content of the Suitland Municipality Sewage System underground, almost directly underneath the building in question.
"Remind me to tell you the time I walked tits-deep in a sewage system to break into an intelligence agency with the only clothes I happened to have at the time." The private investigator shot back, making Clint snort and smirk at the raven-haired woman as she waded behind him. They had broken into the sewer system courtesy of one of Kamala Khan's highly-useful drones practically making them disappear by camouflaging them with the environment around them; she had made them go invisible by bending the light and shading them with the surrounding environment. It probably wasn't perfect perfect, but the two of them had left the rented Escalades and slipped in through a manhole cover without anyone stopping or even glancing at their direction. Damn, if that girl had been around a few years prior with that Miss Marvel Project of hers, SHIELD Strike Missions would have been so much smoother and less combat-intensive. "I guess being the strongest person on the plane means I get the mule jobs. Don't see Thor crawling in a sewer."
"Pretty typical of sharpshooters, too." The archer replied as he continued to wade through the muck, the water cold enough that it almost had him shivering despite the semi-insulating uniform that he wore. Jessica hadn't been kidding about one part; he pretty much was wearing the only uniform he happened to have. He was trying not to imagine his poor sewer-logged socks inside his equally-poor boots. There was no doubt about it, he was going to need a series of booster shots after this. "A few hundred more meters to go."
"Hooray." The raven-haired woman grumped as she followed Hawkeye, probably having her dreams as an Avenger dashed at the moment. One certainly didn't see the Justice League tramping about in a sewer, did they? Well, maybe Batman. Then again, Batman probably had some suit that would be completely waterproof until it hit his exposed chin. He'd have to have Kamala look something up. "I swear to God I can feel things shriveling and pruning up as we speak. If I come back with the body of an eighty-year old hag and alligator piss all over my clothes, someone's getting charged for a seaweed wrap and the dry cleaners."
"That seaweed wrap thing any good?" Clint asked as he forged through another few meters of muck. Never thought to ask, didn't sound very manly, but perhaps he could get Laura to come with him and make a couples thing out of it. Who said being pampered wasn't allowed?
"Dunno, never done it. But after this I'm taking a vacation and a day spa and find out what all the fuss is about and I'm dragging my sister along so we can tease the shit out of each other." Jessica replied, making a disgusted noise as she pointedly looked at something floating at the water. "Definitely a no on the mud bath. I think I've got enough in my boots to qualify."
"Yeah, I heard that." He didn't want to think how pruned and wrinkled his feet were. Booster shots and a blow dryer for his feet. "We're almost there."
"You've said that six times now, Hawkeye." Jessica reminded the archer as she coughed from any one of a number of smells from the dimly-lit sewer.
"It's to boost morale."
"If I need a boost in morale, I'll punch someone." Zephyr muttered behind him as Clint snorted, halfway agreeing with her. With all the wading and the smell, there had better be a good payoff at the end of this waterlogged road. "How much further to 'X' marks the spot?"
"Another twenty meters." Clint really had to hand it to Kamala's invention of the Augmented Reality Overlay glasses that he wore, taking the guesswork and double-checking out of the normal things that one encountered on missions, such as which way to turn, distance, direction, and even an amplification portion known as the Visual Intelligence System, Reconnaissance (VISR) that brightened the ambient light and outlined objects based on refracting patterns. There was a really helpful diamond marker in his view with a distance right next to it as well as a little line that showed right where he needed to go. Damn he could have used tech like this a few years back. Kamala was a certified genius with tech, and certainly one of the best things that Jenn ever did, and that was saying something concerning the lawyer. "Here we are." Clint took a small tactical flashlight from his uniform pocket and turned it on, pointing it at the sewer tunnel's brick-lined roof. "See? I take you to all the nice places, kid."
"My hero." Jessica deadpanned as Clint chuckled as he stepped away, shining the light in the same spot as he watched Jessica Jones looked at the spot in question before looking at him to give him a nod. Clint kept the light in the same spot as he took another few steps back as Jessica lowered herself enough to where she became neck-deep in the much and water, the woman grimacing as she did so.
Before she burst through the water and plowed through the brick tunnel's roof itself with her fists and body in a spray of violence, brackish water, and mortar.
"Big Momma? Ant-Man and Wasp report reaching their first target."
"Right on schedule." Jennifer Susan Walters, Esq. (CEO, Avengers) nodded as she looked over to Doctor Jonathan Henry 'Hank' Pym, who was sitting at a monitoring station while wearing a device connected to his left ear that would allow him the ability to communicate with several different species of the Order of Hymenoptera, being bees, wasps, ants, and sawflies. The older Doctor was looking towards a bank of screens that yet to display anything; these would be the monitors that would be showing the interior of the building once their ground team began connecting signal devices to the network to tap into security feeds and security networks. While he was currently controlling what was an absolute swarm of various insects, there was a limit to what they could do, though that limit was rather impressive. But in order to infiltrate the Office of Naval Intelligence, they needed to utilize any and every means necessary to soften the target for their forces to gain access into the room where the HYDRA AI known as ZOLA was stored in order to gain the intelligence they needed to discover the information they required to stop the Rot Schroeder timeline and the potential collapse of the American Government (and worse).
Two days until the deadline. They were quickly running out of time.
A camera feed showed the efforts of what James Buchanan 'Bucky' Barnes called 'Team SNAFU.', Jessica Jones and Clint Barton, infiltrating their way into the building in a manner only a strongarm could do. Hank snorted as Zephyr plowed her fist through another brick wall, the private detective and the marksman entering from underground in a way that was usually reserved for sappers and explosives. Thankfully, the buildings' original blueprints were available, and despite modernization and the facility mysteriously dropping off the face of the Earth (electronically, that is), the blueprints for the sewers, the electrical system, the connection to the municipality, and several other necessities were still on file. So far, Jones had been breaking holes into walls to access something deep within the facility that security (and likely cameras) didn't cover since it was literally below even the lowest basement level. Who needed a demolitions expert when you had a woman that could punch through a wall?
"I've gotten about eighty percent of the way opened up for our infiltrators." Doctor Hank Pym, now codenamed Monarch (as both 'royalty' being that he was the leader of ants as well as the eldest of them, the voice of wisdom). "Several of the cameras are now pointing in the wrong angle, a few of the sensors are only passively monitoring, and I've got several options for either different accesses or surprises through vents and side passages in case we need to relocate or lead them astray." Jenn had to admit that the whole talking to animals thing was a new one, but an option she wasn't about to pass up on. Doreen could technically talk to any animal in the animal kingdom that was a mammal, a marsupial, or even some avian species. Odd as hell, but right now odd was gold-certified. She certainly wasn't going to turn down help no matter the source or kind of help they could bring if one were willing. Plus Doreen could also shapeshift into something that Jessica had labeled a weretabby, turning into a man-sized feline with what sounded to be a fair deal of discomfort or pain. Jenn couldn't wait for a moment of reckoning concerning HYDRA and what they had done to Doreen, Bucky, her daughter Jessica, and Kamala's parents.
"Widow's on the third floor, working her magic on getting an access card." Mentor spoke up, his fingers flying on the holographic interface in front of him, hard at work. Edward had about a dozen holographic screens up for information dissemination as his hands worked his own magic, the hacker growing through several electronic access points and mild intrusions that would aid in the efforts into breaking into a hardened facility of a clandestine agency that itself was clandestinely ruled by a shadow organization. Jenn had to admit that she probably would have had a hard time picking a better person for the job if she had a week to do so, finding a software specialist who was both a dedicated patriot as well as willing to risk himself to do what he saw as the right thing. Most pictured hackers as computer geeks, likely overweight with a fondness for Hot Pockets and Xena, Warrior Princess. Edward certainly didn't fit that mold, being a fit, athletic man with a great deal of intelligence and more than a few languages under his belt (most of them computer languages).
Having felt something was wrong with the Central Intelligence Agency and National Security Agency's need to spy on everyone illegally (including Americans), he had gone off the reservation to do something right. Not favorable; right. He hadn't been interested in hoodwinking the government and stealing state secrets and selling it to the highest bidder. Edward had told Jenn that he was going to get evidence of the illegal taps and programs and bring them to the press, to highlight to the people what had been going on under their noses. That kind of action would have him hunted down ruthlessly by his own government, and yet he hadn't been deterred by the consequences. Yet when he had discovered the Rot Schrader deadline, Snowden had abandoned his plan and had gone straight to her, knowing his life was fully threatened. Now he sat on Gungnir amongst living legends, working alongside them as one of them, an Avenger in his own right. What might have been an act of a potential traitor had been seen as the determination of a patriot, an expert of his field willing to hold the line against the enemy. Plus he might actually be better with computers than even Tony Stark. That was saying something.
"Zephyr and Robin have made it to Sub-Level 01, and are awaiting further orders." Kamala called out as she kept in contact with the infiltration team, using different codenames for the most obvious Avengers; Captain America, Hawkeye, and the Black Widow. Thankfully, Snowden really was a cybersecurity specialist and knew the protocols of word searches on communications, both radio and electronic, and highlighted a few options on how to thwart the system in simple matters. Steve Rogers was now Huntsman, Clint Barton was Robin (for Robin Hood, not the Boy Wonder), and Natasha Romanoff was Bad Penny; the supposed bad luck coin that always seems to turn up. The rest had their codenames still as they were too new or the one source of information that HYDRA had on the Avengers, the Scepter-controlled Jessica Drew, hadn't actually met them and didn't know their aliases. With Jessica Jones and Clint Barton at their proscribed location, it was almost time to take the next step. It was a dangerous step, but the audacity of it would certainly give them the beachhead that they would need to strike the Artificial Intelligence that was the brainchild of a Nazi scientist and the trump card for the modern-day HYDRA. All they needed was a few more minutes for their infiltrators to do their jobs and they would move to the next phase.
"I've got full saturation with my friends in the conduits and electrical panels." Monarch spoke up, Doctor Pym's station beginning to populate with screens. "Bad Penny has slaved the security lines, and we've got eyes on the interior." Jennifer looked over to the physicist and gave him a nod. Jessica and Clint were at the hard lines of the building, the structure modified to deny cellular phone calls and WiFi capabilities for anyone inside the building, leaving the only way to call out through the physical hard lines which were monitored by the buildings' security and the Zenith Organizational Lexicon Algorithm Artificial Intelligence known as ZOLA. With just two days until PROJECT: INSIGHT went on-line, Walters knew for the Avengers to succeed, they would have to more-or-less kill an advanced learning program with the same capabilities as fucking Skynet from the Terminator series.
"Big Momma?" Kamala turned in her chair to look at her, her dark eyes finding hers easily. "Ant-Man and the Wasp have arrived."
It was time for Phase Two.
"Huntsman, Mongoose, Terminator," Kamala had gone ga-ga over coming up with that name, practically everyone smiling at the young woman naming Bucky Barnes after the protagonist from the movie Terminator 2: Judgment Day considering it fit him so well, "you are go for Phase Two. Happy hunting, gentlemen."
[Wilco, Big Momma. Moving forward to Phase Two], Captain Steve Rogers replied as Jenn knew what would be happening next.
Captain America, the Winter Soldier, and the grandson of a Howling Commando were going to walk right through the front doors of a HYDRA-owned facility.
Author's Notes: After a year-long absence and more-or-less lack of creativity (minus the Iron Man: American Gods storyline), I'm getting back into the action. With this shiny new chapter!
Denial of Service Attacks, Electronic Evil Maid Attacks, Side-Channel Attacks, Man-in-the-Middle Programs, Remote Access Trojan Devices, Sniffer Software, and NetStreaming Counter Programs are all actual intrusion and hacking software attacks and programs for someone (white hat, black hat, grey hat, or green hat) to make themselves into your computer and network.
"You need to be lucky every time; we only need to be lucky once." - The Irish Republican Army after a failed attempt to assassinate British Prime Minister Margaret "Iron Lady" Thacher with a bomb in 1984.
Yes, I bash the awfulness of that blue-and-gray monstrosity that is the US Navy multicam uniform that would camouflage them in water… which the one time you want to be seen is when you fall off your boat and into the drink. What are they disguising themselves from? Chief Petty Officers?
I don't say it, but Ant-Man isn't Scott Lang. It's Sam Wilson in the Ant Suit with the Falcon wings. Powers combined!
SNAFU - WWII military lingo meaning Situation Normal; All Fucked Up.
WILCO - Also military lingo meaning 'Will Comply'.
Bad Penny - An old-school troupe of an unwanted thing, usually bad luck or a bad counterfeit, that somehow manages to get its way back into your possession (like getting a bad penny back with your change). I was going to have Nat have Emma Peel as the name for the female protagonist of the British television show The Avengers but I thought that too obvious and trying to explain a TV show when real-world Avengers existed at the same time too weird. Strangely enough, Emma Peel was a spy, a martial artist, and wore a cat suit… like Natasha Romanoff does. But Emma Peel (played by Diana Rigg) did this in 1965-1968, and became a sex icon (much to Diana's disgust, actually!). The actress was dressed in sleek, sexy clothes (the miniskirt, the skin-tight suit, modern clothes by fashion designers making use of current trends) and Emma Peel was seen as progressive, sexy, and an icon for the 'modern' woman… which was completely the opposite of Diana Rigg, who hated the mini-skirt, the supposed leather getup (really spandex and plastic), and the garish 'neo-modern' colors.
Naming Bucky Barnes the Terminator was just fun. And appropriate!
Yes, Captain America, Bucky Barnes, and Nate Dugan are going to walk through the front fucking door.