Chapter 2: Trouble with Arnim Zola and Red Skull
(Sorry for the late posting. I temporarily lost my flash drive with this story on it. Thank you for reading, please leave a review if you can!)
We drove for about ten minutes before arriving at a factory bustling with activity. There were men in Hydra uniforms outside, filing up weapons with ammunition, placing them in crates, and cleaning military vehicles like tanks and more jeeps. I watched with wide eyes as we pulled into a large open garage. There were men inside the factory as well, but not in Hydra uniforms. They wore ordinary military clothes and had tired expressions on their gaunt faces. Some of the moved slowly as they were pushed on by others who glanced at Hydra guards holding guns. I realized then that these men were prisoners of war, captured at some point of battle. The sight of them looking so tired and exhausted made me feel intense pain on the inside.
Within the crowd of workers, I spotted a few men who looked vaguely familiar. One man held my attention the most: a taller man with a bowler hat and red mutton shops. He glared at the Hydra guards around him as they corralled him and some other men on the factory floor. He looked up, made eye contact with me, and looked perplexed. We stared at each other for a long moment as Barnard shut off the jeep and dragged me out of it. I winced and cried out softly when my battered feet connected with the ground.
"I'm sorry, but I won't be able to walk." I said softly, staring at the ground. All the fight I had had within me back at the clearing had drained out of me during the drive.
Barnard snapped his head to glare at me, but Conrad swooped in and quickly picked me up in his arms. Barnard rolled his eyes and quickly led the way into the factory through a different door. When I looked back over Conrad's shoulder, I could still see the man with the mutton chops staring at me. Dum Dum Dugan. The name flashed in my mind. That man is Dum Dum Dugan.
I was carried down different corridors that led deeper into the factory. I could see the inner workings going on inside as we went. There were bright blue lights in little boxes being put into belts, and giant machine parts being fitted into different weapons and vehicles. I watched in mute terror as everything I saw gave me flashbacks to memories of scenes from Captain America: The First Avenger. I don't know how many corridors we traversed, but it felt like we were slowly snaking through the belly a monstrous animal. The people we passed paused in their own tasks and gave us confused looks, but no one said anything as we stepped by.
I had not tried to escape from Conrad's hold, as I had given up any notion of escaping the moment I had gotten out of the jeep. The pain in my feet was in so intense, that I knew I would never be able to take two steps to try and get away. That, and we had gone so far into the factory that I had no idea where we were in correlation to the entrance, we came in.
Finally, we entered a room that had various maps and charts on the far wall. There was a small desk in front of that wall littered with open books and loose papers. A few chairs sat near the table, and Conrad placed me gently in one of the chairs. There was no one else with us in the room, and a tense silence filtered in. A man's scream suddenly erupted somewhere further down the hallway, and I flinched at the agonized sound. I watched the open doorway as another door slammed and footsteps came hurriedly down the hall. A short man with wispy blond hair and glasses peeked into the room nervously. He looked first at me, then to the two soldiers standing beside me.
"What is this?" The man asked in an accented voice.
"This girl came from the Clearing, sir." Conrad replied. Both he and his brother now stood a little taller, at attention.
"The Clearing? That can't be," The man entered the room and narrowed his eyes in scrutiny at Conrad.
He then turned to observe me, studying me with the same narrow eyes. He looked at my feet for a long while, and I glanced at them as well. They looked terribly swollen and bloodied. Embarrassed, I tried to hide them under my chair a little more.
"Help her up." The man ordered.
Conrad gently helped me to my feet, and I winced at the pain lancing through them. I tried to ignore it the best I could as the man walked around me, muttering to himself as if he were taking mental notes. He asked to see my hands once his mumbling was through, and I hesitated at first. I didn't know why, but I did not want to show this man my hands. They were perfectly fine hands, except for one noticeable difference: the number of fingers.
My left hand was perfectly normal. It had five all five fingers and was perfectly fine. It was my right hand that was different, and the intense reason as to why I did not want to show this man my hands. It was strange because I was usually one to jump to show my hand and explain it, but now I wanted to hide it.
When I was born, I had amniotic webbing wrapped around my right hand. The term is officially called Amniotic Band Syndrome. It had cut off the circulation to my right hand thumb and did not let it and parts of my wrist grow properly. To fix it, doctors in California amputated my thumb and replaced it with my right index finger, so that I could have some sort of thumb on my hand. The bones in my hand and wrist had to be surgically rearranged to support it, and I had thirty-six stitches wrapped around my new thumb/index finger. Those were the ones I could count; I didn't know how many stitches were on the inside holding muscle together.
I shook my head to the man's request, and he angrily demanded to see my hands again.
"Maddie," Conrad whispered warningly into my ear. I looked at him as I gulped and shakily lifted my hands for view. Immediately all the eyes in the room zoomed in to my right hand, and I closed my eyes tightly.
"What is this?" The man asked softly, not hiding the curiosity in his tone.
"My hands, Zola." I couldn't stop myself as I mumbled sarcastically and rolled my eyes. Then I froze, realizing the mistake I had just made.
The man jerked up and stared at me in shock. It was true, I knew this strange man's name. He was Doctor Arnim Zola. He was the Hydra scientist that developed the Tesseract into a weapon in Captain America: The First Avenger. I was starting to give up any hope of making any sense of what was going on when I had revealed that I knew the Doctor's name. Now that it was out, I knew that I would need to play along, and try to navigate around my grave mistake.
"You know his name," A new accented voice called from the doorway. The voice was smooth, the wording crisp, and it all sent shivers down my spine.
None of us had noticed another man come into the room, or how long he had stood in the doorway watching the exchange. We all stared at him now, taking in his imposing sight. His skin was a little pale, and his eyes were dark, almost black. He had dark hair and a gloved hand combed through it to push back some loose strands. I stood frozen now, staring at the floor as I told myself that none of this was real. I was dreaming. I was asleep. But still my heartbeat in panic staccato, so much so that I could hardly breathe, and my chest was starting to hurt.
"Herr Schmidt," Zola said, and both Conrad and Barnard saluted, both of their fists clenched in the air.
"Yes, yes," Schmidt waved absently at the two soldiers. "Who do we have here?"
I refused to look up, but I watched the booted feet come and stand behind the table in front of me. My refusal to look up at Schmidt made the man chuckle a little, and I could have sworn I felt the sneer on his face sending intense heat my way.
"These soldiers say that this girl appeared from the path that led to the Clearing." Zola explained quickly.
"The Clearing of the Gods?" Schmidt asked and Zola nodded. "And her hands? Why were you so amazed by them?" From the tone of his voice I could tell he had some idea that there was something strange about them.
"I was amazed that she knew my name," Zola said as he grasped my wrist and held up my right hand for Schmidt to see.
"I know everyone's name here." I muttered under my breath, catching a curious look from Conrad and Barnard.
Why was I talking? I felt delirious, almost feverish, and maybe that was why I was getting to be a little mouthy to these strange men standing in front of me.
"If the legends are true," Schmidt continued. "Then this girl is from a future realm, where all of this has already happened in some way or another. She should know everything about this realm we live in."
Realms? Futures? I had no idea what he was talking about. In my moment of feverish desperation, I cast a glance around the room, still avoiding the sight of Johann Schmidt. Out of the corner of my eye, a strange vision appeared for just a second. A man with a large head and glowing white eyes, wrapped in a dark blue cloak, and hovering just in the corner. I did a double take to get a closer look, but when I looked again, there was no one standing in that corner. For some reason, I had a strange feeling that I had a vague idea of who I had seen, or thought I had seen.
"Look at me." I turned back towards Schmidt and shut my eyes. I did not want to look at that man. To me, he would look like prominent actor Hugo Weaving, who had played the sinister character, who now stood in front of me, in a movie I loved.
"Look at me!" The shout echoed in the room and I snapped open my eyes with a gasp, finally looking upon the man in question.
I looked into the face of Hugo Weaving, but I knew it wasn't him. In this world it was Johann Schmidt, wearing a facsimile of a face to hide his true image. He stood with his hands behind his back, and his chin lifted ever so slightly. Doctor Zola still had my right hand held up, and Schmidt looked over it casually, as if he were looking at a loaf of bread to buy. His eyes lingered on the area of my scar; it looked like he was mentally counting each stitch, and the look made me shiver.
"Do you know who I am?" He asked quietly, and I nodded.
"Johann Schmidt." My voice was barely a whisper. "Leader of Hydra, murderer of innocent people, and the current owner of the Tesseract." The words fell out of my mouth like vomit, I was powerless to stop them in my slightly delirious state. I felt my heart sink further in my chest with every syllable I uttered. "It doesn't belong to you, the Tesseract, but you'll find that out soon enough." The dark tone in my voice charged the air.
No one spoke, and I could feel the shock and surprise coming off everyone in waves. Zola dropped my hand, and I let it fall limply to my side. Schmidt regarded me in silence; we stared each other down, both of us contemplating the words I had spoken. He smirked suddenly and then laughed. His laughter was deep, and extremely unsettling. He laughed as if I had told a joke, and it unnerved me more than I felt.
I cringed as he continued to laugh, questioning my own sanity over the words I had said. I was scared, truly and utterly scared. Out of all the Marvel super villains, Red Skull had always scared me the most, and I was convincing myself that this was some sort of nightmare. I was playing along with this nightmare now, and I knew that standing up for myself could help change the strange terror happening before me. Maybe if I did something brave, I would wake up and marvel at the strange ideas my mind cooked up for me at night. I glared at Schmidt now, with my hands clenched into fists beside me.
"You know much for being a girl no older than nineteen." Schmidt commented, lilting his voice so his statement sounded like a question.
"Twenty-one, actually." I corrected boldly, and Schmidt laughed again. Somewhere down the hall a man screamed once more, and Zola turned to look at the door concerningly.
"Go see to your patient, Doctor. I shall take care of this girl." Schmidt commanded and Arnim Zola hurriedly left the room.
The moment I decided to be brave, my mind started to clear a little from its fever state. I flicked my eyes around the room, recognizing it as being in an area explored by Cap himself. It all clicked for me in an instant.
"Bucky?" I whispered under my breath, wondering if the man screaming was him.
If Dugan was here, then James Buchanan Barnes was here too. And if Bucky Barnes, Captain America's best friend, was here, then I was in the part of the movie where HE would soon show up for a rescue. A thrill of excitement rushed through my mind, making me dizzy and distracted, so much so that Schmidt had to ask a question twice for me to hear and notice.
"Where do you come from?" Schmidt demanded, pulling me back to the present moment.
"That clearing in the forest, like you said." I replied sarcastically earning me an annoyed look from the Hydra leader.
"The time for jokes and frivolity is over, girl." He said darkly.
I clenched my jaw and pressed my lips together tightly. "My name is Maddie, not girl."
"Fine, Maddie. Where do you originally come from?" He asked again, bitterly.
I told him what state I was from, and he looked me over before turning to consult one of the maps on the wall behind him.
Schmidt muttered the name of the state repeatedly as he trailed a finger over a map of the United States. "How did you come by your curious hand?" He asked once he had found the western state.
"I was born with it." I covered quickly, averting my eyes.
"You were born with professionally done stitches?" He stepped around the table and reached for my right hand, but I snatched it away from his hand.
"Don't touch me." I snapped, glaring at him. His look of mild surprise was replaced by a sneer and he leaned back against the table behind him.
"Then how do you know who Doctor Zola is? Or who I am, for that matter?" He was fishing for answers I didn't want to give him.
I hated that he was being so interrogative. He wanted to know everything, and I knew it was to get ahead in the war; to prove his greatness. It had to do with this weird clearing he mentioned, "The Clearing of the Gods," he had called it. I had to suppress the urge to heave a dramatic sigh just then. I forgot how annoying Schmidt was with his strange obsession with godly powers. Though, I myself was a little curious about the clearing; I just had to choose my answers carefully.
"I don't know, I just knew." I shrugged and lied.
Johann Schmidt regarded me with cold eyes that were narrowed to slits. His sneer was gone, and his face was stony serious. He knew I was lying, but there was nothing he could really do about it now. He pushed at the skin near his eyes with one hand before moving on with his questions.
"Do you know the legend about the Clearing of the Gods? It is down that path my men here say you came walking through." He asked but didn't wait for me to respond. "The clearing was a great meeting place between the people of this place and the great gods of the other world. They would come and go as they pleased, sometimes leaving powerful trinkets behind. It was stated that as the gods came less and less to that clearing, a being from a different world would appear. They would be bestowed with great power and have unlimited knowledge."
I listened to his strange explanation for the ridiculous legend with apprehension. He had walked back around the table once more, leaning down on it with his hands. He was looking over a map on the table, and though I couldn't clearly see where it was, there were markers dotted around it. I realized that the map pointed out the locations to various Hydra plants across the country. A strange sense of déjà vu washed over me again, making me sick.
"Tell me – Maddie was it? – Do you have powers?" I looked up at Schmidt, staring into his darkened eyes.
"No, I don't." I said quietly, my mouth suddenly dry. "I'm just an ordinary person."
"Not for long." The answer was cold and calculating, and for the millionth time in the space of several hours, my body went cold.
"I shall unlock that power within you, given to you by the gods, and you will be a great hero for Hydra." Schmidt said this with such awe that I could imagine him seeing that fake greatness in his mind. Anger boiled inside me, pushing back my panic for once.
"I'm not going to be some weapon for the Red Skull." I said quietly. It was so quiet that I was surprised that anyone could hear me, but it was obvious that everyone did, like I had screamed.
The silence in the room was as still as death. I could feel the shocked stares I was getting from Conrad and Barnard, but my attention was fully on Johann Schmidt. He slowly looked up from the map and leveled his eyes on me, and I could see the angry fire burning within them. How could I have known that? He had no idea that I had watched the movie once a week almost religiously after I had moved apartments. He didn't know that he was merely a comic book villain newly brought to life on the silver screen. He didn't know that he was one of the few villains who really scared me.
It was amazing that at this moment I didn't feel scared, but as the silence went on for a minute, then two, it was coming back. His look was that of fierce hatred, and I was reminded about all the things he could do to hurt me, kill me even. I struggled to remain brave, staring at him as I did.
"Put her in a cell. I shall have Zola test her when he is done with his other patient." Was all Schmidt said as he turned and curtly left the room.
I let out a breath that I had obviously been holding and felt all the energy I had previously leave my body. I collapsed back into the chair, gasping, and taking deep breaths. I was on the verge of tears when Conrad reached down and started helping me back up to my feet. He took me up in his arms once more and I didn't care. I was replaying what had happened repeatedly in my mind, asking myself why I had antagonized a crazed, powerful cult leader? I felt numb as Conrad and Barnard walked out of the room and down the hall, and I gently laid my head against Conrad's shoulder. Soon, I was being laced in a circular jail-like cell and was left alone in the shrouded darkness.