The room was bare-walled and uncarpeted; the bare steel glinted in the wan light cast by two small lights opposite Pietro. There was a door, made from wood, opposite Pietro, and a table against one side of the wall, covered in a sheet of dust. It looked as though this room hadn't been used for a very long time.
As he tried to remember exactly where he was, the door was thrown open and a man stepped through. He was tall and thin and had a neatly trimmed moustache. Pietro knew he'd seen him before, but his brain was too muddled to tell him who he was.
The man looked at Pietro with an appraising eye for a few seconds before speaking. "I assume that you were sent to kill me." It was a statement, not a question, and suddenly everything flooded back to Pietro. He remembered Trask ordering the cult members to kill the prisoners, his own mad run at Trask and the guard taking him down with his weapon.
"You're a murdering bastard," Pietro said bluntly. "You must be stopped."
Trask smiled and raised his eyebrows. "I'm trying to save the world. If anyone must be stopped, it's you."
"What about all those people in Tokyo? I don't see how you 'saved' them."
"Ah, that was unfortunate, but an example had to be made. It's so much easier to convince people that you are serious when they have seen an example of your power."
"You're sick… those people in Tokyo weren't just test subjects for your experiments," Pietro spat.
"They had a chance to save themselves. They chose not to take it," Trask said calmly. "But that is all in the past. What I want to know is who sent you? Was it Excalibur? Or maybe the U.S.A.?"
Pietro clamped his jaw shut and remained stubbornly silent. Trask sighed, "very well, have it your way. I'm sure you'll see reason soon enough." He swept out of the room.
Pietro was about to begin considering escape options, when another two figures appeared in the doorway. They were both tall - one was muscle-bound, the other wiry - and wore completely black uniforms. "Apparently you do not wish to divulge the information that the Prophet desires. We're here to help you, reconsider," the wiry man smiled threateningly, as the larger man cracked his knuckles.
Lance, Callisto and Forge left the airport quickly after landing, already sweating profusely. They weren't sure where Pietro might be, but a logical starting place would be the US nuclear physics facility. If he'd been in Malaysia then it was likely he would have paid them a visit.
The head technician they talked to was short tempered and told them that they were very busy and that no one had come to the facility recently. When they showed him their ID he scoffed, saying that he'd never heard of Excalibur. Lance was starting to run out of patience when there was a knock on the head technician's door. An assistant entered with two men - one was in his mid-forties, with greying hair and an eye-patch, the other was early twenties, with black skin and blonde hair.
"Who are you?" the head technician growled angrily.
The older man sat down leisurely and pulled out an ID that he flipped open. "Nick Fury, agent of S.H.I.E.L.D." The head technician paled visibly as he heard this. "This is Agent Daniels. We're here to ask you about Bolivar Trask."
"Of, of course. What is it you'd like to know?"
"Everything you've got about him."
"I can get the details of his time here," the technician offered.
"Then do that," Fury told him. "And what about you? Did you know him?"
"Only vaguely sir. He tended to keep himself to himself. Didn't like socialising with anyone else here. And he left after ten months here anyway."
"Where did he go?"
"Uh, I think he got a job back in the States. We never saw him here again. The records can tell you a lot more." The assistant entered again with a folder, which he handed to Fury, who skimmed through it.
"Thank you very much," Fury rose to leave, followed by Daniels. Lance, Callisto and Forge followed them out and in the hallway, Lance caught up with Fury.
"Agent Fury, I'm Lance Alvers of Excalibur. We're looking for Trask as well." He indicated his two companions. "Do you have any leads as to where he might be?"
Fury considered Lance for several seconds. "Come with me. I might just be able to help you."
Pietro's head snapped back again and blood sprayed from his nose as the larger of the two men pummelled his face. The beating had been going on for almost an hour and Pietro was just teetering on the edge of unconsciousness, but the blessed darkness refused to overcome him. He could see the man in front of him rear his arm back for another strike when he heard the door open.
"Dismissed," Trask said and the two men swiftly left the room. "Bring him to the observation gallery." Pietro felt himself being picked up by someone and carried down a long hallway into a lift and then along another hallway, before being dumped on the floor of a different room. This room had a thick carpet and the walls were decorated with oil paintings, and as Pietro focused he realised that they were some how designed to simulate being deep underwater.
"Do you feel like talking a little more now?" Trask asked as he came to stand in front of Pietro. Pietro could barely nod. "That's much better. Let's start with my earlier question: who sent you?"
"No… one," Pietro mumbled. "Came… alone."
"Alone?" Trask frowned. "But you must work for some agency. Which one?"
"Excalibur," Pietro muttered.
"Of course," Trask nodded. "Secondly, what's your name?"
"Pietro… Maximoff."
"Maximoff?" Trask's eyebrows rose again. "You're the one who killed Erik Lensherr?" Pietro nodded. "Of course, it makes sense," Trask said to himself. Trask moved out of Pietro's line of sight and Pietro almost collapsed to the floor. His whole body ached, especially his face.
Suddenly Pietro's bonds were cut and he was helped upright. Trask smiled benignly at him. "Mr Maximoff, I must say I appreciate your determination. It has taken my men almost an hour to beat two simple answers out of you. And the attempt on my life at the trial was very ambitious. However, you have failed in your mission I'm afraid, and now it is time for me to turn to more pressing matters. I have decided to make another example - somewhere in England now, I think." Trask's smile slipped slightly as he noticed that despite his injuries Pietro was grinning. "What's so funny?"
Pietro raised his wrist, revealing a digital wristwatch. "This is a tracking beacon. It broadcasts my coordinates to anyone with a receiver. Excalibur knows exactly where we are now."
Lance, Callisto and Forge sat in a small hut on the beach opposite Nick Fury and his associate who'd been introduced as Evan Daniels. During their conversation they had managed to discern that S.H.I.E.L.D. was the U.S. equivalent of Excalibur. "We don't have any leads on Trask," Fury was explaining. "It's like he's vanished from the face of the earth, yet we know he can't of done, and we can't just ignore him or we'll have another potential Tokyo on our hands." Lance nodded. "The information from the nuclear facility," Fury waved a hand at the file, "is relatively useless. It doesn't tell us anything that might give us a clue as to where Trask could be. What about you?"
"We're here to find Pietro Maximoff, a fellow agent, who we believe has come here in search of Bolivar Trask. Unfortunately, we haven't got any leads as to where he, or Trask, might possibly be."
Fury nodded and leaned back in his chair, looking thoughtful. A sudden beeping noise emanated from Forge's bag and he practically tore open the bag to find the source of the noise.
"What's that?" Evan asked as Forge looked at a small device that was slightly bigger than a mobile telephone.
"It's a locator. Every Excalibur field agent has a tracking beacon, like these," he indicated the one's Callisto and Lance were wearing. "They transmit information, like where the agent is, and my locator has just picked up Pietro's signal," Forge said excitedly.
"Where is he?" Lance asked, half-rising from his seat.
"About five miles west of here," Forge replied, studying the locator.
"Isn't that in the ocean?" Fury asked.
"Could be an island." Forge pointed out.
"Or a boat," Callisto added.
"Okay, time to move out." Lance got up, as did Callisto and Forge.
"Wait. I want Evan to go with you," Fury said. "It is likely that your friend is with Trask, and I want a S.H.I.E.L.D. agent there when he is found."
Lance nodded. "Sure. Evan, you ready to go?"
"As soon as you give the signal."
"You can take my boat," Fury stood up. "Good luck Lance. Keep me informed of your progress."
"Right. Let's move out. We've got to find Pietro."
Again, sorry about the delay on both chapters, and thank you for your review DaemonRogue 13, I'm glad you liked the last chapter!