It took a half-hour before people began arriving. The first was Iron Man, carrying the SHIELD van.
"Hell of a way to beat traffic, Tony."
Sharon Carter and her team got out and began setting up equipment. Next was Quicksilver, carrying Wanda. Dr. Storm and his young students, Reed Richards and Sue Storm, arrived and began taking notes on the slime. Lastly was Thor, flying behind his hammer.
With everyone there, Wasp began the meeting in the tent that Sharon Carter's team had set up outside the building. "I called you all here because the Triskelion was attacked by super-powered terrorists this morning. With the current problem with telecommunications – the 'No escape it comes' recordings – they managed to get in while the system was down. As soon as they did, this stuff began growing over the apertures. Agent Carter, do you have anything to add?"
SHIELD Agent-in-Charge Sharon Carter cleared her throat, and took out some papers. "At 0900 today, the Triskelion mainframe went offline. From what we can tell from our link, someone hacked into their system and shut it down. Before the computers shut off, we saw the programming of the virus. And, unfortunately, it appears to be a variant of the Chitauri programmes that are used for the same purpose. Now, this has two possibilities. First, someone has found a trove of abandoned Chitauri hardware, and is using it to attack us for their own reasons. Or, second, a rogue Chitauri cell is moving against us."
"Just a second," said Iron Man. "Where's Hawkeye? Where's Hank? Where Cap? Where's Natasha? Where's Nick?"
"Hawkeye was on-duty when the attack came. As far as we can tell, he's still in there. Hank was recuperating from wounds suffered when the Sinister Six escaped, he's also still in there. As for Cap, Natasha, and Nick... They're in Tunguska, on a secret mission, and I can't tell you any more for reasons of national security."
"And what about the hole on the topside?"
"Yeah we noticed that too. So far, we've sent in a Swat team, some Marines, and a counter-terror team from the Pentagon. None of them came out."
"Huh. Well, what do we know about the slime?"
"That's what I called Dr. Storm for. Dr. Storm?"
Dr. Storm looked up from his notes. "As best as I can tell, this stuff is some kind of... living glue. And solvents chemistry is not my strong point, so I'm essentially flying blind."
Reed Richards spoke up. "What about Paste Pot Pete? He was good at stuff like this."
Dr. Storm snapped his fingers. That's brilliant. Get him on your mobile."
"Who's Paste Pot Pete?"
"His name's Peator Davidovich Petruski. He was a student of the think-tank for a while. Dynamite with solvent chemistry, but he had a load of fights with my son, Johnny. When he turned 18, he left us. He's living with his parents in Little Italy."
"OK." Agent Carter stood a second, organising her thoughts. "OK, you get on the phone to him, see if he'll come. Thor, Tony, Quicksilver – get over to Triskelion Alternate and bring back the filing supercomputers, maybe we've got something on these mooks. Professor Xavier?"
"I'm here, Jan," said a voice from the speakerphone. "I've been scanning the building, and although the built-in psi-shields are preventing anything in depth, I can tell you that no-one has been killed."
"Alright then," said Carter, then turned to face the group. "Well? What are you guys waiting for? Move out!"
"What are they waiting for?" said the Melter, as the three of them crowded round the screen in the office. The screen was connected to the security camera on the north side of the building. It was facing the parking lot, where the command tent was.
"Be cool, Clare. They'll have to move eventually," said Phil, who was fiddling with the control harness for his armour.
"Enough o' this," said John, who was so frustrated that he was starting to glow. "I say, we go out there and frag the moth-"
"No," said the only other person in the room. The three of them turned around to face him on the couch. When the room had been built, the couch had faced the window, catching the sunlight in the latter half of the day. Now, the fourth man sat there, reading the adaptation of 'I, Robot' by the lamplight while watching the three of them.
He was called Pilot, and he gave Clare the creeps. From what Phil had told her, he gave him the creeps as well. She doubted anything gave John the creeps. The lamplight glinted off his bald scalp as got up and walked towards them. "We stick to Zemo's plan. We wait for them to come in, we separate them, and we kill them all. You all go down as the most famous mercenaries of all time, and I will plant a chemical bomb that will kill everyone in this building. In the ensuing chaos, the super-powered prisoners in the lower levels escape, and New York dissolves into chaos. Zemo exposes these fascists for what they are, and everyone goes home happy. Are we clear?"
The three of them nodded.
