CHAPTER 4

2012. Location: unknown

"Ah, you're back with us" came an eerily familiar voice, louder than it ever was before.

Greer's eyes slowly peeled open to see a plain grey concrete ceiling. She could make out every blemish, every crack. How could she see it so well? She could feel that her eyes were swollen, yet she could make out the details so well.

"Come on now my dear, don't ignore me. You don't want to frustrate me. Considering what my benefactors and I could do to you next."

A bolt of panic ran through Greer like another surge of electricity. Next. What had he done to her already?

Greer rolled over onto her right shoulder, catching herself with her hand. The dull grey floor wasn't as cold as normal, she must still be numbed from anaesthetic or whatever that creepy little man had given her. She looked down at the floor to push up and that's when she first saw it. The orange and black pattern ran from her fingers up to her hand. Her knees buckled in shock and she sat up on her heels. She followed the striped pattern in horror with her gaze, up her arm and to her chest. She saw all the way down to her knees, her skin had been replaced with orange and black striped fur.

"What the hell have you done to me?" she shrieked in terror.

"I have made you a thing of beauty my dear" he beamed.

Greer was lost in looking at her new skin and as she turned to look at her shoulder and back, her new red hair swished past her left eye. Was there any of her left?

"I almost forgot in my excitement, I have some news for you, about your husband."

Greer snapped back to reality and looked up at the man, what had happened to her husband? Hopefully not what had happened to her.

"He was getting very troublesome, investigating the lab fire, Dr Tumolo's death and your disappearance. My superiors decided he had to be taken out of the equation. I think the official line is that he was killed in the line of duty. Shame too, I could've made something great of him."

Joanna was dead? William was dead? This monster had taken everything from her in one fell swoop. Greer lashed out in her first moment of pure rage. She clashed up against the reinforced glass window of the cell. Instinctively she swiped her paw across the glass, her claws not making a scratch on the surface.

"Oh, training you is going to be hard work, isn't it?" Frederick grimaced "oh well, I do like a good challenge."

As he walked away, Greer snarled but once he was out of sight, the rage dissipated, and she fell to the floor. Greer sobbed onto the uncomfortable floor. She had lost everything.

February 13th 2015. Location: S.H.I.E.L.D. HQ

Sam sat in an almost empty dark room in the top-secret S.H.I.E.L.D. base. A guard stood by both doors in front and behind her. She sat reclined on the couch, on her large lilac laptop. Her hands rested below the keypad on either side of stickers of her two heroes of justice – Captain America and Judge Judy. The agents had been kind enough to give it to her. Well, it was all down to Skye. The legendary ex-leader of the Rising Tide. Membership with the Rising Tide had gained her some leniency in her treatment.

Skye nonetheless sat opposite her, in a small armchair, that was more out of curiosity than for observation though. Sam could tell.

"Sam Martinez, you were a brand-new member when I left weren't you?" Skye asked.

Sam nodded, engrossed with what she was doing on her laptop.

"I remember you said you wanted to join for justice, you never explained that though. Who is it that really deserves justice?" Skye prodded.

"My brother. My step-father shot him in our house for disrespecting him. My step-father has friends in high places so despite my mother and I both giving testimonies, he got away with nothing. Between his dirty lawyers and his cop friends, they managed to make it seem like self-defence" Sam explained, without taking her eyes off her computer.

"The next night, when he was out drinking, I stole a car and brought my mum and little sister to America" she continued.

Skye sat in a respectful silence, studying Sam. The girl was in her early 20s and she'd been through all that hardship. Clearly, she was stronger than she looked. Sam quickly shut over her laptop.

"So now Greer's mission is over, can you let me go?" Sam asked politely.

"How do you know the mission is over?" Skye asked, even she didn't know how it was going. That was for those in ops to deal with.

"Your internal CCTV systems aren't very secure" Sam smiled coyly.

Skye should've been annoyed with Sam but she just smiled. She was impressed.

"Okay, let me see what I can do."

Skye got up and left Same alone in the room with the two guards.

"If she goes back on that laptop, take it off her" Skye instructed the guard as she passed.

Just after Skye left the room, Sam opened her laptop again. The guard by the door in front saw this and went to take it off her but before he could reach her, Sam slowly disappeared into a stream of lilac energy directing towards her laptop. The laptop then shut over and disappeared from the table.

February 13th 2015. Location: Secret S.H.I.E.L.D. safehouse, secure location

Greer's phone buzzed once quietly as she sat on the window ledge. None of the agents around her had noticed. It must be Sam, she thought. As per the back-up plan, she found the address of the Hydra base and had escaped from S.H.I.E.L.D.. Greer now just had to get to their designated meeting point. She knew they were five storeys up but getting down to the street and across Chicago to the meeting point would be easy. The difficult part was going to be escaping from S.H.I.E.L.D.. Even if she could get out of the safehouse, she would have to disappear and blend in. that was far easier said than done given her appearance.

Greer noticed the agents were huddled together, they had discovered Sam had escaped using that handy little trick of hers. She felt a twinge of pain in her stomach where Agent Simmons had removed the bullet from her. Phil turned away from Agent Simmons and the rest of his team and walked over to Greer with a tablet in hand.

"I hear your friend, Sam, revealed her surprise talent a few minutes ago. You wouldn't happen to know anything about that, would you?" he asked.

"Sam? She's just my tech support. Sure, she was crashing with me but she kept to herself unless she was ordering pizza or found some Hydra intel. I don't really know anything about her, except she's a runaway."

"Well, apparently she can teleport into her laptop and then make it disappear" Phil explained.

He handed her the tablet, showing a clip of Sam using her powers playing on repeat. Greer acted surprised to see this, hoping her fake reaction was convincing. Phil took the tablet from Greer and carried it back to his team. They were so bust talking amongst themselves that no-one noticed a lilac laptop appear out of the blue on the dark wooden window ledge next to her.

The screen popped itself open and an arm clad in a baggy green sleeve reached out from the screen. The whole thing might be creepy if not for the lilac colour of the laptop and the stickers of Sam's personal heroes staring back at her. Greer reached out and took a hold of the hand. She was forcefully yanked into the screen and the laptop slammed itself shut. The startled agents looked round but the laptop had already disappeared.