A/N: Thank you to everyone for the reviews and motivation! Next chapter will fit within S3:E12: The Inside Man. As always, comments and critique are always appreciated!
Donnie Gill couldn't remember the last time he'd been dry.
Underneath him, his moving glacial platform needed constant reinforcement to survive the withering solar gaze, and its steady dissolving left Donnie drenched day and night.
With or without global warming, it was rare for icebergs to approach the Equator.
Recalling his mandatory S.H.I.E.L.D. survival training courses, Donnie knew that as an agent, he could make use of one of several encrypted frequencies to call for help. Even if no field teams were available, an allied military unit could reach any point on the surface of the planet within the hour, with among the highest tiers of medical and combat support. On the other hand, HYDRA recovery units were infamous for their rapid extraction of valuable assets and the removal of mission evidence. His gaze fell to the mangled antenna he had pulled from the wreckage of the HYDRA forward operating base before the S.H.I.E.L.D. strike team had arrived.
Donnie had done his best to protect the antenna with what fabric he had, but there was no escaping the corrosive salt and endless waves of the sea. Once a state-of-the-art metallic alloy with a shiny black sheen, it now resembled a junkyard scrap, covered in rust.
His own skin didn't look much better, blistered, scorched by sun, scourged by wind, and at high risk of rotting from the constant moisture. His mind was beginning to fog over from vitamin deficiencies that had started in the months since his last well composed meal before boarding the Maribel del Mar in Casablanca, Morocco. A mass of red ice filled an apple-sized void in his back, constricting his breathing, but keeping him cool in the blazing sun and preventing the anti-personnel round lodged near his heart from bleeding him out as it should have all those months ago.
It was on the docks of the Maribel del Mar that Donnie realized he was a target for both S.H.I.E.L.D. and HYDRA alike. He had wanted to be left alone, and in doing so proved too valuable to be left alive by either. He could still feel himself falling into the sea below in his nightmares, watched by his handler Sunil Bakshi and the hooded sniper. So the question was, who could he call, that he could kill and escape past? If he could find another way of communicating besides the antenna. If anyone was listening.
He pondered further as he peeled himself free of his icy bed to look at the day's catch. The unnatural chilling of a large swath of ocean had stunned local fish wherever Donnie went, luring in sizable predators and large flocks of seabirds. The closer he could get to land the more needed nutrients he'd be able to scavenge from the avian stomachs, but for now he'd settle for the glorified pigeons.
Millions of years of evolution led to the development of hydrophobic feathers and warm down coats. Unfortunately for the birds, it was difficult to shake off water once it was frozen in place, and impossible to take flight with the additional weight. Donnie expertly butchered his lunch using short icicle blades, adding the feathers to a small, but much needed dry spot in his mode of transportation.
S.H.I.E.L.D. training would have said to make a fire to cook any potential pathogens, but as he swung the frozen torso into a hard ledge to break it apart, Donnie figured S.H.I.E.L.D. training couldn't assume cadets would have access to sub-zero temperatures on command. A long drink from his chilled solar still to wash down the waterfowl later, Donnie felt ready to strategize again.
While he hadn't been fully awake during his hibernation, he could still recall feeling faint tremors in the ice from the nearby HYDRA camp. Perhaps as part of his previous brainwashing, he had instantly recognized an emergency distress signal when he emerged from the permafrost. His only regret had been not being able to keep pace with the responding nuclear submarine that could have led him closer to the mainland. But perhaps he could access logs of where the distress signal had come from and trace the location of the issuing vessel?
No, the ocean was impossibly large. He was truly no bigger than the bird he had just impaled with a look. An unexpected crashing wave would end him just as easily. For better or for worse, he couldn't find anyone else, in the same way no one would be able to find him.
The ocean was cooperating now, a smooth gentle roll, broken only by the soft red foam bubbling up from the thrashing of the sharks pulling his vessel an arm's reach away. With their struggling came more curious predators, and with their presence came more strength for his improvised propulsion along the creature's migratory paths. S.H.I.E.L.D. survival class hadn't mentioned that as a possibility either.
Donnie scrambled to his feet suddenly. An item S.H.I.E.L.D. hadn't mentioned as a possibility, yet he was standing in swarms of it from the fish all around him. Terrigen. His mind flashed back to the commander of the HYDRA camp struggling to speak as the air in his lungs began to crystallize. They had been looking for 'Inhumans' and thought that he was one of them.
And more than that, Daisy Johnson had been spotted en route to the HYDRA camp. Apparently Daisy was Skye and had been the one to shoot him in Morocco. The hacker who had visited the Academy with Fitz and Simmons when he had first been experimenting with his cryogenic device. He'd have to thank her in person.
But for now, he could thank her interest in tracing the catalyst for more of her kind.
"General Talbot, sir?" The officer approached his commander on the bridge of the Lemurian Star holding a tablet quickly filling up with alerts.
"Not now Colonel, I have to answer President Ellis soon." Talbot barked, pacing in front of the blank array of remote meeting cameras and screens.
"I need your permission to change our ship's course. The sensors that black operations team left behind are detecting a spike in a dangerous substance called 'Terrigen' and a warning about...weather patterns," the officer did a double take. The Lemurian Star was designed as a mobile satellite launch platform, capable of operating inside a hurricane if need be. Why would a common storm be listed at a higher threat level than the torpedo that had landed just days earlier?
The general finally turned away from the screens to face him, just as the face of President Ellis appeared expectantly. The Colonel's eyes widened as Talbot told him off, unaware of his audience,"Terrigen is the Advanced Threat Containment Unit's business, forward it along and get off my bridge!"
"Actually, general, I'd like for terrigen and Inhumans to be your business going forward." Ellis repressed a soft smile, as Talbot's back managed to tense even tighter and the man swiveled in his polished shoes to face him and salute. In the background, the Colonel fled the bridge, leaving behind the mobile device. Good, Ellis thought, Talbot would need it after this call.
"At ease." Taking advantage of the general's stunned silence, Ellis continued, "The international community is a fragile house of cards that needs to be kept together throughout these new Inhuman discussions. And we need to collect as many of the people who can disrupt this balance as we can, and get them on our side."
"With respect sir, my men and I are known for being the one to knock down those card houses. With and against regular humans. Preferably from 50,000 feet, with air-to-surface missiles." Talbot managed, as formally as he could.
"It's interesting you're saying that from a S.H.I.E.L.D. warship, at sea level. I understand you've been working with Coulson recently."
"If I have, inadvertently, it's more that we have common enemies...sir." Talbot tried in vain for plausible deniability. He'd be damned if he had to give Coulson the satisfaction of being acknowledged as his colleague.
"Good, so you'll have no problem working under him for a common goal?"
"Sir, I'm not sure I understand what you're saying." His mind filled with dread. He'd be damned if he had to give Coulson the satisfaction of being considered his supervisor.
"You'll lead the Advanced Threat Containment Unit general. That's an order." the command came through loud and clear on the ship's speakers, but Talbot wished he'd heard anything else.
"I am a brigadier general, sir, I report to the commander-in-chief, not a disavowed civilian."
"The commander-in-chief is ordering you to report to S.H.I.E.L.D."
"Which doesn't exist. Sir."
"It does to you, and will officially continue to do so starting immediately. I'll expect your first assignment with this arrangement to go well. You'll be rendezvousing with Agent Coulson and his team and attending the international symposium in Taiwan."
Talbot's face was priceless, as Ellis went on, "I understand the discussions will revolve around Inhumans, which as the head of the ATCU, you will now be very interested in going forward, indefinitely."
Talbot took a deep breath, rocking in his polished shoes, "Understood. Sir." Well, he'd be damned.
"Thank you general."
The screens flickered off and he turned to look for the Colonel who had approached him earlier. The officer was gone. Smart, he thought, as his cell phone began ringing urgently. If it was Coulson…Talbot prepared to swear at the man who he was sure was responsible for his reassignment.
The obscenities soon turned to ash in his mouth.
The unfamiliar voice had hung up several minutes before Talbot lowered the phone.
Talbot's closest ally and now friend, Carl Creel, looked at the redder-than-normal face of his mentor, holding his phone limply by his side in one hand and a flashing tablet with a fractured screen in the other. If the general realized the force he was gripping with, he didn't show it.
Before he could ask, Talbot answered. "We have some matters to attend to together."