THE MYSTERIOUS OBJECT
18 MONTHS AGO
Agent Melinda May was going to an observatory on the remote island in the Pacific Ocean for a routine check-up in a SHIELD observatory. She stopped doing field work, after an incident just a month ago. The whole incident had traumatized her and she didn't want to do any more serious fieldwork. So now, she was assigned to mostly desk jobs, and for check-ups. The facility she was visiting was a major one and could detect objects that other observatories cannot. She had taken a helicopter from the nearest atoll, as the observatory in the island was situated on a hill and was accessible through the air.
She was greeted by a tall African-American with a moustache and a small beard as she got out of the copter. "Agent Melinda May.", he said greeting the agent. "You have a really good sense of timing. I am Benjamin Smith. The head researcher for this island."
"I don't like being late.", May said as she exited the helipad and went towards the observatory. "I take it that, things are going well here."
"Yes, agent.", Benjamin nodded. "There has been no technical problem in this place for two years."
The observatory was a small one, but the purpose of this observatory was really big. This was one of the observatories that were used to monitor any kind of threats from outer space. Though to the outside world, the mainly was for objects like asteroids, but only SHIELD knew about the real purpose. It was to monitor the space for alien threats. SHIELD knew that an extra-terrestrial threat was very real as they had evidence that aliens existed. But thankfully the earth didn't have anything like that till now.
"Welcome to the nimasnna island observatory.", Benjamin said as he put his hand in the fingerprint in the scanner and muttered the words to the voice scanner. The doors opened with a click. Agent May felt that the security was a bit lax and made a note of it in her mind to put it in her report.
The room she entered was a large room which was fitted with computers and had at least twenty SHIELD agents inside. Some of them nodded at Benjamin as they both made way to the main office.
"Make yourself comfortable here.", Benjamin said as they both entered the office. "We will take at most care as to give you a good stay."
"I am not here to have a good stay, Mr Smith.", Agent May said in a serious tone. "I want to make sure that, everything is in order here."
"Yes. Yes.", Benjamin said. "How many days do you think you will be here?"
"As long as it takes to finish my work.", Agent May said.
"Very well then.", he said nodding. "My assistant will take you to your room.", he said and took the intercom to call his assistant. But then, there was a sudden knock on the office. It was desperate and hurried. The director opened the door and saw that, one of his junior scientists was there.
"Director! You have to see this!", the young scientist said.
"What is it, Pete? Some kind of Supernova explosion somewhere?", the director asked. That was the biggest thing that the observatory had picked up till now.
"No, sir! This is something big! It's code A!", the assistant said.
"What?! Code A?!", the director asked with a look of surprise. "Are you positive about this?"
"I think so, sir! Even my senior agrees with the assessment.", the young scientist said. "You should come and take a look at this."
The director started going with the scientist, and Agent May joined them. "What is code A?", she asked the director.
"It means that something is coming towards earth.", Benjamin said.
"But I am sure that, there must be hundreds of objects coming towards earth at a given time. But, what does make this special?"
"Code A is given for events that might be a threat to us, agent.", Benjamin said walking hurriedly. "This is the first time in the history of this observatory that, we are having a code A situation!"
Agent May realised the depth of the situation and followed the director. "What is happening here? Is this just a hoax or something that SHIELD had always feared?", she thought.
When they reached the room, they saw many people standing near a screen that showed a photo of what looked like around space rock. The picture was not clear, so she couldn't make out anything else.
"Sir, we found this when we were looking at the Kuiper belt.", the senior scientist said. "First we thought it might be a space rock, but when we enhanced it, I found this.". The scientist then enhanced the image. May was dumbstruck by what she saw. It appeared as though the object had a glass surface.
"I don't think, that's natural!", Agent May said dumbstruck. "How positive you are about the accuracy of this picture?"
"Agent, I am sure you know that we have the world-class technology here. It's safe to say that, what we are seeing has only 10% chance of error.", Benjamin said.
"You mean-?", Agent May started.
"Yes, we may be facing something big here.", Benjamin said looking at the monitor again.
"That's not the story sir.", the junior researcher said. "We tried to map out the trajectory by using other images that we had and looking for the same pod. It seems our cameras had detected this from last month."
"Then why did not see it?", Benjamin asked.
"Sir, we are going through many amounts of data, and it seems that computer was overloaded and failed to analyse it.", Pete said. "and when we measured the trajectory, we drew it as this."
They changed the picture and now it showed the trajectory. "Oh god. This thing-", the director stared at the screen with fear.
"Yes. It is coming straight towards earth.", The senior scientist said. "and is going to reach here in six months!"
Agent May knew that this was big and she had to tell her authorities about this. She then took her phone and dialled a number. It rang five times, and then the call was taken.
"Hello, Agent May. I thought you were on a check-up mission at the observatory.", the person from the other side said.
"Coulson, we have a big problem here!", Agent May said desperately
