Chapter 28: The Raid
The HYDRA base was in what seemed to be an old textile factory. The rest of us crouched in the trees around the base, watching as three HYDRA guards circled the building on patrol. They were completely oblivious to Yori standing on the roof, hanging off the edge to peer into the windows. She straightened up and remained perched on the edge, waiting until the guard passed beneath her. She leaped over the edge and in a few smooth strokes was at the edge of the field. She ducked behind a tree and slipped over to us.
"Five guards circling," Yori explained. "About twenty-five to thirty inside. This place seems more like a warehouse than a factory," she explained.
"Weapons?" Steve asked
"Rifles," Yori said with a shrug. "Nothing too exciting."
"Good. We're all clear on the plan?" Steve asked.
"Find something, make it go boom," Dernier said happily. The rest of us grinned at the pyromaniacal Frenchman.
"In a nutshell, yes. Yori, can you handle the guards?" Steve asked. Yori looked outright offended at him asking. She kicked off the ground and took off, flying back over to the top of the warehouse.
"I think you hurt her feelings," Bucky said, slapping Steve on the back.
"Everybody ready?" Steve asked, looking around at us all.
"Born ready," Dugan said as the rest of us nodded.
"Then let's move."
Steve and the others moved off. I started to follow them, only to have someone grab my hand and tug me around. I spun on one foot haphazardly, breathing in the scent of Bucky.
"Wha- Mph!"
Bucky's mouth was slanted over mine. It was barely there, just touching for a moment, but I made my head swim dizzily. He pulled back and I gaped at him. I licked my lips. My mouth watered and my stomach flipped as I tasted him there.
"Just in case," Bucky whispered earnestly, cupping my face in his hands and briefly leaning down to rest his forehead against mine. "You ready?" he asked, adrenaline starting to spark a fire behind his eyes. I imagined mine were doing the same as I felt the energy flood through me as well.
"Born ready," I replied with a bit of a growl as he let go of me. With nothing more said between us, we joined the rest of the team at the edge of the tree line.
Dugan and Morita lead the assault, opening fire on the guard who was walking around the front of the building. He dropped, riddled with shotgun pellets and rifle rounds. The other two presumably headed towards the sound of the noise as we sprinted forward towards the door. I saw Yori leap off the building with her blade drawn and guessed that someone was about to lose a head.
Steve raised a foot and kicked the doors. The plank holding them shut snapped and the doors swung open. The men were already firing before the doors were even open. Our group split for cover as the HYDRA soldiers inside got their guns up and ready and started firing back. Steve launched his shield, dropping one. It glanced off of a machine before flying back to his hand. Steve caught it and ducked behind a crate.
Dugan reached for the grenades around his chest. "Bombs away!" he yelled a little crazily and yanked the pin, tossing it into a corner of the building. The grenade blew, taking out part of that corner and sending three bodies flying as smoke and grit filled the air.
I yanked my shotgun off my shoulder and stood half-concealed by a wall, taking shots at the HYDRA soldiers. They were wearing armor though. The birdshot rattled against their vests and some of the pellets made contact with flesh, but it wasn't enough to slow them down.
I tucked my shotgun back over my shoulder and forced a bone from my palm, grabbing my gun in my other hand. I spun out from behind the wall and ran for a machine. I kicked off the ground and landed on the top of it, sprinting along. I hit the end and flipped, flinging the bone at one HYDRA and shooting at another. They both dropped. I landed and yelped as a bullet sliced through my arm. I whipped around and shot the man behind me before throwing myself sideways as another HYDRA agent appeared around a corner.
I popped back out to fire at him, only to see him drop as a shield made contact with his head. I smiled slightly and picked myself up, glancing at my arm long enough to make sure the bullet had gone through before ducking into a hallway for cover and firing again.
Something shattered overhead and everyone, us or HYDRA, looked up to see Yori flying through a window, dragging one of the guards in her tail behind her. She laughed as she swung around, her sword slicing through the soldier. His legs fell to the ground independently of his torso. Her whip unfurled from her fingers and lashed at a pair of HYDRA soldiers who were lining up shots on her. They flew back, their chests laid open by the sizzling line of light.
I heard footsteps behind me and whipped around just in time to catch a fist in my face. My head lashed back. Instinctively I raised my pistol, but my wrist was grabbed and skillfully broken before it was tossed away.
I swung myself into a spinning kick, legs lashing at the head of the HYDRA soldier as my wrist mended itself. He was knocked sideways into a wall. I straightened up and his eyes widened as he saw me.
"Fraulein!" he bleated in surprise before I thrust my palm out. A bone grew from my hand and was forced through his chest, killing him instantly. I pulled my head back, sucking the bone into my palm as I bent down and picked up my gun.
"Yeah, yeah, I'm a girl," I muttered in annoyance as I straightened up, grinning widely.
It was just there, flickering red at the edge of my vision. Tigress was roaring in my mind, urging me to fall totally into an instinctive state and promising me that I could rip through my enemies like paper if I did. I forced her down and stamped a lid on those feelings, pleased as the red receded a little.
I ran around the corner and raised my gun, firing three times and dropping two of the four remaining HYDRA soldiers. The second one was taken out by a shield-thrust from a flying Steve and Yori dropped out of nowhere, cleanly taking off the head of the last one. His head rolled past her feet and she gave it a kick, sending it flying towards a machine.
Steve straightened up and looked at her sternly. "Was that really necessary?" he asked, barely panting despite the fact that we'd just come through a firefight.
"Extremely," Yori smirked as she flicked the blood from her blade and slid it home into its sheath. "I smell blood, Josie, you okay?"
"Yeah, fine," I said, looking down at my arm in annoyance. The wound was already healed but there was still a hole in my shirt and a bloodstain. I had a feeling that I was going to lose a lot of good shirts to similar situations.
"Everyone scatter and look for intel," Steve called and received shouts back from all around the factory as the team got to work.
Yori snickered and glanced at Steve. He looked down at her, smiling sheepishly as she deepened her voice and mocked, "Look for intel?"
"Too much?" Steve asked wryly.
"Just a tad," she said as she turned to face me. "Come on, let's look at the offices," she said, nodding to the hallway behind me. Her eyes widened and she didn't even have to shout a warning before I heard the dragging sound. I turned around and fired instinctively.
The man I thought I had killed had dragged himself out of the hallway and, gurgling his way toward death, had raised his sidearm at the back of my head. My shot got him right between the eyes and he fell back, staring at me unknowingly.
I was panting as Yori moved to my side, placing a hand on my shoulder. "You alright?" she asked in concern. I nodded, eyes still fixed on the man's face.
I'd killed men in the raid on HYDRA trying to get Bucky free, but I'd never stopped moving then, never seen their faces. This man I had. I could see his blank blue stare fixed on my accusingly. You did this to me, his sightless eyes seemed to say. You did this.
Yori stepped between the corpse and me, grabbing my face between her hands like Bucky had done earlier. She looked at me with intent red eyes, jerking me out of my stupor.
"Your or him," she whispered fiercely. "You or him, Josie. This is war. It's survival of the fittest here. You know that."
I did, I just needed to be reminded of it. A sense of acceptance settled over me, wiping away the horror. I wondered if my animalistic instincts kept me from really minding that I'd taken a life. I wondered if that made me less than human. I wondered if I really was the monster Schmidt had called Yori. I wondered a lot of things, but I pushed them all aside as I followed Yori down the hall to the first office.
I tried the door and, seeing as it was locked, kicked it open. The door banged against the wall as Yori walked inside. She moved immediately to the filing cabinets and I headed to the desk, opening drawers and rifling through paper. Most of it was paperwork left over from when the factory was operational, but there was one drawer that was locked. I forced a knife of bone from my palm and slid it into the gap between the drawer's edge, using it as a lever to pry the thing open.
It sprang out, revealing a stack of papers. I looked them over and realized they were shipping manifestos. I pulled them out and folded them up, shoving them into a pocket on my cargo pants. The filing cabinet slammed shut behind me loudly. Yori threw up her hands in annoyance.
"It's all from the factory," she explained. She nodded to the door. "Come on, let's try the other door."
We left the office and headed down the hall to the other door. It was labeled SHOWERROOM. This door, oddly enough, was locked as well. Yori kicked in this door and we both stepped inside. The pair of us took one look at the room and froze in horror.
It used to be a shower room. Now the temperature was turned down as far as possible. The tiled walls and floors were stained with red smears. Four metal tables with white sheets draped over them were scattered around along with standing trays of surgical materials. A table was crammed against one wall and covered in papers.
My heart had stopped. I felt faint with the presence of death lingering in the air.
"We have to look, don't we?" I asked softly, staring at the metal tables. Three of them were occupied.
Yori nodded gently. I yelled over my shoulder, "Steve! Get in here!" and took a deep breath. The smell of rot and decay reached me and I breathed back out. The smell stayed in my nostrils and coated my tongue.
I moved to the closest table and reached for the edge of the sheet. My fingers brushed against hair. I tried to tell myself it was just like the rats I'd dissected in my biology classes. I had no problem touching them. It didn't work though.
Behind me, Yori let out a snarl. "They're mutants!" she roared. I glanced over my shoulder and saw her leaning against the table. On it was the body of a man with hair in an icy blue and white color. His skin seemed to have a fine coating of cracked frost on it.
I lifted the sheet on my table. Under it was a woman with wide, staring purple eyes. Other than that she looked completely normal, just slightly shiny. I touched her cheek cautiously. My finger tingled. I lifted it away and saw a bit of something slimy on the tip of it, eating into my skin. I healed too fast for it to do any damage.
Footsteps out in the hall reached my ears as I wiped my finger on the edge of the cloth and respectfully covered the woman up again.
"Josie? Yori?" called Steve's voice. It sounded like the rest of the commandos were with him. "Where are you? We need to head- Oh god."
I looked up from the woman. Sure enough, the team was clustered by the door, slowly trickling in and staring around in horror. Yori was still leaning against the table where the man laid, her head bowed. Bucky's eyes flicked from the blue-haired man, to Yori, to me, to the other tables.
"Are they all…?" he asked uncertainly, his eyes landing on me. He looked at me pityingly.
I bit my lip, feeling my eyes water, and turned to the final table. I stared at it, but I couldn't make myself walk over and lift the sheet. "Y-Yori I can't," I said thickly.
Yori's head snapped up. She was pale, her cheeks sucked in, but her eyes burned with rage. She flipped the sheet back over the man and approached the third table. I made myself turn away and approach the table where files on each subject and several more were laid out. I picked up the three that seemed most recent. There were pictures of the people clipped inside, but no names. Just numbers.
The blue-haired man was 23.
The purple-eyed woman was 16.
The last file was a woman with ash-grey hair. She was number 8.
"No!"
I whipped around. Yori was standing over the last table with the sheet lifted. On it was the grey-haired woman, pale and cold. Yori's eyes were wide with horror and agony as she stared down at the woman. Yori's hands darted out, cupping the woman's pallid cheeks as she rested her forehead on the woman's.
"No, no, no…. Adairia… No… Kaji…"
My hand came up to cover my mouth as I stared at the woman on the table. Yori knew her, that much was obvious. I tried to imagine what she must be feeling, walking in here and finding a friend concealed under one of those sheets. I tried to imagine what I would feel pulling back the sheet and finding Yori lying on the table. I remembered finding her strapped to a table in the HYDRA weapons facility, but this must be a hundred times worse.
"Yori," I said softly, moving towards her. I reached out hesitantly and placed a hand on her shoulder. "Yori… I'm sorry… She's gone."
Yori's head snapped up and she let out a screech. Not a human screech, the kind a person made when something scared them. It was high-pitched and demonic, a sound I'd only ever heard Yori make. It vibrated off the tiled walls and tore into my sensitive ears. I winced and covered them, taking quick steps back and letting out an animalistic snarl of my own in instinctive protest.
Yori forced herself away from Adairia's body and stalked towards the door, where Steve blocked her way past. "Move," she snarled at him, fingers crackling with energy. Steve shook his head.
"Yori, whatever you're going to do, think about it. Would your friend want-"
"I don't know what she would want, do I? She's dead!" Yori shouted back at him, tears trailing down her cheeks. I stared, captivated despite myself. I'd never seen Yori cry before, not once.
"I know, and I'm sorry…" Steve said. He stretched out a hand towards her shoulder like I had. In one quick motion Yori grabbed his hand and flipped him over her hip, leaving him lying on his back in disbelief as she tore past him. I heard the distinctive hum of her light whip coming from the factory as well as a sizzling, wet sound. It took me a moment to connect the noises.
Yori was letting out her anger on one of the bodies.
"Leave her be," I said softly as Dugan started to go after her. "Go near her when she's like this and she may hurt you accidentally. You're human. You're breakable. I'll go get her in a minute."
Steve picked himself up off the floor, staring at the door with a tormented expression on his face. "If I had known this is what we were walking into-"
"You think we're surprised?" I asked him sadly. Steve turned to me, eyebrows raised questioningly. I gestured to the bodies on the tables. "Why do you think we hide? If we come forward, this is what's likeliest to happen to us. This is our future. You don't understand how lucky Yori and I are… many people don't see people like us as human. We might as well be lab rats," I said.
I turned away from the team and looked back at the files, scanning through them. Words flashed behind my eyes as I read them and burned into my brain. My stomach roiled and I felt physically ill as I read the descriptions and results of some of the 'testing' they'd done.
The scent of death nearly obscured Bucky's as he approached me, placing a hand on my shoulder. "I know it's a dumb question, but are you okay?"
"Her hair used to burn," I said softly in reply.
"Huh?"
I nodded to Adairia's body, and her grayish hair the color of cinders. "Her hair used to literally burn like fire," I said softly, holding up her file. "And that woman… her eyes changed color depending on what she'd coated her skin with, either poisons or acids. That man would frost anything he touched. They were amazing, and their names aren't even in here," I said, gesturing to the files. "I don't know if they had families or kids or spouses."
"Do you think this is Schmidt continuing his work on Yori?" Steve asked, approaching the tables. I shook my head.
"These papers were written by a Klaus Schmidt," I said, pointing to a signature.
"Relative?" Steve asked. I shrugged.
"Maybe, but Schmidt is a common last name. It's just as likely they've never even met. I don't even see anything about HYDRA in these reports, actually," I realized with a frown.
"Do you think HYDRA just gave this other Schmidt… what, lab space?" Falsworth asked, looking uncertainly at the lumps on the tables.
"Maybe, there's no way of telling. Perhaps in exchange for what he could tell them about mutants?" I couldn't make myself look back at Adairia. "What do we do, Steve?" I asked quietly.
Steve bit his lip. "We take the files. We bury them," he nodded to the bodies. "And we burn this place down so no one can ever use it like this again."
