Self-mAIMing Blitzkrieg
When they reached Ireland hours later, May landed the Bus on an airstrip owned by SHIELD allies. Since the facility was two miles out to sea, they borrowed a boat and set sail. Ward was, as always, alert and cognizant of everything going on around him once the mission began. Surrounded by as much water as they were, they were in a vulnerable position if they were to be attacked at that moment. Armed with the Nite-nite rifle and a spar gun at his hip, he kept shifting his focus from one side of the boat to the other.
"Unless you're worried about a shark attack, you can ease up a little," Skye said from the back of the boat.
"Always be prepared," he replied in a reasonable tone.
She snickered, and he knew right then what he had said. "Boy scout," she teased.
The others shared a laugh as Ward slumped his shoulders and sighed softly. While he may have been a boy scout, which he didn't think he was, though reading the SHIELD handbook for fun didn't do wonders for his claim, he stood by his reasoning. If AIM was as technologically advanced as everyone claimed they were, there could have been latent traps and weapons left over. Of course, that begged the question of what exactly he thought he would be able to do to a highly advanced piece of weaponry with two glorified tranquilizer guns.
He sighed again, which then turned into a deep inhale. The sea air always put him at ease, though he could see why some didn't like it. Simmons looked like she was about to lose a week's worth of lunch in the next few seconds. Coulson was quite a bit better, but he didn't seem like his normal self. Ward shook his head. "How long until we get there?" he asked May, who was conducting the boat.
"A few minutes."
"Right." He tried his best not to admire her from afar. Which was, strangely, not as hard as he thought it would be. Being on a mission helped; if he was too busy concentrating on his assignment, then he couldn't think about how incredible it was that she could fly a plane and drive a boat. …nope. Nice try, Melinda.
In the distance, Ward could see a tall metal platform surrounded by a wooden dock. There were a few empty docked around the platform, but there wasn't anything in the way of people. Ward quirked an eyebrow and pulled a pair of small binoculars from a pouch on his combat vest. He saw the faint traces of burn marks on the black metal of the platform. "We got scorch marks, sir," he reported.
"Makes sense," Coulson replied while loading his gun. "Witnesses near the coast recalled hearing faint explosions out at sea. When we get there, do a perimeter check and then take up point when we go inside."
"Yes sir." Minutes passed and Melinda docked the boat by the platform and then jumped out to secure it. Grant jumped out after her and carefully did a perimeter sweep. He moved quickly, Nite-Nite rifle trained in front of him. Around the corner, what was remaining of a human body, dressed in a yellow hazmat suit, was hunched against the wall. In its hand was a silver handgun, with glowing green modules running along the sides and down the handle. "Got a melted body, and a weird looking gun. Other than that, nothing."
=Alright, leave it for now and we'll check it out when we're about to leave. Fitz got the door open.=
Grant nodded, even though he knew Coulson couldn't see and walked around to the entrance. Inside the entrance was a path that led directly to an elevator; a few feet inside the door were a pair of mangled and melted pieces of metal, one on each side and about seven feet tall. "Some kin' ay scanner, mebbe," Fitz offered as he took a closer look. The others walked into the elevator. There was something on the wall that had been covered with yellow spray paint.
The elevator shaft transitioned from metal to glass about halfway down, revealing the underwater life under the surface. Along with the sea life, the twisted, mangled husked of metal vehicles were collected near the bottom of the platform.
"Ward, take point. May, bring up the rear," Coulson order once the elevator stopped. "Get on a terminal, and see if you can find anything, Skye."
It was quiet. The once, assuming, busy research installation was a veritable ghost town. The soft ticking of a clock on the receptionist's desk in the corner was the only sound not being made by the team that Grant could hear. While he was hoping to find some kind of survivors, he hoped he didn't with as many bodies that were on the ground.
Cameras lined the corner between the top of the walls and the ceiling. If they were still working, Skye should have been able tap into them and find out just what happened here. Because it looked like a war tore through.
Grant watched Skye finally stalk into a nearby room and sit behind a computer, with May close behind. "I'll go ahead and check things out, sir."
He and FitzSimmons walked around the corner and tiptoed around the abundance of dead bodies littering the floor, all of them dressed in the same yellow hazmat suits. Most of them were missing one or more limbs, with a few actually missing parts or all of their head. Silver or gold rifles with unlit modules were laying nearby. "Bloody hell… what happened here?"
"They said that the facility was attacked, just not how badly." They followed the trail of bodies deeper into the building. The further in they went, the denser the collection of bodies became. Corpses were collected in the halls, adjacent corridors and within doorways that were lined along the wall. Grant peeked his head inside one and raised an eyebrow. "Fitz, did Coulson say what kind of facility this was?"
"A research facility. He didne say whit they were researchin', which has me worried." Leo took a look inside the room and gasped. "Och mah God! Is 'at a gravimetric frequency acceleratur?!"
Granted frowned and looked at the large machine in question. "A what?"
"A gravimetric frequency acceleratur." Fitz approached it and took a close look into all of the inner workings of the machine. It took a while before he realized that Grant still wouldn't know what that was. "It, ah, increases th' pull ay gravity ower a given area. Ohhh, do ye realize th' level ay technology that's needed to make a machine ay thes size an' complexity?! Bide, thes is a electromagnetic degeneration sequencer! Ooh, is 'at a universal polarization engine?! Mah God, I've died an' gain to heaven!"
Grant rolled his eyes and walked out of the room. Fitz was smart enough not to incinerate himself while messing around with all of that stuff. "Aw, isn't he just adorable when he's like this?" Jemma asked dreamily.
More like neurotic. "Adorable isn't exactly the word I'd use." They walked through a few more labs and found the same thing. Technology and machines that he had no hope of understanding filled the majority of them, along with a number of dead bodies. Whatever force AIM sent after this building had been incredibly thorough.
"Oh, look." Grant looked up and saw a massive hole in the wall at the end of the corridor. None of the other rooms had much damage, much less holes where their doors should have been. "I reckon that whatever they were after was in there."
"Makes sense." Jemma started walking toward it. "Wait, get behind me," Grant warned.
"Oh, relax. I doubt that anyone is actually still here." She strode inside the hole and nearly jumped out of her skin. "Oh bloody hell!"
Grant hurried and rushed passed her. "What the shit?" Inside the room, the empty room, was the massive, impossibly large head and relatively flyspeck limbs of MODOK laid on the side of his head, seemingly unconscious. Streaks of blood and some other greenish fluids leaked from his nose or mouth, as well as from various cuts and burns along his face.
"Is that… MODOK?" Jemma asked while she huddled close behind him.
Grant took a deep breath. "Yeah, I think so. Coulson, we found Tarleton."
=MODOK? Crap. Do not engage him. Wait for us to catch up.=
"I don't think that'll be a problem. Looks like he's unconscious."
"Hey, look." Jemma carefully tiptoed along the wall, around and away from MODOK's unmoving mass, until she reached the far side of the room. "This corner is slightly darker than the rest of the floor and wall."
"Think something was over there?"
"I think so." Jemma pulled something out of her pocket and began to scan the area. Grant eyed MODOK warily, and then turned when four sets of footsteps reached the doorway.
"Whoa, he's somehow uglier in person," Skye commented. She tried to get a closer look, but Coulson stopped her.
"Do not get close," he enunciated. He pulled his phone out and dialed a number. "This is Agent Coulson requesting superhuman pickup, level ultra. Power dampener and an extra extra large harness."
"I found a directory with all the tech stuff that's here. I could go around with Fitz and do a checklist," Skye offered. Coulson nodded. "Come on, Fitz, let's go on a scavenger hunt."
Twenty Minutes Later
Grant and Coulson watched as a group of SHIELD agents stacked MODOK onto a hover-dolly and transported him into a Quinjet. "How'd he get like that?"
Phil considered Grant for a moment before answering. He sighed. "AIM isn't too kind to their own if they see an experiment in the making. From what I've heard, they turned him into… that, and tried to use him as a weapon. He turned the tables and fled, which was about the time Killian rose to power. After he was taken out by Stark and Potts, MODOK returned and… well, you know the rest."
Grant pursed his lips. Experimenting on their own… something like that was unheard of at SHIELD.
"That was an AIM facility," Phil added. "Skye found the security footage of the attack. Rappaccini and her people broke in, killed everyone, and stole something that MODOK was working on and got out. Took no longer than ten, maybe fifteen minutes. Fast, efficient, ruthless. We're gonna have our hands full trying to stop her. With MODOK out of the way, she'll likely have all or the majority of AIM behind her."
"What did they take?"
"A transitional atmospheric inundator," Skye answered as she walked up. "Fitz said that it evaporates all liquid in a given radius. Up to ten miles, I think."
Phil and Grant frowned. "We need to find Rappaccini and that machine. Whatever she's planning on using it for, it won't be good."