Chapter Five
For added fun open up the song 'The Fight Will Be Your Own' by Steve Jablonsky (Transformers: Dark side of the Moon [The Score]) in itune or on youtube. It's great to listen to while reading this chapter! Enjoy!
I took in a deep breath, it was all I could do. I couldn't be sad about it, I couldn't join in with everyone else and pay tribute. I had to stand, emotionless, on duty and protect the 'genius's' that had gotten everything so wrong. I was angry (rather than sad), why didn't they let me say good-bye?
"It didn't work because he didn't have your blood." Paris said to me oddly when she caught me eyeing off the memorial every now and again, "Don't stop exercising. We might need you again." her words were completely devoid of emotion. She was taking this harder than everyone else.
"I've known him ever since we worked for this joint. Fresh out of college, top of our years. We weren't just friends." she teared up, staring down at her hand. Somehow I had passed over this gigantic detail. On her ring finger was a small silver ring with an eccentric sparkling diamond in the center. I couldn't help but cover my mouth in shock.
"Engaged?" I wrote down on my note pad. She nodded regretfully.
"The whole silent treatment thing was an act. S.H.I.E.L.D. prevents colleagues from entering romantic relationships. That's why Georgio was so happy he thought he completed the experiment, he thought that once we were done here we'd leave and get married."
"I so sorry." I scrawled.
"Don't be. It's not like it's your fault or anything." she sighed, before walking off.
Fury, bless his soul, decided not to close down the project understanding what an insult to Georgio's memory it would be. There was no funeral held, working on Project X became high priority. Day and night everyone worked double time. Testing, analysing, treating, manipulating the serum. One of the older scientists, Craig Jefferson, sudden had an uprising a week later.
"This is all wrong. That serum should have worked. Everything about it from the theory to the formula was right. If something went wrong, it wasn't the right serum!" he protested.
"What are you supposing old timer?" Paris shouted angrily.
"Someone switched it. They had to!"
"Hold your tongue!" shouted another analyzer. After a few more shouts and insults Jefferson went back to his station, cursing under his breath.
Something he said was right though. Georgio was no fool, so how did his experiment go so wrong? The side effects were amplified rather than diminished. Almost like a concentrated version of the drug. I didn't know an awful lot about medicine or biology but something was fishy.
Our project wasn't the only one under close guard. The Tesseract room had been busier than usual lately. It had been putting off unusually large energy readings. I had been speaking with Clint a lot. He sat up in the perches of the room's awnings, awaiting trouble. Occasionally, when he was done, he'd hang around with me until my shift was over. He couldn't tell me everything but what he did was extremely interesting. While Fury sat back and overlooked every operation in this joint, Clint and I were slowly trying to work out his major plan. Weaponry. It had to be it. S.H.I.E.L.D weren't exactly peacekeepers, so we doubted they would use it to cure the worlds energy problems. Warfare and fire-arms had to be the answer.
Late one afternoon, while on duty, I was sitting in with Paris as she worked on Georgio's formula. Clint was sitting up in his usual place, watching like a hawk. I stared up at him through the glass and waved, he saw and winked back, cautious not to loose his balance. Down below someone had begun to shout and point at their computer screen and an older looking man ran over to him, his name tag read 'Erik Selvig'. There was an exchange of unsure glances before the older man slammed down a big red button.
Instantly a siren was sounded. Loud, piercing and repetitively annoying. Paris almost jumped out of her socks with fright.
I looked back at Clint and mouthed "What's going on?" and he shrugged in response.
"Come on Coulson, we've gotta go!" Paris shouted beginning to pack up her stuff. I still wasn't aloud to talk, but stuff it!
"I wanna... stay and... watch." I said rushing into a corner from which I could view everything secretly.
"That alarm means danger! Serious danger. Time to go!" she commanded trying to pull me away.
"Paris. No one's going to come past here and check on us. Don't you wanna see what they're hiding?"
"Hiding? HIDING? This is an emergency evacuation. We need to leave now!"
From my hiding spot I could see Fury entering the facility commanding people left a right. He silenced everyone and walked slowly towards the blue cube. It was glowing and flaring sparks, when all of a sudden it stopped. Everyone was staring at it, even Paris had hushed to see what was going on.
WHOOSH! went a blue laser-like beam from the Tesseract towards a platform at the end of the room. Slowly but ever so surely a figure of a man appeared at the end of it. Then the light stopped. The crouching figure rose and stood tall, observing his surroundings. He wore odd clothing— regally dressed with armour on his shoulder and wrists. Fury began to speak to him when suddenly, a giant staff materialized in the strangers hand and shot him backwards. Clint jumped down from the rafters and prepared to shoot, when the man tapped him on the chest with his staff. Clint's eyes glazed over blue and he froze in his spot.
"What the—," Paris began to say and almost as if the man had heard us, he fired a plasma blast our way, throwing us backwards in a sea of fire. My eyes burnt in pain as heat began to build around me.
"... Paris!" I coughed, on the ground. I tried to shield my face while look for my fallen conrad.
"Over here!" squeaked a tiny voice. From underneath a fallen cabinet, lay an injured Paris. The contents of the shelf had been broken and it sent a burning, fleshy smell around the room. She was dying.
"I'll lift... it!" I said rushing over and trying to get it off of her, "Come on. Come...on!"
It wouldn't budge.
"Emily. Stop. It's not going to shift." she said through clouds of tears. I knelt down in front of her and held her hands in mine.
"I'll be here." I said, trying not to tear up as well. She was silent for a moment, before she started to pull her ring off her finger.
"I want you to have it, but not for the reasons you think." she began as I tried to push it away, "Jefferson was right. Someone did tamper with the tests. I tampered with them."
"What about your dream to get married?" I asked, shocked.
"There were more important issues at hand. Georgio told you about how they planned to make an army of super soldiers? It was wrong for them to do that," she paused taking a harsh breath, "Georgio's formula was one hundred percent accurate. But if he was to succeed it would be morally wrong. He may have not agreed with using you as the test subject, but I do. Emily. I've watched you and learn't about you from a distance and you are exactly the person we need. If it works, it'll work on you!"
"What has it got to do with your ring though?" I said as a loud humming noise started from back in the Tesseract room.
"It's a key," she explained pointing behind her. Sure enough, where the cabinet used to be, was a small safe in the side of the wall. I held the ring in my hand but didn't let go of Paris. I promised I would stay with her until the end.
"Get it." she yelled at me frustrated. I rushed over to the safe and quickly slotted in the ring to the key hole. It fit and swung open straight away. Inside sat one small green test tube with a syringe next to it. I looked back at Paris and noticed her stillness.
"Paris? You still with me?" I called. There was no response and I grabbed the serum and rushed over to her.
"PARIS! STAY AWAKE!" I screamed at her and she opened one eye.
"I want to see. Emily this is your destiny." she whispered, eying off the serum in my hand. I couldn't deprive a dying women of her final wish. Staring down at my hand I steadily placed the tube into the syringe and held it towards my arm. Paris had a gentle smile on her face and she closed her eyes, no longer able to carry on.
I jammed the needle into my arm and allowed the serum to flow into me. It burnt and tingled near the point of injection, but the real pain was when it reached my brain. Like a thousand needles piercing my skull, it worked it's way into each crevice and hole. Every memory I had ever experience was played out a thousand times a second and my vision blurred and sharpened un-explicably. Paris and Georgio's face were there the whole time. Holding hands, the two smiled at me.
"You can do it." Paris muttered.
"You were made for this." Georgio encouraged. The visions stopped and I focused, two hands firmly on the ground I breathed hard and heavy. Every part of me ached and all I wanted to do was make it stop. But I lingered on.
The humming from the Tesseract room was now a loud whoosh. It tingled my ears and evoked my senses. I managed to fumble over to the broken glass to look inside. Unsure whether I was seeing things or not, I ogled at the giant portal opening up in the roof of the room. I was getting larger, but it was self destructing— unable to hold itself. It began to fold in on itself and I braced for impact.
As if in slow motion the portal exploded sending shockwaves through the air and towards me. I covered myself as the energy hit me and flew me back through an adjacent wall with tremendous force. My body was fatigued and the last thing I remember was slabs of concrete coming towards me, not thrown but floating, encasing me in a grey tomb.
