Agent training was only four weeks long, but it had seemed an eternity.
Nick Fury's military experience meant he flew through all the physical tests, coming out top of the four by a distance in anything that required stamina, physical power, or precise shooting.
He'd also performed pretty well on logic puzzles - though he'd not been trained in any form of abstract thinking, he held his own.
But the new 'facts' he was being fed were ludicrous.
American Shield, he'd been told, had been formed during the Revolutionary War, to root out assassins and conspirators plotting against high profile figures. They'd faded from power during the nineteenth century, but eugenic experiments led to the organisation being relaunched, as Super-Human Intelligence, Examination & Limited Defence – SHIELD, in brief.
Fury had been informed that the spaceship - if that was truly what it was - had been discovered buried near the South Pole, by the explorer Roald Amundsen, who had then been recruited by SHIELD.
It was a claim so ludicrous that Fury had flown into a rage against his instructor, asking how dumb SHIELD thought they were, and how they managed to find people willing to silently consume this crap - amongst other queries.
Among the instructors, Nicholas Fury was not the most popular new recruit.
Sweat covering his face, Fury lifted the weights one last time, throwing all his strength into heaving the 300lb high above him, bringing then bringing them down to rest.
Remaining on his back, he panted as Hudson and Callahan, two of his three fellow new recruits, stood over him.
Regaining his breath, he asked a question.
"So, do either of you two realise how ludicrous this place is?" Hudson passed him a towel, which Fury soaked in sweat from his face. "It must be a multimillion dollar setup, to fight a problem that can't possibly exist."
Fury threw and Hudson caught the wet towel - Hudson smirked as he did so.
"I've seen some pretty amazing things. I believe what the directors tell us."
Fury turned towards Callahan.
"What about you? You were stuck behind a desk; do you buy the party line?"
Callahan was a skinny twenty-something who'd came either bottom or very close in all physical tests. But he wasn't especially unfit, and scored pretty well in the puzzles. He seemed to have the respect of Hudson, the most jock-like of the three internal recruits being trained alongside Fury.
Callahan shrugged.
"I suppose. Everything I've seen checks out."
"Blessed are those who have not seen, and yet believe," Hudson grinned.
A blond-haired all-American from one of the mid-West states, Hudson had worn a Saint Christopher medallion on more than one occasion, though Fury had only heard him quote scripture in an ironic context. He seemed to take an un-Christian pleasure in provoking Fury's scepticism.
"How can you just accept what you're told? The things we're being told are ludicrous!"
Hudson smirked, and leaned casually against a rack holding a range of dumbbells.
"Any more ludicrous than a secret underground government facility, with an alien spaceship in a hangar?"
That was his answer to everything.
Fury clenched his fist tightly - he wasn't enjoying being the lone sceptic, but he felt an inarguable urge to get to the bottom of whatever SHIELD was. Besides, he'd resigned his military commission, there was no way back now.
He lifted the barbell above his head, and resumed his presses.
Fury stood, not so much pacing across the empty, windowless meeting room as charging back and forth. Barely twenty foot square, it was too small a space for a physical specimen like Fury to be contained in, and he had nothing to occupy his mind.
The door opened, and Bucky entered, carrying a manila folder.
Fury took his place on one side of the desk.
"Sorry for keeping you waiting Nick."
"Any chance you're going to tell me what happened to the blond technician?"
Bucky didn't look up, his eyes remaining glued to the folder that he held open with one hand, and leafed through with the other.
"I've told you Nick, that's above your access grade."
Bucky spoke in a flat tone – he was a little worn down by Fury's insistence, but found it too routine to be annoyed.
Fury hadn't seen the technician around since he'd shared his observation that she seemed out of place.
Did that mean she'd been detained? Or maybe she'd been fired for incompetence?
Bucky sat opposite Fury, closing the folder and putting it on the table between them. Contained within were details of Fury's first assignment as a SHIELD Field Agent - although he'd been a disruptive influence, he'd aced all the tests.
"Our first target has been code-named The Purple Man."
Fury sighed. In almost every way SHIELD was worse than the army - he was only sticking around out of a combination of curiosity and prickly bloody-mindedness.
"The Purple Man? Why do they call him that?"
Buchanan-Barnes spun the file around, and opened it to the front page, revealing a paperclipped photo.
"He's a man, and he's purple."