Chapter 10: Not always what we expect
We lightly jogged along the street, hands still linked although our other hands were resting on our weapons. As we reached the end of the street and turned left, we unlinked our hands and slowed down, keeping low. I notched an arrow and Gambit got his cards ready and we slunk along the line of trees. Through the breaks in the cover I could see the ruin of the Soldier's monument. It looked like some of the buildings I'd seen in the Capitol; the style was called Greecian I think. It must have had columns originally, and there was a small spiral staircase leading up to it. The trees ran out about 30 meters before the monument, but just before they ran out, the coverage became very thick. I increased my speed into a slow run and using a bench as leverage, jumped into the canopy of the trees. Gambit stood at the base of the tree and kept guard. I could see from his posture that he was extremely tense; I began to wish I'd never let him form an alliance. If I hadn't, his life would be in so much less danger than it was now. If I failed to end the stimulation, the chances were that we would be dead. If Loki didn't disconnect the stimulation quick enough, when I set it to self-destruct me and Gambit would be blown sky high. I peeked out through the leaves, and couldn't see Steve's team. I connect my com back up, luckily Clint was about to answer it.
"Are you there yet?" He asked.
"Of course I am why else would I be trying to contact you?" I hissed, trying not to alert anyone to my presence.
"Calm down. Sheesh, no wonder you're on Nat's team." I could imagine him running his hand through his hair. It was a habit I'd noticed during training. "So where exactly in the area are you? Are you in the ruins?"
"No I'm up a tree about 30 meters away. I haven't got a visual on anyone other than Gambit."
"So he's still around then? Well good on him. You need to head to the very centre of the ruins. Tony's team is in the north end of the ruins, so if you head straight up the path to the ruins you should avoid them. Stark's set up a system with the com that starts beeping when you're within 50 meters of the central unit. The faster the beeping, the closer you are. Well, that's what I think the idea is. He was speaking tech."
I stifled a laugh. To people who didn't get computers trying to understand is like trying to cook a wedding cake without a recipe. Gambit crouched down, and looked down at him worriedly. He put his finger to his lips, and then motioned towards the ruins. Tony's team must have been on the move.
"Clint I've got to go. I'll make contact once we've reached the unit." I turned the com back off. I silently climbed down and landed lightly of the balls of my feet next to Gambit. I looked towards where he was pointing and saw a group of 3, all armed. Luckily they were heading away from us.
"We need to get to the centre. Let's go." I whispered then began to move. Gambit followed me closely as we traversed the ruins, ducking and weaving through the marble chucks. The sun was low in the sky, which caused the marble to sparkle slightly. It also cast long shadows, giving us places to hide. The beeping began once we entered the ruins, growing more and more frequent as we got closer to the centre. Finally as we got to one extremely large piece, the beeping began to become unbearably high pitched. I gritted my teeth and called the team. I didn't get an answer. I started to panic, and tried calling.
"They're not picking up." I said worriedly to Gambit. He was examining the slab of marble.
"The central unit must be under hear." he said. His red eyes were glowing brightly in the dark. I glanced round quickly, checking for Steve's teams return, and then crouched down to look with him.
"Probably. Should we try and get under it?" He nodded and I moved next to him. We dug our fingers under and on the count of 3, tried to lift. It was extremely heavy but after struggling, we managed to lift it 90 degrees, so it rested on its other side. I brushed away the dirt from under it, uncovering a metal panel. I scrabbled round the edges of it, but couldn't find a handle.
"We need a key." Gambit said. I looked at him, momentarily confused. He pointed to a slight indent in the metal, which was barely noticeable. I ran my fingers over it, trying to get a feel of it. After a moment of thought I realized what the shape was.
Meanwhile, outside the stimulation.
The team took the elevator up to the top floor. When they'd originally started the mission, they'd come up with a code name: the avengers initiative. Natalia had thought of it, telling them her childhood tale of a team who'd saved the world. Even though what they were doing wasn't as big as that, they thought it was pretty cool considering they had the same names. The elevator pinged, and the doors opened out onto Pierce's private floor. In the centre of the room was a table of scared techs who were furiously working on the games. Around each of their heads was a band, with nodes on their temples. Mind control. Pierce was pacing about, talking to the techs.
"Look out the window , you know how the game works: disorder, war, all it takes is one step. After the fall, we rebuilt to avoid corruption. But corruption is unavoidable. It is what we crave, the wrongness of it all. When the general public find out, there will be outrage, an uprising. They will crave revenge, and I will give it to them. They will worship me and I will bring order to the millions by sacrificing a 100. They will be fre-"
"This isn't freedom, this is fear." Steve said, leaving the elevator first. They fanned out, Nat and Clint next, then Bruce and Thor. Tony was with Loki keeping an eye on the systems. Each was armed with their choice weapon.
Natalia smirked. "Sorry, did we step on your moment?" she took out her hand pistols, aimed them at Pierce, and headed over to the central computer which was displaying the games. Currently Tony's team was shown hunting. She began typing furiously as the team spread out around the table of techs and Pierce. Clint trained his bow on Pierce, standing right behind him, while Bruce ducked under the table to disconnect the mind control. Thor stood guard at the door with some kind of hammer while Steve stood opposite, shield in hand.
"Nice little band you've got here. I thought you'd be trouble. You don't realize that all this" Pierce gestured around the room. "Is for your own good? For the world's good? "
"No it's not. It's for your gain. Now shut it down." Steve growled.
"It's too late. Once the games are in motion they can't be stopped and anyway, you need to be alpha level agents to even get past the fire wall." He mocked, arms folded.
"Well it's a good job we've got one then" Thor moved out the doorway to let Fury in. He was no longer in a suit; instead he was wearing a large billowing leather coat and boots.
"It's over Pierce. The games are going down." Fury said, instantly taking charge.
"It's the next step Nick. If you have the courage to take it."
Nat felt a buzzing in her ear but ignored it. Alexis could wait a minute.
"No, I have the courage not to." Fury said, removing his eye patch. "If you want to stay ahead of me, you have to keep both eyes open." He turned to the computer, letting it take a retinal scan of his damaged eye. Clint nudged Pierce forward, forcing him to do the same. Once both scans were accepted a message came on the screen.
Firewall disabled
Natalia smiled at Clint as a small image of Loki and Tony came up on the corner of the screen.
"You're speech would have sounded at lot better if you'd mentioned that we craved subjugation, instead of corruption. A lot more interesting I think." Loki said. Tony grinned, and then pointed a part of the code out to Look, which he edited.
"Sugar, we're going down!" Tony sang. He smiled, and laughed. "Ready to call Alexis up?"
Natalia nodded and connected up the com to the computer. Bruce finished disconnecting the techs and led then out the room to the Med bay.
Inside the stimulation
I reached up round my neck and unclipped the necklace. She placed it within the dimple, but it didn't fit properly. Gambit gently took it out of my hands.
"You have to open it." He unclasped it with a slight click, and pressed against the dimple.
"There was nothing in it?" I asked, surprised.
"No. You've never opened it?" I shook my head. The metal plate made a slight pop as it opened. Gambit unclicked the locket and passed it back to me. I examined the inside and saw he was right, it was empty. Gambit lifted the metal plate and inside was a large bundle of wires. My com then decided to connect up.
"Alexis, its Loki. You're into the system, correct?" He sounded impatient.
"Affirmative." Just as the last rays of light disappeared, I noticed a small golden glint. I searched in the dust and found a tint, golden key. I pocketed the key and examined the wires, trying to find the central power chord.
"You need to get the thin red cable and the thick blue cable, and then connect the endings. You then have a minute to get out of there. "
"I've got it."
I dig through the cable and managed to locate the blue one but found 2 thin red ones.
"Loki there's two red ones. I'm not sure which one to cut."
I heard Stark swear in the background.
"Are you sure?" Loki questioned.
"Yes I'm sure. What'll happen if I cut the wrong one?"
"It'll all blow up in your face and you'll both die, and all our work will be for nothing." Tony took over the com.
Gambit nudged me. "It's this one." He pointed to the one in my left hand.
"Why?" I whispered back.
"The right one has small gold bands around it."
I studied it and couldn't see them. "Where? I can't see any."
"I have good night vision. Here." He placed his thumb nail against one part. I looked even closer and saw in fact, there were.
"You're a genius" I said and pecked him on the cheek. "Loki we've got it. I'm going to connect it now."
I got out my knife and spliced both cables. I exposed the wires and twisted them together. I slammed the plate down, grabbed Gambit's hand and began to run. We ran through the marble, Loki frantically talking over the com to Stark while keeping a countdown.
"15, 14, 13..." he counted down. Then I stumbled and fell, pulling Gambit down with me. My ankle hurt, I thought I'd broken it. Gambit got to his feet, then tried to help me up, but I couldn't. I tried to put weight on my ankle but couldn't.
"4, 3, 2, 1"
A sudden flash and it all went dark.