Warnings: Canon-level description of torturous experiments, brainwashing. Mentions of non-consensual drug usage and addiction. Please stay safe.
Still un-betaed. Mistakes remain mine.
For a charm of powerful trouble,
Like a hell-broth boil and bubble.
Double, double toil and trouble;
Fire burn and cauldron bubble.
- Macbeth; William Shakespeare
A few months earlier…
The Reconditioning Room
The Circle
Erich's adjusting the cuffs on the Faustus rig when Jana walks in.
He doesn't have to look over to know that her eyes are tight. She's never approved of his insistence on what she refers to as 'archaic' approaches towards persuasion. He understands her frustration - the secrets of the Faustus program died with Johann Fennhoff - no one knows how it works, just that it does.
And Jana doesn't like anything she can't quantify.
"It's been almost three weeks," she says, launching into the same argument they had this morning. "Even the most stubborn subjects submit within days. It's time you consider other options, Erich. The induced addiction is working wonders on the others."
He shakes his head, increases the saturation levels of the screen visuals. The asset strapped to the mechanism grunts, strains against his single handcuff. Erich is glad he'd had the foresight to fabricate it using the Circle's vibranium supplies; ordinary metal wouldn't have been able to hold their prisoner.
"Addition of external factors might disturb the process; I don't want to risk it," he says, examining the prisoner's kohl-darkened eyes. Gratifyingly, they're completely blank, emotionless, with no hint of the rage and terror that had been present when Erich's guards had first captured him trying to sneak into the base.
His words just seem to incense Jana further. She takes a deep breath. "And I suppose starvation, dehydration and electrocution don't count?"
He gives her a look. "Techniques his mind has already adapted to earlier. Trust in the method, Jana. The Asset's mind will always be malleable to reconditioning; seventy years can't just be wiped away."
She scoffs, turns away, and he won't have that. Out of everyone, he won't have her doubting him.
He turns to the asset.
"Take a deep breath," he says, his voice falling into his best soothing tone as he begins the familiar lullaby.
His words have the intended effect - Jana freezes at the door.
"Calm your mind. You know what is best. What is best is you comply."
The prisoner exhales.
"Compliance will be rewarded. Are you ready to comply?"
The Winter Soldier blinks. "I'm happy to comply."
June 5th, 2025
Aircraft Hangar
The Circle
Isabelle had prepared for causing chaos, not landing in the middle of it.
Wilson's scouting ahead, while she finishes linking F.R.I.D.A.Y. into a console, ears pricked for more explosions deeper into the facility. Flashing red lights illuminate the hangar, accompanied by a blaring alarm that sets her teeth on edge.
Her strategy had hinged on freeing the most essential prisoners first, then using their combined forces to reclaim the facility using a combination of tactics and tech. Plans usually tend to go belly-up when exposed to an enemy, so she'd tried to limit antagonistic contact by giving F.R.I.D.A.Y. access to peripheral systems of the Circle.
Two Enhanced guards had burst in through the doors almost as soon as they'd descended from the Jet. Unlike the ones at the barn, these ones had been out of control, maddened by whatever Paine had done to them, which just made them easier to eliminate.
"What've we got?" Isabelle asks.
"Can't access surveillance cams from here, but emergency logs indicate several Wakandans broke out during experimentation; attacked their captors and are attempting to break into the north-eastern section of the facility."
"Instead of making a run for it?" Isabelle brings up the schematics of the ring, and F.R.I.D.A.Y. highlights the aforementioned section in green. "Must be something important in there."
"IR scans reveal a large number of individuals lying prone. Their core body temperature is very low; dangerously low. Also, I detect an access node to uplink with Circle databanks."
Wilson returns then, and something red, white, and blue at the corner of her eye splinters her focus. Her head snaps up, the vision in front of her confirming what she'd already known.
Her stomach drops.
There's a very familiar, vibranium shield on his arm.
The symbol that had brought decades of ruin to the Stark family, in one way or another. The shield that Steve Rogers had smashed into Tony Stark's arc reactor, almost caving in his artificial sternum; the climax to a massive betrayal.
Her breath hitches and her eyes glow cold for an instant before she reigns back her fury. Sam Wilson is not Rogers, though the juxtaposition rings hollow when she remembers that he may well be when one considers his myopic and borderline sycophantic devotion towards the former Captain America.
"Is there a morgue in the facility?" she asks coolly, forcibly wrenching her mind back to the present.
"There is, but that ain't it." Wilson's fingers tighten around the shield as he stares at the north-eastern section. "Prisoners must still be alive; the escapees are trying to get to them, but that sector is heavily sealed. You carryin' any tranqs with you?" he asks, apropos of nothing. "I'd rather not draw blood."
The very obvious change of topic makes all the hairs on the back of her neck stand on end. She chooses not to call him out on the prevarication… for now. "Rear cabinet," she nods to the Quinjet. "Pick some I.C.E.R. grenades too, while you're at it."
Isabelle eyes the console as he scrounges for the weapons, mapping the quickest route to the prisoner's sector. She accepts the grenades he holds out, slipping them into her utility belt. "Non-lethal strikes against any Wakandans we encounter," she agrees, locking eyes with him.
"But all others are fair game."
Operating Room
There's an intruder in the systems.
When Erich had first boarded the Circle, he'd found to his immense annoyance that his best hacking experts couldn't crack the firewalls Princess Shuri had built. After a month of a combination of subterfuge and brute-force methods, they'd finally managed to gain access to a few of the systems.
It is ironic, then, that he finds himself grateful to the same defenses, which are now repelling every attempt made by Stark's A.I. from gaining access to the essential systems. But they're not infallible. It will eventually get through.
"You need to rest," Jana says. The grooves on her forehead are deep, but her hands are steady when she hands him the medication. "Even minimal stress can cause unforeseen complications."
He waves away her concerns but downs the medication gratefully - his head does ache. The surgery had gone perfectly; according to all scans, the abnormalities in his brain have completely disappeared. Shuri's miraculous formula had worked even better than expected. But " - we have bigger problems."
As though prompted by his words, another distant explosion rocks the facility. The walls shudder with the impact, and Jana jumps when one of the beakers slides off the countertop and smashes on the floor, but other than that there's not much damage. For now. "How'd they escape?" he asks.
"Miscalculation on the red sand dosage," Jana replies grimly. "The rebels managed to overcome the restraints, tore through the staff on duty."
"And the Asset?"
"I sent him to deal with the Wakandans in the southern section," she says, her expression morphing into something approaching grudging respect. "The reconditioning worked even better than expected. But the situation is spiraling out of control, Erich."
Poor Jana. She is a brilliant scientist, but she has never had it in her to lead, to enforce the necessary control - which is the main reason he'd recruited her; working with the massive egos of Strucker and List had been a nightmare. It's unfortunate, that the rebellion had occurred just when he'd been incapacitated, forcing Jana into a role she'd never been trained for because her lack of… initiative may have cost them a lot more than he's willing to admit.
"If the insurgents manage to regain control of the core…" she is saying.
"They won't," he insists, turning back to the console, fingers flying across the holographic keyboard as he tries to find a workaround through the defenses. "We've had to put down rebellions before; this will be no different."
Containment Chamber
She bursts through the double-door and punches the first guard before his fingers can wrap around his holstered gun. Evading his clumsy attempt at retaliation, she grabs his gun, ducks under his arm, and shoots the second guard in the kneecap, then dispatches the first one with a couple more strikes.
Wilson dispatches the third guard with a wicked right hook and three shots to the chest.
His face is stormy; for the past few minutes, he hadn't even bothered taking out the shield while dealing with Paine's guards. F.R.I.D.A.Y.'s route had them reach the prisoner's chambers quickly, but they still had to deal with a few of the escaped Wakandans on the way over.
Despite being an obvious foreigner, Isabelle hadn't been the one the rebels had targeted. Wilson's neutrality in the coup has had enough of an impact on the Wakandans that they'd recognized him even through the fervor of rage and pain, and had no qualms going against a man they see more as a traitor than a mediator.
She doesn't blame them. Wilson's reticence about the north-eastern section of the Circle had become more pronounced the closer they got to their destination. Isabelle can't quite help the feeling that she's walking into - if not a trap, then definitely something she's not going to like.
Her first impression of the room does nothing to dissuade her of that belief.
It is a large laboratory, visibly curved with an exit on the far end of the arc. Sterile surfaces greet her, and the air is thick with the smell of disinfectant, especially around the operating tables. A heavily reinforced door interrupts the smooth inner circumference of the room, and Wilson immediately heads towards the console beside it.
There's a narrow terminal booth extruding from the outer wall - the access node F.R.I.D.A.Y. had mentioned earlier - and she finishes linking up the A.I. just as Wilson manages to hack through the door.
The hallway beyond is dimly lit with a muted forest-green glow. Long, thick wires run across the floor panels, connected to what look like horizontal cylindrical tubes, inserted horizontally into large sockets built into the wall. The airman immediately heads to the hollow space at the far end, and brings up a console using a series of complicated gestures.
As though he knows exactly what he's doing.
Isabelle's gaze, however, is arrested by the tubes, and a memory tickles inside her mind because this reminds her of something, something she's recently seen.
The realization leaves her hot and cold at the same time.
The omni-tool's scanner confirms her doubts, making her stomach tighten. "Why does a S.P.E.A.R. facility need cryostasis faculties?" she asks, but even as she asks the question, the answer runs through her mind in a series of images, like watching a film reel.
Isabelle thinks of the Peak, where T.A.H.I.T.I. had been revealed to her, and Manswell's Ark. She remembers the Circle's exterior - the six immensely powerful thrusters, the large facilities, the vastly impressive safety measures built into the structures. "The Circle was going to space."
Wilson neither confirms nor denies the statement, but he doesn't need to.
Manswell's Ark being lost had made news just a few months ago, but humanity isn't going to stop just because of one setback. The Gagarin Station is still in its final stage of construction at the edge of the solar system, and other permanent settlements have been deployed to Mars and the Moon.
Is she really surprised that Wakanda would try something similar?
Isabelle really doesn't want to imagine Coulson's face when he realizes what exactly Wakanda was intending to use S.H.I.E.L.D. tech for. "Where were you headed?"
"Nowhere at first - it was just gonna be a series of shakedown runs," Wilson works his jaw. "After the final checks, though… Mars. Maybe further on."
Shuri returned from Birnin T'Chaka then, to send you? He'd asked in the barn. Isabelle should've immediately placed the name.
Birnin T'Chaka - the name of Wakanda's outpost on Mars.
She sighs. It might be paranoia, but this slow-paced assembling of information doesn't let her trust anyone, not Wilson, not even Coulson. She turns to the omni-tool. "F.R.I.D.A.Y., analyze the occupied pods."
"Most of them seem to be Wakandan, skipper, but I'm getting signals corresponding to S.P.E.A.R. inner-ear comms. I detect multiple untreated injuries and contusions, surgical scars, and all of them have track marks." She hesitates then, and Isabelle's blood runs cold. "A few of them have no life signs; Paine seems to be preserving corpses."
Wilson exhales deeply and walks over. "Can we free those who are still alive?"
"I don't know what they've been dosed with, so can't tell if they'll have any side effects."
Isabelle shuts her eyes tight, breathes for a moment, then opens them. "Mission parameters haven't changed," she reminds him. "See if you can bring up identification logs from the console; wake the S.P.E.A.R. scientists. Free the Circle, then we can wake the rest."
She watches him go with growing uneasiness. "You get through Shuri's defenses yet?" she mutters.
"I'm going to need more time. She's really good."
The arc reactor she'd stolen from the Quinjet presses against her thigh. "Will replacing the core help?"
F.R.I.D.A.Y. hums in her comm piece. "There will be a brief period before all the systems reboot and the firewalls come online. I might be able to download something then."
"Do it. I want to know what exactly the Circle was up to."
"Will do."
Cryo Chamber
"Skipper, we have a problem."
"Talk to me."
"There's a group of Wakandan escapees headed your way."
"What about Paine's guards?"
"Dead. Another team is moving to intercept, but they won't get to the Wakandans before they reach you."
She swallows down a string of profanities, looks over to the scientists they'd just emancipated. Wilson's murmuring quietly to them, comforting those whose minds are lost in whatever horror they've witnessed these past few months.
She strides over. "We don't have time for this," she tells him, her voice firm enough to carry over to the handful of scientists shivering beneath blankets. "They're coming for us; we need to move."
"They're in no condition to..."
Isabelle crouches, rummages through the large medical crate at his feet and withdraws a small box of syringes filled with a clear liquid. "Epinephrine shots. Emergency dose," she says, tossing it. "I'd say this counts, don't you?"
Wilson stares long and hard, then finally breaks out of it when one of the agents clutches his arm and nods tiredly, face determined.
Isabelle leaves him to it, makes her way to the terminal booth in the laboratory. Her eyes linger on the blinking console and an idea begins to form in her mind.
Howard and Peggy Carter had had their differences, especially in their later years, but one thing they'd always agreed on was their mutual respect for The Art of War, by Sun Tzu. Even in that, they couldn't completely reconcile, because while Isabelle's father had taken away lessons of warfare and weapons from the text, Carter had assimilated silence and secrets into her organization.
Knowledge that she'd passed onto Isabelle herself.
She closes her eyes.
Begin by seizing something which your opponent holds dear; then he will be amenable to your will.
"F.R.I.D.A.Y., anything from the access node?"
"Paine's been clever; his encryption is entangled with S.P.E.A.R.'s - can't break through one without breaking another. Remnant of his HYDRA days, I'm guessing."
She blinks. "S.P.E.A.R. is a division of S.H.I.E.L.D. though, isn't it?" Her fingers fly across the holographic keyboard.
F.R.I.D.A.Y. catches on immediately. "Might work, unless Shuri's ripped out those too. She's done a number on the other systems. Looks like S.P.E.A.R. really was breaking up with the rest of the band."
"Without going through the proper channels," she murmurs, heaving a sigh of relief when the systems accept her authorization codes. It allows her access only to S.P.E.A.R. systems - Shuri having… reoriented the rest - but she has enough control to cause significant damage.
"We won't make it to the core," Wilson says. Isabelle glances behind him; the agents seem alert and ready, but she knows the epinephrine won't last long - they've got maybe ten minutes. "There's too many of the Wakandans; they'll tear through us just as readily as they'll do the guards."
"I might have a way around that." Isabelle takes a deep breath, and with a sour taste in her mouth, hands over the arc reactor.
He looks at her sharply, so she shrugs, brings up the schematics of the base. "You ever played the board game Rush Hour?" Not waiting for an answer, she explains. "You have a red car, and you have to navigate through a gridlock made of other vehicles to reach an exit."
S.H.I.E.L.D. HQs almost constantly expect invasions, either from malicious groups or well-meaning military personnel, and so they are deliberately constructed like labyrinths, with individual sections that can be locked down. The Circle is no different.
The ring makes it harder to plot a route, but her fingers start sliding over the screen, blocking entire rooms, even hallways. She imagines she hears the distant sounds of rooms, hallways, and sections going into lockdown, forcing the rebels and Paine's men to go down only the path she determines.
"I loved mazes as a kid," Wilson says, staring at the console. "In yours, the exit leads… here, to the containment chamber. For both the groups. You're pitting them against each other." His tone is disapproving.
Isabelle shrugs. "Both want control of the chamber, and Paine's guards haven't been losing lethal force. I say we give them what they want, let them hash it out; while you and the men make your way to the core. Set up a bridge for F.R.I.D.A.Y., she'll help you replace the reactor."
He tips his head to the side, eyebrows squishing together. "This plan not involve you coming?"
She glances at him. "Told you, my mission is and has always been Paine. Easiest way is to free the Circle, get it over to Wakandan soil where we can incarcerate him."
There's silence for a long moment. "Why'd they send you after him?" He asks, apropos of nothing. "Politically risky to have an Avenger on Niganda, let alone two."
Oh, now you care about politics?
She doesn't voice the thought, though, just maintains an indifferent tone as she tries to figure out where he's going with this. "Coulson thought it was worth the risk. Didn't know you'd be here, or I doubt he'd have assigned me. "
"Or maybe… it's because you and Paine have something in common - HYDRA."
She stills for a long moment, then smiles humorlessly. So that's what this is about.
His voice had been noncommittal, but that doesn't mean anything - her fellow S.H.I.E.L.D. agents back at the Lighthouse display cold neutrality towards her just as often as they indulge in passive-aggressive commentary. "You've done your research."
"Wasn't twiddling my thumbs these past few months, Collins. Had Redwing spy on M'Butu's weekly meetings with Paine, heard them talk, put two and two together. He a friend of yours?"
"Never met him." She fights to keep her voice even. "If I wanted to sell you out, I'd have done it by now, Wilson."
He doesn't back down. "HYDRA tends to play the long game."
She bristles, her fingers pausing on the keyboard. "You might not see it, but I did what I had to do."
He scoffs. "I've heard that one before."
"As I recall, you didn't seem to have a problem using that as a reason to break an airport with your posse."
His eyes turn to flint.
"You wanna do this, here?" he snarls, taking a step forward, looming over her. "Fine. Let's talk about the Civil War. Let's talk about how you backed out of the fight. Bucharest, Berlin, Leipzig… I didn't see you there for any of it. Tony got shot in the face, Collins, your husband…!"
Her eyes flash a brilliant cyan. "Don't you dare talk about Rhodey. Not you."
She's shaking now, and her fingers clutch the console, frost spreading outwards as she struggles to swallow the rage and despair before it pours out of her in any icy tsunami.
Wilson looks stricken, as though realizing that he's crossed a line. Remorse flashes across his face, but Isabelle has no empathy for him - someone who hadn't even bothered to know the whole story and had instead blindly followed a man intent on his own agenda.
She slants her body away from him, drawing in slow, steady breaths to control the tremors. "You're right about one thing," she says finally through clenched teeth. "If I'd been there, Rhodey never would've fallen… because I'd have put you in the ice, right next to your heroes."
F.R.I.D.A.Y.'s voice comes through, warning thick in her tone. "Skipper…"
They both retreat a safe distance from each other, and Isabelle turns back to the console, resisting the urge to rip something apart. Her fingers fly furiously over the keyboard. "I don't care if you don't like me, Wilson. But we got a job to do."
After a long time, he nods and turns to leave.
"And the next time you have trouble trusting me… I suggest you remember I just handed over my brother's heart."
Operating Room
Erich keeps his eyes on the screen, watching Falcon lead the S.P.E.A.R. scientists through the maze Collins has constructed. He can feel the tight, taut ropes of his control fraying at the edges, as he watches everything that he's built in the past four months burn.
He still believes he can salvage the situation, even though Jana has already started the evacuation process. His techs are duplicating all their data onto the systems of their getaway plane, but he still hasn't made the decision of whether to transport the hard assets or just create them all from scratch once again.
He finds himself torn, because packing away the crates and barrels of red sand feels like admitting defeat, and despite the danger to his operation, to his very life… he doesn't feel like he's there yet. Instead, Erich feels like he's at the edge of a major epiphany, a way out of this roadblock he's driven himself into, and he can't, he won't leave, not until he finds it.
He turns back to the screen, his gaze lingering on Collins going through his personal logs. He's not too worried about S.H.I.E.L.D. knowing of the work he's done here; let them see what he's achieved, what he has exposed.
His opponents have a solid plan, he admits, unfreezing the S.P.E.A.R. scientists and restarting the offline core of the Circle with an arc reactor, which will allow them to achieve liftoff and even have sufficient leftover energy to direct the facility towards Wakandan soil before it finally crashes again.
He can't even supplement guards to defend the core; the lockdown controls are firmly in Collins' fingers, who's maneuvering his own forces and the Wakandan rebels impressively, leading them directly into the containment chamber even as her allies flee.
Yes, a good plan.
He'd almost be impressed if it weren't for the fact that Collins had essentially provided him the means of her defeat herself.
Erich doesn't like waste, but he isn't naive enough to think that there won't be casualties. This is war, after all.
Jana has strictly ordered him not to tax his body any further, but that's an easy promise to keep. He doesn't have to do much other than march through the digital doorway Collins' access codes have provided and take control of the intercom.
It won't be long now.
Sam sprints through the hallways, the S.P.E.A.R. agents close behind him. Collins had done exactly as she'd promised - cleared the route to the Circle's core. He's glad that the only stragglers they'd encountered so far had been Paine's guards - he can't stomach hurting any more Wakandans.
They're innocents in this; all of them are. Sam's struggling to assign blame to anyone in this entire mess - even Paine had only taken advantage of a situation that had already gone south.
Before all this, before the Battle of Earth… he'd been perfectly content to follow, but ever since Steve went and got himself that life, Sam has been feeling… lost.
He doesn't really know where he belongs.
He stayed in Wakanda after the Blip because he hadn't known where else to go. The color of his skin doesn't really make him one of them. And the Civil War had shaken loose his faith in people. Steve had trusted T'Challa, and Sam trusted Steve, and that should've been enough - but Sam remembers that the Cat King had tried his level best to kill them in Romania and Germany, and had broken the Accords just by granting them refuge in his country.
He can't trust a man whose loyalties are so easily shifted.
S.P.E.A.R. isn't much better, but at least they had just been trying to break the secrecy surrounding what might just be the discovery of the century.
It's why he'd been so torn during the coup.
Hope fills his chest as he recognizes the hallway; they're close to the core. But then the back of his neck prickles, and he stumbles to a halt, and raises a closed fist, stopping the others in their tracks.
For a moment, he thinks he's mistaken it, whatever it is that had raised his hackles, but then there it is again - a faint whine, followed by a crackle - the sound of an intercom.
"Take a deep breath," a gravelly voice commands. "Calm your mind."
Sam whirls at the sound of a groan, fingers twitching at his holster. One of the agents is leaning against the wall, clutching her head, muttering " - no, no, no - " over and over again.
"You know what is best. What is best is you comply."
The words freeze him too, drenching him with a strange sense of deja vu, even though he's never actually seen this before, he knows exactly what is happening. He looks around, his goggles scanning, but Shuri has been thorough; the HUD can't spot the device. He draws Cap's shield, watching helplessly as the commanding voice makes its way into their minds, replacing all thought, all free will except its own.
"Are you ready to comply?"
They still, their heavy breaths slowly calming, and for a moment he almost believes they'll shake it off, but then their heads snap up, and blank, emotionless eyes lock onto him.
"We are happy to comply," they say in unison.
Cryo Chamber
"Download at 76%."
Isabelle's fingers grip the console tight, and she stares sightlessly, drowning out the enraged yells emerging from the corridor beyond the containment chamber with Peggy Carter's voice quoting Sun Tzu to her, as she'd done so many times in her childhood, in lieu of a traditional bedtime story.
In the midst of chaos, there is also opportunity.
The quote trails away in her mind just as a small army of guards burst through from one door, only to run into a smaller but far more deadly force of Wakandan rebels emerging from the other end.
"Download at 86%. Skipper…" but whatever F.R.I.D.A.Y. is going to say would have to wait, because just then, a Wakandan stumbles into the terminal booth, mouth open in alarm. She strikes the gun from his hand, slams her knee into his gut, and smashes his head into the wall. He crumples to the floor and doesn't move.
He is just the first. Isabelle has wilfully cornered herself, and her only advantage is that the two groups are more into fighting each other than her. Her fingers brush against her utility belt.
"93% complete. Stay close to the access node to avoid losing connection," the A.I. warns.
"Hurry it up, F.R.I.D.A.Y.," Isabelle says tersely. The terminal booth has no door to barricade, and anyone with a functional pair of eyes could spot her.
Two guards round the corner, their eyes immediately locking onto her position. She dives out of the way of a red swirling sphere of energy that comes flying. It strikes the wall directly above the console, throwing sparks everywhere. In response, Isabelle shoves out a hand, and a wave of water erupts from her palm to strike them directly in the chest, sending them flying backward.
The thunderous crashes of lab equipment and enraged yells of the mob muffle the sound of them hitting the ground. But more guards have spotted her now, and she backs to the console as they stride towards her, rage brimming in their bloodshot eyes.
She engages them in close contact to avoid being victimized by their telekinesis again. Besides the powers, they don't seem to be all that well-trained, so she's rapidly able to dispatch them without sustaining more than a few bruises.
"Data mining complete. Now archiving and analyzing."
"Send it to Coulson as soon as you get a stable connection," Isabelle orders rapidly, before withdrawing one of the I.C.E.R. grenades from her belt. With a flick of her thumb, she arms it, breathes for three seconds, then rounds the corner of the entrance and tosses it right into the middle of the horde and then throws herself back in.
Out of the corner of her eye, she sees the exact moment of the impact. A blue wave of energy erupts from the grenade, knocking both the groups back forcefully.
She gives herself a few more seconds before finally pulling herself up. The blast seems to have knocked out most of them; some of the Enhanced are actively fighting against the dendrotoxin, struggling to move, before finally succumbing to the blue veins creeping up their necks.
"You get anything from the terminal?"
"Last known location of Erich Paine - an operating theater in the eastern sector. Apparently, he was experimenting on himself with Shuri's 'miracle, which he managed to replicate. According to the footage, he's still there."
She makes her way to the exit. "Alright, send me the locus. Think it's about time..."
The rest of her words are muffled by the weight of a heavy hand on her shoulder. Instinctively, she dives and rolls, sweeping her feet, but the Enhanced is too fast. He shoves a hand towards her and she's not able to avoid the sanguine bubble in time. She's hurtled backward, but doesn't hit the wall like she's expecting to; the energy had thrown her right through the doorway instead.
Isabelle pulls herself up with a groan, barely registering the beep her omni-tool gives as F.R.I.D.A.Y. forwards her a location. Her eyes lock onto the Enhanced who is rapidly striding over to her location. There are no blue veins on his neck; either he must've avoided the blast or shaken it off. Neither option is appealing.
She scrabbles upwards as he rushes her, evades his outstretched arms then sprints down the corridor. "F.R.I.D.A.Y., lockdown!" she yells as she spots a bulkhead, which immediately responds by sliding downwards with an ominous groan.
She realizes immediately that she's miscalculated; the bulkhead's dropping too fast, she isn't going to make it in time.
The guard is faster than her, his thickset fingers brushing against the hood of her suit. Isabelle cries out as he tries to yank her backward, sweeping her palm instinctively. A thin sheen of ice forms beneath her feet, and her boots skid on the slippery floors.
His grip loosens, and she wriggles away and lets herself drop, using the momentum to slide across the floor and clear the section just before the bulkhead slams shut with a resounding thud.
Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. Context
Faustus Rig/Johann Fennhoff
A brainwashing device employed by HYDRA. Johann Fennhoff, a character introduced in the unfortunately short-lived Agent Carter TV series. His codename is 'Doctor Faustus' and he can hypnotize people to do absolutely anything. He was imprisoned, then came in contact with Arnim Zola, and that partnership I suspect brought a lot of pain to HYDRA's enemies.
The brainwashing activates with variations on these words - 'Take a deep breath. Calm your mind. You know what is best. What is best is you comply. Compliance will be rewarded. Are you ready to comply?'
Chilling.
I.C.E.R. Grenades
Tranquilizer grenades, work on the same principle as the I.C.E.R. weapons, except these are AoE attacks.
Mass Effect Context
Red Sand
In canon, the red sand wasn't created until much later, but as always, I'm shifting events and dates so it suits my fic better. Instead of having faceless criminal triads on Mars come up with the drug, I decided to have the threat much closer to home, with the creation of the red sand an unexpected, but not unfortunate (at least, for Erich Paine) side-effect of an experiment.
Birnin T'Chaka and Wakanda's Involvement
I've made significant changes to canon with regard to these events. In ME canon, the ESA was the first one to place a permanent settlement on Mars (Lowell City) followed closely by the UNAS and China. And in Marvel comics canon, S.P.E.A.R. and its HQ, the Circle are also Chinese.
But since I wanted Wakanda involved in this from the very beginning, I decided to use them instead of adding unknown Chinese elements from the comics. Having a Wakandan outpost on Mars will play a major role in upcoming chapters.