Ellie hadn't left Merritt Island or strayed away from the S.W.O.R.D. Headquarters since her discoveries over the past few days. She held on tight to what she found and hardly sent any new data over to Layten. It needed to make sense to her first before she was comfortable doing that. The files were sorted on her tablet, ready to be reviewed with the person she was intending to meet with that morning. The person she trusted, more than anyone.
Her emotions were shaky that day. It was an unexpected reaction but she took a moment to refresh in the ladies room just around the corner from the wellness center, which was on the main floor of the headquarters. She was dressed in her best business attire, looking ready to conquer all odds, but she felt like a child. Taking a deep breath and making eye contact with her reflection, she grounded herself. She would be ready to shed this disguise soon.
Walking down the great expanse of the headquarters, she made her way to access the storage down below in the basement. The badge on her lanyard gave her passage through the doors and she descended into its dim abode. The cement corridor was cold, a few lights keeping it lit, but once she reached the bottom, it was bright with fluorescents.
Ellie noticed the very minimal action happening in the storage unit. Perfect. It would be the best place to share information without the worry of uninvolved agents overhearing. She passed a few workers here and there, but there was no one to greet her when she walked deeper into the storage shelves. The basement was under the entire main floor, thousands of square feet large. Checking her phone to make sure she had the right spot, she then double checked the shelf number: LL-03. This was it.
"Excuse me," a voice was heard behind Ellie, grabbing her attention. It was a janitor. "I do believe this cleaning has made me ill."
"Not at all, you're just a bit green," Ellie replied, facing the man and letting the corners of her lips tug upward at the joke. It had been so long since she'd seen him. "Hi, dad."
The janitor straightened, discarding all identity of who he pretended to be and allowed his body to shift back to its original form. A Skrull. Talos. "Drop the formalities for a moment," he said, opening his arms for her.
The child in her resurfaced and Ellie dove into them, immediately allowing her Skrull form to return upon immediate contact. She hadn't dropped her disguise in months. "I missed you," she managed to mumble into his shoulder.
"G'iah…" Talos spoke her real name, pressing his forehead to hers in a ritualistic gesture of affection. "It's been so long." He pulled away, just enough to look at her. "You hardly said anything in your message to me. What's this about?"
"I have a serious case I'm working on and I thought you could help me with something. Did mom come with you?"
"No, I had her stay behind." He answered her apologetically.
Ellie knew that it wasn't essential for Soren to be there but she would have liked to see her all the same. Her mind sidetracked from her mission, thinking of her family. "Where are you both placed right now?"
"We've been all around helping Fury with his next project, but I've been working a bit with Rambeau as a side job."
"You're working with S.W.O.R.D.?" Ellie was surprised.
Talos shrugged. "Not entirely, more of just assistance and trying to keep Fury undercover."
"That's something you're good at." Ellie was glad to hear they were at least seemingly safe.
"But look at you! You've gotten very good at shape shifting," Talos praised. "Your human form is very convincing. Who is it based off of?"
Ellie's enthusiasm came to life as she returned the human disguise, only for a moment. "It's a combination of a bunch of different humans I've seen and admired, like my own invention of some sort. She's a forensic investigation agent for S.W.O.R.D.; I call her 'Ellie'."
"Ellie… So that's what the other agents know you by. Amazing." He patted her shoulder, proud of his daughter. She had grown so much, carrying herself now as a woman and not a child. He could tell she was devoted to her work. The separation had been hard for their family when she decided to serve as an agent, and these thoughts put him back to why he had come in the first place. He continued in a more serious tone. "Is there a reason why we're meeting in a place like this? You're worrying me by being so secretive."
The smile that Ellie had dropped, readying herself to convey the information. "I've been asked to gather all details about these murders that are happening around the world and S.W.O.R.D. is doing everything it can to keep the incidents under the radar, but every person who's been killed has the same name and same story. The only difference is who kills them." She opened up the files on her tablet, swiping through. "None of the murderers were human but they were different each time. One was a Chitauri, another was a Titan… even a Skrull."
Talos froze. He reached for Ellie's tablet to determine that he had heard her correctly. "A Skrull?"
"I had to see you as soon as I found out. I couldn't identify them but our kind have always been peaceful under the radar since we arrived on earth."
"I know." Talos returned the tablet to his daughter, his countenance hardening at the thought of any of their kind becoming murderous to the humans. "When did this happen?"
"A couple weeks ago in Northern Iraq."
Talos cursed under his breath. "You're trying to see if I know of any Skrulls living there…"
"I need something, dad. The energy we collected from the murder scene points to this Skrull emitting the same kind as the other murderers so none of this makes sense, but I just need to know if there's a way we can rule out all possibilities of our kind being involved. I want to solve this case, but I also don't want the humans turning against us."
"Neither do I." Talos thought for a moment. "There's no one we know personally in Iraq, but we've scattered over the whole earth. Our kind could be anywhere."
"We need to identify him. I just don't exactly know where to begin if there's no more information to pull from."
Talos crossed his arms in thought, peering over at Ellie's tablet to look through the information it displayed. There was not enough to give any indicators of personal identification outside of the fact that a Skrull was a suspect. What struck him as odd was that the Skrull was recorded to have been in its natural form and not shape shifted into a disguise.
"Where did you get this information?" Talos asked.
"In the library."
"Could you take me there?" He knew there had to be more. There had to be something else that S.W.O.R.D. collected.
Ellie looked hopeful. "You think you could find more about this guy?"
Unfolding his arms, Talos smiled for her. "It's worth a try, love."
Ellie took on her human form again while Talos beside her shifted into a security guard. They left the storage basement, returning to the floor that held the library. Ellie was back where she had been, gathering information and trying to take further steps. This time, her father was there. With his help, she could make more conclusions, get to the bottom of this.
She swiped her pass at the library entrance and the card reader blinked red. Ellie frowned. "That's weird…"she mumbled, trying again. The red lights returned.
"What's wrong?" Talos asked.
Ellie huffed. "I don't know, this was the same pass I used last time."
"Try again."
Ellie swiped but to no avail. Her pass was denied. Someone had removed her access.
"Hold it." A voice sounded from behind them.
Ellie was startled. Turning around, both she and Talos were faced with a group of other security guards pointing weapons at the two of them.
"My name is Agent Sorensen." Ellie tried to identify her human alias without reaching for her badge, her hands up. "I'm only going about my work. Why are you doing this?"
A guard spoke up. "We know who you are and all Skrulls have been denied access to S.W.O.R.D.'s database."
Ellie's jaw clenched at the realization. Her reports. They had been sent to Layten who sent them to Rambeau. Skrulls were now being monitored thanks to her research.
"Lay off her, boys." Talos lowered his arms, trying to pretend he was only one of them. It didn't do much good.
"Talos, we know it's you, too." Another guard spoke. One that he knew personally.
Talos frowned. "Hey now, that's not fair."
"You impersonate the same human every time."
Ellie clenched her hands. "Just stop! You can't arrest us."
"Action can be taken if you don't comply." The same guard spoke again. "All Skrulls on the property of the S.W.O.R.D. HQ will be instructed to leave until further notice."
"Even if I've been given direct instruction to search this database for answers when I need them?" Ellie wasn't going down without a fight. "Look, I know what this is about but you can't just generalize our kind and kick us all out."
"We don't know what this is about, m'am. We just follow orders."
"Stand down, all of you." Rambeau entered the vicinity, carrying the authority her presence conveyed and making the guards lower any tasers some were holding. She looked over at both Ellie and her father, smiling apologetically.
Ellie's arms dropped in relief. "So you're not kicking us out."
"Not yet." Rambeau winked. "Talos, you're sneaking around without permission?"
He morphed back into his natural form. "Family matters," was all he could think of to say.
...
The guards began to leave for their original posts, making the atmosphere less tense. Both Ellie and Talos were invited into Maria Rambeau's office to discuss what was causing all of the sudden chaos within S.W.O.R.D. Ellie gripped the edges of her tablet. She was ready to say what was needed to the director herself.
"I gave out the order to be on guard for Skrulls when I read your report." Rambeau spoke first, swinging around to her desk and sitting in the chair. Talos and Ellie sat in front of her, the red leather chairs not as comfortable as they looked. "It wasn't in any way to discriminate, believe me. I said the same about the other creatures included in this case. But, I do apologize as I should have clarified the Skrulls who were working with me."
"That would have been nice." Ellie tried not to sound bitter. She wasn't angry but the situation threw her for a loop.
Talos spoke, "Our kind has never once been a threat, Maria. You were there when Carol fought beside us. Why create a precaution now?"
Rambeau pressed her lips together, resting her elbows on the table. "It's not just Skrulls. Like I said, it's for all the kinds involved in these murders. The fact that it looks like these vast alien races have joined together to kill innocents across the whole globe has raised large red flags. I'm taking this seriously."
"So are we." Ellie added. "I'm your lead investigator."
"I know that, hun. You're not the problem here. What happened down there was just a misunderstanding."
"Then how can I be guaranteed success in my mission? With every day that passes, another murder could happen, my people could be framed—"
"You think it's a framing?" Rambeau was genuinely curious.
Ellie sat on the front edge of her seat. "I do, especially with Loki being on the scene of one of the murders when he was never on earth. It couldn't have been him. There's something bigger going on."
"We were only going to the database," Talos added, "to identify the Skrull that was seen in Iraq. I believe it was my daughter's intent to prove this Skrull isn't one of us."
That was precisely the plan.
Maria Rambeau sat at her desk, quiet for a moment. The two Skrulls sitting in front of her were people she trusted and she cared for their race. It wasn't outlandish for them to want the suspicions raised off of any of their kind, but she also didn't want that desire to trump the real reason they needed the case solved: to stop the culprit and keep an extraterrestrial catastrophe at bay, all while preventing the common folk from knowing about it.
Rambeau straightened, eyes locking with Ellie. "Agent Sorensen, I agree with the fact something more is happening than what we first anticipated. Your findings that Agent Boldt sent me were enough to make that abundantly clear. I want to work directly with you on this case. My fear is that it isn't just a surface level catastrophe we're trying to prevent, but rather a full on invasion that would affect our whole planet. These murders are just a warning."
"That's how I saw it, too." Ellie replied. "Somehow they were even able to kill a victim while inside the Avengers Facility. We've thankfully secured the Avengers' innocence, but we're clearly dealing with someone very powerful."
"Yes." Rambeau closed the manila folder in front of her. "That brings me to the next request I've been needing to make. Talos, our scouts have found an unidentified substance in the Kalahari Desert and they're bringing it back for us to secure here at the HQ. Fury isn't available so I need you to represent as him. What they found isn't from around here so it may connect us to another lead."
"And what if it connects to our culprit?" Talos asked.
Rambeau breathed, trying to come to grips with her own answer. "Based on what was found… they may be even more powerful than we anticipated."
Ellie looked back down at her tablet. She wasn't alone in this mission now, but it was growing bigger every day. Who were they up against? Why were their people involved? Who would kill only humans named Hope? The more details she found, the harder it was to come up with an answer.