Secrets are currency. Currency experiences inflation. Currency can be faked. Currency can be stolen. Currency can buy people. Things. Weapons. Money. How much is your secret worth?
The secret is out. For decades, your organization stayed in the shadows, hiding the truth. Now we know. They're among us. Heroes. And monsters.
The world is full of wonders.
We can't explain everything we see, but our eyes are open. So what now? There are no more shadows for you to hide in. Something impossible just happened. What're you going to do about it?
Red light upon black metal, flickering on the rhythm of clouds, a dull luminance as the whine of jet engines carried them away from the setting sun. Only five people were on that aircraft, only three of whom were in the cabin. With a blare, the cabin was bathed in red and the aft door hissed open. The billowing noise of air rushing by became deafening. The agent and the crewmember stood up and walked forward. The agent felt the crewmember tug on his straps, patting him on the shoulder and giving him a thumbs-up moments later. The agent flashed him a thumbs-up in return. He listened to the sound of his recycled breathing through his oxygen mask as his visor popped up a communication notification. "Remember, Agent," his superior said from his seat, not even bothering to look up from whatever notes he was reading off of his clipboard, "no witnesses."
Was it good protocol to snort? "No witnesses, aye sir."
The pilot spoke up."ETA one Mike."
The specialist began counting down the seconds. He polarized his helmet. The display dimmed, and the world took on the hue of an underwater light show. From the orange horizon, yellow radiance scattered the shallow distance, baking the ground golden brown. Brief breaks in the cloud cover revealed the terrain. Mountains jutted from the surface, brown and grey, with white touches and a scattered vegetation blob.
"Five, four, three, two, one, deploy, deploy, deploy!"
There was a clunking buzz and the cabin washed away its crimson for verdant green. The Specialist raised his knee and stepped forward. He tipped. He fell.
"Carrier One, this is Quebec Xray One-one, Iron Thief is extravehicular. Mission clock counting down. Going radio silent. We'll pick you up in a few. Stay safe, Agent Ward."
The communications display blipped out and the small burst of static told Grant that he was alone on his channel. He glanced at where the Quinjet might have been, seeing nothing but the slightest haze in the air, fading from his sight in seconds. Grant glanced at the purple sky, narrowing his eyes at the scattered red light from the setting sun. The clouds disappeared and the ground came into view.
"It's beautiful," Grant muttered.
There was an extraordinary sense of peace amid the weightlessness of freefall. Stuck in limbo between the natural gradient of the heavens above and the immensity of terra firma below, baffled by the currents of the wind. One could feel small when your feet were on the ground, but when you were in the sky, when perspective could truly make you see how big everything was, it somehow made you feel larger than life. He was being cradled by the world. His heart pulsed steadily in his ears and he heard his breath reverberate through his lungs. Adrenaline spiked his blood. Time disappeared. Then his visor flashed and he was alerted to the altitude. He was rapidly approaching three thousand feet.
Just like that, a minute was gone.
He pulled the cord and felt an expected jerk push the air out of his lungs and yank him upright, feet toward the ground, as air resistance and drag clashed with terminal velocity and gravity. Now came the wait.
He hated waiting. Being patient was an acquired skill, one he mastered, but it did not mean he had it in his personality. Waiting was especially hard when it was due to something out of his control, something that left him exposed. Like drifting in the wind like a leaf.
It was almost three minutes before his boots hit the ground and he rotated with the impact, scrambling up to retrieve his parachute and get to cover.
With his chute stashed, his gear strapped, his weapon hot, his mission parameters set, and his timeline clock already ticking down, he ran.
Tourist density at this time was low. The sun was setting and most of the visitors, who were local families and were more or less familiar with the area already, went home. The area itself closed down at midnight, but the operation was running against a self-imposed deadline based on half-decent intelligence. The park rangers were scattered across two hundred and thirty-four square miles. The air was cold. It would be colder later. He stuck to the shadows as best he could. Hurriedly unhurried.
By the time he could see the compound lights wash up the side of the mountains, it was well into the night. The stars pierced through the translucent clouds in a way they could never back home. His thoughts returned, the cloak of instinct and muscle memory fading back into the toolbox. He maneuvered himself to a vantage point at the surrounding cliffside above the estate, covered by the bushes. The angle of the cliffs and the background illumination would do the rest. Grant popped the cap open on his rifle scope, preferring magnification attached to a weapon rather than alone.
In the cold of the night, he could hear their conversations as indistinct whispers and feel the vibrations of music playing loudly inside. That was his secondary cover from the chaos he would have to cause. Mostly, however, silence reigned.
Minutes passed as he got used to guard positions and capabilities, as well as tagging guests and areas of interest for further discovery.
"Agent Ward, there's been a development."
Grant blinked in surprise and frowned."Sir? I haven't given any signal yet."
"Change in plans. Get out of there."
"Why?"
"OPSEC has been compromised. You got minutes before the compound is swarmed. Raiders, SAS, PMCs in country, the fucking Taliban. It's the Rising Tide. They've pinned down the location of the package and posted the coordinates online. You got minutes before that place turns into a shit-show fire fest. We need to abort."
"Marines Raiders, sir?" Grant asked as he calibrated his scope. "Can't we call them off? Get them to intercept the more hostile factions?"
"Cross-organization communications are spotty right now."
Grant huffed. "Don't we have the Secretary of Defense on the Council?"
"Point is, things are about to go FUBAR, so get your ass to extraction."
"I can get in and out in five minutes, sir. If things were easy, everyone would do it."
"Everyone is trying."
"I'm not everyone," Grant said, narrowing his eyes in thought. "If the job was easy…"
"Agent-"
"Roger that, sir. Maintaining operational security."
"Watch your-"
He cut off communications, shutting himself away from his allies and his, he assumed, very pissed-off superiors.
But he took that last piece of encouragement with a faint smile on his face.
Grant took a breath in. A variable to the mission parameters, and now his window was drying up. Five minutes. It was a far cry from the original half-hour timeline. They would hold him to that. Extraction was already on the way. He exhaled and the first shot was away.
The first shot took off the head of the guard on the left, his body collapsing onto the balcony. His partner jerked into action, only to have his head snap back as well in the next moment.
With that done, he stowed away his rifle, stood up, and jumped. The wingsuit flaps inflated and he glided onto the balcony, careful not to step into the red. There were two guards inside the room, within his line of sight, submachine guns lazily angled to the floor, protected by thick tempered glass. Fortunately, this piece of special luxury for a well-insulated man also sealed the sound from the outside, and from the looks of it, neither of them was too interested in their current job to give notice to anything else. They were too busy imagining themselves at the party on the floor below.
Too bad Grant was not a party person.
The sliding doors were locked from the inside, with a key in the hands of one of the guards, yet for all that security, there were no cameras. Grant slowly stood up and raised his pistol. He lined up his barrel and pulled the trigger. Impact proof, but not shatterproof, the bullets pierced through the layers and found their marks. Once both bodies were dropped, Grant lowered the pistol and holstered his firearm. Finding key fracture points, Grant broke through the rest of the glass and stepped inside.
He reached the glass display case. On the podium below, he entered a six-digit code. The glass raised on hydraulics with a dramatic hiss. Carbon ice washed into the air. It was a bout of showmanship that missed its intended audience. Grant reached in and grabbed the package, then headed for the roof from the outside. It was a shame that he had to ignore all the points of interest. He would leave that to the Marines.
Automatic fire echoed across the mountains, but it was not coming from him or at him. One of the groups was engaging in a three-way firefight, which would also serve to draw the attention of the other third parties.
He was lucky.
No, he was counting on it.
The firefight in the distance drew the attention of many of the guards within the house.
Grant reached into his supplies and grabbed a thick length of rope, most of what was weighing him down this mission, and popped the device attached to the other end. It instantly inflated and shot into the air, bringing a considerable amount of the rope with it. In the sky, an object revealed itself, angles catching the light below at just the right distance. The jet flew by, hooked the rope, and the Iron Thief was spirited away.
"What does S.H.I.E.L.D stand for, Agent Ward?"
"Strategic Homeland Intervention Enforcement Logistics Division."
"And what does that mean to you?"
"It means someone really wanted our initials to spell out 'shield'." Grant caught Maria Hill's unamused stare, licked his lips, and breathed in. "It means we're the line… between the world and the much weirder world. We protect people from news they aren't ready to hear. And when we can't do that, we keep 'em safe. Something turns up, like this Chitauri neural link-" Agent Ward held up the alien device in his hands and slid it across the table. "We get to it before someone bad does."
Maria stood up and walked the extraterrestrial technology to a safe carrying case. "Any idea how the Ten Rings managed to get a hold of this or what they planned on doing with this?"
"I'll leave that up to you. Maybe you should ask how Ahmad Ali had the capital and influence, and the greenlight, to build himself a mansion in the middle of Band-e Amir, showing off alien tech, no less. But I'm more interested in how this 'Rising Tide' group found out about it. I thought they were just hackers. What changed?"
"Everything's changing. A little while ago, most people went to bed thinking that the craziest thing in the world was a billionaire in a flying metal suit. Then aliens invaded New York and were beaten back by, among others, a giant green monster, a costumed hero from the '40s, and a god."
Grant cocked his head. "I don't think Thor is technically a god."
"Well, you haven't been near his arms."
Touche.
"The Battle of New York was the end of the world," Maria continued. "This, now, is the new world. People are different. They have access to tech—to formulas—secrets they're not ready for."
Grant leaned forward, clasping his hands together, narrowing his eyes a bit at the light. "Why was I recalled?"
Maria pursed her lips and stepped to the side, crossing her arms. "That you'll have to ask Agent Coulson."
"Uh, yeah," Grant smiled sarcastically. "I'm clearance Level 6. I know that Agent Coulson was killed in action before the Battle of New York. Got the full report."
"Welcome to Level 7."
Grant's eyes widened and stood up hesitantly.
Coulson smiled. "Sorry, that corner was really dark and I couldn't help myself." Grant looked at Maria. "I think there's a bulb out."
"Intelligence came down the wire. That," Coulson nodded in the direction where the case was taken, "one thing you risked neck and tail for? Old news. They're setting up an auction down in New York, selling loads of this stuff and more. Looks like Damage Control wasn't doing all that it should have been. Someone's going to have to talk to Stark. Unless he knows. In which case, someone really needs to talk to Stark."
"I think you meant life and limb," Maria interjected.
"What?"
"Never mind."
"When's the auction?" Grant leaned back and crossed his arms.
"Two days from now."
Grant nodded sagely."Do you want me to cross them off?"
"Wow. No. Too many high-profile targets. Brass doesn't want that kind of mess sparking another wave of trouble this close to the Incident. That's a package for something later down the line. Maybe."
"Retrieval? Hit them in transport and make off with the contraband."
"I was trying to make a point," Coulson said, defeated. "The auction has nothing to do with us as of now. No, we want something else."
Coulson brought them to the door. The three of them exited the meeting room and noise returned as agents, researchers, and administrative staff filled the halls, each with their own missions, some as simple as lazing around the coffee maker, others deciding the fate of the world in their compartmentalized ways.
"Sir," Grant took the time to begin, "Do the Avengers know Fury played them like this?"
"They're not Level Seven. Besides, I was technically dead. It turns out, apart from blowing things up, Shield has quite the medical department. I stopped breathing for forty seconds."
"Eight. It gets longer every time he tells the story."
"I saw the bright light. When you get gutted by the space version of Musollini, you get to tell it your way."
"So, the Director fixed you up and, what?"
"Stuck me on some island for rest and rehabilitation. Books and cocktails on a beach, and a physical therapist whose command of English was… irrelevant. Tahiti. It's a magical place."
The trio headed for a nearby data analysis center, enclosed in glass, staining the corner of the corridor blue. Coulson directed them to the front of the room and had videos pulled up on one of the free monitors.
"These videos were taken at scenes that should have been locked down or ones where we should have gotten there first. They all have something in common otherwise."
"Rising Tide."
"Exactly."
"How are they doing this stuff?"
"The same way they broke our RSA implementation. They're good."
"The hackers. Are these the targets?"
"No."
"So, what are we looking for?"
Coulson turned around, a faint smile tugging at the corner of his lips. "Talent."
"With all due respect, sir, you should have locked her up or cut her loose. Having her join the team-"
"She's consulting the team, not in it. Like Stark."
Streetlamps created pockets of light, whisking them along in the dark. The sky was overcast, but far enough from the city, the stars pierced through.
"We don't need a Stark groupie either. She's not cut out for this."
"I think she did pretty good our last gig."
"Sir, she's not a trained Shield agent. She's not a trained anything. At least Fitz-Simmons went to the academy. I can trust them and their competency based on that, but her? All she is is a hacker with a bleeding heart."
"Then we could use the new perspective. A fresh angle was what got us so close yesterday."
Grant winced at the recollection of their first mission together as a team. It was not the worst operation he attended, but it was far from clean. There was a missing cohesion that he knew might form with time, and yet he itched at the idea. There was a nuanced difference between chaos and disorder that Grant kept. Grant could deal with disorder. The last mission was chaos and he contemplated his role in all of this, harkening back to his protests about being drafted onto Coulson's new ragtag task force with a vague objective in the first place. But this was good. He was close to Coulson. The only person he needed to watch out for was May and he had ideas on how to deal with that.
But Skye was a variable and variables were dangerous.
"Sir, I'm not here to be used as a babysitter. I've already got two children to look after."
Somebody kicked the back of his seat. "Nobody needs you looking after."
"Imagine how May feels with you," Coulson retorted.
Hidden with a turned head, Melinda smirked.
"She has no professionalism," Grant tried.
"I'm sure you and May have that covered."
"What about the Rising Tide? What about her being in the Rising Tide and ruining our operations for ages."
"And she was doing that out of a rundown van on a two-bit laptop. Now think about what she could do with our technology, on our side."
"Can we really trust her? To care about our mission? To leave that organization behind?"
"I think so."
It was a simple answer and Grant almost sighed. But sighing on comms with the boss was not professional, was it? Grant brought the car to a stop and he peered past the steering wheel at the flashing lights and sirens. He tried to get one last bite in. "You didn't take my advice about the auction, and now look where we are."
"Ok, that wasn't my decision to make."
Grant's gaze followed the two incoming officers. He opened the door and stepped out before the sergeant could knock. "Who are you?" the sergeant demanded, backing up a step.
"Federal Bureau of Investigations, Unusual Incidents Unit."
Grant held out a badge. The sergeant leaned in with a squint to scrutinize it. Melinda followed suit.
"Uh-huh." The skepticism was positively dripping from his words as the sergeant pulled back. "You feds have fun then."
Grant knocked on the rear passenger doors. "You were right, sir," Leopold said as the door opened. "We were getting fluctuations even before we stepped out."
"It's already fading," Jemma commented.
"Why are we using a… dumb alias like the UIU," Grant asked. "We're barely a secret anymore. Might as well claim this for what it is."
"You of all people should know anonymity still has its uses."
"Fragments of the remaining energy signature match with some aspects of FTL travel and the Tesseract," the first one said. "We can probably assume there was some interdimensional breach here then." He opened a button of his patterned blue shirt and let his hand drop to his side. "We'll have to get a closer look at the van, but-"
"And the oh-eight-four?" Coulson interrupted.
"Can't see one on initial observation," Grant replied. "I'll do a closer sweep, but whatever was used, if something was used, it's probably gone. Either taken or destroyed in the explosion."
"Alright. Do what you do best."
"Is she behaving herself," Melinda asked.
"I'll make sure she is. Tell me if you find anything. Coulson out."
Grant sighed. Leopold reached back into the van and pulled out a hard briefcase, unlocking it with a couple of clicks. Inside, blue lights flashed and eight miniature drones emerged, subtly taking to the skies. "Alright. Let's go."
The three of them started for the van while Melinda trailed behind. "The similarities between the oh-eight-four and the Tesseract end at radiation. Everything else is some type of… exotic energy source. I am getting atmospheric spectrum readings consistent with a lightning strike though." Leopold looked up. "Do you think Thor was here?"
"I doubt it," Jemma replied. She shivered. "Do you guys feel cold?"
"We are in New York in the middle of the night," Grant said uncertainly.
"In August."
Leopold raised the device in his hands and rotated. "There's two noticeable zones of temperature difference. One where the lightning struck, and the other is the van, which shouldn't be that cold after getting blasted with what I'm assuming," he squinted, "is thermite."
Jemma leaned down. "Is that frost?"
Grant nodded. "Ghosts?"
"It's not a ghost," Leopold said.
"Why not?"
"Because they don't exist… And I'm not getting any electromagnetic readings that match. There's a trail. Leads past the van into the trees and heads down the road that way for a while before dissipating completely." Leopold looked up. "We have no other way of tracking anything from down here."
Grant nodded. "Alright. Gather anything you can and we'll head back."
There was not a single moment of Jeneth's past sixteen years of life that prepared him for this situation. An infantryman's life was simple. A Korpsman of Krieg's life was simpler. As for complex situations, they could be beaten aside with bluntness. Not this time, when complexities crossed the boundaries of existence itself. There were no tactics he could call upon. There were no briefings he could turn to. There was no history he could look to for guidance. There was no officer that would explain his duties, no Commissar to temper his zeal, and no comrades who he could depend on.
For all that might be said about his regiment, to say that a Kriegsman would die alone would be foolish. Where there was one, there were hundreds. Where there were hundreds, there were thousands. Behind the thousands, a million others. That was the strength of Krieg. It had no agriculture and no industry, no arts and no sciences. But it had men. It had men who knew war in the loudest and of the highest. Jeneth could easily be one in a million.
He was glad to be one man in a million and an echo in the symphony of man's wrath. He had been that since he could walk. He was destined to be that since his cells were first joined in the Vitae Wombs.
Not here. Not now. Not in this quiet, where he was alone, an echo in the void.
There. The quiet.
What was quiet?
It was preparing in voidships heading toward enemy systems. It was sneaking around the walkways in enemy structures. It was crawling beneath wires in the middle of the night. It was assassinating the enemy commander. It was digging a tunnel beneath enemy lines. It was waiting for the barrage in the trenches in front of enemy encampments.
It was the prelude to war, the calm before the storm.
Jeneth's eyes flickered up, studying the people before him. Was he about to fight them?
His fists clenched. His muscles tightened. A sense of calm settled in. Fighting. Fighting he could do.
He was a soldier. He was barely a noncommissioned officer. He was supposed to die in glorious, no, not glorious, but violent combat, after taking down as many of the enemy as he could with him in order to settle the account of his ancestor's sins. And yet he dared to consider his future? His pronouncement of his own survival, when he roped in low level criminals in order to fulfill his goals. Was that not renouncing the oath he swore when he put on the death mask, one that rendered his fate sealed? Or was that simply the strategic utilization of current resources and known intelligence? The iron death mask was a symbol of his acceptance of a role. That didn't necessarily mean that he had to hurry to that fate as soon as possible.
If there is a use, a mission, there is a way.
He let go of his tension to focus on the present.
A goal. He had a goal beyond his orders. Because he had no orders.
Behind his layers, he felt cold.
…
It had to all be the Emperor's design.
The Emperor knew all.
Was his arrival in this new world part of the Emperor's plan?
But that would make him special.
Or did that make him a fitting tool like he was supposed to be?
Why him?
A chill descended on his shoulders, cascading down his spine in an unfamiliar manner, as stillness stifled the air between the six ganger-type strangers arranged before him beyond the bars, silent communiques of confusion and skepticism transmitting between their gazes. The gilded halls of gold and white. It was so clean. It was even cleaner than any voidship that Jeneth traveled on, and those Navy officers kept their decks swabbed cleaner than anything Jeneth had the opportunity to interact with on a regular basis. But this place? It was disgustingly tidy, disgustingly pompous as if this prison was less of a prison and more of a showroom. It was covered in a veneer of self-congratulation, meant to trouble any who weren't the owners of this estate in extravagant displays. It reminded him of the palace of the governor. Of that scum's blatant heresy.
Was this heresy? Was anything heresy anymore now that the Emperor was away from him?
Halloran glanced at Jeneth. His lenses were angled toward the ground and his body was sagged. Where did all his invigoration from his earlier declaration go? Halloran's brows furrowed and his gaze softened. He knew what he was seeing. How many ex-prisoners and former military did he interview back in the day? How many with normal lives? How many of them were thrown into another world?
But understanding did not mean sympathy. Jeneth exuded something dangerous. In his words and mannerisms were an echo of fanaticism for a militant society. Halloran had no love for people like that, whether or not it was beyond their control. For him, there was always a choice, and serving a tyrant mindlessly was never the right one. As far as he could tell, Jeneth's Emperor was exactly that. That did not prevent him from being able to be outwardly cordial. Whilst gathering relevant information, of course. First, a background check.
"Jeneth," Halloran began. Jeneth's head snapped up and his back straightened. "Where… do you come from?"
Jeneth hesitated. That was an easy question to answer. But, at the same time, it was such a hard question to consider. Because if this wasn't his world, and it seemed that it truly was not, would providing any information count as breaking any laws of secrecy or operational security? On the other hand, it was sort of like saying which planet you were from, right? He was no Inquisitor with galaxy-breaking knowledge. The Empire was no secret. "The Imperium of Man."
Halloran shifted. The Imperium. The God-Emperor. All of it sat too coincidentally for him to ignore, and he feared what it meant for the future or the world if he was correct. Tentatively, he opened his mouth. "Does the name 'Atreides' mean anything to you?"
"No."
Halloran nodded in relief, then with more confusion as answers turned to more questions. Lance glanced at Halloran in muted surprise. "You watched Dune?"
"No, I followed the serialization and then read the novels."
He did not notice the pointed looks that Lance and Fredric gave him, staring at Jeneth. "You read?" Felecia mocked.
Halloran realized his mistake, narrowed his eyes, and crossed his arms. "I was being sarcastic, doll. Don't you know it?"
Felecia blinked. Lance narrowed his eyes but decided to cut Charles some slack. He ignored Felecia's further poking questions and turned back to Jeneth.
Lance still could not shake the hint of a German accent he was hearing from Jeneth. His heavy coat, his gas mask, and his guns all made Lance think of a particular organization that hired him for a job only a couple of months ago. An organization that was old, powerful, and everywhere despite everyone believing they were eliminated. He was hidden for the moment, but if Jeneth really did belong to them, then it was only a matter of time. Lance clenched his fist, idly considering killing Jeneth right then and there, and hand-waving an explanation. None of his partners were moral paragons that would object too hard anyway. Then he wondered about his father. He did not dare try to reconnect. Instead, he checked in with Poker-Face's help.
So far, they did not go after his father. They knew he had no way of contacting Lance. But what if they did it purely out of revenge?
He did not notice Celeste giving Jeneth a similar intense once-over.
Lance shook the thought. It didn't make sense for Jeneth to play up some future alternate universe empire. It was too elaborate of a plot to play. He refocused, trying to gather more information. "What is the Imperium?"
"The ultimate authority in the galaxy that is rightfully His and humanity's. A million, million worlds that toil in His name, ten quadrillion souls standing ready against all enemies, as it was for ten thousand years, so it shall be for ten thousand more, Ave Imperator."
Jeneth was never an orator, but the words sang in his heart, which twisted in an unfamiliar way as he thought of home.
A million words and ten thousand years. The scale of it was unfathomable to mortal men who were only one in a few billion and it took their breaths away. The group tried to gather themselves. "So you're not from Earth, where you're from. From Terra."
Jeneth lowered his head. "This trooper has the burden of being born to Krieg," he whispered.
Lance blinked. "A planet named War. No wonder you look like that."
"And you are a soldier of the Imperial Army," Halloran continued.
"False. This trooper is a soldier in the Imperial Guard."
Nobody cared to find the difference."And all of them are like you?"
"Negative."
It was like stealing honey from a bee without a smoker. Halloran's prickling dislike grew. "And you fight Chaos."
"We fight the enemies of humanity."
Silence.
"Tell us about the enemy then," Lance said. "This Chaos."
Jeneth didn't speak. His body ached with stabbing pain.
Pain was good, he was taught. Not in the way that pain was penance, but that pain meant he was alive.
Jeneth just had a small whim that perhaps he shouldn't be reminded of so continuously at the moment.
The Inquisition, the Imperium at large, had no qualms about executing any who witnessed the Ruinous Powers. It was dangerous to leave even a trace of it, lest it spread and fester and drive men to ruin in the way only Chaos could. Runinous was apt. Krieg regiments were spared only due to their special history and resolute performance, falling into a very niche category where only regiments hailing from planets like Cadia had any rights of exemption.
If it were Guardsmen, Planetary Defence Forces, or even just hardy, faithful civilians, it would be an easier decision. Brief them if they were qualified to know or order them to complete their mission regardless of what they wanted to know. But these were not Guardsmen or Imperial citizens. A couple of the gangers had the bearings of former soldiers, or at least the deportment of men who had survived whatever version of the underhives this planet had to offer, but most of them seemed too coddled. Jeneth knew he would not be able to leverage any authority with any of them by means of rank or designation. Nonbelievers were tricky like that. But what if he only revealed tidbits? What if he only told them what the preachers told the populous, and what the Sisters told to the masses? It would give them an idea of the threat they could be facing, nothing more; if any of them asked anything else, if they showed signs later on, he could execute them then.
Just like any other Guardsmen who were qualified to know, but not qualified to keep knowing.
"The Archenemy," Jeneth began, and everyone leaned in, curious to know what his silence brewed, "is the insidious corruptor." His voice was still raspy from overuse, but it was stronger. This was a briefing. He was in his element and he stood up."It makes servants out of men of vice." Lance put his hands behind his back. "It steals the souls from the greedy and the grieving." Halloran straightened. "And when its vile tricks do not work, it sends its hosts of warp spawn to slaughter its resistors."
"Warp spawn," Lance repeated questioningly.
Jeneth hesitated again, his voice even quieter than before. "Daemons."
The temperature seemed to drop, but that must have just been psychological. Everyone considered Jeneth's words with their respective degrees of disbelief.
"Demons."
"Chaos will consume this world if we do not act. It will worm its way through the cracks from the events you must have set off. The catalyst must be destroyed, the remaining supply found and obliterated, and all its wielders executed."
And, at the end of it all, you need to die too.
Everyone was quiet. The Incident shattered their suspension of disbelief, but what the masked alien was saying, or masked human rather, was still too far-fetched for them to take at face value. "You're not telling us anymore," Halloran asked.
"This trooper cannot tell you anymore."
"Can't or won't?"
"Can you drop the 'This trooper' bit?" Lance muttered.
"You are not authorized to know."
"Why?" There was some venom in that question this time. "What law could possibly override our survival if it's as bad as you make it to be? Or do you have nothing else because you made it all up?"
"You will lose your mind and burn from the inside. Further questions will be considered as a willingness to consort with the Archenemy and you will be branded an enemy."
Eyes rolled or narrowed. "How come you're fine then?"
"Because this trooper was made to fight them, and the Emperor protects."
"Ok…" Lance turned to the group. "We need a verdict. This isn't going to go anywhere else otherwise."
"We could go to sleep and let him sit here until tomorrow," Fredric offered.
DeMarr planted his face in his hands. "If aliens exist, man, why not demons, right? Man!"
Felecia shrugged. "I'll admit to some superstition, but demons?"
Poker-Face spoke up in their ears. "As of this moment, we have no reason to believe the words of 393-1024-0830-Jeneth to be false. If 393-1024-0830-Jeneth speaks the truth, we must enable his freedom and offer him our full cooperation."
"Of course the aliens would believe one another…" Fredric said.
Jeneth did not catch that.
"You're giving your search up for Atrion then? After everything? Just based off his words?"
This Jeneth noticed. A vox. There was a seventh member. A true leader, perhaps the owner of the estate. The one who was searching for this 'Atrion'. An ignorant collector, perhaps. Or maybe a guile cultist. Whatever the case, Jeneth needed to find out later.
"For the sake of the universe," Poker-Face said.
"This group was put together to look for Atrion and to sell it. I'm not all about that virtuous living," Felecia said. "If we're giving up on that, I don't know if I want to stick around."
"If he's telling the truth," Celeste said.
"If he's telling the truth, there won't be a world for you to sell shit to," Fredic said.
"The most valid point to consider, Felecia Hardy."
"Yeah? Maybe I'll make a deal with those demons."
Jeneth turned his full body toward Felecia. "In the Emperor's name, you will die for that."
"You calm yourself!" Lance yelled, pointing at Jeneth. "She's joking, alright? I don't know if you know what that means. She's not serious."
Felecia shrugged, radiating displeasure.
"What if it's not that big of a threat," Celeste asked. "What if there were sorcerers in our world that could fight your demons?"
"Sorcery is heresy. Unsanctioned psykers are gateways to the Warp from which Daemons emerge."
Celeste nodded in consideration.
"Are… there sorcerers in our world?" DeMarr asked.
"No."
"Why do you fight," Halloran asked suddenly.
Jeneth looked at him, head slightly leaned as if confused. "To atone for the sins of the ancestors," he said softly. "A single lapse in judgment," he cleared his throat. It was getting uncomfortable speaking that much. "That turned the planet away from the glorious light of Him on Terra. Inscrutable heresy."
Lance looked at Jeneth. "... You're telling the truth."
"Yes. Release me. This trooper is commandeering your authority over this gang. We will begin operational overviews immediately."
"Heh, like hell," Fredric said.
"This trooper is the most suitable team leader."
"Hey, I did my time, alright," Lance protested. "Three years in the SAS, mate, I know how to run a team."
"You do not have relevant experience, nor a higher service time. This trooper has thirteen years over you. Any advice you provide will be taken into consideration during mission planning and briefing."
"Thir-?... How old even are you?"
Twice in a year. He was about to answer but paused. While he had no issue with his age, he realized that outsiders questioned him when he revealed the truth. Lance decided not to press it when Jeneth did not respond. "You won't attack us again?"
Jeneth's head turned slightly to Halloran. "No."
"I didn't like that pause," Halloran murmured.
Lance sighed and stepped over to the wall-mounted console. "Welcome to the team," he said.
"Whoa, whoa, whoa," DeMarr jumped forward, trying to block Lance. He looked around, eyes wide. "Are, are we sure, man? I mean, man, with everything?" His head unconsciously twitched in the direction where Poker-Face presided.
"You want to be the one to interrogate him for information he's sharing?" DeMarr glanced at Jeneth, who was staring at him now. DeMarr swallowed and looked back at Lance. "It's all about trust, right?" Lance's eyes followed DeMarr's twitch.
DeMarr's eyes widened even further. Tentatively, he nodded and backed up. Lance entered the code.
The cell doors unlocked and slid open.
"You should take a shower, by the way. You smell," Felecia said.
Jeneth stepped out. "You will return my weapons, equipment, and the standard. In return, this trooper will not execute you for theft and the sullying of the standard by your hands."
"Jeneth, the point of cooperation is to be… cooperative."
"This trooper is standing down. That is cooperative."
Lance glanced around. Fredric rolled his eyes and turned away. Halloran shook his head in disappointment and disdain. Celeste frowned."Aye… Follow me then," he said when no one objected.
The seven of them made their way out of the sublevel and into the estate proper, walking through the enormous open concept ground floor, only, Jeneth has seen grander and larger. It only solidified his beliefs that whoever was in charge of this gang, or at least the one supplying the money, was no more than a pretentious middle-class villainously inclined bum.
Large glass pane walls showcased the splendor of the intricately tended estate grounds, with perfectly trimmed grass and trees, elm, oak, cherry, maple, ash, pine, planted at angles meant to create the most pleasing silhouettes or cast the best shadows, creating an atmosphere of idle mystery in the living room meant to enhance and enchant. When the flower fields bloomed, they showered the estate in unmatched colors. There was a pool, with crystal blue water, even beneath the night sky, open to the air, glimmering beneath the embers of the fireplace that sat as the centerpiece of the parlor. There was a private golf course somewhere in the back, never used, always maintained. Their boots left tracks of black-on-white fur carpets and dark brown hardwood flooring. Jeneth felt eyes on him. They were scrutinizing and coming from men dressed similarly to the man with the false Praetorian, English, as he now knew, accent. He assumed that was some sort of private military uniform, and while it did not seem practical for large-scale combat, he could appreciate the dull colors and fit. But regardless of their equipment and dress standards, they were all noticeably lax.
Some of them leaned against the wall. Some of them were looking down at miniature primitive data-slate prototypes. They were built. They all had weapons, concealed or out in the open. And judging by the way they positioned themselves when they saw him, they could probably fight in a pinch. But their outward demeanor left much to be desired.
They walked out.
The outside was populated by many of the same guard cadre as the inside, though manifestly more alert. The pathways were pristine cobble. There were lamps and torches.
Looking around, Jeneth was struck by a sudden sense of imbalance.
His surroundings were nothing special. Trees. Stone. Concrete. A city glimmered in the distance, flat and open, a sprawling skyline instead of a towering spire's silhouette. Typical of a low-level civilized world found anywhere in the Imperium. But this was Terra. It was not his Holy Terra, but it was Terra. He was looking at Terran trees and taking in light from Terran constellations.
The sky was clear. He was not looking at the stars in the open void through a porthole where their light was nothing more than monotonous jewels. He was not looking at stars through an atmosphere choked in gunpowder and poisons. They shined down at him, blue, yellow, white.
It was not beautiful. A perfectly orchestrated artillery barrage was beautiful. A well-polished lasgun was beautiful. A regiment on the march was beautiful. The Aquilla was beautiful. This sky, those stars, stars that were not even his, nor humanity's, nor Terra's was…
His feet refused to move. He tried to fight the spell that was turning his blood to plasteel.
Lance looked at Jeneth and saw an alien. Not an alien from outer space, though he believes Jeneth qualifies, but alien as in someone strange or someone foreign. Everything about Jeneth screamed human, from his clothes to his words, but everything about Jeneth screamed inhuman. Still, he reserved his judgment. Jeneth was a piece of work and he knew it was going to be hard to cooperate, to want to cooperate, with the World War Two cosplayer, but Lance felt he knew too little about the man, or was he a boy? to make a true call. Jeneth, in short, was an off-putting enigma.
Halloran did not like Jeneth. He did not like bullies. He did not like soldiers. He did not like overbearing governments. Jeneth seemed to check every box. But he also seemed to check the box of a victim. Conflict surged within him. He had only been back for a few hours and he was already throwing himself into a case. Jeneth was out of his element, but so was he. Halloran had to remind himself of that. For how fast he reintegrated, the same way Jeneth was stunned, so was he. He needed to find out what Charles was up to. And then he would find out what Charles wanted with Jeneth. And what Charles was thinking, recruiting someone like DeMarr to the team.
DeMarr thought Jeneth was cool. But DeMarr also though Jeneth could not be trusted and should not be out. It was the same with Poker-Face. Aliens. Now Demons. He wanted to be a hero. He did not know what he was anymore.
Fredric. His head hurt. His eyes hurt. His back hurt. His feet hurt. Jeneth. His heart could be admired. If only he was less of an asshole.
Poker-Face. His expression remained unchanging all throughout Jeneth's reveal.
They made their way to a long rectangular building, far less extravagant than the other buildings on the property, made of basic brick and mortar, some odd meters away. Inside, there was a row of lanes hosting paper targets. His weapons and equipment were placed against a divider in one of the booths. Sparing no second, Jeneth walked over and began inspecting. Finding no real faults, the Korpsman began equipping himself, not willing to be deprived of his instruments any longer. His hands roamed over the hellgun, murmuring a brief prayer to soothe the machine spirit. It was taken from its proper wielder without authorization, used by ignorant blasphemers against paper targets, all without the proper rites and canticles, the respect it deserved. Jeneth did not have the incense required for a full ritual. He wished there was a Tech-Priest that was able to perform the necessary sacraments.
He would have to make do, offering bountiful kills in the future. A sudden and intrusive thought emerged and he glanced at the six gangers, noticing a couple of the ex-military types with hands on their weapons.
Jeneth slung the hellgun over his shoulder.
"The standard."
The flag lay against a wall like some common decoration, like a mop or a broom. Rage surged through Jeneth's body. Such disregard. A regimental standard it was not, but it was still a symbol of pride and dedication of the company. Ignorance was never an excuse. "Jeneth," Lance said, a light warning in his tone.
It was not holy, but it was sacred.
It was the only touch of home.
All instincts told him to turn around and execute these heretics. It was such an odd feeling to fight it. On the battlefield, if one was acting below the required minimum or against the common good, a summary execution, even without a Commissar or officer, was not uncommon. But he needed them, these ingrates. They were willing to work with him in a world where he was a stranger. If he killed them, he would have no means of hunting down the Atrion. Jeneth redirected his anger into faith to quell his impulses. He approached the standard, raised it properly, straightened the banner, and made the Aquila.
Felecia stared at the golden double-headed eagle on top of the shaft.
"Man… What now?"
"Sleep."
Jeneth turned around. "Briefing. Information on this system, on the mineral known as Atrion-"
"No," Lance interrupted, "we need to sleep and regroup in the morning. You, and first of all, you probably feel like shit, so you're not getting anything done until you're rested anyway, can get all of that later."
"That is irrelevant. You do not need to question my operational capacity."
"Yeah, well, we're questioning ours. It's been a long day, mate. You want us to be good soldiers? You need to give us our proper rest. You can't have it any other way. And, mind you, you dropped a bomb on us." Jeneth's head tilted. Lance sighed. "You gave us information none of us were ready for, so give us some time to process."
"Chaos will not wait until you are well and ready."
"And you're going to stop it yourself, are you? This 'eater of worlds'," Jeneth flinched. "In that state?"
Jeneth's fists clenched. He stared into Lance's soul, the hollow lenses and death mask making Lance narrow his eyes uncomfortably. "... Your ineffectiveness has been noted."
"Bite me."
"Hey, wait, where is he sleeping anyway?"
"... We'll put him up in a room."
"You think the Rich Bitch will like that?"
"What's it matter?"
Jeneth shouldered the standard and heel turned to face them. They exited the range.
Jeneth had walked with a soldier's gate coming out of his prison. With the standard hoisted against his shoulder, he was marching in perfect form despite his obvious fatigue and injuries. Lance thought it was cool. Halloran took one look at his goosestep and curled his lips.
He was not marching for review or in front of an officer, but he was carrying the standard.
Felecia stepped without sound, hands clasped behind her head, leaning back to stare at the golden eagle that glinted in the moonlight. She wondered why it was so special. She wondered how Jeneth was able to demonstrate such zeal toward something so abstract.
All the stars in our grasp.
Felecia looked down. She could certainly appreciate the aesthetics. Always searching for another hint of gold. She could almost relate.
With a burst of speed, she came beside Jeneth, hands behind her back as she leaned forward, finding his stiff pace and process comical. "Hey." Jeneth made no notice of her. "Do you ever take that mask off?"
What was the point of that question? Jeneth did not answer. Civilians were weird. The officers were saints for putting up with liaisons. Peeved at being ignored, Felecia stuck out her tongue and stepped back.
Without much further conversation, they made their way to the second-floor bedrooms and directed Jeneth to an empty one. Coming back in with his weapons did see a remarkable increase in bodyguard hypervigilance.
The group began to disperse. Jeneth stared at the bedroom door. He put a hand on the doorknob.
Felecia turned around. "What's your name?"
"393-1024-0830-Jeneth."
"Ah."
A soft bed. A quiet room.
It was not a place for him.
He placed the standard in the corner. He set his powerpack, backpack, and hellgun to the side, then placed his lasgun in front of him as he knelt before the banner.
He was feeling things he did not know how to describe.
What was certain was that he was uncertain. He did not dare to say his actions were appropriate and doubt, not doubt in the Emperor, never doubt in the Emperor, plagued his every breath, along with a healthy serving of pain.
What was his justification for his actions?
He was a soldier. But he was not a soldier of humanity. And while he accepted that these humans must have been part of the Emperor's design as well, for they too were people, he had no obligation to protect any of them directly. He had an obligation to defend the name of 'Earth'. And this was an Emperor touched recreation, then he had a sacred duty to defend the planet from invasion. But beyond all of that, he had a duty to the Emperor. He was a soldier of the Emperor. And the Emperor's enemy was the Archenemy. So he would fight them.
He would fight them. He would fight them.
He repeated the mantra in his head as he stared at the aquila.
He was hasty when he declared himself the Emperor's only worshipper. The Faith was not carried by him alone, but by all of his comrades back home. That was where it mattered. Here, he was not a follower. Here, still, as always, he was a soldier. And he would fight them.
But now what?
He could read the Infantryman's Uplifting Primer and sink into the closest thing a Korpsman will get to meditation, but he did not want to think and absorb. He wanted answers. So he prayed.
Click.
"Princeton."
"Cambridge."
The lamp in the corner barely illuminated a quarter of the room, but it was enough. Celeste's computer hummed, the monitor washing her face in white.
There was a pause. Celeste listened intensely. Then came a shuffle and a sigh. "...Celeste. I didn't think we were talking anymore." There was a beep as Celeste's hardware shut down the automated tracking software. "Wow, that was faster than last time. Sorry. Formalities. How can I help you?"
"I need information."
Red velvet curtains hung close against the windows. They were not to her taste, but rather Artoria's taste. She was lending her rooms out to the posse, but she was adamant that they make do with the layout they received. Celeste made do.
"Never just to say hello, huh? Why not get it yourself?"
"It's faster this way… And… I wouldn't be able to get into everything."
Celeste grit her teeth and frowned. A tired chuckle came over the phone. She imagined him with a smug grin plastered on his countenance as he rolled himself to his computer, laughing sardonically to himself over her lack of ability in the one field she prided herself in, sneering and contemptuous, but she saw tired eyes and messy hair and her face softened.
She heard Stark broke through the encryption.
"What is it?"
"Hydra."
Another pause. "I thought you wanted information, not a history lesson."
"Humor me. Hydra. Is it possible they're still around?"
"Well. Cut off one head… No, Hydra was eradicated before the fifties."
Her computer, sitting on wood so brown it was red, flashed and flicked through a dozen screens in the span of a couple of seconds. Her arms were once again lined with the circuit-like patterns. She was wired in.
"And we're certain about that?"
She could hear the eyebrow raise. "Given what Captain America did to the Red Skull and Peggy Carter did afterward? If you mean to ask whether or not their spirit was carried on by surviving members we didn't manage to snatch or execute, well, a rat finds cracks no matter how secure the cage. I've no doubt many of them escaped to South America along with the Nazis proper, unable to do anything but hide. Besides that, I suppose all the agents we recruited and, but you can count those under the ones we've… rehabilitated."
"Like Zola."
"Like Zola."
Two standing closets on either side of a bookshelf, filled with books Celeste never touched—and she doubted Artoria did either—sat behind Celeste, to the right of the full-sized bed up against the wall.
"So, consensus is they're not around anymore."
"Uh-huh."
"And that isn't some type of cover you're feeding me."
"Celeste, if Hydra was still around, every agent would know, believe me. Every field agent and specialist would be hunting them down with extreme prejudice. That's not a secret you can really hide regardless. And if that was a controlled piece of information, you were high up enough for that type of intelligence, at least."
She compares the images of Jeneth to the ones of Hydra and the Nazis. The resemblance seems to be coincidental at best, but she is not satisfied.
Celeste put her face in her hand, closing her eyes. "Ok… Alright… What about time travel?"
"What… about time travel?"
"Do you think Hydra had time travel technology, with all the work they put into the Tesseract?"
"If Hydra had time travel, I doubt the world would be the way it is."
"Is Shield working on any related fields? That might be stolen or utilized by Hydra, say… some odd thousand years into the future?"
"What? I… No, Shield isn't working on anything like that. The theories alone are half-baked. It's still pretty much fringe science at this point. And if we were, we wouldn't be anymore since we lost the Tesseract and New York almost got ended by a thermonuclear device… But, look. In this… weird hypothetical future of yours, 'can' some variation of Hydra end up with time-travel technology? If we want to get into the realm of science fiction, sure, let's say it's possible."
The screen ran through another dozen queries.
"But it's not just the Tesseract, is it? We know of the Nazi's side hustle with the occult. How much of that bled into Hydra? Or from what Hydra originally was before they joined the Nazis? We're tracking things like the Darkhold ourselves. We have no idea if sorcery can access the timestream, do we?"
Whether or not it could unleash Demons, of all things.
Celeste thought about that golden double-headed eagle. She thought about the lightning strike. She thought about Chaos.
"Celeste, what is this about?"
"... Nothing. Thank you. See you."
She disconnected from the computer.
"Celeste-"
"What's an oh-eight-four?"
"Object of unknown origin. Kind of like you. Team goes in, determines if it's useful or poses a threat. Something, possibly alien, probably dangerous, caused an explosion in the middle of a New York street, and we have to discover what."
Skye nodded thoughtfully. "So… I was deemed useful and not a threat?"
"Much to the chagrin of Agent Ward."
"I don't think he likes me very much."
"You dug up his deepest darkest secrets."
Skye smiled. "That was funny."
"Not to him." Coulson smiled as well.
"So. Consultant, right? That's what I heard. What am I consulting on?"
"Everything. Shield is old, and that means tradition. You bring something new to the table."
"A fresh perspective," Skye echoed.
"A fresh perspective," Coulson agreed. "And your invaluable technological skills. It's a digital age, and I can't keep up."
"I thought you had Fitz for that," Skye said, eyeing the plane as she walked around.
"Fitz is a brilliant engineer," Coulson granted, "and there are few that can match his brain when it comes to it, but he's better at building. You've got the edge when it comes to breaking."
Skye frowned and turned to look at Phil. She didn't like how that sounded. It raised fresh perspectives about her that she didn't care for.
"Breaking in," Coulson quickly finished.
"Am I?"
"What?"
"Breaking into something."
"The Falling Spire Troupe."
Skye sat down, hands between her thighs. "What's that?"
"Criminal organization. They do a bit of racketeering, some assassinations every now and again, but what we're focusing on is their black market auctions. Back in the day, that would require some legwork. Find their record keeper, stuff like that. But, like I said, it's a digital age."
Skye crossed her legs. "It's not like I can just tap into anything with a few keys. If it's a closed system, I'd need something connected to the network."
"They're too big to be closed. They have clients and channels of communication. I'm sure you can find something. We need to find out what they sold, or what they were planning to sell tonight. I could have another team question some participants directly, but I want to do this in-house, and Grant and May are busy in the field. Can you do that?"
Skye smiled. "Get me a laptop."
The network was in chaos.
Finding the network was not easy on her own and she had begun to doubt there was an entry point at all. But then she reached out to her comrades in the Rising Tide and found a port. It was not a simple onion link or shared port bouncing from peer to peer. It was a fragmented phantom, spread across ghost routers and half-dead relays buried in junk data and buried code.
She was expecting something simplistic beyond the barriers and digital baileys, something that screamed 'villainous gang'. Instead, there wasn't a catalog of crime or a static image dump of back alley auctions. She expected screenshots of contraband, videos that would make her want to bleach out of her corneas later, and maybe a few horrific details that would stick to the inside of her skull. Instead, she was greeted with a beautifully rendered home page in the process of broken down line by line.
The network was already burning.
Whatever it once was, it was now a web of fractured systems, with subroutines scrambling to reroute data, and encrypted echoes of someone trying to purge traces. It was like walking into a burning library mid-evacuation. The digital noise began to rise as threads were cut. Something was happening to the troupe, most likely related to the failed auction.
The spire was falling.
But Skye was not worried. She began surfing the tidal waves, tracing outgoing memos and documents, circumventing malware and encryptions, chasing fading memos, intercepting outgoing transfer logs, and skimming raw metadata before it was scrambled into useless code. She couldn't save everything. She didn't need to. She marked clusters of data—client info, IPs, likely communication nodes—and shunted them through secure tunnels to Rising Tide backups.
Her laptop lagged. Her confidence takes a hit and she bites her lip as she leans forward. Whatever program the troupe was using to systematically destroy their presence could not get to her, but it was doing a damn good job of shutting her out. Passwords she cracked suddenly become invalid and her room and ability to maneuver shrinks. Skye scrambles to isolate partitions before they crack on her, fingers racing across the keys.
It was like it was learning. Adaptive. Real-time.
Freaky.
There, she finds something. A secondary path. Old. Forgotten. The last to go. She hesitates. If she digs this deep, it would not just be the program, but her system that is exposed. Her laptop was not running Shield infiltration protocols, but her own. Pride. Ego.
She races past data. Locations. Bank accounts. Shell companies. Names. Communications. She needed to find a manifest.
That is when she finally notices. The troupe's network was not being destroyed from within. Their servers and databases were being eaten from beyond. And those hungry mouths had hungry eyes which finally found her.
For a second, she feels eyes on her. Something presses against her back and a single bead of sweat trickles down her spine. Her eyes water. She must be nervous. Why else does she see her own breath? The weight behind her disappeared when her screen glitched.
Her fingers shook. Something told her to hurry and she did. She made one final push to grab what she was looking for and ripped the drive out of the laptop just as it began to burn. Shut off from the outside, the laptop fizzles and shuts down with a static pop. She stared at the now useless device, confusion coming in to replace the rapidly retreating fear. Fear she forgot she felt at all.
Skye glances down at the drive. "I got it," she whispered.
"Atrion is an energy source."
William Fisk and Justin Hammer were walking down a hallway, white and sterilized, shoes echoing down marble floors, accompanied by nobody but their own shadows. Justin had found that disconcerting and tried to get William to agree to let Matthew and Janice follow them. William had denied his request. Justin decided not to push the issue. Not even James came along with them. Sweat coated the back of Justin's neck. He waited for William, who had been silent up until then, to continue.
"It can tap into a field of power we have never discovered, never interacted with before. But it is not just an energy source. It has other properties to it. Properties that a worldly man like you… might find hard to accept."
This last statement was made with a sideways stare at Justin. Justin subtly swallowed, confusion fueling rampant imagination. "Well, I'm always looking to broaden my horizons."
They had passed by security door after security door, deep underground at the headquarters of the future Hammer UAC. "Limit your enthusiasm. You may not like what you see. Nor might you believe it, even with direct proof in front of your eyes"
Justin started to wonder if Atrion was like another blue object that appeared in recent history. Double doors revealed themselves in the distance, guards on either side. They made it halfway in continued silence.
William halted without warning and Justin stumbled a step, looking back and up at him. Justin tightened his jaw. "What you will see, you will tell no one. Matthew, and I'm sure Miss Lincoln by now, is aware. But there will be no discussion. Is that understood."
Justin narrowed his eyes. "Of course," he let out.
William continued walking. "Do you believe in souls, Justin?"
Not really. "I'd like to think we all have a little something special inside of us."
"Hm. Then do you believe in an afterlife?"
"I believe in legacies."
"Apt."
They reached the doors. The guards buzzed them in. Justin's eyes widened.
The room was large, the ceiling a dozen dozen meters above them, an underground skyscraper housing a large machine at the center. Panels of various uses covered the walls, absorbing bleeding energy, displaying data, containing sound, et cetera. Glowing Atrion was suspended in midair between two protruding arms from the middle of two half rings connected to a circular platform, silver and blue. This platform hung at the center of the room, connected to the walls with a myriad of pipes, walkways, and wires. Below the platform was a containment field, coated in frost. Justin felt the hairs on his arms rise. He shivered. He wrinkled his nose at a smell coming from somewhere, like chlorine and burnt metal. He had never seen a display so foreign, so amusingly science operatic if it didn't feel so serious.
There were buzzes of subtle conversation. William escorted Justin to a platform a quarter of the way up the room, a secondary control center. Justin's gaze wandered everywhere, caught on everything. "Atrion," William said. "That thirty-pound rock is powering the entire building. The city believes we are running off of a rather efficient geothermal hotspot, in conjunction with in-house patented next-generation solar panel designs. The walls prevent unwanted meddlers from detecting the true source of our power."
"Thirty pounds of it, and it's not enough?"
"Not nearly."
Justin studied the layout in silence before he could no longer resist. "What's… that?"
There was a hazy humanoid figure within the containment field, unmoving, barely stable, showing no signs of reaction to any external stimuli, and yet Justin felt like it was watching him. He rubbed his hands together.
"That, Mister Hammer, is a spirit."
Justin rounded on William, astonished. His head snapped back to the figure. "What?"
"A spirit. Atrion's special property. It has the ability to recall the deceased."
"Are you serious?"
"Believe me. I am not joking."
Justin opened his mouth, staring at the figure, then at the Atrion, then back at William. He thought back to the intelligence package he got from Justine regarding William when the offer for a partnership first came up. A new understanding came to light. Perhaps a new stress point he could utilize. He wanted to get closer, but seeing as William didn't move, Justin remained in place.
Justin had his doubts about what William was saying, but in order to move forward in the moment, in the absence of available alternative logic, he had to accept what was in front of him until otherwise better informed. Never say Justin Hammer was not open-minded. "Ok. Alright… What's that smell then? And why is it so cold? It's generating power, it should be hot. Endothermic reactor?"
That was better than anything that hack Stark could make.
"It… These phenomena began yesterday. The same day she became clearer." She. Justin's cheek twitched. "I suspect it has something to do with our interlopers. They caused an explosion last night."
"I heard. That was them?"
"I have gotten reports that the energy signature in the air matches samples we get here… I need to know what they did."
"They'll talk once we get them."
"Warn the team. Shield has gotten involved."
"Shield?"
"They have nothing actionable on us," William quickly supplied. "But their attention has been drawn. A new variable, but nothing we cannot handle."
Justin didn't believe him. He ignored that for now. He could begin to make preparations on his own later. He had a more pertinent question. He looked back at the platform and the Atrion and the figure, making a gesture. "How," he asked, lacking a better phrase.
William pursed his lips. "I do not know by which means it accomplishes what it does. My scientists are at a loss. Perhaps it is the technology of aliens. Or perhaps it is the work of God. Perhaps He heard me after all. Perhaps this is redemption or my salvation, or my reward for it all. Regardless, its methods are beyond us, but its capabilities are not. You will profit off of this, Mister Hammer." "Justin, please…" "And so will I." William fiddled with his ring. "Recover the Atrion."
Justin heard him a second later. He nodded numbly.
William stared at the hazy figure. He shook the whisper in the back of his head. That must have been grief.
Justin stared at the glowing rock. He shook the whisper in the back of his head. That must have been greed.
Atrion.
The glowing blue gem was unlike anything William Fisk had ever seen before. Its faint color was unchanging, pulsing in the exact way he remembered when he first laid eyes on it. He knew, even then, that it had presence.
It was first brought to him as an alternative for radiative elements by a man with vague affiliations and the heart of an entrepreneur. That man spoke of catalysts and cold fusion, citing Atrion as the new source of power, competing with uranium and plutonium. William was only mildly curious then. It was novel, but its uses were unrelated to his business. He was not a weapons manufacturer, nor was he interested in becoming an energy tycoon, and he was certainly no world-saving idealist. His plans for power and for greatness stemmed from a different calling. Not the kind that could be measured in megawatts.
However, he also knew a good opportunity when he saw one. There was no mention of Atrion in geological databases. No peer-reviewed papers. No patents. As far as he knew, he was the first person who had their attention brought to the possibilities that Atrion possessed. It was either a scam or a miracle, and William Fisk made it a policy to test both. The patents alone would see him rise above the likes of Stark when it came to clean energy.
And so it began.
Simple, at first, as most things tended to be.
He partitioned a section of the basement beneath his company headquarters, built with concrete and lead-lined, for this endeavor. He hired nuclear researchers, plasma physicists, and a scattering of disillusioned futurists who'd burned too many bridges in academia to return. He funded them with silent accounts and blind trusts. He let them play. He let them build.
For months, they could not return anything satisfactory.
The day it happened was like any other.
William walked into the bunker as he had a dozen times before to observe what was being accomplished with his hard-earned capital. The lab was dim. It was smaller than it should have been, given the investment, crowded with machinery and cables, the ceiling sweating from the heat of effort.
It began with light. Silent flashes. Power surged. Capacitors broke. Static filled the intercom. Heat poured from an otherwise inert piece of blue rock. Something shattered. Someone screamed.
And then everything stopped as soon as it began. Amidst the stabilizing conditions, amidst a blue corona, unclothed, fragile, barely coalesced, a hazy figure called his name.
Not with sound. Through knowing.
And he was left with the ghost of her.
"There was a gas station," Leopold began, sipping a cup of coffee that had long since gone lukewarm, "old, unused for decades, on the side of the road. It's the best lead we've got. Recent tracks. Recent damage. Beyond that? Zilch."
"It's situated in the direction where the energy signature ended," Grant picked up, standing beside a holo-display of the map. "I could pick up a trail. Someone was carrying something heavy. At least three, maybe four pairs of footsteps."
"Skye got into the Falling Spire Troupe's network," Coulson added, arms crossed. "The only thing on there we think possibly caused the explosion is something called Atrion."
"Atrion," Fitz echoed, brow furrowing.
"What's that?" Skye asked. Her voice was quieter than usual.
"Unknown. As far as we can tell, Shield hasn't had any interactions with it before… up until yesterday. Fitz?"
"There was a lot of residual energy, but it faded fast. It had similarities to the Tesseract mostly in terms of gamma radiation. Uh, there was some frost on the ground that's correlated to the explosion. It carried the same energy. But it was just made of water. Ordinary water. Aitch two oh. I can't find any reason why the frost formed, or why the temperature dropped."
"Ghosts," Grant muttered. He didn't elaborate. No one asked.
"The frost…" Jemma's voice was strained, uncertain. "It felt weird."
Fitz shook his head
"Alright," Coulson nodded. "That's all we got, but it's a lead. We work it. Start bringing us places, team. Let's see where it goes."
Everyone moved. Maps were called up. Assignments were drawn. Coffee was replenished. The weight of duty set shoulders straight again.
Skye stayed behind for a beat, fingers resting lightly on the table. She stared at nothing.
She wondered—not for the first time—if she should've told Coulson everything.
I've been kissed by a rose on the grey I, I've been kissed by a rose on the grey I've (And if I should fall, will it all go away?) been kissed by a rose on the grey I, I've been kissed by a rose on the grey