Chapter 568

Allen Brandy was twenty-eight years old, female, and a native of Nevada.

She had served in the U.S. military for eight years, half of them with the special operations forces of the 3rd Infantry Division. She was an elite soldier among elite soldiers, with a distinguished combat record and every reason to expect promotion.

Then a suicide attack nearly killed her.

She survived, but lost her left arm in the blast and was forced to retire from active service.

"That’s her complete file."

Twenty meters above the detention chamber, a monitoring room overlooked the cell through a pane of one-way glass.

Ross held up the file and gave the Eredar twins a brief rundown of the woman below.

"Not bad," Oleses said with interest.

Her gaze remained fixed on Allen, who had just awakened on the freezing floor and was shivering uncontrollably.

"Of all the new specimens, she’s probably the best."

Most of the Extremis-enhanced subjects created by Killian had been veterans with military injuries.

But there was a difference between a regular infantryman and a seasoned special-operations soldier.

Some had barely survived their first deployment. Others had spent years fighting, training under brutal conditions and accumulating experience that could never be taught from a manual.

Allen Brandy belonged to the latter group.

She was one of the best.

"The best?" Ross wasn’t convinced. He flipped through the file. "I wouldn’t go that far. From what I know, she’s one of Killian’s early subjects. The technology was still immature at the time. Her body is riddled with weaknesses, and she’s nowhere near as powerful as his later creations."

"Heh."

Salorass gave a soft laugh.

"Those weaknesses are easy enough to fix. As for her lack of power, if we wanted to, we could strengthen her in a single day until she surpassed Killian’s most successful subjects."

She glanced down at Allen.

"So none of that matters to us."

"But the training does."

Oleses folded her arms.

"The combat techniques she learned as a special-operations soldier. The habits forged through years of fighting. The experience she accumulated across countless battles."

Her eyes shifted toward Ross.

"Those are things we can’t manufacture in a day. That’s what makes her valuable."

There was an old military truth to that.

Train hard in peacetime, and bleed less when the bullets start flying.

Allen’s years of brutal training had made her valuable enough that the twins had decided to preserve her.

Even stripped nearly naked and thrown into a detention cell, she was still in a considerably better position than the other subjects currently sitting frozen in cryogenic chambers, waiting to be experimented on.

"You should understand that better than anyone," Oleses said.

Ross looked at her.

When she saw his expression sour slightly, she gave a quiet chuckle.

"Think about the time the Abomination was able to overpower the Hulk."

Ross’s face tightened.

The Abomination had once been Emil Blonsky, a major and career soldier who had insisted on fighting on the front lines. His combat ability and battlefield experience were vastly greater than Allen’s.

Bruce Banner, on the other hand, was a scientist.

As the Hulk, Banner possessed absurd physical strength.

But knowing how to punch someone was rather different from knowing how to win a fight.

Blonsky had the experience and technique to exploit that difference.

And, honestly, things would have been even worse for the Hulk if he hadn’t been empowered by Hulk blood and if Ross hadn’t injected Blonsky with tissue contaminated by fel energy.

The latter had driven Blonsky dangerously close to complete frenzy.

Had he retained his sanity while still possessing all the combat skills he’d accumulated over his career, Banner would have had an even harder fight on his hands.

"Fine. I get it."

Ross sighed.

"Raw power could crush a weaker opponent without much effort. But once two fighters were operating within the same general range of strength, experience and technique became decisive."

He knew that.

He just didn’t enjoy having the twins bring up that particular memory.

"But please don’t mention it again."

He grimaced.

"That’s one Chapter of my career I’d rather forget."

"Of course."

Oleses smiled.

She pressed a button on the control panel.

The brightly lit detention chamber below immediately went black.

Then the noise began.

A tremendous roar filled the room.

The chamber had been designed to amplify sound, and its unusual architecture caused the noise to resonate through the walls in a series of brutal echoes.

Allen’s mind simply stopped functioning.

The pressure was overwhelming.

The resonance caused pain to lance through her skull, and she curled up on the floor, screaming.

Salorass picked up the microphone.

Her voice came through the speakers.

"Army Sergeant Allen Brandy, why did you betray your country?"

The noise stopped.

The lights came back on.

Allen gasped for breath.

"You... you..."

She struggled to speak.

"I’ll make you pay!"

She slapped a hand against the wall.

If she could activate the Extremis energy inside her body, the heat would be more than enough to melt through the reinforced structure and escape.

That was the plan.

Nothing happened.

Allen stared blankly at her hand.

That was when she realized something was deeply wrong.

The Extremis energy inside her had always been restless, constantly churning beneath her skin.

Now?

Silence.

She couldn’t even sense it.

Much less use it.

A sharp screech suddenly tore through the room.

It sounded like fingernails dragged slowly across a blackboard.

Allen collapsed.

Her body convulsed against the floor.

Oleses released the button and looked at Ross with an expression of genuine bewilderment.

"People are strange. Everyone knows that the first thing you do after capturing a criminal is disarm them."

She shrugged.

"Why did she assume that locking her up meant we’d leave her little tricks intact?"

Ross tilted his head.

"Maybe she thought taking away someone’s powers was more complicated than taking away their gun."

"..."

Oleses stared at him.

"Why did you have to phrase it like that?"

Ross wisely said nothing.

The microphone crackled again.

"Why did you betray this country?!"

This time Allen had learned her lesson.

She answered immediately.

"Betray the country? What are you talking about? I’m carrying out a classified military operation! If you keep me imprisoned, you’re the ones committing treason!"

"Just as we thought."

Oleses nodded.

Killian’s people were mostly former soldiers.

Convincing such people to betray their country wasn’t easy.

They had all been trained by the military. They understood duty and loyalty. They might not possess the sort of suicidal devotion that made soldiers willing to sacrifice everything without hesitation, but becoming terrorists and enemies of the United States was another matter entirely.

Killian had therefore taken a more intelligent approach.

Once the Extremis procedure gave him control over their lives, he could have simply threatened to kill them.

But that would have been counterproductive.

What if one of them happened to be the sort of lunatic who genuinely would sacrifice his life for his country?

A desperate soldier embracing you with a smile and a live grenade was not exactly a problem you wanted to create for yourself.

Fortunately, Killian had already spent years secretly cooperating with the military.

The military had even helped connect him with many of these retired soldiers.

So he simply borrowed its authority.

He told the veterans that their country still needed them.

That they had been given new strength.

That they had been selected for highly classified missions.

Each soldier knew only his own assignment.

None of them knew the larger plan.

As far as they were concerned, they were still serving the United States.

"Is that so?"

This time, the voice coming through the detention chamber was Ross’s.

"That’s unfortunate."

At the same time, the one-way glass began to change.

Its opacity shifted until Allen could finally see the man standing on the other side.

Her eyes widened.

"General Ross?"

She was stunned.

"What is this? Some kind of resistance-to-interrogation training?"

Ross had once been a general in the U.S. military. Allen’s mind was still scrambled enough that she momentarily forgot he had resigned.

She also remembered him favorably.

The government had portrayed him as one of the heroes of the Battle of New York.

So seeing him here made her assume she was undergoing some kind of military counter-interrogation exercise.

Special forces training had included things like this before.

Ross’s expression became grave.

"I’m afraid I have some bad news for you, Sergeant Brandy."

His voice carried just the right amount of regret.

"You have been deceived into becoming an enemy of the United States."

Allen stared at him.

"Aldrich Killian has no authority whatsoever to issue military orders. He is also responsible for multiple terrorist attacks committed on American soil."

Ross paused.

"Worse, he attempted to kidnap and assassinate the President."

His expression hardened.

"As one of Killian’s operatives, I regret to inform you that you, Sergeant Allen J. M. Brandy, are considered his accomplice."

"No."

Allen froze.

"No, no..."

Her voice cracked.

"That’s impossible. Something has to be wrong."

"Nothing is wrong."

Ross shook his head.

"Killian seized the Iron Patriot, infiltrated Air Force One, and attempted to assassinate the President. The President himself, along with everyone else he targeted, can testify to what happened."

As he spoke, evidence from the incident appeared on the walls of the detention chamber.

Video footage from Air Force One.

Records.

Images.

Everything was projected directly in front of Allen.

"How..."

Her eyes went vacant.

"How could this happen?"

She looked like a puppet whose strings had been cut.

"Sergeant Brandy."

Ross’s voice pulled her back to reality.

"Do you know what happens to someone convicted of treason?"

Treason.

The punishment...

Death.

Technically, that wasn’t what the law said. A court would impose a prison sentence.

But Allen knew better.

Those laws were for people who still believed the system operated neatly on paper.

Anyone branded a traitor who possessed no valuable secrets generally didn’t survive for long.

Three months would have been generous.

Allen knew because she’d once gone undercover in a women’s prison to deal with someone in precisely that situation.

"But you still have a chance at redemption."

Ross’s tone changed.

"Considering your record, the fact that your father and grandfather died serving their country, and most importantly, the fact that you were deceived and had no knowledge of Killian’s conspiracy, I appealed to the President on your behalf."

He looked directly at her.

"You have one chance to restore your name."

"And your life."

"Do you accept?"

"I accept."

Allen didn’t hesitate.

Her family had served for generations.

Her grandfather had been stationed at Pearl Harbor.

Her great-uncle had landed in Normandy on his very first combat deployment.

Another great-uncle had fought during the Battle of the Bulge.

Her father had served during the Gulf War and had died as one of America’s war casualties.

Her family had given everything to the country.

How could she allow herself to carry the stain of treason?

And, frankly, the prospect of dying wasn’t particularly appealing either.

"Good."

Oleses pressed another button.

A hidden compartment opened in the wall.

"Get dressed."

Allen looked inside.

Her eyebrows twitched.

Inside were clothes that looked like they had been designed by someone who had watched one Western movie and decided that was enough research.

A black cloak.

A wide-brimmed hat.

Leather boots fitted with spurs.

They think I’m from Nevada, so I must be a cowboy?

Her family really did have cowboys in its ancestry.

One of them had even been a lawman.

But that had happened before the Civil War.

And according to family stories, that particular ancestor had supposedly been named Nathaniel Wayne.

The family claimed he hadn’t even been American. Apparently, he had been a nobleman from some distant land in the East who had somehow ended up on the American frontier, where he became a cowboy and eventually a lawman.

Allen had never been entirely sure how much of that story was true.

"From this moment onward, Allen Brandy no longer exists."

Oleses spoke calmly.

"You’ll need a new name."

She glanced down at the file.

"J. M. Those are your middle initials, correct?"

Oleses smiled.

"Then from today onward, you will be Jesse McKenna."

She pointed toward the way out.

"Come upstairs. We need to talk."