Chapter 626

Quinn finally understood.

He had been played from beginning to end.

Even a man with exceptional self-control would have trouble swallowing that without getting angry.

The problem was deciding what to do first. Evan had slipped out through the back door, while Skye had fallen into the swimming pool. Should he chase Evan, or deal with Skye?

Before Quinn could decide, the entire house shook.

No. Not just the house.

The whole island lurched violently.

Quinn and his men lost their footing and crashed to the floor.

For a moment, Quinn wondered if it was an earthquake. But earthquakes did not usually shake once and then stop dead.

Then he noticed a pen lying on the floor in front of him.

It slowly rose onto its tip.

Quinn’s expression changed.

"Oh, Hall..."

He shook his head in frustration. He immediately understood that something had gone wrong with his old classmate.

He didn’t know whether Hall’s experiment had malfunctioned or whether the old man had deliberately betrayed him, but one thing was certain.

Gravitonium was not something you could afford to have a problem with.

"Get the helicopter ready," Quinn ordered the nearest bodyguard. "We’re leaving. Now."

As Quinn had guessed, something had indeed gone catastrophically wrong in Dr. Hall’s laboratory.

The moment Evan activated the signal repeater, Fitz hacked into the laser security system and forced the defensive grid into a brief reboot. Coulson and Ward, who had been waiting for exactly such an opportunity, immediately slipped through.

Armed with the nonlethal Night-Night Guns Fitz had developed, the two agents tore through the facility with almost embarrassing efficiency.

At one point, they split up.

Ward went to extract Skye.

Coulson continued deeper into the underground facility to rescue Dr. Hall.

"Dr. Hall. Agent Coulson, S.H.I.E.L.D. We’re here to get you out. Come with me."

Coulson had done his homework. He knew the facility’s layout almost by heart, so it didn’t take him long to reach Hall’s laboratory.

He stepped inside, gave his name, and didn’t even bother fumbling for his badge.

"We don’t have time to explain. Let’s go."

Instead of moving, Hall remained hunched over the control console like an addict who had just discovered a new game.

His fingers flew across the controls.

"S.H.I.E.L.D.?" Hall said without looking back. "I can’t leave."

Coulson stopped.

He slowly turned around.

"Honestly, that wasn’t part of the plan."

He had infiltrated an armed facility, fought his way inside, and risked his life to rescue a hostage.

The hostage didn’t want to be rescued.

Coulson had to resist the urge to stare directly into an imaginary camera.

He was S.H.I.E.L.D., not the KGB. What exactly was Hall afraid of?

"Listen. I don’t know what Quinn promised you, but..."

"An opportunity."

Coulson frowned.

Hall’s gaze remained fixed on the chamber ahead.

Coulson followed it.

Behind a wall of reinforced glass stood a massive power-generation apparatus. Multiple arcs of electricity coursed through the machine, dragging a huge mass of gravitonium around the center of the chamber.

Coulson’s expression hardened.

"We can’t let Quinn control that."

The experiment had already begun.

"He is too dangerous."

"We can’t let anyone control it."

Hall finally looked up.

His eyes were calm.

"We’re going to bury it at the bottom of the ocean. Along with Quinn."

Coulson’s stomach sank.

Then Melinda’s voice came through the communications system, confirming the suspicion that had just formed in his mind.

The leak.

The person who had exposed the details of their operation was Dr. Hall.

Hall had somehow learned that Quinn had obtained gravitonium. Knowing his old classmate’s greed, he had concluded that allowing Quinn to possess it would be catastrophic.

So Hall had staged his own kidnapping.

He had used an alias to send out information, arranged to be abducted, and then used the experiment itself as a way to destroy both the gravitonium and Quinn.

Hall pressed the final button.

The gravitonium generator came fully online.

Coulson immediately felt the world turn upside down.

He hit the floor hard.

Or what had been the floor.

When Coulson finally regained consciousness, the room appeared to have turned inside out.

He was standing on the ceiling.

The original floor was now above his head.

Gravity had become completely unstable.

Hall, meanwhile, looked positively delighted.

He found an undamaged bottle of liquor, poured himself a drink, and raised the glass as though he were about to deliver an acceptance speech.

Or perhaps he simply wanted to make his position perfectly clear.

"I made the right choice," Hall said. "Someone had to stop Quinn."

Coulson slowly adjusted to the bizarre shift in gravity.

"Dr. Hall, it’s not too late. You can still stop this."

His agents were still on the island.

Surely Hall didn’t intend to kill them.

"Our people are still here. Please shut down the experiment."

That was apparently the wrong thing to say.

Hall’s expression twisted with anger.

"S.H.I.E.L.D.! You’re no different from Quinn!"

Coulson blinked.

"You conduct experiments without considering the consequences! Your research into the Tesseract, your obsession with limitless energy, brought an alien invasion down on this planet!"

Hall’s voice rose.

"Everyone involved in that project was insane! Psychotic! Idiotic!"

"Enough!"

The laboratory door was kicked open.

Evan walked in.

Unlike Coulson and Hall, he wasn’t affected by the distorted gravity.

His boots landed firmly on the floor.

From Coulson’s perspective, that meant Evan appeared to be standing upside down.

Evan looked up.

He had escaped Quinn, then immediately sensed that something was wrong with the island’s gravity. Following the disturbance toward its source, he had arrived just in time to hear Hall’s tirade.

And Evan was not amused.

The Tesseract project Hall had just condemned had included Evan as a nominal consultant.

True, he had spent one day skipping work to take a trip to Britain and had contributed approximately nothing to the actual project.

But technically speaking, he had been part of it.

Evan’s eyes narrowed.

"Enough."

He clearly disliked having to crane his neck to look at people, so he jumped lightly.

His body flipped in midair.

He landed on the ceiling, now standing level with Coulson and Hall.

Then he folded his arms and stared down Hall.

"I thought that as a veteran of S.H.I.E.L.D., you would have something worthwhile to say when standing before us. Instead, you resort to vulgar insults."

His voice grew grander.

"I have something to say. All of you, listen well!"

Coulson glanced left.

Then right.

All three of them were alone in the room.

All of you?

"Once the Tesseract returned to the world, the Chitauri descended upon Earth and laid waste to our civilization. Humanity stood upon the brink of destruction, its fate hanging by a thread!"

Coulson’s expression slowly flattened.

"Fortunately, the heroes of the Avengers risked their lives without hesitation. Through courage, strength, and sacrifice, they drove the invaders from our world and turned the tide of disaster!"

Evan lifted his chin.

Coulson stared at him.

You could raise your head a little higher.

Please do. Maybe your neck will snap.

Coulson had never seen self-promotion quite so shamelessly executed.

"But afterward, in order to restore peace and prevent another catastrophe, we were forced to surrender the Tesseract and send it to Asgard. This was..."

"A righteous act."

Hall interrupted him.

Hall’s conviction had never wavered.

As far as he was concerned, S.H.I.E.L.D.’s research into the Tesseract had attracted the attention of the universe. If the Tesseract were removed from Earth, aliens would have no reason to invade.

Sending it away had therefore been the most correct decision S.H.I.E.L.D. could have made.

Evan’s eyes hardened.

"An utter humiliation."

Hall stared at him.

Evan continued.

"An innocent man possessing a treasure may attract thieves. But what crime does the innocent man commit by possessing it? What crime does a treasure commit by existing?"

His voice sharpened.

"If neither man nor treasure has committed a crime, why should their combination somehow constitute guilt?"

He pointed toward Hall.

"The fault lies neither with the man nor with the treasure."

"It lies with weakness."

Coulson’s expression became complicated.

Hall’s face was no better.

Evan was only getting started.

"If a treasure in your home attracts a robber, that is unfortunate. But if you defeat the robber and then surrender your greatest treasure to someone else simply because you fear another attack, that is true humiliation."

"The Tesseract’s origins are unknown. We don’t know when it came into existence, whether it was created by intelligent hands or formed with the birth of the universe. We don’t know whether it came to Earth from somewhere else or whether Earth was its birthplace."

"But it has existed on Earth for thousands of years."

"That makes it Earth’s treasure."

"And therefore it belongs to humanity."

Evan’s voice rang through the room.

"What humanity chooses to do with it is humanity’s concern. Even if we somehow manage to destroy ourselves with it, that is still our decision."

Coulson and Hall both stared at him.

So you’re willing to destroy your entire species, but nobody’s allowed to stop you?

Evan continued before either man could object.

"If our research into the Tesseract truly posed such a grave danger that the Chitauri came to warn us, then perhaps we would listen. If our experiments threatened our own existence and we stood on the verge of destroying ourselves, and the Chitauri arrived to offer genuine guidance, perhaps we would even thank them."

"But that isn’t what happened."

"They were robbers."

"The Chitauri did not come because S.H.I.E.L.D. researched the Tesseract."

"They came because they wanted it."

"Greed brought them here."

Hall shook his head.

"You twist everything with clever words. The Chitauri may have coveted the Tesseract, but if S.H.I.E.L.D. had sent it away earlier, or locked it away without studying it, why would they have invaded Earth?"

Evan gave him a contemptuous look.

"So your solution to robbers is to throw away every valuable possession in your house?"

Hall opened his mouth.

Evan didn’t give him the chance to answer.

"Today the Chitauri invaded Earth, and according to you, we should send the Tesseract somewhere else."

He raised one finger.

"Suppose another alien race arrives tomorrow. They threaten us with military force and announce that Earth has abundant water, so they would like to borrow some."

"Should we surrender the oceans?"

"Should we beg permission every time we take a drink?"

A second finger.

"Suppose another alien race decides humanity is numerous, obedient, and ideally suited for slavery."

"Should we put collars around our own necks and march peacefully into their factories?"

A third.

"Suppose they decide humans are best suited as food."

"Should we wash ourselves, lie down on serving platters, and garnish ourselves with ketchup?"

Hall’s face had gone pale.

Evan’s voice became colder.

"And suppose they decide humanity has no right to this planet at all."

"Should we slit our own throats and save them the trouble?"

Hall stammered.

"I... that’s..."

Evan narrowed his eyes.

"That’s what?"

"Are you planning to reason with a robber?"

"Or are you planning to test how much you can give away before the robber is satisfied?"

He stepped forward.

"Against a robber, you retreat one step, and he advances two."

"The greed of a robber has no end."

The words hung in the distorted room.

"In the past, sending the Tesseract beyond Earth was a desperate measure taken because we had no other choice. We suffered humiliation once. We will not suffer it again."

"That is why people across the world are working together to strengthen Earth."

Evan folded his arms and looked Hall up and down.

"And what are you doing, Dr. Hall?"

"I’ve heard of your accomplishments."

"You were born in England. You graduated from Cambridge and earned your doctorate. You are one of the rare scientific minds this world possesses."

"You should be standing with your fellow humans, working to make Earth stronger."

"Instead, you’re trying to destroy your own world because you’ve decided that danger itself is unacceptable."

"And when confronted by a so-called threat, you bow your head and beg for mercy."

Hall’s face flushed.

"You... you dare!"

Evan pointed directly at him.

"Silence, you shameless old fool!"

His voice thundered through the laboratory.

"If you are nothing more than a coward who lacks the courage to face danger, then keep your head down and cling to whatever scraps of safety you can find!"

"How dare you stand before me and call yourself a savior of the world?"

"You gray-haired relic!"

"You old fool!"

"You’re about to die, so tell me this: when you stand before the countless people who died at the hands of the aliens, what face will you have to meet them with?"

Hall’s lips trembled.

"I..."

Cold sweat ran down his face.

Evan wasn’t finished.

"A broken-backed dog snarling at me as though it has the right to bark!"

He sneered.

"I have never seen anyone so shameless."

Hall’s entire body shook.

"I... I..."

He suddenly cried out in frustration and pounded his chest.

"To hell with you!"

He hadn’t collapsed dead from righteous indignation, as Evan’s speech might have suggested.

Instead, rage overcame him.

Hall snatched up his pistol and fired wildly at Evan.

Evan stared.

For all his confidence, there was still a difference between being forty-six and being seventy-six.

And apparently, Hall still had enough life left in him to pull a trigger.