Chapter 673

The people below had been given overwhelming power in an instant.

Then they had been forced to witness horrors that would never leave them, visions that would be etched into their souls for the rest of their lives.

They were probably completely lost right now.

Which meant they needed someone to guide them.

"I’ll go."

To Peggy Carter’s surprise, it was Peggy herself who volunteered.

She picked up the mask resting nearby and was about to put it on when she paused. She raised her left hand, and the focusing crystal on her wrist projected a blade of fel energy.

This time, however, the blade was incredibly thin, more like a steel needle.

Peggy poked several holes into the mask.

Pfft. Pfft. Pfft.

Only then did she put it on.

"Oh. Much better. I can actually breathe."

"Heh."

Evenson couldn’t help laughing at the sight.

"Not bad. Just try not to scare the poor bastards to death with that Black Friday face of yours."

Peggy ignored him.

"But weren’t you always incredibly hostile toward them?"

Evenson remembered her saying more than once that whenever she saw a Hydra operative, she had to resist the urge to cut them down on the spot.

So why was she suddenly so eager to go down there and comfort them?

"I am."

Peggy’s voice was calm.

"I hate Hydra more than almost anything. Because of them, I was separated from the person I loved for sixty years. Because of them, everything I spent my life building was destroyed."

Her eyes hardened.

"I hate Hydra. I really do."

She looked toward the transformed operatives.

"But when I go down there... will they still be Hydra?"

There was no doubt that everyone brought here had undergone Hydra indoctrination.

It wasn’t crude, mechanical brainwashing. Hydra had given them something far more effective.

A cause.

They had been taught that the world was rotten to its core. That every existing government was hopelessly incompetent. That too many people had become useless, decadent, and directionless.

Only Hydra’s ideals could save the world.

Only under Hydra’s rule could humanity become something greater.

They had believed it.

They had devoted themselves to it.

They had been willing to sacrifice everything for that vision, enduring any hardship so long as they believed they were advancing the cause.

But now the truth had been placed directly in front of them.

Hydra’s grand design was tiny.

Its lofty ambitions were insignificant compared to the reality they had just glimpsed.

And the leaders they had once regarded as brilliant visionaries?

They were nothing more than petty men scrambling for power.

Their faith had collapsed.

Their loyalty to Hydra had collapsed with it.

And now...

A new storm was rising.

"We planned this from the beginning," Peggy said, a satisfied smile spreading beneath her mask. "A higher ideal. A greater purpose. A mission capable of giving them something even more intoxicating than Hydra ever could: a sense of meaning and glory."

"I’ll give them that."

"They’ll throw Hydra away without a second thought and pledge themselves to us with absolute loyalty."

Her smile widened.

"Just as Hydra infiltrated and corrupted SHIELD from within, I’ll quietly bring Hydra’s own people into our ranks."

Peggy adjusted her mask.

"That’s my revenge."

She laughed softly.

"And it’s a hell of a lot more satisfying than simply killing them."

Evenson nodded.

Turnabout was fair play.

Hydra had spent years poaching SHIELD’s people from within.

Now Peggy intended to poach Hydra’s.

He couldn’t help appreciating the irony.

Peggy gave a quiet snort, adjusted the mask over her face, and opened the door.

It had barely swung halfway open when a startled voice rang out behind her.

There was more than surprise in it.

There was anger.

"Wait."

Peggy stopped.

"That’s what you wanted me to see? This is what you’ve been doing all this time?"

Claire had been silent since the experiment began.

It wasn’t because she had possessed some extraordinary degree of composure.

She had simply been too stunned to process what she was seeing.

The moment the mass soul extraction had begun, her mind had practically shut down.

Only now had she finally recovered enough to speak.

For anyone with even a remotely ordinary sense of morality, what had happened was deeply disturbing.

Claire was no exception.

She had always known there was a side of Evenson she didn’t understand.

She simply hadn’t imagined that side could be this dark.

"What you did..." Claire struggled to find the words. "It’s like..."

She stared at him.

"It’s like something a monster would do."

"A monster?"

Evenson smiled faintly.

"I’ve never claimed otherwise."

Bang!

Peggy had been about to leave, but Claire’s outburst made her stop dead.

After hearing the rest, Peggy gave a cold laugh, then slammed the door shut and walked back into the room.

She removed her mask again.

Instead of answering Claire, she looked at Evenson with genuine confusion.

"You brought this girl here because you wanted her to join us, didn’t you?"

Evenson nodded.

Peggy sighed.

"Honestly, Evenson, I’ve never doubted your judgment before."

She glanced at Claire.

"But this time, I have to question it."

"This girl is..."

Peggy paused, searching for the most accurate word.

"Naive."

That was apparently the nicest way she could put it.

Claire’s head snapped toward her.

She had expected someone to argue with her.

She had expected Evenson to defend himself.

She had even expected the Eredar twins to mock her.

What she hadn’t expected was Peggy Carter to be the first person to push back.

Peggy’s reputation spoke for itself.

Being an Avenger was almost beside the point.

She and Captain America had become almost legendary figures over the decades, symbols of integrity and heroism whose names were known across the world.

Claire had assumed that Peggy’s willingness to tolerate what Evenson had done came from her hatred of Hydra.

Or perhaps from a willingness to sacrifice her own principles for the greater good.

Surely, somewhere beneath all of that, there was still a line she wouldn’t cross.

Surely she didn’t truly approve of this.

"You think this is some ordinary moment in history?" Peggy asked.

She folded her arms and looked at Claire with faint contempt.

"We’re facing a war."

"What kind of war?"

Claire’s question came out almost dazed.

Evenson suddenly slapped a hand against the table and rose to his feet.

"Why are the Void Lords sneaking across the borders in the dead of night?"

"Why did Sargeras destroy his own family?"

"Why are Titan world-souls dying in the void between stars?"

"Why do the Old Gods whisper and laugh in the dark?"

His voice rang through the chamber.

"Is it the distortion of the laws of reality?"

"Or the collapse of the boundaries themselves?"

Claire stared at him.

Evenson continued.

"You should know by now. We’re facing a war unlike anything this universe has ever seen."

"Our enemies are stronger than anything we’ve encountered before. Entire worlds have been annihilated by the smallest glimpse of their power before they even understood what was attacking them."

"Compared to that?"

"The Chitauri invasion wasn’t even a tragedy."

"It was a joke."

Claire’s expression changed.

"Those enemies... they’re already here?"

She suddenly remembered the conversation between Evenson and the Ancient One during their first meeting.

The enemies they had spoken about then.

The things beyond this world.

"No."

Evenson shook his head.

"And everything I’m doing now is to make sure they never arrive."

Claire hesitated.

She was struggling with the answer, struggling with the terrible logic behind it.

"But even so..."

Her voice weakened.

"Even so, what you’re doing is too much."

"Too much?"

Evenson tilted his head.

He genuinely seemed confused.

"For a war of that scale?"

He gestured toward the room.

"This many people died."

"What’s excessive about that?"

"That’s not what I’m talking about!"

Claire shouted.

"I don’t care about the deaths!"

She didn’t.

Evenson killing a few people wasn’t what disturbed her. She had killed people herself.

And these particular people?

They were Hydra remnants.

Claire couldn’t care less whether they lived or died.

That wasn’t the issue.

The issue was how they had been killed.

If you killed someone, at least you were killing a person.

What Evenson had done wasn’t that.

He had herded people into a room.

Given them anesthesia.

Placed them on an assembly line.

And processed them in batches.

What was that?

An industrial slaughterhouse?

That was what truly horrified Claire.

Evenson hadn’t treated those people like human beings.

He hadn’t even treated them like enemies.

He had treated them like livestock.

No.

There was a more accurate word.

One Evenson himself had casually let slip earlier.

Materials.

That was the difference.

A serial killer was horrifying because he killed people.

But someone like Hannibal was worse.

Because one killed.

The other butchered.

There was something uniquely chilling about that distinction.

The deliberate precision.

The almost clinical elegance.

The complete absence of human warmth.

Taking a person, stripping away everything that made them a person, and treating them as nothing more than an ingredient to be processed.

How could that not send a chill down the spine?