Chapter 699

"Where the hell did you get a disciple?"

Since Evenson had arrived, Melinda May had been remarkably relaxed.

Unless the entire situation suddenly went catastrophically wrong, she was confident they had this under control. So she wandered over to Evenson, finally unable to resist asking the question that had been bothering her.

"Picked her up today."

Evenson didn’t even bother hiding the truth.

"She’s Clea’s senior disciple. She insisted on becoming my disciple, and eventually I couldn’t talk her out of it."

May stared at him.

That was certainly one way to tell the story.

The actual sequence of events had involved Evenson and Clea deliberately setting a trap, dangling Lily’s lifelong ambition in front of her, and practically maneuvering her into performing the formal ceremony herself.

But apparently, in Evenson’s version, Lily had simply grabbed his leg and begged to become his disciple.

"I see. So it’s nepotism."

There was a faintly sour note in May’s voice.

"SHIELD has certainly treated you well. I didn’t realize you’d go outside the organization to find yourself a disciple."

SHIELD had been trying to convince Evenson to train a new generation of Warlocks for quite some time.

Nick Fury had personally selected batches of exceptional agents and sent them to Evenson for evaluation.

Evenson rejected every single one.

Their talent was insufficient.

Their minds weren’t stable enough.

Their personalities weren’t suitable.

He always had some mysterious reason.

Then he turned around and accepted an outsider into his school through the girlfriend route.

May had every right to be annoyed.

Evenson gave her a sideways look.

"You’re the last person in SHIELD who gets to complain about that."

Then he shook his head.

"Besides, Lily isn’t my disciple because she wants to learn magic."

May blinked.

"If she isn’t learning magic, what exactly is she learning from you?"

She narrowed her eyes.

"Fraud?"

Evenson’s expression soured.

Was that really all she thought he was good for besides magic?

He opened his mouth to object.

Then reconsidered.

...There was an uncomfortable amount of truth in that accusation.

"You’ve already seen where her interests lie. She’s obsessed with martial arts. She has almost no interest in magic."

He shrugged.

"She became my disciple because she wants to use magic to understand and improve her martial arts. That’s about it. Even if I wanted to teach her more, I’m not sure she’d be interested."

That part was true.

Evenson had spoken with Lily on the way over.

She wasn’t lacking in magical talent. She could sense and manipulate magic.

She simply didn’t care.

As far as Lily was concerned, Kamar-Taj’s magic had one major practical advantage: it allowed her to carry her twin blades and oversized spear with her wherever she went.

Everything else?

She couldn’t have cared less.

If the Ancient One hadn’t once gotten fed up enough to kick her straight into the middle of the Sahara Desert, Lily probably wouldn’t even have bothered learning how to open a portal.

"Using magic to validate martial arts?"

May looked intrigued.

"I’ve never heard of that approach."

But if it really worked, perhaps her own practice of Tai Chi and internal energy could eventually amount to something after all.

"So that’s why you sent her against Chen Haoran?" May asked. "To sharpen her martial arts?"

Evenson glanced toward the fight.

Then he quietly took two steps backward and lowered his voice.

"Not entirely."

May waited.

"I mostly wanted to watch a martial artist fight a superpowered human."

He gave her a perfectly innocent look.

"That kind of matchup used to be incredibly popular."

May opened her mouth.

Nothing came out.

At first, she had wondered why Evenson had suddenly become so unusually merciful toward the Inhuman in front of them.

Now she understood.

The moment Chen rejected his offer, Evenson had apparently stopped seeing him as someone to save and started seeing him as entertainment.

Chen was risking his life.

Evenson was watching a show.

The contrast was almost disturbing.

May remembered something Nick Fury had told her when their team was first formed.

You can trust Evenson.

But never rely on him.

Because Evenson and Fury were cut from the same cloth. Both men were willing to do whatever was necessary to accomplish their goals.

For reasons May preferred not to examine too closely, she still believed her own moral floor was slightly higher.

Across the room, Coulson had apparently heard enough.

He stepped between them.

"Now can we talk about why you’re here?"

"Because I’m in Hong Kong."

Evenson shrugged.

"I finished dinner and went out for a walk. Then I happened to see your aircraft flying overhead, so I came to check whether you were having trouble."

He smiled.

"See how considerate I am? No need to thank me. Just give me a couple bottles of good liquor when I leave."

"No!"

Coulson nearly jumped.

"The flight crew already suspects us of drinking on duty or illegally selling off SHIELD supplies. Logistics has stopped issuing alcohol to our team under the new regulations!"

Evenson blinked.

"Food works too."

He scratched his head.

Maybe asking for entire cases had been excessive.

"I don’t mind beef."

"Sorry."

May delivered the finishing blow.

"We’re on rationed supplies now. Everyone gets a fixed amount of food. We don’t have anything extra."

Evenson’s eyes widened.

"Wait. The SHIELD logistics reform was because of me?"

He pointed at himself.

"I accidentally helped expose corruption?"

"Exactly."

Coulson nodded.

"Director Pierce was actually considering giving you a commendation for uncovering a major weakness in SHIELD’s internal logistics."

Evenson’s face fell.

"That bastard is trying to humiliate me."

Even Evenson wasn’t shameless enough to accept an award for stealing snacks and booze from SHIELD aircraft.

The whole thing had started innocently enough.

Evenson sneaking food, drinks, and other supplies off aircraft wasn’t exactly a major crime. The logistics personnel involved certainly hadn’t expected the matter to go any higher.

Then Director Pierce somehow heard about it.

At first, he treated the whole thing as a joke.

He laughed, made a show of ordering an investigation into logistics, and expected the matter to end there.

It didn’t.

The audit uncovered several suspicious financial channels buried within SHIELD’s logistics system.

Large sums of money had been moving through them.

Nobody could identify the original sources.

Nobody knew where the money was going.

Nobody even knew how long the channels had existed.

Pierce had reportedly stared at the audit in stunned silence.

Then he’d exploded.

Someone had been stealing from HYDRA’s own organization.

He immediately ordered a deeper investigation.

And then, almost as if they’d never existed, every suspicious account and financial channel shut down simultaneously.

Gone.

The investigators couldn’t trace the money.

Pierce was disappointed, but ultimately accepted the result.

At least the leak had been plugged.

As far as he was concerned, he’d just performed another valuable service for HYDRA.

Coulson, however, remembered Fury’s reaction much more clearly.

The day the investigation broke, the Director’s expression had been darker than usual.

For several days, Fury didn’t smile once.

And whenever Coulson mentioned Evenson’s name, he could practically hear Fury grinding his teeth.

Not long afterward, Evenson’s salary had been locked in place.

No raises.

Ever.

Coulson had sometimes wondered whether Evenson had actually noticed the corruption beforehand and deliberately stolen supplies as a way of forcing SHIELD’s leadership to investigate.

Maybe he’d been trying to warn them.

Maybe he really did have that kind of awareness.

Then again...

Coulson shook his head.

No.

Something about that theory felt completely wrong.

Wait.

Why were they talking about logistics?

They had been discussing why Evenson had come to Hong Kong.

How had Evenson somehow dragged the conversation this far off course?

Coulson straightened.

"Evenson."

His tone became stern.

"Do you realize that entering Hong Kong this way technically constitutes illegal entry?"

"Oh, come on."

Evenson lazily scratched his ear.

"I didn’t exactly plan for that to happen."

He gestured toward Clea.

"You know my girlfriend. A few days ago, we realized we’d known each other for so long that I should probably accompany her home to meet the family."

"So I went with her to Kamar-Taj’s New York sanctum. I thought the place looked interesting, so I wandered around."

He shrugged.

"I opened one door, stepped through another, and somehow ended up in Hong Kong."

Evenson spread his hands.

"Since I was already here, I figured I’d look around."

Then he spotted your aircraft.

"So here I am."

He paused.

"Although, I have a question."

He turned to Coulson with unusual seriousness.

"Does using a portal count as smuggling yourself across the border?"

Coulson froze.

That was...

Actually, that was a surprisingly tricky question.

He almost started thinking about the legal implications.

Then he violently shook his head.

"No. Don’t change the subject. I don’t care how you got here. You don’t have a visa. That makes it illegal entry."

"Fine, fine."

Evenson rolled his eyes.

"I’m leaving tomorrow morning anyway. I’m done sightseeing."

He paused.

"By the way, how did you get here? Is it really that easy for SHIELD to operate in China?"

Coulson’s expression suddenly became extremely serious.

He placed a hand on Evenson’s shoulder.

"As a SHIELD consultant, you shouldn’t approach international affairs with prejudice. You need to understand how the modern world works."

Evenson stared at him.

"You think China is still some isolated, backward country?"

Coulson continued solemnly.

"No. China has undergone enormous economic growth and modernization. It’s now the world’s second-largest economy. You need to recognize that reality and avoid outdated assumptions."

Evenson stared at him.

You’re explaining this to me?

He knew that perfectly well.

May joined in with the same solemn expression.

"China is highly open to international cooperation. They’ve signed the SHIELD Accords."

She paused.

"And the World Security Council has only five permanent members. China is one of them. So why wouldn’t SHIELD be able to operate here when necessary?"

Evenson nodded slowly.

That made sense.

The World Security Council was effectively SHIELD’s boss.

If SHIELD wanted to send people into the boss’s backyard to handle a security problem, there wasn’t much mystery to it.

"Although opportunities like this are rare," May admitted.

There was a hint of envy in her voice.

"They handle most of their own problems. Even when something goes wrong, they usually have the capability to resolve it themselves."

"So SHIELD doesn’t get called in very often."

"Exactly."

"Fair enough."

Evenson shrugged.

"Once today’s mess is over, I’ll leave tomorrow morning."

He thought for a moment.

"I’ll be stopping in London for a short while."

May looked at him.

"Don’t look at me like that. I’ll be there for one day at most."

He raised a finger.

"And I have a valid visa. The tourist visa from my last trip hasn’t expired yet."

"You’re going to London?"

Something shifted in May’s expression.

Evenson immediately noticed.

"That sounds suspicious."

May ignored him.

"That’s actually perfect. Something rather interesting happened in London."

She looked at him.

"Would you mind handling it for us?"

"Seriously?"

Evenson groaned.

"I come to Hong Kong to accompany my girlfriend home, and I still end up working?"

He sighed.

"What’s happened?"

"Do you remember Dr. Erik Selvig?"

Evenson frowned.

"That name sounds familiar."

He searched his memory.

Then it clicked.

Selvig.

The scientist SHIELD had brought in to study the Tesseract.

The same scientist Loki had later taken control of.

The same man who knew Thor and had taught Jane Foster.

"What happened to him?"

Coulson hesitated.

Then he pulled out his phone.

"You should probably see for yourself."

He opened a video and handed it over.

Evenson watched for two seconds.

Then three.

His expression slowly changed.

Now he understood why Coulson had been reluctant to explain.

The video had everything required to qualify as a public relations disaster.

And no, not that kind of video.

It was a clip from a British news broadcast.

According to the report, an elderly scientist had suddenly stripped naked at Stonehenge, grabbed a scientific instrument, and started running around the tourist site while loudly proclaiming that a catastrophic disaster was coming.

Then the footage dissolved into chaos.

The screen filled with strategically placed mosaics.

Evenson stared.

He couldn’t believe what he was seeing.

Dr. Selvig was a respected scientist.

A genuine expert.

And now he’d apparently decided that the best place to announce the end of the world was a crowded tourist attraction, while completely naked.

Not partially naked.

Not poorly dressed.

Completely naked.

In public.

At Stonehenge.

Evenson slowly lowered the phone.

"Yeah."

He nodded.

"He’s lost his mind."

Coulson gave him a strained smile.

"You think so too?"

"Absolutely."

"Unfortunately, so does everyone else. He’s currently being held in a psychiatric facility in the Tower of London."

Coulson rubbed the back of his neck.

"Higher-ups originally wanted us to pick him up while we were passing through London. But since you’re going there anyway..."

He gave Evenson an apologetic look.

"Would you mind bringing him back?"

Evenson’s jaw dropped.

"You’re kidding."

"You can’t just dump this on me because you’re embarrassed!"

"That’s not what we’re doing."

May stepped in.

"Remember, Selvig was controlled by Loki. So we don’t know whether this is genuine mental illness or some kind of lingering psychological effect from Loki’s control."

She looked at Evenson.

"You have experience dealing with unusual magical and supernatural effects. It makes sense for you to assess him."

"Oh."

Evenson nodded.

"So that’s the reason."

He narrowed his eyes.

"You’re really not just trying to avoid the embarrassment?"

May and Coulson immediately shook their heads in perfect unison.

"Of course not."

"Not at all."

"We’re professionally trained."

"We don’t get embarrassed."

Evenson stared at them.

Neither man blinked.

Neither woman blinked.

He sighed.

"Fine."

Something told him London was going to be a very long day.