Chapter 800

The horrific scene Evenson had witnessed inside the laboratory wasn’t visible to ordinary people. Only someone with spiritual perception far beyond the human norm could see it.

An artifact capable of creating something resembling a pocket dimension—and filling that space with such a gruesome spectacle—had to be an extraordinary instrument of dark magic.

Yet despite the overwhelming traces of infernal energy permeating the laboratory, Evenson couldn’t sense the source of the magic itself. Worse, that energy was steadily dissipating, like water draining from a reservoir with no source to replenish it.

The conclusion was obvious.

The artifact was no longer here.

Evenson searched the wreckage anyway, hoping to find some clue to the object’s identity. Even a rough description of its shape would have helped.

Unfortunately, the explosion had left almost nothing intact. The particle collider, which everyone suspected had been the source of the accident, lay in several shattered pieces. The remaining machinery was too badly damaged to provide any useful information.

After a thorough search turned up nothing, Evenson abandoned the effort.

He activated a demonic summoning circle and returned to the aircraft, hoping Fitz’s reconstruction technology might reveal something his own investigation had missed.

The moment he stepped out of the circle, he nearly jumped out of his skin.

A figure in a sealed chemical-protection suit stood directly in front of him.

The suit was bright orange-red, with a massive oxygen cylinder strapped to its back. A breathing hose ran from the cylinder into the transparent faceplate, and the person inside was breathing so heavily that every breath sounded like someone trying to inhale through a clogged vacuum cleaner.

Evenson stared.

Then he recognized the figure.

Melinda?

What the hell was going on?

Had the world suddenly turned into Resident Evil? Wait a minute. Umbrella was supposed to be under his control. Why hadn’t anyone informed him that a biological disaster was underway?

Before he could ask, Melinda simply shook her head.

Then she grabbed his arm and dragged him away.

"Hey! Where are we going?"

Evenson glanced around as she marched him through the aircraft. Strangely, he didn’t see a single other person.

Had the plane turned into the set of some post-apocalyptic horror movie while he was away?

Melinda didn’t answer.

She hauled him into a cramped room that looked vaguely like a shower stall, shoved him inside, and immediately started stripping off his clothes.

"Whoa, whoa, whoa! Let’s take things slowly, shall we? We don’t have to be quite so aggressive."

Evenson instinctively crossed his arms over his chest.

Was this some kind of exotic new kink he hadn’t heard about?

And with Melinda wearing a full chemical-protection suit, no less. This was considerably more extreme than anything he’d experienced while using Demon Form around the twins.

Besides, if she really wanted to try something, couldn’t they wait until the mission was over and find somewhere private? Doing this in the middle of an aircraft was hardly appropriate.

Melinda rolled her eyes behind the transparent faceplate and continued removing his clothes.

She didn’t say a word.

Evenson tried to retreat, but the room was so small that he quickly slammed into the wall.

He looked at Melinda.

She looked back.

Fine.

He’d dealt with demons, hostile spirits, and things that would make a normal person’s brain shut down on sight. If this was what she wanted, who was he to judge?

With a resigned sigh, he stopped resisting.

A short while later, every last piece of clothing had been removed.

Evenson braced himself.

Melinda promptly gathered his clothes, tossed them into a disposal chute, turned around, and walked out.

The door slammed shut behind her.

Then the lock engaged.

Evenson blinked.

"Wait. You can’t just—"

A chorus of mechanical clicks interrupted him.

At least a dozen nozzles suddenly opened in the ceiling, walls, and floor, blasting him with water from every direction.

The pressure was comparable to a firefighter’s high-powered hose, and the water was hot enough to make him suspect the temperature was approaching sixty degrees Celsius.

He staggered beneath the assault.

Before he could recover, another set of nozzles sprayed him with a thick, opaque cleaning solution.

Then the brushes emerged.

Several enormous scrubbers covered in coarse bristles unfolded from hidden compartments and began attacking his body with mechanical enthusiasm.

Their movements were fast, relentless, and spectacularly indiscriminate.

Evenson had never imagined that being scrubbed clean could feel like having his skin scraped off with a collection of tiny knives.

His hair, face, feet, and every other part of him received exactly the same treatment.

Had he been wearing clothes, he would have teleported out of there without a second thought.

Unfortunately, he was naked, and that somehow made the situation even more humiliating.

To make matters worse, the process didn’t end after one round.

The water stopped. The cleaning solution returned. The brushes went to work again.

Then came another round of high-pressure rinsing.

The cycle repeated over and over.

By the time thirty minutes had passed, Evenson was sprawled on the floor, his skin bright red from head to toe. If anything, he’d become considerably smoother and shinier than he’d been before.

A cheerful electronic beep finally sounded.

The nozzles and brushes retracted into the walls. Warm air began blowing through the room, drying him from every angle.

Once the drying cycle finished, a drawer slid out of the wall.

Inside lay a simple hospital gown and a pair of slippers.

Evenson stared at them.

Then he stared at the ceiling.

He was beginning to understand why so many villains preferred to destroy their enemies rather than capture them.

He’d been through enough.

He got dressed, slipped on the footwear, and waited.

A green light illuminated the door.

Evenson kicked it open and marched out with the grim determination of a man who had just added several names to his personal kill list.

The moment he entered the main compartment, he found the rest of the team gathered in a tight circle.

They were all looking at him.

"Explain."

Evenson’s voice was dangerously quiet.

Then he bared his teeth.

"Explain right now! If I don’t get a satisfactory answer, I’ll blow this entire aircraft out of the sky!"

He was furious.

He was also in pain.

He had taken showers, used bath sponges, and endured the occasional overly enthusiastic back scrub throughout both of his lives. None of those experiences had prepared him for this.

He was fairly certain that even his microbes had been eradicated.

"Well, I did warn you..."

Fitz peered out from behind Ward’s shoulder, revealing only half his face.

"That laboratory might contain radioactive material. You shouldn’t have gone inside."

Evenson slowly turned his bloodshot eyes toward him.

"Is that what you want your last words to be, little monkey?"

Fitz immediately regretted opening his mouth.

"I specifically told you that radiation wouldn’t affect me!"

"Y-yes, but..." Fitz swallowed. "Even if you’re immune to it, the rest of us aren’t! What if you brought radioactive dust back onto the plane? We don’t want to meet up again in a cancer clinic a month from now!"

Ward promptly stepped sideways.

Fitz stared at him in betrayal.

Some friend.

Left alone to face Evenson’s wrath, he had no choice but to stand his ground, which he did with all the courage of a man wishing desperately that he’d chosen a different career.

Melinda closed her eyes and pinched the bridge of her nose.

"We had to put you through a standard radiation-decontamination procedure."

"Standard?"

Evenson nearly choked on the word.

"You call that standard? I’ve seen livestock get sheared with more dignity! I only survived because my physical constitution is extraordinary. If you’d sent Fitz in there instead, this machine would have killed him!"

"Unfortunately, we didn’t have much choice," Coulson explained, spreading his hands. "Our aircraft contains some of the most advanced equipment available, but there’s only so much room. We couldn’t install a full-sized decontamination chamber, so we had to make do with a compact, fully automated version."

Evenson stared at him.

Coulson continued, apparently determined to make matters worse.

"A conventional chamber is much larger. It can accommodate four people at once."

"Four people?" Evenson repeated incredulously.

"Not because they’re all being decontaminated simultaneously," Coulson clarified. "The larger chambers allow several technicians to work on the affected person manually. Three people can handle the scrubbing while another assists with the equipment. It’s a much gentler process than the automated system."

Evenson remained silent.

So the alternative to being tortured by machines was being tortured by three people.

Wonderful.

He let out a dry, humorless laugh.

He was full of anger, humiliation, and a deep sense of injustice, yet he couldn’t find a single target he could punish without making the situation even worse.

Then he thought of something.

"Where are my clothes?"

Melinda opened her eyes.

"They went through the standard disposal procedure."

Evenson slowly turned toward her.

"Use words a normal person would understand."

"They were incinerated."

His expression froze.

A small, wounded sound escaped him as he clutched his chest.

The pockets of those trousers had contained five hundred dollars.

Five hundred dollars!

That was real money, not some imaginary number in an online account. It had been sitting right there in his pocket, minding its own business, before being sacrificed to the gods of radiation safety.

It took Evenson nearly half a pack of cigarettes and a long, silent sit on the sofa before he could bring himself to speak again.

Eventually, he opened his bag and took out a fresh set of clothes.

This was his expensive suit, the one he reserved for important occasions. Gideon Malick had given it to him, and it was easily one of the finest pieces of clothing he owned.

After changing out of the hospital gown, Evenson carefully adjusted his collar and smoothed his hair.

Then he turned to the others with a grave expression.

"Listen carefully. This suit is expensive. Very expensive. If any of you so much as suggests putting it through another disposal procedure, I’ll personally dispose of the person responsible."

His smile became positively pleasant.

"I’ll kill you, extract your soul, turn it into candy, and eat it. Understand?"

Nobody answered.

"Good."

Satisfied that the matter had been settled, Evenson headed for the laboratory compartment.

He still wanted to know whether Fitz and Simmons had made any progress reconstructing the accident scene.

When Evenson arrived, he found Fitz and Simmons working at their stations, examining the three-dimensional reconstruction of the damaged particle collider.

Skye was there, too.

She appeared to be asking the two scientists about Melinda.

Apparently, she’d been deeply troubled by Melinda’s decision to tranquilize Hannah. In Skye’s eyes, Hannah was already a victim who had endured more than enough suffering. Knocking her unconscious and adding another indignity to her situation had seemed needlessly cruel.

Her questions had gradually shifted from Melinda’s treatment of Hannah to the agent’s past.

Eventually, the conversation had reached the subject of her famous nickname.

The Cavalry.

Fitz and Simmons exchanged a glance.

An idea passed between them.

"In Bahrain," Fitz began solemnly, "a heavily guarded facility was holding several SHIELD agents hostage. They’d been captured and subjected to brutal interrogation."

Simmons nodded gravely.

"Agent May was assigned to neutralize the threat."

Skye frowned.

"When you say ’neutralize,’ you mean kill them?"

"They weren’t ordinary civilians," Simmons assured her. "They were mercenaries. A hundred fully armed mercenaries."

"More than a hundred," Fitz corrected.

"Her vehicle was completely destroyed, so she had to ride a horse into the compound."

"With two M249 light machine guns."

"One in each hand."

Skye stared at them.

"She rode a horse while holding two machine guns?"

"Straight into the enemy position," Fitz confirmed.

"She cut through the mercenaries, rescued the captured agents, and brought them out alive," Simmons continued. "That’s how she earned the nickname The Cavalry."

Her voice softened.

"But that mission also exposed her to some truly horrific things."

Skye’s expression changed.

She had never been especially comfortable around Melinda. The older agent’s cold demeanor, sharp words, and habit of keeping everyone at arm’s length had always struck her as unnecessarily harsh.

But if Melinda had endured something like that...

Perhaps Skye had been too quick to judge her.

"Really?" she asked quietly.

Fitz and Simmons nodded in perfect unison.

Unfortunately for them, their elaborate tale had reached Evenson’s ears.

He knew perfectly well that the two scientists were making the whole thing up to mess with Skye. After all, he had overheard their earlier plans to prank her.

Normally, Evenson would have been delighted to join in.

But Melinda was his close friend in every sense that mattered. He wasn’t about to let two mischievous scientists turn her into the punchline of a ridiculous story without contributing something of his own.

"If I were you, I’d stop making things up about Melinda," he said as he approached.

Fitz and Simmons turned around.

Evenson crossed his arms.

"For starters, she wasn’t holding two machine guns while riding a horse. She did the whole thing barehanded."

The three stared at him.

Fitz and Simmons had thought their version was already absurd. According to their story, Melinda had single-handedly stormed a compound containing more than a hundred armed mercenaries.

Now Evenson was claiming she’d done it without weapons.

They looked at him with the unmistakable expression of people waiting to see how far a liar would go to maintain a lie.

Evenson didn’t disappoint them.

"She did have weapons at first," he explained. "But by the time she’d fought her way to the building, all she had left was a rifle, one bullet, and a grenade."

Skye’s eyes widened.

Evenson continued, warming to his subject.

"First, she picked her position and threw the grenade. The explosion blasted a chunk of rock into the air, which came down directly on top of the enemy’s reconnaissance drone and smashed it out of the sky."

He held up one finger.

"Then, from eight hundred meters away, she used her rifle to kill the machine gunner stationed on the highest point of the compound."

A pause.

"One shot."

He held up a second finger.

"Once she reached the building, she threw two slender steel needles straight into the throats of the guards standing outside. With both men dead, she grabbed one of their bodies, used it as a shield, and charged inside."

Skye stared at him, speechless.

Fitz and Simmons exchanged a nervous glance.

There was no stopping him now.

"Inside, she moved so quickly that the mercenaries couldn’t land a shot. She dodged bullets, crossed the room before anyone could react, and redirected the force of an incoming rifle grenade with her bare hands, sending it straight back at the men who’d launched it."

Evenson shook his head as though recounting a familiar tragedy.

"Of course, even she couldn’t avoid being overwhelmed by sheer numbers. After cutting down the remaining mercenaries, she eventually found herself facing the enemy commander. He crept up behind her and pressed a pistol against the back of her head."

Evenson paused dramatically.

Everyone leaned in despite themselves.

"And then?"

He picked up a glass of water, took a leisurely sip, and set it down.

"Melinda remained perfectly calm. Without even turning around, she said, ’I’ll bet you a hundred dollars there’s no bullet in that gun.’"

Skye’s mouth fell open.

"The commander hesitated for a fraction of a second. That was all she needed. She spun around, knocked the pistol aside, seized him by both shoulders, and twisted."

Evenson brought his hands together with a sharp clap.

"Crack!"

He spread his arms.

"She tore him clean in half."

Silence descended.

"His blood sprayed across her clothes, staining them a rusty red. And that’s how she earned the name The Cavalry."

Skye stared at him in absolute disbelief.

She wanted to believe him.

She really did.

But this story was so absurd that she couldn’t decide whether to laugh, scream, or call for a medical evaluation.

I knew it. This guy is a complete menace.

Evenson straightened his sleeves.

"And you think that’s impossible? Why else would Peggy Carter have singled her out at the age of seven and personally taken her under her wing? How do you think she rose to the rank of senior agent? Why do you think she earned my respect?"

He leaned closer.

"And why do you think even Black Widow knows better than to underestimate her?"

Evenson gave a solemn nod.

"Melinda is an extraordinary woman. Her close-quarters combat skills are exceptional, and I can personally guarantee that she’s an outstanding rider."

He let the words hang in the air.

Skye slowly nodded.

She wasn’t convinced.

Not entirely.

But Evenson had offered so many details, names, and explanations that she couldn’t simply dismiss the story out of hand.

"If you still don’t believe me," he added, "you can watch her in action yourself."

"Right. Sure."

Skye gave him a vague, bewildered smile and drifted out of the room.

The moment she was gone, Fitz, Simmons, and Evenson burst into laughter.

The three exchanged triumphant high-fives.

"That was magnificent," Fitz said.

Evenson pointed at him.

"And I forgive you for the earlier incident—as long as you reimburse me for the five hundred dollars you destroyed along with my clothes."

Fitz’s smile vanished.

"Five hundred dol—"

"Now, then," Evenson interrupted smoothly. "How’s the reconstruction coming along? Have you finished rebuilding the collider model?"

Fitz stood there with his mouth open for a moment before reluctantly turning back to his workstation.

"Yes. We’ve got it."

He manipulated the controls, and a blue holographic projection appeared above the table.

The three-dimensional model of the particle collider slowly rotated, revealing the machine’s entire structure.

Evenson leaned closer.

At first glance, the device was considerably smaller than the particle colliders he was familiar with. Its overall design also appeared strangely unconventional, with several components arranged in ways that didn’t make much sense.

Fitz highlighted a section near the center.

"There’s something unusual about the design. This component shouldn’t exist in a particle collider at all, yet it’s been installed right at the heart of the machine."

He manipulated the projection again, isolating the component and drawing it out from the rest of the model.

It was a box roughly thirty centimeters across.

Fitz rotated it, revealing that it was actually a container. Inside lay a specially shaped recess, its interior formed into a complicated polyhedral socket.

The cavity was much smaller than the outer box.

It looked as though it had been designed to hold something about the size of a Rubik’s Cube.

A Rubik’s Cube.

Evenson’s mouth twitched.

Damn it.

So that was what Mephisto wanted.

No wonder the Devil had been so determined to get his hands on it.

"Excellent. That’s all I needed."

Evenson managed a strained smile at the two scientists, then hurried out of the laboratory before either of them could ask questions.

He headed directly for the room where Hannah Higgins was being detained.

Given the apparent instability of her supposed superpowers, SHIELD had placed her in a special holding chamber constructed entirely from high-strength alloy.

Evenson arrived just as Coulson was stepping out.

The two nearly collided in the doorway.

"You’re going to question her?" Coulson asked.

"Question is a little strong," Evenson replied with a smile. "I just want to have a conversation."

"I’ve already spoken with her."

Coulson sighed.

"She doesn’t seem to know anything. She’s frightened, confused, and not in a particularly stable state of mind. I doubt you’ll get much out of her."

"Who knows?" Evenson tilted his head. "Sometimes a different perspective reveals something everyone else has missed."

Coulson studied him for a moment.

"She’s not a bad person. Don’t use any excessive methods."

"I’ll be gentle."

Coulson gave him one last warning look before opening the door.

Evenson stepped inside.

Hannah sat alone in the stark, metallic room. She looked exhausted, frightened, and deeply uncertain about what would happen to her next.

Evenson approached without rushing her.

Then, without bothering with any small talk, he asked the first question that came to mind.

"Ms. Higgins, do you know any Frenchmen?"

...