Chapter 912

"I have a seat on the World Security Council. Not because I wanted one, but because Nick asked me to take it. We were both realists, after all."

Alexander Pierce stood before the enormous windows of his office, his back turned toward Steve Rogers.

He spoke at length about his history with Nick Fury, the years they’d spent working together, and the ideals they’d once shared. He talked about diplomacy, international cooperation, and the dream of building a better world.

There was something almost convincing about his words.

Perhaps that was because, despite his intentions, not everything he said was a lie.

"Sometimes, building a better world means tearing down the old one. We both understood that. No matter how much diplomacy, cooperation, or grand speeches you put into the equation, there will always be people who oppose you."

Pierce paused.

"They’ll call your hands dirty because you had the courage to reach into the dirt and try to build something better. And when I think about those people congratulating themselves right now, it makes me absolutely furious."

He finally turned around.

Steve hadn’t said a word.

Pierce found the silence increasingly awkward. He’d made his point, and there was little reason to keep dancing around the subject.

Besides, time was running out.

"You’re the last person Nick Fury saw before he died. I don’t believe that’s a coincidence. So I’ll ask you again: why did he come to your apartment?"

The question had been bothering Pierce ever since he’d learned that Fury had survived the initial assassination attempt and somehow managed to reach Steve Rogers.

He had no idea what Fury had done between disappearing in Washington and turning up dead in New York. More importantly, he had no idea what the two men had discussed.

Pierce needed to know.

Hydra was approaching the most critical moment in its history. He wasn’t about to let some unforeseen complication ruin everything at the last minute.

It was worth noting that Pierce was an exceptionally talented actor. He had deceived the World Security Council, manipulated Nick Fury for years, and maintained his position within S.H.I.E.L.D. without exposing his true allegiance.

His performance was convincing enough that Steve might actually have believed him.

Fortunately, Fury had warned Steve beforehand.

And Pierce had made one mistake.

His talk about destroying the old world to create a new one had struck Steve as particularly disturbing.

So Steve simply replied, "Nick Fury told me not to trust anyone."

He deliberately kept the silver USB drive out of the conversation.

Then he picked up his shield and prepared to leave.

Unfortunately, Steve Rogers was an excellent soldier, an exceptional fighter, and a remarkably perceptive man.

Lying, however, wasn’t one of his strengths.

To Pierce, he looked like a child who’d sneaked into the kitchen for a midnight snack and was now insisting he hadn’t touched the cake, despite having chocolate smeared all over his face.

Still, Pierce had prepared for this possibility.

He’d intended to try persuasion first and force second.

If Steve willingly revealed everything he knew, then they could part on friendly terms. Nothing unpleasant would have to happen.

But if he refused...

Pierce would simply have to use more direct methods.

Your will may be made of steel, Captain. But steel can still be broken.

He walked behind his desk, opened a drawer, and pressed a button.

The signal for the second plan had been given.

Steve left Pierce’s office and immediately entered the elevator.

Fury had been rushed to the hospital after the shooting, and Steve had been summoned there in the middle of the chaos. With no time to find a secure hiding place, he’d concealed the silver USB drive inside an automatic vending machine.

It was hardly an ideal hiding spot.

He needed to retrieve it before someone discovered it.

Unfortunately, the elevator kept stopping.

First, Brock Rumlow entered with several heavily built members of the S.H.I.E.L.D. tactical team.

A couple of floors later, several men in business suits carrying briefcases joined them.

The elevator gradually filled.

And, little by little, Steve found himself surrounded.

His wartime instincts immediately began screaming that something was wrong.

The men in suits appeared perfectly occupied with their own conversations. They barely seemed to notice him.

But the elevator’s air conditioning was running at full blast, and sweat was still dripping down their faces.

They were nervous.

And for office workers, they were suspiciously muscular.

Then there was Rumlow and his team.

Steve noticed the stun batons strapped to their thighs. S.H.I.E.L.D. personnel normally didn’t walk around headquarters with weapons drawn, yet every one of these men kept their right hands within a few inches of their batons.

They were ready to fight.

Steve sighed.

"Before we get started, does anyone want to get off?"

It was a remarkably considerate warning.

Most people surrounded by a group of armed men wouldn’t bother giving them the courtesy of an announcement.

Unfortunately, Steve’s warning also served as the starting signal.

One of the tactical agents immediately pulled out his stun baton and thrust it toward Steve.

The others moved in coordination.

One grabbed Steve around the neck. Another seized his arm. Two more tried to pin him against the elevator wall.

A man with a briefcase detached its handle and pressed it against Steve’s arm, attempting to secure the other end against the elevator’s metal interior.

The device was a specialized magnetic restraint, designed to lock its target in place.

Steve felt tremendous force pulling at his arm.

But the men had seriously underestimated him.

If a handful of ordinary operatives could capture Captain America, the Red Skull would have killed him decades ago.

The magnetic restraints failed to hold him.

The stun batons, powerful enough to incapacitate an ordinary adult almost instantly, only made his muscles twitch.

Steve barely needed to exert himself.

Within moments, every attacker was on the floor.

Inside the S.H.I.E.L.D. control center, Jasper Sitwell watched the entire operation unfold through the security cameras.

He was overseeing the ambush.

When Steve knocked out Rumlow and the others, Sitwell didn’t look particularly surprised.

The overall operation had been designed by Pierce, but Sitwell had never been especially enthusiastic about its execution.

Crowding the elevator to restrict Steve’s movements had made sense.

Trying to defeat Captain America through close-quarters combat, however, was another matter.

What the hell were they thinking?

This wasn’t a movie. They didn’t need to make the fight entertaining.

The obvious solution was to wait until the elevator doors opened and flood the compartment with thirty or forty people at once.

Even Captain America couldn’t fight when he was packed into an elevator like a passenger on the subway during rush hour.

He’d have no choice but to surrender.

But no. Someone had decided to make a proper fight out of it.

And now the entire operation had gone sideways.

Sitwell immediately ordered the backup teams into position, sealing off every elevator exit.

Unfortunately, Steve noticed the trap before they could close in.

He tightened his grip on his shield, charged toward the glass wall of the observation elevator, and smashed straight through it.

Then he jumped.

Sitwell stared at the screen.

The elevator was at least a dozen floors above the ground.

An ordinary person would have hit the pavement and turned into a crime scene.

Steve Rogers, however, landed with his shield beneath him, absorbed the impact, and rolled across the ground.

He looked uncomfortable for a moment.

Then he got back up and ran.

Sitwell’s expression finally changed.

"Are you kidding me?"

Just what kind of ridiculous plot armor did this man have?

And Steve’s performance wasn’t over.

He reached the parking garage, jumped onto his motorcycle, and sped out of the building.

A Quinjet immediately intercepted him.

The advanced aircraft hovered directly in front of the motorcycle, its weapons trained on him.

A warning came over the loudspeaker.

"Disarm yourself, Captain Rogers! Disarm yourself!"

Inside the cockpit, the pilot was confident.

A Quinjet had him dead to rights.

How could this possibly go wrong?

Steve Rogers apparently had a different opinion.

If S.H.I.E.L.D. wanted to put an aircraft in his way, then he would simply use his shield to take it down.

He accelerated.

At the last moment, Steve twisted around and hurled his shield toward the Quinjet.

It struck the turbine assembly and lodged itself inside.

Steve slammed on the brakes.

The sudden deceleration sent his body flying forward like a projectile.

He launched himself through the air and landed directly on top of the aircraft.

With a tremendous effort, he ripped his shield free from the turbine assembly.

Then he threw it again.

The shield bounced twice across the aircraft’s surface.

A shower of sparks erupted.

The Quinjet shuddered violently, its balance completely disrupted.

For a moment, it looked as though the advanced S.H.I.E.L.D. aircraft had been built out of cardboard.

Steve saw his opportunity.

He leaped away, twisting through the air in an unnecessarily elaborate maneuver before landing safely on the ground.

His knees probably wouldn’t thank him for that landing.

But he had more important things to worry about.

He picked up his motorcycle and rode away.

The Quinjet, flying at a relatively low altitude, spun several times before crashing onto the ground.

Fortunately, it didn’t explode, and nobody appeared to have been seriously injured.

The pilot, however, seemed to be experiencing a personal crisis.

Why?

Why did this happen?

I had a Quinjet pointed directly at him!

How did I lose?

Across the enormous artificial lake surrounding S.H.I.E.L.D. headquarters stood an old, unremarkable apartment building.

Inside one of its rooms, a pair of faint but vivid green flames flickered within someone’s eye sockets.

The figure looked toward the distant headquarters.

So the dream really had been nothing more than a dream.

Dreams couldn’t be trusted after all.

The figure raised its head, staring at the imposing structure on the other side of the lake.

For a moment, it seemed ready to rush inside and tear the person responsible for all this apart.

But what would killing that individual accomplish?

There were too many problems in this world that couldn’t be solved by killing someone.

The green flames flickered once more.

Then the figure remained where it was.

With the ambush against Captain America having failed, there was little reason for Hydra to continue hiding.

Having received Pierce’s approval, the organization finally transmitted the long-awaited activation signal.

"Step out of the shadows and welcome the light. Hail Hydra!"

Across the world, Hydra operatives received the message.

They immediately began seizing control of their respective S.H.I.E.L.D. facilities.

The organization had spent decades infiltrating the agency, placing its people in positions of authority and influence. Now, all those preparations were finally paying off.

With the exception of S.H.I.E.L.D. headquarters, where the situation still required a degree of public discretion, the other branches were quickly overtaken.

S.H.I.E.L.D. academies.

Research facilities.

Regional headquarters.

Everywhere, the purge began.

Agents who had devoted their lives to protecting the world were suddenly attacked by the very people they trusted.

Their colleagues.

Their partners.

Even their closest friends.

Many never realized what was happening until it was too late.

The violence spread far beyond the ground. Even personnel and facilities operating in the air were caught up in the purge.

But the greatest damage Hydra inflicted wasn’t simply the number of agents it killed.

It was the destruction of trust.

Those who remained alive, whether through luck or quick thinking, could no longer be certain who stood beside them.

Every surviving agent became a potential enemy in someone else’s eyes.

Years of friendship, loyalty, and shared experiences suddenly meant nothing.

Nobody knew who could be trusted.

Not even the people who had once been willing to die for one another.

Coulson’s team was no exception.

Their suspicions had fallen on Melinda May.

The trouble had started when Fitz discovered an unfamiliar, encrypted communication channel aboard the Bus.

Someone had installed a hidden connection that shouldn’t have existed.

And its user was Melinda.

Ever since the Clairvoyant incident had ended, Coulson had been troubled by several inconsistencies.

The more he thought about the events surrounding that case, the less convinced he became that the man Ward had killed had actually been the Clairvoyant.

Perhaps that man had merely been a decoy.

But if so, who was the real Clairvoyant?

There was no denying that the Clairvoyant had possessed advance knowledge of S.H.I.E.L.D. operations. Someone had been leaking information, and the fact that a substitute had been prepared in advance suggested that the real culprit had considerable influence within the organization.

It had to be someone with access to classified information.

Coulson himself wasn’t the source.

That left Melinda.

And now Fitz had discovered an encrypted communication channel connected to her.

It was becoming increasingly difficult to dismiss the possibility.

The team confronted May, and the situation quickly deteriorated into a standoff.

Eventually, Melinda lowered her weapon.

Unfortunately, matters were about to get considerably worse.

The Bus appeared to have been taken over remotely.

Its flight path changed, sending the aircraft toward an unknown destination along an unfamiliar route.

As the pilot, Melinda’s involvement became even more suspicious.

"Are you really going to do this, Coulson?"

May stood with her hands raised, looking directly at him.

She understood perfectly well why her teammates would suspect her. Under the circumstances, questioning her loyalty was practically inevitable.

But understanding the situation didn’t make it hurt any less.

Coulson kept his weapon trained on her.

"After everything you’ve done, you expect me not to?"

He stared into her eyes.

He wanted an explanation.

More than anything, he wanted her to give him a reason to believe she wasn’t betraying them.

Coulson knew Fury had a habit of compartmentalizing information, keeping different people in the dark even when they worked toward the same objective.

He desperately hoped May would tell him that the hidden communication channel had been installed under direct orders from Fury.

That the altered flight path was part of some classified assignment.

That there was a reasonable explanation for all of this.

"Everything I’ve done," May said, taking a cautious step forward, "I’ve done to protect you, Coulson."

Her voice was completely sincere.

Coulson didn’t lower his weapon.

He didn’t trust her.

"Uh... ah..."

A sudden groan interrupted them.

Skye was standing nearby, but something was clearly wrong.

Her eyes had closed, and her head tilted backward.

The mechanical exoskeleton she was wearing emitted a series of electronic hums and mechanical clicks.

Coulson kept May covered while glancing toward Skye.

She appeared to have lost consciousness.

Only the mechanical frame prevented her from collapsing to the floor.

"Guys..."

Before anyone could understand what was happening, Skye’s body suddenly straightened.

Her eyes remained closed.

Then she spoke.

"There’s a lot going on right now. Could you please stop making an already complicated situation even more awkward?"

The voice was Skye’s.

The words came from her mouth.

But the tone, the manner of speaking, and even the gestures were unmistakably those of someone else.

Coulson and May exchanged a stunned glance.

"Evenson?"

"That’s right. Yours truly."

Skye spoke with her eyes still shut, her body moving as though she were a puppet controlled by an invisible operator.

"Hmm. I have to say, wearing women’s clothes isn’t nearly as unpleasant as I’d expected..."

Her arms suddenly moved upward under the mechanical exoskeleton’s control.

She—or rather, Evenson—raised both hands and gave her chest a brief pat.

"Nice. Very nice."

Coulson and May’s expressions darkened simultaneously.

Before either could respond, Evenson suddenly let out a cry.

"Ah!"

He paused.

"All right. Business first."

Skye’s hand rose and rubbed the top of her head.

It was an odd sight, considering she was unconscious and the person controlling her movements wasn’t physically present.

Still, Evenson seemed to feel some discomfort through the connection.

"Coulson, lower your weapon. I need to borrow Melinda for a moment."

"Not a chance!"

Coulson’s voice hardened.

"So you two really were working together? Melinda was feeding you information, and you were pretending to be the Clairvoyant? You’re the real Clairvoyant!"

"Hmm. I was about to say the same thing about you."

Evenson sounded almost amused.

"But never mind. I don’t have time to argue."

His tone abruptly changed.

"And judging by the situation, I wasn’t actually making a request."

He paused, allowing the words to sink in.

"Do you know the biggest difference between a machine and a human body?"

Coulson remained silent.

"Machines use all kinds of spherical joints. The exoskeleton Skye is wearing is no exception. Many of its joints can rotate a full 360 degrees."

Skye’s head tilted slowly from side to side.

"So here’s something you might want to consider."

The mechanical frame gave another low hum.

"With the hydraulic bearings providing all that force, do you think this machine could snap an ordinary girl’s neck?"

The question hung in the air.

Evenson didn’t sound particularly interested in hearing the answer.