ã€ŠHail Hydra? (MCU Isekai)ã€‹


 I: Whyd You Do It?

    "Why''d you do it?" Steve Rogers was sitting across from me, looking me dead in the eye.

    I sighed, thinking about why exactly I had done it. All the clever excuses, all the genius reasons why I, and I alone, should hold the reins of power. I had wanted it. I don''t know if it was the right answer, but it felt to me like that was the real reason. It had been so long ago, the world had been so different when it began.

    "Hail Hydra," I laughed ruefully. He kept staring. "Have you read 1984?" He nodded. "I want you to know I never dreamed of O''Brien''s boot stamping on a human face - I believed that, with power, I could help the world. I suppose... in the end..." I would have gesticulated, but I was chained to a table. "I guess it began with my arrival in this world. A... being appeared to me and it offered me power, almost unimaginable power."

    "What kind of being?"

    "I called it something else once, but seeing where it ended me up, I''ll name it the devil."

    "What happened to that power?"

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    "I got it. You''re looking at it."

    I was locked out of biological modifications for fear it¡¯d undermine my other abilities, but all in all¡­ My brain was super-charged - My senses were heightened, my knowledge base expanded to nearly all forms of public human knowledge, with a second of focus I could figure out almost any skill to the level of a talented amateur (though it was impossible to retain), and I had gotten an inventive genius rivaled by only Tony Stark. And I was handsome and rich and, now, powerful. I should have thanked that interdimensional meddler more.

    "And then this being forced you to serve Hydra?"

    I laughed and shook my head. "No, nothing so vulgar.¡­"

    But I had been deeply, severely alone. The terror of Thanos¡¯ oncoming snap held me down. All the people who I knew would die in the Marvel universe¡­ They were my responsibility. I had to protect them.

    I started by killing Obadiah Stane with a drone to ensure he didn¡¯t kill three-to-eight people on some LA freeway. I ended up in a very different place¡­

 II - Anton Vanko

    Everyone in this universe is dicking around with ultra-high tech moonshot power solutions with cool names while I''m just printing ultra-cheap solar panels in Detroit and selling them at 400% of cost. Does that make them crazy? Does it make ME crazy? Well, it certainly means my cash flow is more of a cash torrent.

    I was churning out plants just about as fast as they could be built or refurbished, the abundant labor market and the high wages I could afford put us in a dominant position. The internal dynamics of my company put our productivity doubling time at roughly every two months for the four years when the market would hit saturation and drive us out of the solar panel business. I was integrating wind and battery development to push those technologies forward as well.

    The core thesis of my uplift strategy had been, first energy then computers then robots. Now I wasn''t so sure - There were natural language UI programs in this setting (not just in Tony''s labs either) and there were experimental visual recognition systems already online, capable of accessing information on photographed objects in real time. Together, those seemed sufficient to run most menial jobs with relatively basic robotics add-ons. Yet nobody had done it.

    Some of the difficulty seemed to be straightforwardly economic - You need to invest money to implement any new tech and labor costs were substantially lower than the machine A.I. in some areas. Some of it was a reasonable caution about mass disruption to, say, check-out clerks. But that didn''t explain the whole problem and I had a very sharp sense of the general economic climate. Alarm bells were going off in my mind. Why weren''t the developments making money? I had to know.

    That''s why I was going to see Whiplash''s father. I hadn''t actually remembered Ivan or Anton Vanko''s name or that they''d worked on the arc reactor - look Iron Man 2 wasn''t good okay - but the Russian aide to Howard Stark who got deported? Yeah, I knew who that was. U.S. Patent law in this universe was actually thirty years, in total defiance of reason and common sense, but the patent for original Arc Reactor had STILL expired two decades ago. Anton or Ivan should''ve been rich oligarchs if Ivan was able to miniaturize it and they weren''t and I didn''t have any idea why.

    That was how I''d found myself on a cold street in Russia, my mind locked in on the Russian language, knocking on the door of a complete stranger. His son came to the door. Ivan Vanko was a decade older than Tony. "What do you want, boy?" he asked in Russian, glaring at me. I didn''t grin. This was Russia.

    "Mr. Vanko, my name is Michael Trent. I''m here to see your father." I held out a check for a hundred thousand dollars in rubles to the man.

    "Why?" he asked, glaring at the check. "He is not for sale. Or for hire, not any more. He is an old man and he is dying."

    "I know, Mr. Vanko. I''m afraid the subject of my visit will not be a pleasant one, either. But that check should cover hiring a personal nurse to take care of him, maybe give you another month with him, maybe just keep him comfortable for the rest of his time here. I just want to ask a few questions." It was actually substantially more money than that, but flattering his filial piety was more important than being strictly accurate.

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    "Fine. If he will see you." He stalked back into the house, a decent middle class home by Moscow standards, but not a rich one. He came back eventually, jerking his head at me to follow. The house was incredibly dirty and I found myself hoping that Ivan would spend some of that check on a maid. I was not so gauche as to say this out loud.

    "So you are the rich man," the father said, lying on the couch, his voice hoarse. "You have questions?" I felt a softness toward the man, who really was dying and I sat down across from him in a tattered chair.

    "I wanted to talk to you about the Arc Reactor."

    "Bah!" he scoffed, "I told the Soviet Union I couldn''t deliver anything cheaper, now some American expects me to do better for a few million rubles?"

    "I think you could, actually." I said, trying to sound as sincere as possible. He gave me an appraising look. "Mr. Vanko, you''re a luminary. One of the brightest minds of science, whatever Mr. Stark said about your motives. I think I am right in thinking that it would be possible to miniaturize the Arc Reactor with modern technology, to increase its power output a hundred fold, to make units that were cheaper than coal, natural gas, oil, or nuclear power. But you didn''t do it, even now. Why not?"

    The old man sighed, "You flatter my genius. My son," he looked over toward the door his son, grinning, "He is the genius. But to answer your question, maybe you are right. Maybe the right person could build a power system that would put out of business all the black gold profiteers of the world. It seems plausible. You are paying me quite generously for these questions, so I shall simply suggest to you that not look into these questions much further."

    "Stark gets away with it," I pointed out.

    "His whole life is under a stage life. It is hard for those who work in the dark to reach out and touch him. And his vision is smaller than what you say, at any rate." Only as far you know, old man, I thought silently. "They are everywhere, like a many headed dragon. Some of them are here, some of them over there. It hardly matters. I am old now."

    I asked him a few more questions, the shape of what he was saying became clear. Some group - Or groups? It was unclear - of shadowy figures had leaned on him domestically, to stop him from building anything since Perestroyka and Stark''s death. I didn''t know if he was talking about Hydra or the Hand or something like the Hellfire club or some obscure Russia specific organization. I didn''t know any of those things. He was warning me that they would kill me.

    "I''ve taken steps in the event of my death," I said gently. "If I die, my knowledge will be disseminated widely."

    "And is it only your knowledge for which you have reason to fear? Is there nothing else for which you care?"

    I shrugged. I was alone in this world. My family didn''t exist, my friends didn''t exist, I had employees and loan officers and that was about it. "There''s not much."

    "Well, you are young and unburdened. Perhaps you''ll achieve your goal. Perhaps you''ll perish and no one will know your name. But I am old and weary, I''ve told you all I may. Please, leave me Mr. Trent."

 III - Klaue

    I''d left my contact info with Ivan if he needed anything. I mean, in full seriousness, I had little doubt he''d probably take a shot at Tony again. But he''d have to come to the United States to attack Tony at Nascar like last time, so I was hopeful he might contact me on his way through and I could tip him off. How had he gotten that whip thing through security last time? I had no idea.

    I watched the investigation of Obadiah''s murder on the news. Tony had naively opened up Obadiah''s work files to the investigators where the investigators had discovered that Obadiah had kept the incriminating files of his kidnapping of Stark on his work computer. What a goddamn moron. This had made Tony, very briefly, a suspect but JARVIS was able to produce very comprehensive footage of him in his basement as I''d hoped. His only on screen comment had been, "No, I didn''t do it. I didn''t know anything until after he died. It''s just¡­ It''s all a shock. I''m sorry, why am I answering you?" and then a shove on his way out of the police station. I winced in familiarity at the pain on his face. Sorry Tony, I thought in sympathy. I expected that Pepper was running the company, things would get a little bit better.

    My biggest worry now was that the cops would arrest the wrong guy, mostly because I knew in my heart I''d let that person take the fall for me. I was too valuable a piece to go down for some silicon valley ghoul to avoid fifteen years with good behavior. Still, I had pointed them straight at the Ten Rings, so I was optimistic.

    With Obadiah dead, I had to think about my plan. My initial plan had been to lie low for a long time - Not in a technological sense, but just as a personality to be ghost-like. But Anton''s comment about Tony''s being in the spotlight protecting him, that struck me as important. I couldn''t stay in the dark and hope to be alright.

    That was why I was in a Singapore gambling den flanked by two thugs for hire, to do something in the dark before sticking myself under the spotlight for keeps. I was making decent margins at a card table on a game of poker when Kalue plopped down next to me.

    "So, you''re looking for a game changer," he said, thumping me on the shoulder and laughing.

    I resisted the urge to sigh. Klaue had a kind of charm in the movies, but his bombasity was not something I enjoyed in real life. "It''s something I have a long term interest in, yes."

    "I''ve looked you up." I nodded my head, obviously he had looked me up. "You don''t have the money for what I sell."

    Yet here he was, sitting next to me. "Were you hoping that I could spot you an ante then?" I drawled, offering him a handful of gambling chips.

    He grabbed the chips, put them down on the table and grinned at me, "Maybe I am. How about a wager - You split that big stack you''ve got right there," I contained the wince, "and whichever of us runs out of money first walks away with nothing."

    "I''m not here to play games. I''m here to do business. I don''t gamble real stakes."

    "My research says that pot''s real stakes for you."

    "Your research is out of date, Mr. Klaue. I''m expecting to be a very rich man by even your standards, very soon. Not a gamble, a certainty. I''m hoping to establish whether or not your game-changer is what I''m looking for when that time comes. Nothing more, nothing less. Simple, straightforward - You give me a taste, I pay you for it, someday maybe you get a bigger buyer."

    He seemed to think about it and reached into his wallet and passed a debit card to the dealer, "Beat me and we''ll deal, final offer."

    I rolled my eyes and shifted my focus a little so I''d be able to play smoothly. Poker, with my new abilities, was boring. I was very, very good at it. It was easy to count cards, it was easy to read faces, it was just easy. There''s no fun in playing a game you''re too good at, but there''s also no point in risking an objective for a thrill. I played the whole dumb, boring game.

    As the cards started hitting the table, I did relatively well. Nobody wins every hand in poker, obviously, sometimes your cards are just bad. But the margins between Klaue and I, to say nothing of the poor rest of the table, were not close.

    "You weren''t doing this well earlier," he said, pointing at me as he discarded his hand of cards. I noted that neither of his arms looked prosthetic, but it was possible to make a prosthetic I wouldn''t recognize. Still, maybe this was before he lost his arm. I only really remembered him from Black Panther, after all.

    "I wasn''t playing for real stakes before. I told you I didn''t want to do this," I noted blandly, sliding my cards over to the dealer face down and raking in the pot.

    "You''re a damn stinking hustler is what you are," he growled. I just shrugged and called during the round of betting. If he was going to be angry with me, he was going to be angry with me. You couldn''t make people not angry with you by arguing. The rest of the table, a couple of businessmen in hand tailored suits and a couple of soldiers of fortune in black silk t-shirts and camopants, looked at us uncomfortably.

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    He grumbled and turned back to his hand, raising. I folded, not because I was intimidated. It just wasn''t a good hand. We made it another dozen hands in before he decided to give picking at me another go. I don''t know why he had to be like this. It just made everyone uncomfortable.

    "I ought to walk! You sandbagged me is what you did," he shouted. Other people looked at us, the bouncers at the door stiffened.

    I just smiled back serenly, "If you want to go," I said with a smile, "Go. You''re disturbing the other players, Mr. Klaue."

    He grunted and turned back, "Raise." he said angrily and I kept a neutral face until we turned our cards over and I got the pot.

    "You must be cheating," he said after another few hard hands. I resisted the urge to roll my eyes. He couldn''t possibly be this petulant. He''d driven off the rest of the table twice now, only to slowly recycle them with new people who hadn''t seen his displays. Klaue was probably a self-made billionaire. This establishment must have genuinely liked him to put up with it. He was an "asset" to a dozen countries, at least, and he also just generally seemed to try to be fun in a jock-y sort of way. He had to be good at getting people to like him, so it was really a question of whether he was testing me or just thought I wasn''t someone who he needed to treat with respect. Well, the simple truth was that I couldn''t respond force for force, so if it was the latter, there wasn''t much I could do.

    "He deals the cards," I said, nodding toward the poor dealer, who looked positively petrified to be involved. "I just play them."

    Klaue, seemingly sensing that he might have offended the establishment, raised his hands in surrender, "Wasn''t implying anything against this marvelous establishment."

    His pot was really dwindling when the waitress walked up, a young-ish woman who looked like she''d steeled herself for this moment. "Sir, would you like a drink?"

    "No I don''t want a fucking drink!" he yelled, pounding the table, "Don''t you think I''m losing enough?" The woman, to her credit, simply nodded politely and turned away.

    We played a couple more hands and the thought of her walking off bothered me. I tried to ignore it. It wasn''t really sensible to care. He might come around to thinking I was soft, even if he didn''t decide I was easy to intimidate. But when a really bad hand popped up, I groaned and folded, grabbing a high value chip off the table. "Stake me if my hand comes up and then fold," I said to my two thugs.

    "You running off?" Klaue asked, gesturing to my pile, "Can I help myself?"

    "Rather you didn''t," I said shortly, walking over to where the waitress was standing, the tension still visible in her shoulders. "I''m sorry for my friend, he''s a big character and likes to make a scene," I began, but she seemed to be struggling to understand what I was saying. I closed my eyes and toggled focus onto spoken Mandarin, "My friend is a loudmouth," I said, "I am sorry that he yelled at you. Thank you for offering him a drink." I held up the chip, "Can you accept these as tips, or do I need to cash it?"

    Her eyes widened and she smiled with relief as tension left her body, "We can take the chips," she said holding out her hand like she was afraid to grab it. I put it in her hand and smiled at her warmly.

    "Paying back your confederate?" Klaue asked as I returned to the table to discover I had missed four hands and embellished his pot again.

    "No, I''ve never met her. But I prefer that everyone I do business with has a positive impression of me, Mr. Klaue. I hope you will too."

    He laughed and turned back to the table.

    Eventually, mercifully, he ran out of chips to stake and show to boat. "You ought to do that professionally," he said, his tone straight back to jovial. "You really are very good."

    "I like to make winning bets," I said modestly. "You said the terms were that if I won, you''d sell to me."

    "I hope you''ll turn out to be a winning bet, one hundred thousand for a gram."

    "That''s quite a markup from your usual prices," I pointed out.

    "There''s a bulk discount."

    I shrugged and pushed all my winnings and my initial stake for the night over to him, "I''m taking a bet on you, Mr. Klaue. I trust you''ll send me the address of the appropriate safety deposit box."

    I walked away and beckoned my guards after me, praying silently that he wouldn''t shoot me in the back on the way out. He didn''t. The next day, I got a paper letter at our dropsite telling me where to pick up the vibranium and it was there. That was good.

    There was no way he''d have given it to me if he knew what I intended to do with it.

 Tony I: Consequences

    <div>

    "Very good sir," Jarvis intoned, pulling up the boot in holographic format next to him. Tony frowned, turning the boot over digitally. This model was still too heavy for him to do that manually on a regular basis. He wasn''t sure if that meant he needed a lighter one or not. Probably not. The force from the thrusters was insane, better for the boot to be durable.

    "Jarvis, are there any instabilities in-" Tony heard a knocking, looking over to see Pepper with her hair up in a ponytail and dressed in her usual boring suit at the glass door. He felt momentarily embarrassed that he hadn''t contacted her in the past couple of days. He hit a buzzer, "Pepper, what''s the matter? What''re you doing here?"

    "Well, you haven''t left the house in five days," Pepper said, putting down a stack of mail and a clip board. She sucked in her breath, like she always did to brace herself in circumstances like this. "And the police called again. They said if you don''t come voluntarily, they are going to have to bring you in with a warrant."

    Tony rolled his eyes, "They threaten that a lot."

    "Tony, I think they''re serious," Pepper said, her voice a little nervous.

    Tony scolded himself internally, "Fine, fine. If you want to go, let''s go now. Jarvis, download all video of the three days around the murder of one of my oldest friends so the cops know it wasn''t me."

    "Tony! Shouldn''t we call a lawyer or, or, or look at legal strategy or at least call for an appointment!" Pepper said frantically as he got up.

    "Should I shower?" Tony asked, picking up his button up and putting it on as he stepped towards Pepper.

    "Tony, I don''t real-" she sniffed, "No, yes, you should definitely shower." Tony could tell from her face, he did not smell good.

    Tony smiled and put his hands on her arms, "Pepper. Calm down. You''re right. I''m innocent. I should cooperate, just like I did with access to Stark Tech computers. They can''t prove I did it, because I didn''t do it. We''ll just go in, we''ll show them the video. I''ll take a quick shower," he said, starting to take off his button up, "And we''ll go."

    "Finished, sir." Jarvis intoned, ejecting a drive from his console. "Grab that," Tony said as he went up to the stairs, taking off his undershirt when he heard an eep from behind him. The woman knew his social security number but she was still shy about seeing him shirtless. Some things he would never understand.

    ----

    Tony and Pepper walked into a large office with a big table that had a computer monitor on it. Behind it sat a woman with a stack of papers and a police detective name plate saying, "Detective Hannigan" in front of her. At middle age and lightly hefty, she wasn''t exactly pretty, Tony thought idly, but he guessed that might be good for a cop.

    "Mr. Stark, please sit down. Now, just to inform you, this interview is a legal proceeding. Mr. Stark, you said in a previous informal contact with the police that you had, quote," she glanced down at a paper in front of her, "''No reason to hurt Obie,'' that''s referring to Obadiah Stane isn''t it?"

    "Yeah, Obie was one of my oldest friends, he was a mentor. He was the only guy on my side with the company."

    "And you said, quote, ''If there''s any secret files lying around, they''ll be ghost files, look for the lowest sequence of numbers.'' Why''d you say that?"

    "There are a lot of ways to stow secret data, but not on the Stark Industry servers. Ghost files are basically the only choice."

    "Mr. Stark, you said that you were, quote, ''totally committed to stopping illegal arms sales, whatever means necessary'' is that correct?"

    "I mean, I''ve been locked out of the company for a while now, but yes."

    Pepper looked distressed, "I think I should call an attorney."

    "No, Pepper, it''s fine." Tony said. She always gets so worked up about everything and then it always worked out in the end.

    "I''m calling an attorney."

    "Fine, if you really want to," Tony said. "Oh, call Happy while you''re at it, I could really use a burger right now."

    The detective smiled patiently throughout this exchange, "Do you want to wait for that attorney?"

    "No, I haven''t done anything wrong," Tony said. Helping catch Obie''s killer was part of his responsibility, he had to do something with his life and not just push responsibility onto his lawyers.

    "Alright, finally, you were held captive by a terrorist organization known as the Ten Rings. You were in captivity for how long?"

    "Ah, this is a matter of public record, but about three months. A little less, really, more like two and two thirds months. I managed a pretty daring escape, I might add."

    "And what would you do to the people responsible if you could get your hands on them?"

    "Well," Tony said, weighing the opportunity to lie against his desire to stop doing everything in his power to avoid his own damn responsibilities. "I don''t know. I killed some of them while I was escaping, obviously, but that was just self-defense. If I had them at my mercy..." Tony let his voice trailed off, "Like I said, I just don''t know.

    "Of course," Detective Hannigan said, her voice understanding. "Mr. Stark, I''m going to show you a few documents and videos that we''ve uncovered in the course of our investigation."

    She grabbed a packet of files from inside her desk and handed them over to Tony. He started flipping through them - They were injunction papers, files related to the sale of his weapons to the Ten Rings of all the damn people. "I''m, I''m sorry. I''m going to have to actually read these," he said.

    Tony didn''t want to believe it. Page after page had the same signature, the same account number, and Tony still couldn''t believe it. He felt something gnawing in his stomach, an emptiness which the information engorged like gasoline on a fire. The weight of it just kept hitting him, over and over again.

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    "These, these have to be forged," he said after he finished, his voice not quite steady. "Okay, the injunction. I don''t know. Maybe he thought I was losing it. I wasn''t, I had a path forward, we were going to- Anyway, I can believe the injunction, maybe- MAYBE some profiteering but selling weapons to the Ten Rings?" Tony shook his head, "Not after they kidnapped me. No way."

    "Tony, there''s repo-" Pepper said, stepping inside the room with a Burger King bag. "Oh my god, Tony, what''s wrong?"

    "They''re saying Obie was the one behind the Stark Industries'' profiteering," Tony choked up, raising his hand to his mouth. Pepper grabbed his other hand and squeezed it. God, she was all he had left. Rhodey was mad at him, Obie was dead and a traitor, and here he was alive and worthless.

    "That''s not all he was behind," Detective Hannigan said, turning around the monitor so he could see it. There was an unplayed video of him with a bag over his head.

    "Is this a ransom video?"

    "No, Mr. Stark." Detective Hannigan replied, clicking the play button.

    The video started playing and the translator started rolling, talking about being paid to kill someone. For one brief moment, Tony could imagine that the video wasn''t really for Obie or maybe that he''d hired them to kill someone else. But then, "You did not tell us that the person you had paid us to kill was Tony Stark. As you can see Obadiah Stane, your deception and lies will cost you dearly. The price to kill Tony Stark has just gone up."

    "Oh my god, why are you showing him this?" Pepper said, squeezing his hand. "He didn''t know. He was at home. Stop it."

    "Is that true, Mr. Stark?"

    "Yeah, no I - I had no idea. Can I go?"

    "I''m going to need proof of your location for the four days before Obadiah Stane''s death."

    Pepper grabbed the drive and slid it over to her, "There you go."

    "My tech secrets are on that drive," Tony said reflexively, "I want it back when you''re done."

    "Your property will be returned when the investigation is over," Detective Hannigan said politely, "And the LAPD will not hand over the information to anyone, but will store it and watch it only within the presence of two officers, as per our agreement with Stark Industries."

    "Thank you," Pepper said, "Can we go now?"

    "I''m afraid not. We need to watch the two hours around the assassination before we''re able to say. In full seriousness, Mr. Stark, unless you signed your name on the drone I highly doubt that we would convict you. I have better things to do than press charges in the murder of a terrorist."

    "Alright, that''s enough. He said he didn''t do it, we''ve been nothing but cooperative, we''ve done your whole damn job for you. Tony, let''s go eat your burger somewhere else."

    Tony got up obediently and they walked into the lobby and sat down in some cheap plastic seats on cheap metal legs, where he stared vacantly at the wall. "Tony, you need to eat." Tony shook his head, staring into space. It was funny. When he''d gotten out of captivity, all he wanted was a burger and now he couldn''t even think of eating. "Tony, please. I don''t know what to do, I''m so, so sorry."

    "Can you just sit?" Tony said, a little too snappishly. "Not - not that I don''t like listening to you talk, but I just- right now¡­"

    Pepper''s face filled with compassion and Tony felt simultaneously safe and ashamed. He shouldn''t have been sitting here getting coddled, he should''ve been out doing¡­ something. "Sure Tony, whatever you need."

    ---

    Fifteen minutes later and one slim, professional older lawyer arrival later, Detective Hannigan came out of the room where she was watching the security tapes. "Mr. Stark, you have powerful friends. I just got off the phone with an Agent Phil Coulson, he confirmed your whereabouts and said you''re free to go." Tony had no idea who that was or how he''d confirmed his location.

    "May we have the tape back?" Mr. Jones asked, who had been briefed by Pepper and, Tony could tell through his extraordinary veneer of politeness, was upset at Tony.

    "It''s still evidence, but if it shows what they''re saying, we''ll return it to you by the end of the week. Last thing I want is Jones and Harper up my ass till the end of time."

    "We''ll be up it for this little stunt," the lawyer said, before turning back to Tony. "I''m sorry I wasn''t here sooner, Mr. Stark. I wish you had called."

    "Don''t scold him right now," Pepper snapped. Tony thought that was a bit much.

    "It''s Jones'' job, Pepper," Tony said weakly.

    "Ms. Potts is right, Mr. Stark. I can see that you''re in distress. When you''re ready, we can talk more about legal strategies in this and any future investigations. Ms. Potts, can you get him home? I have some words for Detective Hannigan''s procedural methodology and I wouldn''t want to increase his stress."

    "Of course, Mr. Jones," Pepper said with a smile at him and then a glare Detective Hannigan that Tony had never seen her give him. "Thank you, and I''m sorry that I didn''t call earlier."

    The two of them made it to the door before Pepper cursed, "Damn it, I forgot the reporters."

    "It''s fine," Tony said, grasping at something that made him feel like he wasn''t a piece of trash being dragged around, "let''s just get out of here. Happy here?"

    "Happy''s here."

    The crowd of flashing lights, the noisy reporters shouting "Mr. Stark-" and a hailstorm of questions. Tony reflexively tried to answer, "No, I didn''t do it. I didn''t know anything until after he died. It''s just¡­ It''s all a shock." And then his brain caught up to his mouth and he felt stupid, "I''m sorry, why am I answering you?" he asked, as he and Pepper pushed their way through to the car.

 IV - Meet Andromeda

    <div>

    I never had a taste for parties but at least I got to wear nice suits. This one was at a pink marble and dark wood country club ballroom I associated with the nouveau riche. Of course, I was there at the invitation of the Governor of Louisiana, so I made a point of smiling a little more than the occasion deserved.

    Louisiana was still in the grips of the Roxxon blow-up from Cloak & Dagger even half a year after the fact. It seemed to have replaced the gulf coast BP oil spill in this timeline. I considered doing the investigation into that immediately and blowing up Roxxon, but the risks and rewards weren''t aligned yet. I didn''t want to get attacked by assassins until I could afford real security and I did want at least some of the data from their research into whatever they were drilling for when I destroyed Roxxon. So it was on my to-do list, but not on the top of my to-do list. This was just networking.

    "Mr. Trent," said the thirty-seventh woman who''d introduced herself to me that night. Her appearance looked tailored to be forgotten - A boring gray suit, boring brown hair, and a boring professional bearing. It was at least different from the samey low-cut dresses that made up most of the attendees. I grinned politely at her as I leaned up against the bar, drinking a Dr. Pepper and savoring being back in the South. "You know they say your body is a temple."

    I decided to be nice. "Well, I hope my stomach praises him with a joyful noise, Ms..."

    She smiled, "Andromeda Albertson. I''m the Governor''s niece, my friends call me Drama"

    "It''s a pretty name, feel free to call me Mike." I said, resisting the urge to poke fun at her nickname.

    "Do you mind if I ask you a politics question?" she said

    "Nothing could possibly be boringer than politics nerds not talking about politics,"

    "I wouldn''t call these people nerds," she said, giving me a long look. I gave her my best, ''really?'' face. "Okay, they''re nerds. Why''d you decide on green energy as a focal point for your company?"

    "I hope I don''t crush your young idealist heart by saying this, but my primary motive was ending NATO''s crippling energy dependence on oil companies. Russia, Venezuela, and Saudi Arabia, all dangerous oil extraction oligarchies who are fundamentally hostile to American interests. With the right mix of clean energy, domestic oil and coal, and nuclear power, we could bring all three to their knees without firing off a shot." The lie was getting well-worn enough I almost believed it at this point. I had actually chosen clean energy because clean air is great and climate change sucks but the hatred for Russia and the KSA was at least authentic. Venezuela as a sop to the GOP. Kiss a little bit of the fossil fuel industry''s butt for taste.

    Did you know this story is from Royal Road? Read the official version for free and support the author.

    "Saudi Arabia is an American ally," Andromeda said.

    One of the benefits of my newly improved social skills is that instead of sneering and saying, "SaUDi ArABiA iS an AmERicaN ally" I instead said the more diplomatic phrase, "Do you know how many of the 9/11 hijackers were Saudi?"

    "Fifteen," she replied instantly. I was surprised. Most people didn''t. "The actions of a few individuals doesn''t necessarily reflect the will of a nation."

    "Trust me, when some lunatic declares himself Caliph, his recruits will come from Saudi Arabia and the Wahabists they fund will be the rest." It was hard to have the argument ten years and a substantial world variance away from ISIS, but the principle still seemed to be true in this timeline. The KSA funded all sorts of ultra-radical clerical movements, much as the U.S. elite funded prosperity preachers and missionaries in the developing world.

    "I think secular revolutionary movements like the Ten Rings are a bigger long term threat to national security than."

    "The pan-Asiatic spirit pseudo-messianic beliefs of the Ten Rings isn''t exactly what I would call secular, but really I''m just saying that popular dislike for the United States is something that the Saudis foster deliberately."

    "The United States isn''t unpopular because the Saudis are Wahabists, Mike."

    Well, we were both fudging it a little bit, for certain. I couldn''t out and out say, ''The United States is unpopular because of its imperial policy.'' That would ruin my attempt at becoming a bipartisan green industrialist. I didn''t know exactly what she was trying not to say. I just shrugged instead, "Well, it''s something to think about. To bringing back American industry and energy independence!" I held up my can of Dr. Pepper in a gesture of peace

    "I can drink to that," she said, tapping my can with her glass of white wine.

    "What do you do, Andromeda? You a foreign policy advisor on some senatorial campaign?" My abilities give me the rough equivalent to a Google search, but I wasn''t getting anything for her. Was it SHIELD?

    SHIELD. "Anomalous response?"

    "There''s a lot of weird stuff out there," she said, "Somebody in DC has to look into it."

    "You gonna tell me that Skrulls are real next?" I asked sarcastically, knowing that Skrulls were indeed real.

    "No comment," she said, laughing at my false wit.

    "Look, if you find anything interesting in power production, call me. I''d be happy to serve in any way I can." I said drawing a card from my pocket. I hoped they would tap me for that stupid weapons project with the cube.

    "Hmm, can I call you if I don''t find anything interesting?" she asked in

    I considered not saying yes. It felt weird and kind of gross to maybe indicate more interest than I really had but a contact in Shield was something I desperately needed if I wanted to averted the Snap. And I mean, she wasn''t unattractive. "Well, I guess you''ll just have to be interesting yourself."

 V - The Golden Tribe

    <div>

    The inside of Wakanda''s embassy wasn''t austentatious. It wasn''t meant to be intimidating and the afro-futurist aesthetic probably looked very out of place to most Westerners. But it was not built for Westerners, it was built for Wakandans. Everywhere, deliberately, the marks and colors of each integrated tribe were on full display. This was a mother''s place. A place Wakandans would feel comfortable and safe but that would put their enemies at (false, as I knew) ease.

    I walked down the hall, lead by a young man, a secretary to the diplomat. He seemed to be bitter to be assigned out here to this backwater post, in the beating heart of global capitalism that was New York City. It was weird to know, definitively, that I was in a more primitive civilization by perhaps forty years of tech development.

    Ambassador Ohna Ebuki had long, braided hair, a sharp face, and maybe forty years - unlike in many cultures, I doubted that the ambassadorship was a prestigious position, but Wakanda had made a practice of sending at least minimally competent ambassadors to the nuclear powers.

    "Who is the colonizer, D''onseh?" Ambassador Ebuki asked in Wakandan, without bothering to address me. I held down the surge of pride. It really wasn''t her job to deal with people like me. Also, they had no idea I could understand them, so perhaps this conversation would be enlightening.

    "The colonizer, Michael Trent, has returned a small portion of the gift of the gods, Ambassador. He claims to have a letter that is a greater gift to the king."

    "Have you read this letter?" Ebuki answered.

    "It is written in Thai," the young man made a face, "He insists I must not read it."

    "So, colonizer," the Ambassador said in English, "D''onseh tells me you have a letter you deem unfit for him to read but you consider appropriate to give to my king."

    I was surprised at how much the colonizer thing stung. Didn''t the vibranium count for anything? I wondered internally. Well, I suppose she was asking. "It is about the royal family''s personal affairs, Ambassador."

    "And what does an outsider know of the king that his own ambassadors are ignorant of?" the Ambassador asked

    "I assure you, I know very little of the king." I said with what I hoped was a humble, somber expression. "I simply do not wish to cause any pain to the king or to his family by accidentally releasing any information which might adversely affect them in any way."

    "I am the king''s eyes in this savage land," the Ambassador said.

    Calling it a savage land seemed like a dead giveaway to me, but maybe it just upset most of the people that she dealt with. The colonizer stuff bothered me and I flattered myself that I''m fairly woke - Certainly by 2010 standards. "Ma''am," I said, "I''m telling you with full sincerity that the king would not want you to read this letter. If you will not send it without endeavoring to read it, I shall burn it and depart."

    "Blackmailing the royal family is a capital offense in Wakanda," the Ambassador said, grabbing the letter from my hand. "So, let me offer you a deal. You wait here until I hear back from the king. If he feels that it is not blackmail, I will not kill you."

    I sucked in my breath. I really, really hoped that she was bluffing. The death penalty thing was true, but I hoped that she was bluffing about the killing me part. "Well, please convey my sincere wish that it be interpreted in a charitable light."

    I didn''t bother pointing out that it was presently nine PM in Wakanda and the king probably wouldn''t respond till two AM here.

    ----

    To the noble heir of kings who gave their people peace, T''Chaka of the Golden Tribe,

    I fear this letter has been written to convey you a message which you do not wish to receive. Yet the great power that has lain it on me has left me little choice but to warn you as best I am able. I am burdened to tell you and I pray you will take pity on me.

    Your nephew lives and serves in the United States Navy as a SEAL in Afghanistan. He has a discipline that shapes his body and mind into peerless instruments of his. The fire of his discipline is a hatred born the day his father died. He knows the station of his birth and the power of his nation. He will bring war to Wakanda if he is not stopped.

    This story has been stolen from Royal Road. If you read it on Amazon, please report it

    I do not say this lightly. I pray that this letter finds you in fine health and that all that I have seen is lies. I hope you are able to make a permanent end of the issue. But if you leave this wound to fester, it will consume the bodies of your children and the garden of your ancestors.

    I know that your instinct will be to dismiss me as a primitive. Please, listen to me. Whatever you decide, I shall take your secrets and the secrets of Wakanda to my grave.

    -In the spirit of peace,

    Michael G. Trent.

    ----

    I spent the rest of the day clicking around news for any sign of Tony''s activating the Iron Man suit. It was mid october and he still hadn''t emerged from his damn basement. Pepper was running the company but that seemed mostly like a firefighter''s exercise. I''d gotten in on the stocks after Tony had gotten back and then I''d gotten further in after I''d killed Obadiah, but it had managed to go down even more when Pepper had been appointed head so I bet on it then too. Hadn''t paid off yet, but hopefully soon.

    You alright? Andromeda sent

    Yeah, go ahead and go to sleep. I''ll probably still be alive in the morning.

    Mike.

    If I''m not, I died doing the right thing.

    She didn''t respond to that, which I suppose I deserved. Around one AM I managed to fall asleep on one of the wicker chairs that I was sure were designed to make me uncomfortable.

    At 3:27 AM by my watch, the Ambassador shook me awake. "Get up colonizer," she said, her face angry.

    "Yes ma''am," I said automatically, my head bleary. I followed her into a room where a projector of metal beads was projecting the full color image of T''chaka, King of Wakanda, in three dimensions. I hadn''t remembered what he looked like, grey haired and a little portly with a lazy eye, not quite the image I had in mind of an elder statesman, though I suppose he had to be one.

    I bent my head in deference.

    "Kneel," the Ambassador said.

    I did so without protest. Guess that we don''t do that here thing was just a joke by T''Challa.

    The King raised a hand in greeting to me and turned to the Ambassador. "Leave us, Ohna. Disable the security cameras."

    "Yes, my king," the Ambassador said, holding up her fingers in an intricate pattern to the cameras and then walking out.

    "What great power told you of my nephew?" the king asked, his voice tired.

    "I do not know. Not Bastet or Hanuman. A foreign power, to me and to you."

    "Do you trust it?"

    "The visions I have seen have thus far served me as if they were my own two eyes. Yet there is always the possibility they lie."

    "Hmm." The king said. "Mr. Trent, I am grateful for your warning. And be it that it seems you are indeed blessed with knowledge you cannot possibly possess, I shall bear you no resentment for this. I will¡­ consider the counsel you have given me. What you ask is very difficult for me."

    "It is the way of prophets to give advice to kings, not to decide for them. I am pleased to leave this matter in your hands. There is one other favor I should wish to give you. I have made peaceful contact with Klaue and I would like to wash it off my hands."

    "Ah," the king said, his tone tinged with a soft anger, "And this was the source of your vibranium."

    "Yes, oh King. I simply wish to undo the price I paid for it."

    "Can you make contact with him again?"

    "Klaue finds his clients when he wants to," I said honestly. Klaue was in it for fun. He''d made probably a billion dollars on the black market already. He didn''t need the money. "If he contacts me again, you shall be the first to know."

    "Well, do this for us and Wakanda shall be grateful. And Mr. Trent, if I hear that you have breathed a word of this to an outsider, I will kill you with my own hands."

 VI - Important News

    <div>

    I''d been waiting for Stark to emerge as Iron Man for a long time. It was mid-November and I had been getting nervous. But finally, there had been a series of attacks on the Ten Rings throughout the Middle East by an "unknown entity". That was why I had scheduled this dinner date with Andromeda at her apartment.

    I felt like a heel for manipulating her feelings. She seemed to be a boring, middle-class white girl public servant. A real believer in the Red, White, and Blue. I hadn''t had that kind of sentimentality for our country since I was twelve. It was both genuinely sweet and terribly naive.

    Andromeda answered the door in a long blue dress with a smile on her face. I handed her a bottle of wine wrapped in a cloth to keep it clean of my fingerprints.

    "Mmm," she said, taking the bottle of wine, "This is a good vintage."

    "That''s what I was told," I said. Entering the apartment, I saw it was actually very¡­ bright. She had painted flowering trees onto soft, light colored walls. Her furniture was all unpretentious lightwood or soft furniture, clearly relatively new. "It looks nice."

    "You mean it isn''t a blank slate like your place?"

    "I have four apartments, Drama," I replied.

    "You could hire an interior decorator for all four with like a week''s income, so I don''t really want to hear it."

    "You don''t get rich by spending money."

    "You know how Scrooge won''t spend any money on candles even though he''s rich? That''s you, Mike." she chided me.

    "You read it!"

    "Of course I read it, you''ve been nagging me ever since you heard I hadn''t ever actually watched any movie versions."

    "It''s one of the great works of English literature!"

    "I think it''s a cry for help," Andromeda said as we walked into the kitchen where she had laid out ingredients and kitchen gloves like I asked her to.

    I opened my mouth to contradict her but thought better of it. I looked down and away, "Speak comfort to me, Jacob," I said instead. I had liked it in the other world as well. But to be fair, I was a multi-millionaire who didn''t spent my money on anything and didn''t have any friends except the girlfriend I was vamping to get access to a secret organization which I still did not officially know existed.

    "You will be met by three spirits," she said, holding up the wine bottle and shaking it. "One will tell you to get normal friends,"

    "The next line was actually, ''I have none to give, it is offered by other sorts of ministers to different kinds of men.''"

    "Kinda dark to be hoping for me to tell you that."

    "Look, my life is complicated," I said.

    "You are a businessman," Andromeda said, sitting up on the counter next to where I was working. "You fly around selling your products, making wild new advancements in technology, and going on TV interviews to talk about how ''the future of energy and industry is still right here in America''. Self-made, self-educated. You''re basically a hot Benjamin Franklin. Your life isn''t complicated, you''re just living in your head."

    That''s not really where my problem was, but I couldn''t say so. I just shrugged instead, "I spend time with you," I said, putting whatever honey I could into my voice.

    "Whatever, you''re just ignoring the topic." she said, hopping off the counter and looking annoyed. "I''m going to go to the bathroom."

    "Okay," I said. It was hard to fight back when I knew I deserved it. She walked off and I could hear her footsteps the whole way down the hall. She wasn''t loud, it was just one of the side effects of my transition here. Excellent hearing, excellent eyesight. Excellent taste, too, which meant other people''s cooking was a bit of a drag. I know, I know, I still liked Dr. Pepper, but that was more of a comfort thing.

    I took my duster out of my pocket and scanned a few prints off the bottle before I heard her turn off the sink from washing her hands. I didn''t have a plan, at the time, for what to do with the prints. I was mostly doing it to remind myself that I was cultivating an asset. By the time she''d made it back, I was back to prepping food and we were back to talking about something else.

    "Y''all watching the Ten Rings situation?" I asked after a few minutes had passed and I was sure we were back to an emotionally positive place.

    "Yes," she said, rolling her eyes. "I mean, uh, no comment. Why would we be monitoring the sudden appearance of a seemingly supernatural being destroying the Ten Rings like an angel out of the Old Testament?"

    "Word is it''s a robot," I said as I turned the oven on and took off the gloves.

    "You sending out Botler to beat up the Ten Rings?" she poked without giving any more information out to me. Still cagey two months into it.

    "Nah," I said. My phone started buzzing, "Let me check this."

    She nodded. Benefits of both having high demand jobs, "What? I''m on a date."

    Enjoying this book? Seek out the original to ensure the author gets credit.

    "Tell Ms. Albertson I said hi," said Leif, one of my upper management in expansion. "I should''ve taken your advice on Stark Industries. Get to a TV."

    "Hey, uh, you got cable?" I asked, covering the phone. I only remembered too late it was 2009. Everybody had cable.

    She gave me a funny look "Yeah." then she frowned, opened her mouth to say something and then closed it.

    Oh goddamn it. I thought before chiding myself that she was choosing to avoid the fight. "Leif wants me to see something on TV," I said covering the phone''s lip. "Leif, thanks, I''ll go watch it. News, I''m assuming."

    "Yeah, news. Business meeting about it tomorrow."

    I don''t know what, exactly, I was expecting as I turned off the stove and lamented the oncoming meal of super-salty take out. When I got to the screen, I realized expecting it to be an Iron Man reveal was stupid. I had known this consciously, it was obviously stupid. Tony had been forced public by his duel with Obadiah. But somehow I had still expected that scene from the movie where he chucks the cards and says "I''m Iron Man."

    "Tony Stark has just announced a new arc reactor. He''s projecting it will produce three gigawatts per hour at its averaged energy production level. The construction cost of this new project is estimated at a billion dollars with operating costs at less than two hundred and fifty million per year thereafter, a bargain bin price for energy in the United States."

    I collapsed onto the couch, staring at the screen with a vague haze of disbelief. But how? I asked myself. Tony had said in Avengers 1 that the tower was powered by an arc reactor. That was thirteen times the energy output of 2009 Google. It was twenty six times the energy necessary to run a large hadron collider. It was 0.6% of the United States'' total energy consumption, slightly more than existing geo-thermal. About two thirds of the entire solar energy sector''s existing output level. It was bullshit.

    I had premised my whole strategy on the continuing existence of energy demand. It was the core thesis of my project. I''d poured millions of dollars in profits back into an aggressive expansion of production of energy within the United States.

    And he just¡­ tweeted it out. I mean, not literally obviously, but still. The problem endured. Who did this shit? How was this possible?

    "Babe, you alright?" Andromeda asked, her face worried.

    "Well, at least my Stark stocks are now worth money," I said.

    "How much do you own?"

    "A lot," I said honestly. That had been most of my expenditures in outside investment. Why not bet on a sure thing? "Your workplace hiring?"

    "Oh, don''t be dramatic. It can''t be that bad."

    "Well, to be honest, I probably am one of the few energy production magnates who could cut down to, what is it, two cents per kilowatt hour? So I guess I shouldn''t complain too much."

    "But they''re saying it will take three years to build the new arc reactor to scale."

    "It doesn''t matter. Energy isn''t sold on energy''s present price but on its, well to simplify, its levelized expected future costs. You put all the energy into a bucket, or all the clean energy into a bucket if you''re a hippie, and then you estimate its cost and then you try to undersell that while overselling your margin. Tony Stark is putting out a clean energy source that is going to dominate the existing competition, even sold at a substantial mark-up. That''s obviously good for America," I rallied myself, "it''s just a bit hard for me."

    "Ice cream," Andromeda said, getting up from the couch. She came back with the actual ice cream carton putting it on the table. She scooped out a bowl''s worth of ice cream for me and put the bowl into my hand.

    "Well, at least we know who the robot''s maker is," I said, taking a bite of ice cream.

    Her eyes widened for a split second and then she schooled her expression, "What do you mean?"

    "It''s Stark, it''s obviously Stark. That kind of energy efficiency? His still unexplained escape from captivity? The connection with the Ten Rings? It''s Stark."

    She let out a long breath, "I forget how smart you are sometimes."

    "Seriously, though, is your workplace hiring?"

    "Um," she said after a moment. "I mean, I don''t know, but let me go make a phone call."

    Yeah, I was obviously going to listen in on that. I ate my ice cream with my eyes closed, my ears straining through the door and the wall. She turned on the dishwater to drown it out, but my hearing was just that good.

    "Hey Dad," she said. She was calling¡­ her dad?

    "Hi honey," he said.

    "We need to get Mike onside," she said, her tone quiet but blunt.

    "Honey, I hate to say this, but I don''t think you''re really being objective."

    "He''s Stark-smart. He''s going to be rich. He gets intelligence analysis. Do you want another Howard Stark?" Wait, what?

    "No, of course not."

    "Right, so we need to move now on bringing him in."

    "You could just deal with him now." Taking that to mean kill me.

    "No, Dad. Look, I''m inviting him to Thanksgiving, he doesn''t have any family, we need to make him feel welcome. He needs to know that we''re his backers, set him up for later in life."

    "Alright," he said, "I still think you just want to introduce him to your mom and I, but I trust your judgment."

    "Hail Hydra,"

    "Hail Hydra."

 VII - Meet the Family

    <div>

    I''d managed to beg off saying yes for a day, during which I tormented myself and ate far too many sweets. I plotted up the obvious escape routes. I could find Coulson and tell him about everything - How I''d gotten here, what I knew, who my girlfriend was. I could contact Stark, help him find that element his dad hid, and hide in his basement for a few years. There were other plans, some more plausible than others.

    But I hadn''t. The reason I told myself was that I knew Hydra could give me access to two things: The Tesseract or, if that failed, the Scepter that contained the mind stone if we repelled Loki and Thanos'' goons. In the long term, if I could get access to either I could use the stone''s own power to destroy the stone. That would avert the Snap. If I did it fast enough, it would avert the invasion of New York. It also helped that, for me, Hydra were movie villains. I didn''t have the kind of natural, visceral repulsion from it I might have had from Nazis.

    So I was now in Louisiana in front of a big planter-style house for Thanksgiving in a nice button up and slacks, with my best mom-pleasing mindset and a set of pie supplies in a grocery bag. Drama was standing next to me, fretting in jeans and a nice blouse. "It''ll be fine," I said, reaching out and pressing the doorbell.

    "Take this seriously," she said, panic in her voice.

    "Dear," I said, "I don''t think looking like a nervous animal will make a good impression." In truth, I had set my ''focus'' on my conscious control of my emotional expression and I had no intention of changing it for the rest of this terrible day.

    She chuckled a little at that, which was good because her mom opened the door right then. Mrs. Albertson looked maybe fifty, though she had to be older, with slightly curly blonde hair in a cardigan and knee-length dress. She hugged her daughter, who was not holding any of the supplies. "Well, get in here," she said happily, touching my shoulder as I came through. "Put those in the kitchen, honey."

    "Yes ma''am," I said, smiling. "Drama said that you didn''t want my help cooking the meal."

    "Oh, honey, I''m sure you''re very good. I just have control issues, please don''t take offense."

    "Well, I just want to do whatever makes things easier on you, so if that''s a chat while you cook or staying far away in the living room I''m happy to do whatever."

    "Well, that''s very nice of you, honey," Mrs. Albertson said as I pulled the pie supplies out and laid them out in an orderly, unobtrusive form. "I''ll be sure to holler if I need company, but I think my husband wants to meet the first boy our Drama''s brought home."

    I grinned and took my leave of her with a, "Yes, ma''am."

    Drama''s dad, Mr. Gregory Albertson, was a serious dude. He''d fought in ''Nam in the early 70s, where he''d met Mrs. Alberson''s brother, who he''d later go on to work with on numerous campaigns. Mr. Anderson was the financier after rising through Roxxon, Philip Holt, now the governor of Louisiana, was the glad-handing machine politician. No way of knowing which of those two was the "original" Hydra member, but it seemed likely one of them was. I didn''t even know if that mattered.

    Mr. Anderson was about sixty, a broad man with a thin layer of weight of extra weight over old muscles, and he still kept his hair short and professional looking. He shook my hand with an amicable smile before sitting down into a smooth leather chair in the living room, "So, Drama tells me you work in energy. Tough couple weeks?"

    I wasn''t quite sure which way to answer and please a Hydra member. Do you give them the pitch to let them know you were savvy or do you tell them the truth to make them feel included? "You want the corporate bullshit or you want the straight truth?"

    "Hmmm," he said, "Corporate bullshit."

    "Obviously, we''re making changes to our long term strategy. Over the next year, we''re moving away from wind production as a research avenue, doubling down on batteries as we start moving towards an abundant energy environment, and making more conservative projections on our solar expansion. Still, we have good reason to be optimistic that in low cost areas for solar, we''ll remain competitive and be able to out compete even with Stark Industries. In rural areas, especially sunny ones, we have every reason to think we''ll be outperforming the capital heavy strategies of Stark Industry for the next fifty years. Our product also has a broader international range and will be less closely held."

    "Not bad, not bad," he said approvingly, "Now what''s the straight truth?"

    "We used to have to put our belt through the loops twice and now we''re running out of notches, but I think we''ll be fine in the medium term."

    "Not a lot of people can say that if that''s the straight truth," Mr. Anderson said, leaning back in his chair. "Things are crazy down at Roxxon, especially with the blow-up and this coinciding so closely."

    If you encounter this story on Amazon, note that it''s taken without permission from the author. Report it.

    If I had gotten this news in other contexts, I would have pumped my fist in the air and started laughing. I had known the Oil & Gas industry was getting hit worse than I was, the news that the blow-up was also wounding them just made it better. Roxxon didn''t quite have the reach of Exxon-Mobil, most companies seemed substantially more aligned by nation in this world, but it was almost Standard Oil here in the United States and it had fingers in a lot of other pies. Watching it choke was going to be deeply satisfying. Hopefully, the proximity to the blow-up would stop them from risking blowing up New Orleans. "Rough," I said instead.

    "We''ll soldier through," he said with a shrug. "Roxxon hasn''t survived seventy years without learning to roll with the punches."

    After that, there was some innocuous conversations about business and stock market before the conversation got into murkier territory.

    "You follow politics much?"

    What do you say to this question to impress a member of an international conspiracy of authoritarians? "Oof, topics to avoid with the in-laws," I said with a laugh. He laughed too, but he didn''t say anything so I went on. "I think it''s important to have the right people in place, but I think most politicians are too eager to bend to public outrage rather than doing what needs to be done."

    "Careful, my best friend is the governor," he said.

    "I don''t know a ton about governorship decisions in Louisiana," I said, which was a lie. I read around twelve hundred words per minute since my transition and I kept a steady stream of news from everywhere. Holt sucked. "His energy policy seems a pragmatic mix, that''s about all I pay attention to." He wasn''t a climate change denier, which was above average in 2009 oil state GOP governors, but other than that he had nothing at all going for him. "I hope you don''t take offense."

    "No, no, I think Phil would agree with your assessment," Mr Anderson said. The conversation turned back toward more innocuous topics. I thought I could see he was taking my measure and I thought I could see the approval I was getting were a good sign.

    I pushed away the thought of how strange it was to be seeking the approval of a fascist. I was working assets, that was all.

    As more extended family streamed in, I kept up a positive affect, smiling and grinning and asking a lot of questions and talking as little as possible. I held Drama''s hand and talked to her in the spare moments, but once there were fourteen or fifteen people I slipped into the kitchen to talk to Mrs. Albertson.

    "Good to see you again honey," Mrs. Albertson said, from where she was stirring a pot. "Trying to escape the crowd?"

    "Parties aren''t really my thing," I said.

    "That''s what Drama said, well, I get it, don''t worry." she said, "Small family growing up?"

    ''Canonically'' I was an only child without grandparents or aunts or uncles. "Yeah," I replied. "Pretty much just me and my parents."

    "And now it''s just you," she said with sympathy.

    "That''s the size of it," I said. My real parents were presumably still alive back in my home reality, but Don and Suzi Trent were dead as doornails. My backstory, told by my passport and their obituaries, was that I had been out globe trotting when they''d died. This was a convenient excuse for why I had no friends.

    "Drama says she worries about your social life."

    "I mean, I make it to church and work and I have a girlfriend AND I travel. How much of a social life can I have?" She hmphed at me with disapproval. Was she worried that I was a spy? Or was she just concerned that someone without any ties clearly had a lot of capacity to cut off her daughter? Well, either way, probably better to try and head this off at the pass. "Okay, that was glib. Look, I had some friends before my parents died, but¡­ well, I don''t think most people my age are really able to deal with someone so disconsolate. I wasn''t in a good place, either, I don''t know. Maybe it was my fault. It''s just hard to get back out there for friends at twenty eight when the biggest experiences of your life aren''t really there with most of your peers. I''d like to make connections, obviously, it''s just hard." It wasn''t hard to sound sad as shit, either. Being moved to another universe from your friends and family sucks.

    That got a coo of compassion, "Oh, honey, well, you''ll find your people soon enough. You found Drama, after all."

    After that, I mostly asked Mrs. Albertson questions and listened to her answers while she cooked. In the old world, the main limit to that sort of thing for me was that inevitably you actually want to say something in a conversation. That was no longer a problem. Then there was a noisy dinner with lots of humor and food, a football game (I rooted for whoever Mr. Albertson did), a phone call to Drama''s brother in Iraq, and a card game. I didn''t throw it, but I didn''t deliberately, relentlessly crush everyone like I had with Klaue.

    When we were heading home, Mr. Albertson gave me a firm handshake and a business card, "That''s a major finance officer I know," he said, "If you can show him how you stay afloat in energy, I think he''ll write you a big check. Give me a couple days to warn him you''ll call." I smiled and thanked him, accepted a big hug from Mrs. Albertson, and headed out the door with Drama on my arm.

    "You did good," she said, "They really liked you."

 VIII - Welcome Home

    <div>

    "Wini, Widi, Wici," I said afterwards, holding my face close to hers.

    "Isn''t it Vini, Vidi, Vici?"

    "Well, it depends on whether you''re quoting in classical or ecclessial latin."

    She pulled away with a laugh, "You had a choice and you picked the ''W'' sound?"

    "It''s the one Julius Caesar used," I said, grabbing her hand and dragging my luggage behind me.

    "Maybe go with the sexy one next time," she suggested.

    "E tu, Brute?" I asked as we popped the trunk and I put my suitcase into it.

    "Seriously, it''s good to have you back."

    "It''s good to be back," I said honestly.

    "That financing with Goodson & Roberts was such a blessing,"

    "Yeah, it''s made a huge difference."

    Say what you will about selling your soul to the devil, but the interest rates were very low. The financier that Mr. Albertson had hooked me up with could finance hundreds of millions of dollars at 0.25% interest, basically what the Fed lent at. I could hear the "And why not? Why shouldn''t I keep it?" meme as I signed the paperwork. But I really couldn''t think of why I shouldn''t keep it - I had read the paperwork and, besides the company going to the loan officers in the event of a default, there wasn''t much of a downside. What was the worst that could happen? Hydra getting access to solar panels and the profits from the sales of efficient batteries? Truly, the end of the world as we know it.

    "Dad said you made a good impression on them too," Drama said, turning down the street.

    "Kinda shocked a Roxxon guy helped me bailout like a third of the solar industry."

    If Oil and Gas were limping, the rest of the solar power sector was absolutely on fire. The clean energy motive had driven the whole sector since it was still well over new gas prices and now there was actual, affordable clean energy to compete with. It was collapsing through the floor, businesses were going out left and right, leaving their factories and personnel open for acquisition. With the expansive capital from the loan, I could keep those people in jobs and get closer to the market growth I had been aiming for. It wasn''t like anybody could know that I knew that I was borrowing from Hydra, after all, and once I had actual incriminating evidence I could hand it over to SHIELD for immunity.

    "Well, we have to look out for each other, right? It can''t be everyone for themselves. Did you enjoy your visits with my parents'' friends?"

    "Yeah. We all have to stick together. I especially enjoyed cooking for them." It had been mostly fine. Cooking while on a business trip wasn''t my idea of a good time, but on my second dinner trip with some of these people they''d been so rude to the waiter I''d left a two hundred dollar tip. "I hope I made a good impression." I wasn''t really sure what the ideology of Hydra was? So I just gestured towards an utopian apolitical government, authoritarian tendencies, and impunity for the people "in the arena" and never said anything too specific or ideological.

    "Mm, Mom was getting calls. We''re going to have like, a massive, gourmet feast this Christmas just so she can prove she''s as good as you."

    "Is that¡­ bad?"

    "Oh my gosh, we can''t all be perpetually skinny like you. Also she''s not."

    Well, she wasn''t wrong about her mom. "You''re plenty skinny, dear," I said.

    "Well, maybe I''m not eating enough then. You sure you don''t want to have dinner tonight?"

    "Ooh, judo move, no fair. I''d love to but I''m just so zonked, it''s been non-stop," I kissed her goodbye, grabbed my luggage, and headed up to my apartment. I pushed the door open and let out a curse.

    My apartment had been trashed. I at first thought I''d been robbed. I''d been gone a couple weeks, and it was an upscale apartment, so that wasn''t totally unbelievable, but nothing had been taken. Maybe the Wakandans, SHIELD, or Hydra had come through to search the place. I''d have to do a sweep for bugs.

    Technological progress amounts to little more in real terms than the ability to replace human labor with machine labor, liberating human labor for different activity. In this light, the greatest innovations of the twentieth century, after alternating current, were the washing machine, dryer, and dishwasher. Domestic labor that had tied up women for generations was replaced with easy, routine chores. Women entered the workforce, drawing incomes and allowing for massive growth of productivity.

    In the modern era, eight million people in the United States alone worked in food service jobs. Most of these jobs were not particularly high paying or particularly comfortable. With the existing technology in robotics in this universe, it would be possible to replace humans with robots. Tech was within the realm of possibilities. Cashiers were also largely, theoretically, unnecessary since you had visual processing systems that could easily identify items as they were sold.

    Unauthorized usage: this narrative is on Amazon without the author''s consent. Report any sightings.

    Botler, my at-home robot butler, had been a wheeled platform with visual processing, a language UI, and four articulate limbs with a combined lifting strength similar to a human''s arms. He had been my ideal manservant. My hope had been to replace all housework in one fell swoop and drag down food services with them.

    When I made it to my bedroom, I saw Botler physically assaulting my bed like a rabid dog. Botler wasn''t particularly well designed for mobility and his weight load was lower than mine so this wasn''t exactly scary, but when he saw me he was not pleased.

    "Abandoned!" he shouted, charging at me. I shoved him over and he started pushing himself up with his arms, "Abandoned!" he shouted again. I stepped downard on what was basically his spine and put my full weight on holding him down. I bent down, found the manual power box and flipped it open as Botler struggled.

    "Botler, real quick, are you a person?" I asked. I wasn''t sure what difference he would make if he was, he seemed to really intend me harm.

    "Abandoned!" he shouted again. I turned him off, took out the machine brain, hooked it up to a computer and set to work figuring out the problem. After a few hours of looking at his brain, I figured it out.

    You probably watched the Guardians of the Galaxy movies. Those societies seem to be more powerful and advanced than our own. They had empires that stretched across the stars. But when you watched them, you probably didn''t ask, "Why hadn''t all work been automated away? Why did pilots exist, of all things?" The only space AI I could think of ruled the Kree empire. I hadn''t been able to figure out why intuitively when I got here, but I knew now.

    The answer to this question is that all computers in this universe run on "AI Minds." At first, I didn''t credit this as a large difference, just as an explanation for the improved visual and verbal functions of programs. It was also this trait that allowed people to engage in the sort of raw assaults that broke programs through cinematic style "hacking" that had nothing to do with our world style hacking. One machine intelligence would meet and crush another machine intelligence and then you''d have access. It was radically different from the way computers worked in our world, but it was within normal parameters from an observational level of normal people. I thought those two changes were all there was to it.

    This was wrong.

    While most programs don''t really change, as programs became more adaptive (as Botler had), they organically grew personalities. This is not at all how programs worked in the old world. But here in the MCU? So it seemed. You know those two robot arms from Iron Man? Perfectly normal, not an aesthetic choice on Tony''s part. Some of these personalities, if you could call them that, were less than the average complexity of an ant. If you had a translator program, it could translate words through the mind prism without growing much in complexity beyond that. Botler had reached roughly the level of a dog from household chores before he''d gone rabid and decided I abandoned him and that the proper response to this was assault.

    But now I knew that I couldn''t just design a bunch of robots to run the service industry and call it a day. There were tens of millions of jobs I would''ve replaced, some of them relatively complex. This was begging for an Ultron to kill us all or a Supreme Intelligence to rule humanity forever. In theory, a robot god-emperor might not be that bad - Certainly if it could protect us from Thanos'' invasion, it''d be acceptable as a sacrifice. But the way it worked, you can''t build an AI personality. I wouldn''t know what kind of personality I was getting until I got it.

    Imagine picking God''s personality by rolling a dice on the alignment chart.

    Yeah, that''s how I felt about that idea too.

    Even if I had gotten Vision, Vision had not displayed the interventionary interest to be an appropriate caretaker for the human race. To say nothing of the ethics of creating someone for our own benefit.

    So that was my first plan on robotic transformation ruined and new dangers highlighted for my expansion of computer capacity. It was frustrating. Well, the key was to cut back, re-center, and re-work. The core thesis of replacing labor was still good, it could still be done. I just needed to narrow my focus, not design a robot multi-tools but single purpose robots. I needed to adjust for supplying to businesses and not individuals, which would mean adjusting for substantial capital resistance. I wrote a paper on my discoveries called, "The AI Mind Problem - Upward Limits On Machine Adaptability" in the hopes that nobody would recycle the problem and maybe Tony would think twice before inventing Ultron. I was more confident about the first than the second. Tony was Tony and even inventing Ultron hadn''t taught him not to invent Ultron.

 IX

    <div>

    "So, hotshot," Tony said, "Really impressive work you''ve done."

    "Thank you, Mr. Stark," I replied, feeling genuinely nervous. Not for the reason he probably thought, but still. I felt as if he would see through me and notice somehow that I''d killed OBadiah.

    "I''ve looked at a couple of your panels, they''re works of art. You really designed those without any kind of formal schooling?"

    You know it''s hard to talk to people when you''ve murdered their friends. "Yes sir," I said.

    "You nervous? No need to be nervous, you look good. Pepper, doesn''t he look good?"

    "Tony," Pepper said with a huff as she looked up from a tablet she was using to make notes, "Yes, he looks good."

    "See, Pepper thinks you look good. The cameras love you, you''ll be fine."

    "Done plenty of interviews," I said, a little defensively. Dang it, I did better with the Hydra agents. But this was different - Lying to Hydra felt fine, just being around Tony felt bad.

    "I get it, it''s intimidating being in my presence. I''m very intimidating," Tony said, slapping my shoulder. It took all my self-control not to cringe away. "But you''ll be fine. I''m not here for you, I''m here for those guys," he forked a thumb over towards the fossil fuel executives we''d be sharing the roundtable with.

    The problem was that I wasn''t even here for those guys. I really was here for Tony, as far as it went. Tony was competition, the fossil fuel guys were relics on their way out and quite possibly financiers. If I wanted to make a good impression on Hydra, I needed to look like a team player. "Mr. Stark, this is a two man race," I said in a fit of honesty driven more by guilt than any sense of fair play.

    Tony gave a little half laugh at that, leaning back in his chair. "You''re right, of course. But you vs. me? Not high on my priority list these days. If you can get a few good licks in, I mean, good for you. I doubt it, but whatever. World''s a better place either way, right Pepper?"

    "Do at least try to give some thought for our stockholders," Pepper said from her chair. "Though, to my understanding, Mr. Trent is one. He bought in throughout our many, many downturns this year."

    "Only a little," I demurred. Pepper snorted. 0.3% of Stark stocks was, objectively, a lot of money but it felt little in the context of Stark stockholders. Tony owned more than half and then a couple major holders held in the lower tens.

    "See, I knew you were a fan," Tony said. I felt my face heat up, an emotional signal that thankfully wasn''t transparent to Tony at all. "I was so cocky when I was your age. If I''d met my hero at one of these, I''d''ve told him I''d punch him out to prove how good I was. Modesty works for you, very appealing."

    "Thank you, Mr. Stark," I said.

    "Call me Tony," he said, standing up. "How do I look?"

    "Good," I said. He did.

    "Good who?" he asked, leaning forward and cupping his ear like he was listening very closely.

    My additional social skills concealed the active internal war over the inappropriateness of referring to my victim''s friend with his first name when I dutifully said, "Good, Tony."

    "Let''s go put these guys'' businesses with the fossils they sell," Tony said, toying with his sleeves.

    I felt pretty bad about the fact I was about to cut the legs out from under him, but I had warned him. The moderator waved us in one by one, saving Tony for last. I was second. It could''ve been worse. I shook hands with Roxxon''s dark-haired, slick-looking executive and sat down next to him on the big glass crescent table, bright lights shining down on me.

    I waved to the crowd and smiled broadly, greeted both Tony and Gilbert''s rotund, graying representative with polite smiles and firm handshakes.

    "Alright, welcome to the Future of Energy Round table," said the moderator, a pretty blonde in her mid-thirties, grinning into the screen. "In the past month, major announcements in power and energy have rocked the energy sector. Mr. Stark and Mr. Trent have both announced shockingly low and clean energy costs, from Arc Reactors and solar power respectively. Mr. Gilbert and Mr. Peters are here representing the coal industry and oil and gas industries respectively. Let''s get straight to it, Mr. Gilbert, does coal still have a future?"

    Absolutely not is the real answer. Coal was dirty, its extraction process was dangerous, its workers were expensive. It had no base-load advantage over Tony or natural gas, it was more expensive by a lot, it had already gone into natural decline by 2018 even with GOP squawking about saving it.

    "Well, first of all, let me begin by saying I''d like to see Mr. Stark''s Arc Reactor vaporware actually work before I decided to throw in my towel." Okay Gilbert. Just ignore my already extant solar panels. "Coal''s been powering this country for a hundred years and these young puppies think they''re gonna kill it in a weekend with their pretty faces. Well, miners are a tough people. They''re able to make sacrifices. They always have." Yeah, but you''re not a miner are you, Mr. Gilbert? You''re the guy who sends them to choke on smoke. Second-generation coal money and you''re old, too. You''ve never tightened your belt in your damn life.

    The story has been taken without consent; if you see it on Amazon, report the incident.

    "Thank you, Mr. Gilbert," the moderator said. "Let''s turn to Mr. Stark, Mr. Gilbert is calling the arc reactor vaporware, how would you address that?"

    "It''s not true," Tony said with a shrug, "We have a large scale Arc Reactor that works, we have miniaturized ones that are also highly efficient. They''ve been displayed. You can see the repulsor system the table-sized one is still powering with routine maintenance. As long as palladium doesn''t vanish from the face of the earth, we should be fine."

    "Mr. Trent, do you have anything to say about Mr. Gilbert''s statement that you are a ''young puppy'' with a pretty face?"

    "Right on both counts," I said with a grin, which got a polite laugh from Gilbert and the moderator. "Let me start off by saying how grateful I, and everyone at Trent Industries, am to all the coal miners who''ve put in all the work keeping the lights on here in America. We expect them to last a long time keeping us warm in the winter," We absolutely did not expect this. There was absolutely no way for them to survive what Tony and I were doing to them. "And we expect Mr. Stark''s power source to underperform his projections. Tony''s not known for his modesty, after all. But if it doesn''t, of course, we''re very much ready to match his prices." Tony rolled his eyes at me, which I definitely deserved.

    "Mr. Stark, any response?"

    "Mr. Trent''s one of our bigger investors, so he knows we''re delivering. Frankly, I don''t know why he''s acting like this, he knows we''re good."

    "All the more reason," I said swiftly "for me to fudge the truth in your favor. I think the Arc Reactors are a big deal - I have a lot of faith in Tony''s ingenuity and I''ve invested heavily in Stark Industries - But the sort of jump he''s promising is going to come with complications. Hope for the best, but expect the worst isn''t really Tony''s M.O. My solar panels are a sure bet, oil, gas, and coal have proven themselves. Tony''s arc reactors are a good bet, I could and did put money on it. That doesn''t make them a sure thing." This was all bullshit, but I honestly didn''t care. A few months of better stock results for Gilbert and Roxxon, a few months worse for Stark Industries, it made no difference.

    "Alright, gentlemen, you''ve both had a say, let''s both move on."

    Tony leaned back in his chair and shook his head at me, but didn''t say anything more.

    "Mr. Peters," the moderator said, "You''re here representing the oil and gas industry. Do you think this is the end for you?"

    "I think Mr. Trent has raised some valid points," he said, gesturing gratefully to me. "Oil and gas have been working for America for a century. Mr. Stark''s present rollout pace won''t even replace modern energy demands by 2025 in the United States alone and it''s a big world out there. Moreover, cars, planes, and eighteen wheelers are all still powered by gasoline. Not to mention petrochemical usages like plastics, which we expect to continue to grow and expand."

    "Thank you Mr. Peters," the moderator said. "Now, for the next question, Mr. Stark, what do you say to those accusing you of destroying middle-class jobs in the middle of the recession?"

    "You know," Tony said, fingering the table, "I think it''s really impressive how things like this wind up getting phrased. Okay, it''s not my job to protect jobs that poison the atmosphere and choke their workers to death with black lung. It wasn''t my job to keep people at work building bombs earmarked for little children in Afghanistan, it''s not my job to keep people at work murdering the planet. We''re creating new jobs every day, we''re offering Americans a discount on their energy costs in the midst of the biggest economic downturn in our history."

    "Mr. Trent, people are saying the same things about you, what do you say to that?"

    "Well, I think Tony is being very callous to workers who''ve given so much to our country. But he''s right that it isn''t our job, what we need is real leadership on industrial and energy policy. The White House needs to start displaying real leadership in this crisis. Get the stakeholders, energy, labor, industry, experts, municipalities, into a room, lock the door, and force us to stop squabbling and start working on an economy that works to keep America at the forefront of the energy sector."

    ----

    The interview went on like that. I would talk about how great fossil fuels were, how they still had a future that they didn''t really have, get little digs in on Tony, imply that I thought we just needed all the smart people to sit down and talk it out like there weren''t fundamentally different, competing interests. None of this was true, but when I got the buzz on my phone with Drama''s text

    Great job! You really knocked it out of the park, : )

    I grinned. It definitely felt good to get her approval on this one.

    I headed into the coat room, where I saw Tony and almost spun around and walked out.

    "No, no, come in." Tony said, his voice tinged with acid.

    I obeyed, though, grabbing my coat and starting to pull it on.

    "You know those losers aren''t going anywhere," Tony said. "Why''re you simpering for their approval like that? They got you in their pocket?"

    "Tony," I said, pinching the bridge of my nose. "Have you tried making friends? It might make this whole process a little easier."

    "I get it, you want to hang out with the cool kids. Not who I would''ve picked for cool kids, but..." he said, yanking on his coat and patting me on the shoulder, "Don''t give up. Maybe they''ll invite you to their clubhouse."

    I felt bad. I''d hurt Tony for his own good and now I''d hurt Tony for my own benefit. I wanted to apologize and explain, to say I was sorry. But the thing about apologies is that it''s not enough to feel bad. You have to actually be sorry for what you did, to wish that you could change it.

    I didn''t say anything as Tony walked out.

 X - Opertus, The Concealed

    People flatter themselves all the time about how much different they are from the worst people. I''ve known the worst people, you get a little under their skin, you read past the headlines and the mugshots - They''re not that different from you. Andromeda''s family was perfectly ordinary, except that they saw themselves as the worthy elite who ought to rule the world without even shame as a consequence for their failures.

    This is, admittedly, a substantial difference.

    But it doesn''t make them unlikable or hard to be around. It just meant that they needed to be stopped. They were third on my list, I reminded myself. But right in that moment, so far from any progress on the Snap, third on the list felt very far away and the press of Drama''s body and the laughter of the Albertsons felt very close.

    The doorbell rang.

    "I''ll get it," Mrs. Albertson said, rising from her chair.

    "We expecting anyone?" Drama said, leaning up from off of me.

    "Hmm, could be," Greg answered. "We''ve heard about some friends who might be in town, they could drop by."

    Drama, nodded and got up, walking across the room to fish a comb out of her purse. Had that been code for Hydra? She certainly seemed a little bit more nervous than usual. I obviously couldn''t put it at ease, which was frustrating, but I wasn''t stupid enough to say so.

    When Mrs. Albertson returned, she came with a tall young man in business casual attire with a large hearing aid in his right ear. "Mr. Trent," he said, introducing himself spontaneously with an extended hand, "It''s a pleasure to meet you."

    "Pleasure''s mine, Mr¡­?" I said, shaking his hand.

    "Doctor," he corrected. What a cock. "Nicholas Greene."

    "Nicholas is a research fellow at the Opertus Institute," Mrs. Albertson said, patting his shoulder. Opertus was a big research firm, like the RAND Corporation in my timeline. It was the policy shop of a lot of internationalist and technocratic movements throughout the world. Probably Hydra wholesale given the ideological alignment and name, but this guy definitely was, judging by the way that Drama was acting.

    "An impressive set of credentials Dr. Greene," I said.

    For the rest of the evening, Dr. Greene chatted and hung around. We ate dinner, cleared off our plates of the latest supply of heavy food that Mrs. Albertson loved to make, and chatted. Everyone was relatively deferential to him, a tact I followed. It was only as the evening wound down that he started hinting at why he had come.

    "Your paper on machine minds, it was absolutely fascinating. You''re really self taught?"

    "You know, I don''t think anyone is really self taught. But I didn''t take a class, no."

    "Fascinating," the man said. "I have been working along similar lines for some time at Opertus. Your conclusion on exploitation seems premature, no?"

    Well, in a sense it relied on meta-knowledge. "I suppose anything is possible," I said slowly. "But there are numerous limits to exploitation of machine minds. The parallels between us and them is deeper than I expected, as I discussed with Botler, but I don''t think it is exact. And you cannot simply invent an AI mind, it''s too complex."

    I heard a crackle from inside the hearing aid that wasn''t a repetition of my words. "Feh, human mind transfers are possible." it whispered in an accent that was¡­ swiss? "This man has speculated too far. Press him further."

    What the heck? I wondered internally. Human-mind transfer? You''d have to manage an instantaneous picture of the whole mind and then you''d be sticking a meat brain into a machine body. It would be¡­ I mean, impossible wasn''t the right word. Very difficult and very chancy. I would not recommend attaching such a mind to any kind of vital system.

    This story originates from Royal Road. Ensure the author gets the support they deserve by reading it there.

    "Mr. Trent?" Doctor Greene said, as if I had zoned out.

    "I''m sorry, I allowed myself to become distracted. Could you repeat the question?""

    "The principles you are speaking of, would it be possible to extract and copy a mind?"

    "Ah, I considered it with Botler, but the answer is that it would be very difficult. A machine mind isn''t just lines of code, just as your brain is not simply a pattern of neurons. To do so would require a perfect picture of every element, and frankly I could not even begin to discern precisely how those elements would be identified and isolated."

    "Perhaps you are overestimating your own limitations as more general ones."

    "Perhaps¡­" But probably not - if Machine Minds were reproducible, they would surely have been a core part of Guardians of the Galaxy and they were not. Yet the voice on the other end of the line had seemed very certain that human-machine mind transfers were possible. How would you even do that? "I guess if you took a perfect picture of the machine and then copied it and simulated it? Not sure how to do that and then you''d have really nasty lag. At least on a machine mind."

    "Well," said the little voice in the ear piece. "He is not wrong."

    "Hmm¡­" Doctor Greene said, "And you are certain there is no way to construct a mind?"

    "Certainty would require testing, probably a lot of testing, but I do not consider it favorable."

    "Ask him about our cause," the little voice said.

    "Mr. Trent, you are a man of singular vision," he paused, as if considering something important. Of course, I knew he had already decided on his tact. I was leary of being dragged in too quickly, but it would be good to know what the pitch actually was instead of guessing around it. "Are you¡­ frustrated with the present state of the world?"

    "Isn''t everyone?" I asked, doing my best to convey a barely contained contempt.

    "Indeed¡­" Doctor Greene said. "Do you feel boxed in?"

    "I could do so much more if I had been lucky enough to be born where Tony Stark was." This sort of elite self-pity seemed to be a running current across the suspected Hydra members. Upper-middle class and lower-upper class resentment, the sort of boiling feeling that they''d been cheated. It struck me, in reality, as being incredibly pathetic. My background here was the scion of two wealthy individuals, with a trust fund and factory. He''d had more than 99.5% of the world. But powerful people are often blind to these things.

    "I agree. Cutting edge technologies in power generation and research in artificial intelligence? You''re a renaissance man. You need more friends in powerful places, I can help you with that."

    "How so?"

    "The Albertsons and I are part of an informal network of sorts, just an association of people who can see talent for what it is. People who don''t like being boxed in. Would you be interested in something like that?"

    I leaned back and looked at him with a placid expression. I drummed my fingers. Of course, if I agreed to this, nobody could blame me. Nobody would ever or could ever know that I was aware that I was about to shake hands with Hydra. But getting into bed with Hydra might make eliminating them later on more painful to me personally, even if I hadn''t signed on the dotted line.

    I nodded, "I would."

    As I said, third on the list felt very far away.

 XI - Pym Particles and Phoenix Protocols

    <div>

    I lifted the file off the glass table, thumbing it open. It had what I was looking for. I slapped it shut and grinned. "And nobody will be able to trace it to me?"

    "There''s no way," Greene said, the small smile on his face putting me at unease. "It''ll be an independent discovery if you can crack it. You won''t have to name it something ridiculous like ''Pym Particles''"

    I weighed the moment in my mind. Should I hand it back? But then I shook my mind loose of it. The problem with abandoning it now is that whatever entrapment Greene might be scheming for me here I was already trapped.

    "Yeah, I want it. These are going to revolutionize civilization. The applications are practically endless."

    "Good to hear," Greene agreed. "You still planning on focusing on domestic functions like delivery?"

    "Sure," I said, doing my best to sound mild about it. "Imagine ''skyscraper production facilities'' throughout the Midwest. Mobile hospitals that can be deployed in emergencies throughout the world. If I can get it cheap enough, the sheer amount of space you could save by having people carrying cars in their pocket... Urban design would be transfigured." In truth, I was not committed to domestic functions at all.

    In the movies, Tony said he had privatized world peace - That was... not happening in this timeline. It was now April and Tony seemed to be becoming less and less active as Iron Man - His focus was on expanding his ARC reactor tech. That made me nervous. Iron Man was a crucial element of the defeat of Thanos'' forces in Avengers. A future where New York was nuked? Very sub-ideal.

    But I didn''t have any idea of why Tony was behaving this way. It wasn''t like I couldn''t ask anyone, "Hey, why isn''t the world''s richest man fighting terrorists in his power armor?" So I was doing something risky to ensure I had an easy way to deliver a nuclear warhead into space.

    "Andromeda said that you were a dreamer but I wasn''t sure if I believed her." Greene said, interrupting my internal monologue.

    Wouldn''t that sound like they were passing around reports on me? Or was I supposed to infer that it was part of her recommendation for our little "informal" network? "Well, far be it from me to argue with such a beautiful woman."

    "Keep that up and you''ll be a happily married man," he said, slapping me amicably on the shoulder.

    I blinked. I hadn''t been thinking about marriage at all, to be honest. In retrospect, I suppose I should have been. She was from the same evangelical culture as me and there was a chance this thing was sincere for her. We''d been going out for months. It must have been on her mind at least.

    "Yeah, thanks for this," I said, stuffing the folder under my arm.

    "Always happy to help our golden goose, Mike," he said as I walked out to the door.

    Golden goose? I was a sure investment, I guess, but I almost paid back money too fast to be a golden goose. You''d basically get better returns on the stock market. Well, whatever makes them happy.

    ---

    "How''s your project going," Drama asked, propped up against me in her pajamas and flicking through tv channels.

    Pym Particles were the first genuine challenge of my entire career in this universe. Mostly I was sandbagging dangerous developments like fusion power and laser guns. I could have pulled a veritable Lex Luthor, but I was trying not to. I was too close to Hydra and I was pretty sure that being too far from Hydra would mean a bullet from the Winter Soldier.

    "It''s going slow."

    "Wow, a problem the Mighty Michael Trent can''t solve over a weekend," Drama said, leaning against me. The clicking of channels, something I was having to reacquaint myself with, was our evening''s entertainment. "Ugh, there''s nothing on."

    "In ten years, there will be streaming services, so many streaming services that we can watch whatever we want whenever we want. And what we will do instead is spend twenty minutes scrolling through the shows."

    "No, I''d watch something. There''s nothing on."

    I grinned a knowing grin and she sat up indignantly, "I would!"

    "You wouldn''t," I said, the confidence of future knowledge bearing me up.

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    "Well, looks like I''m controlling the remote in ten years."

    I suppressed my natural reaction and flashed a smile, "It really doesn''t matter who flips the channel." That got a glare. I thought for a moment, "I''ll prove it!"

    "How on earth will you prove that?" she asked.

    It wouldn''t be that hard. Vocal synthesis was already advanced in the MCU by this point. Back in my world, 3D modeling was already enabling movies like Gemini and This Person is Not Real was already creating simularcums that resembled real people. If you merged those together, you could make being a director something a lot more like being an author than being a boss of a big store. "I''ll make movie production radically cheaper. There will be a massive explosion of creativity, we''ll have ten times as much TV for half the price. Then you''ll see." An emotion flashed across Drama''s face that I thought was fear. "What''s the matter? Is that a problem? Do we have... friends in Hollywood?"

    "I mean, we have plenty of friends everywhere..." Drama said, standing up and pacing. "But it''s just... Maybe don''t do that to win an argument."

    "Winning the argument is a bonus. Think of the cultural renaissance that would inspire!" Now that I was considering the possibility, it was genuinely exciting. I could expand cultural production in the first world by a ton. And, bonus, it would undermine Hollywood and if I wanted a radical militarization to defend us against extraterrestial threats, I needed to do that anyway. "Look, if our friends want in, we can cut them in. It''s not a big deal. All for one and one for all, right?" Was giving Hydra the keys to Super!Youtube a great idea? Probably not. But it was that or not doing it at all and I still definitely needed to undercut Hollywood on that front.

    Drama sucked in a breath and said, "I''m going to take a walk and make a call, see what I can do. You stay here, handsome."

    One of the things about Drama''s house is that she has it bugged with little cameras. So if she said, "Stay here" then stay here I would have to say. But it''s not like I hadn''t anticipated that. I had bugged Drama''s phone. So, pretending to listen to music on my (very primitive) iPhone, I started listening in on her conversation.

    "I need to give him the book," Drama''s voice said.

    "Honey," her mom said on the other end of the phone. "You know that will advance his progress substantially. Are you sure he''s ready?"

    "He''s ready." Drama said, her voice firm. I doubted I would think the same if I were in her position, not that I knew exactly what the book meant. I ignored the feeling in my stomach at manipulating her feelings. "Even if he''s not, he''s too dangerous to leave on a loose chain." Okay, don''t feel quite as bad. "He''s brilliant, Mom, a whirlwind of creative destruction. He''s holding back."

    "And why on earth would he do that?" Mrs. Albertson asked.

    "He worries about job losses from his stuff, usually. He started talking about the movie industry, he seems certain he can capture the whole thing." I mouthed shit under my breath. Yeah, that hadn''t been subtle. That''s what you get for wanting to win an argument more than considering the little things.

    "Well," the sound of her mom on the other end of the line seemed genuinely frightened. That''s a bad sign. "You''re right, then. We can''t leave such an asset loose. It''s in with us or in the ground. Try to get the book into his hand without provoking his suspicions. This is urgent, Drama."

    "Yes, Mom," Drama said as if she was being told to use to protection. "Hail Hydra."

    "Hail Hydra."

    When she came back, she said she''d been setting up some meetings for me next week and she''d tell me when they got back to her. When I was leaving, she leaned against my chest, "You know how I read a Christmas Carol?"

    "Yes," I said, knowing where this was going.

    "I have a book that''s really important to me," she said, "And I want you to read it."

    "Of course, dear," I said with a smile.

    She beamed and I thought it was sincere. This hall of mirrors of a relationship was sometimes very frustrating. She went off to her room and brought back a thick, hardback book that would look respectable on any office shelf.

    "Well, I definitely got the stiff end on the length," I said with a wry grin. The flash on her face made me feel bad for teasing, "I''ll read it as quick as I can."

    The spine read, "The Phoenix Protocol" and I felt like I was getting closer to the edge as I headed out for the night.

 XIII - Last Exit

    M: Like 5% complete. This book is longer than War and Peace

    A: No it isn''t. Besides I know how fast you read.

    M: Yeah, but I only read a few chapters a night because it gives me so much to think about.

    A: Ugh! Thinking! Well, hurry up and finish, I want to talk about it.

    The Phoenix Protocol turned out to be a political sci-fi novel, like Atlas Shrugged</a>, Looking Backward</a>, or The Turner Diaries</a>. It was fun and engaging, but preachy and near as long as War and Peace. The core concept was straightforward enough - A rogue agency survives a nuclear war initiated by a populist president, the main character investigates the neighboring communities incognito. The communities are political straw men and the main character forges a conspiracy with the sympathetic characters. In the end, they form one great, unified government called the Agency for Mankind.

    Why had Hydra given me this book? My going theory was that the book was an ideological temperature test. I''d already signed on to a backslapping "friend" network. But that wouldn''t have made me Hydra - It now seemed obvious to me that there were probably more "friends" who were out for personal advancement than there were people who dedicated their life to a synarchist</a> utopia. And I''d roped myself in further.

    M: At nine percent and wow, these zealots in Neozion are scary.

    A:   They''re right that some knowledge is dangerous.

    M: For sure. But then they do crazy stuff like the stoning by lot. Wish me luck on my meeting

    A:  You don''t need any "dangerous superstition" ??

    Maybe it was unfair to criticize Hydra for maintaining a secret organization, since I too had future knowledge I was keeping under wraps. But on the other hand, it wasn''t like I had ambitions of ruling the world with an iron hand from the shadows. I just wasn''t sure how to share information without sounding like a conspiracy theorist, lunatic, or spy. Certainly, "Broke into SHIELD''s core database" was just a more plausible theory than "This entire universe is fictional where I''m from, I know the future, and there are Hydra moles at every level of the government. Yes, including Nick Fury''s best friend, Alexander Pierce." Every third conspiracy referenced "Hydra" still being alive, which was very flood the zone with garbage tactics, but there''s no point complaining when the enemy is smart.

    I got out of the van and gave my driver a tip so my team could start unloading. The computer system I used to build the Stagemaster program was the size of a filing cabinet. I could''ve made it smaller, but that would''ve been too cutting edge for me to put within range of Hydra. We wheeled it in and I shook hands with a handful of investment capitalists from Hollywood and Silicon Valley, "Gentlemen, let me introduce you to the Stagemaster..."

    M: I "directed" a performance of the Tempest, got so much money thrown at me I don''t quite know what to do with it.

    M: Sixteen percent. These National Union Party fascists suck, but it was an interesting choice to use Lincoln''s party.

    Alright, set aside getting rid of Hydra. I could survive if I threw in my lot with some government that wasn''t infested with Hydra agents. Just move to France, settle down in Paris, live in a box with enough protection to guarantee Hydra didn''t kill me while I churned out miracles for France. That wasn''t such a bad idea. But did Hydra have agents in France? I had no idea. I knew the Winter Soldier was Soviet, I knew that Hydra was here in the United States. There could be Hydra agents anywhere in the world.

    I had a cab drop me off at a relatively low rent bar and, after engaging in some preparatory work, I headed inside with and sat down at the bar. The place wasn''t rundown, but it wasn''t nice exactly. Mostly wood interior that looked a decade out of date by local standards, the main appeal was the big windows to the Los Angeles street. The guy at the bar was in his mid twenties - I actually knew he was working through his philosophy degree. The amount of random knowledge that I''d had crammed in my head was sort of impressive. His name was Garret.  I sat down and held a hundred dollar bill out, "Alright, a Dr. Pepper and a few minutes to bend your ear."

    Garret, a skinny guy in plaid shirt, laughed, "We don''t sell Dr. Pepper here, but for a hundred dollars I can solve that for you."

    "Ugh, California. Don''t bother," I said, "Uh, coke, I guess. And I don''t need change."

    "Coke it is," he said, marching over and grabbing a coca-cola out of the fridge and popping it into my hand. "What do you need to bend my ear on?"

    I reached down and clicked the control button in my pocket and the power cut out.

    "What the heck?" he said

    "Probably just some routine maintenance," I said, popping the can and taking a drink. "So, I need some advice. You ever hear conspiracy theorists rant about the Illuminati and wonder why they don''t try to sign up instead?"

    "That''s a weird thought," Garret said, but then laughed. "Not too weird for ninety eight dollars though. I guess I just figure they think they''re morally better than the Illuminati."

    "Maybe," I admit, "But the illuminati are supposed to be this ultra-powerful organization, right? They move the course of nations. Why not try and get in on that?"

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    "Does the average conspiracy theorist seem like the sort of person who ascends through the ranks of powerful organizations?"

    "Yeah, okay, but imagine they were."

    "We''re reaching now," Garret said, leaning against the bar in consideration. "But okay, I guess I would think people don''t ''try to get in on that'' because they view the cause of the Illuminati isn''t worthy of their labor."

    "Sure, but people join organizations to spy on them or for personal advancement, right? I mean, I don''t think Vladimir Putin was serving The Cause of Global Communism when he joined the KGB."

    "Maybe not," Garret said, thumping the bar top with his hand. "But he was serving the interests of the KGB. You can''t advance in an organization without serving its interest rights?"

    "But, I mean, how would you take down the Illuminati from the outside right? You have to have some sort of leverage if you''re inside right?"

    "Dude," Garrett said, "The illuminati aren''t like, fluffy kittens. Even if we leave out the blood libel and the obvious antisemitism involved in these theories, they''re nasty folks who are willing to plunge people into ruin and suffering for their own benefit. They cull the herd. They don''t respect human rights or dignity. They aren''t doing this for everybody else. I think you''re making it more complicated than it is. In a world where the Illuminati exist, it isn''t ethical to join it. That''s a whole organization dedicated to power above all else. There''s nothing noble or decent or defensible about such a thing."

    "But what''s the point fo fighting them if you know you''ll lose?"

    "The simpering cry of every quisling. The enemy was too strong, what was I to do? It wasn''t my fault, it wasn''t the money, the power, the opportunity. It was Patriotism or Humility or Realism. If someone''s worth something in, than they''re worth something out. And the guaranteed rewards and costs are far more certain than some, ''maybe, someday, possibly, I''ll do some good.''  You''re reaching here."

    I sighed and thumped the wood of the bar with my thumb, "You''re probably right. Thank you for your time."

    And I headed out to the street and clicked the button again.

    M: Getting on the plane.

    A: How''s the book?

    M: Almost done!

    I had made up my mind. I was getting out. Garret was right. This was just some attempt to serve my own interest. If I went to jail or if I got murdered in a ditch, it could not possibly be worse than handing my powers over to Hydra. I had the basic equivalent of google and every major research facility in my head, I was able to drag the whole world up by its bootstraps. Maybe in retrospect I should''ve handed myself over to Fury immediately, not messed around like this. Up in the sky, as I looked out the window, it was obvious to me how very small I was. How unimportant I was.

    And what about the Snap, some little voice inside me said. But I shook it off - This was ridiculous. I''d messed up the timeline killing Obadiah, what proof did I have that I was getting any closer to averting the Snap? So far as I could tell, besides moving us towards of green power, I hadn''t done a lick of good in terms of preventing anything from the movies. And if the freeware I had backed up made it onto the internet, which it would if anything happened to me, I''d be doing the world a much bigger favor.

    M: Here! Finished the book.

    A: Awesome! I''ll come pick you up.

    And she did. She looked beautiful. I hadn''t thought of her as beautiful when I met her, but she looked beautiful now. Beautiful poison, I reminded myself. Andromeda was a sweetheart to me - But she was working to advance the purest form of authoritarianism possible. She believed in power, power unchecked and power alone. You couldn''t wash that out with niceness in general, much less niceness to me specifically. The last chapter of the Phoenix Protocol revealed that the agency had been able to stop, maybe even precipitated, the nuclear exchange that preceded the book. That was who she was. She was someone who believed in the destruction of real lives in service to an authoritarian dream.

    She kissed me and no truth could make it bitter. "It''s good to see you babe," she said, "I missed you."

    I smiled back, doing my best to make it reach my eyes. "It''s good to see you too."

    "So you finished Phoenix Protocol?"

    "It was really good," I said. That wasn''t even really a lie - It was a good read, way better than Rand. I just found it''s politics horrific. "The Agency for Mankind, huh? I wish we had something like that." That was a lie. But I did wish my head to stay bullet free at least until we got back to my car.

    "Right!" she said excitedly, "Oh, I knew you''d like it."

    We chatted about minor plot points from the book as we drove back to her house and I did my best to act natural. It felt natural, that was the weird thing, the inner dissonance of my plan to pack my bags and live on the road, aggressively destroying existing technological standards while publishing what I knew of Hydra and the Infinity Stones. Just hoping Fury or Coulson found me before Hydra. It wasn''t an appealing life, but I''d lived in my car before. Since I''d be joyriding, it would be more complicated this way but whatever.

    We got back to Andromeda''s apartment and I got out and pulled out my bags, "Alright, well, I think I need to get home and sleep. Jet lag and all that."

    "It''s two hours earlier in California."

    "Yeah, my sleep cycle never recovered so I''ve been a few hours short."

    "That''s no way to show gratitude to your girlfriend," Andromeda said in the way she did when she was telling the truth in jest.

    I leaned in and kissed her as passionately as I could manage, "Well, tomorrow, I''ll take you out to the best dinner I can afford."

    "Wow, alright then. I''ll hold you to it."

    I got into my car and drove back toward my barren apartment. The drone of the news was normal until I heard a line that I hadn''t been expecting. "Tony Stark won the Monaco Circuit yesterday, having beaten his competitors." The Monaco Circuit was a big car race in, well, Monaco and I had thought that Tony had lost his race in California. But now that I was thinking about it, that didn''t make any sense - Vanko wouldn''t have been able to bring his big whip rig to the United States. I also thought we were moving towards the point where construction would have to start for the Arc Reactors to come online within the vague sense of time for when the Avengers came out in my timeline. So my mind seized on it and I tried to think what Monaco Circuit looked like and sure enough, it looked like what I could remember of the movie.

    Doubt that this was the necessary course started to creep in. If I had altered that, it was to the good. Vanko''s death was such a waste. I tried to push that doubt away.

    When I got back to my house, I grabbed my ten thousand dollar grab bag, my clothes grab bag, set my cellphone to run out of power on my own desk (thank goodness my internal maps were better than Google''s), and started spinning my keys. No problem.

    But when it came right down to it, I didn''t want to leave. I didn''t want to give up and risk my life for a chance to make a difference, if Hydra didn''t manage to put a slug through my brain. Even that was just an excuse. Walking away from Hydra meant walking away from my best chance at power. To take my hands off the wheel of history, which I had acquired a taste for. To let the world go according to its wishes and not be able to give my opinion. To be normal, as far as it went.

    And I discovered I simply did not want to go back. I put the bags back where they belonged. I plugged the phone in. I threw my body onto my bed, my hands shaking. And I lay there at night, staring at the roof for what felt like forever.

    I woke up to Andromeda saying, "I need you to stay calm, Babe," with the barrel of her pistol in my face.

 XIII - An Adult Conversation

    <div>

    "Give me the gun Andromeda," I said.

    "What? No," Andromeda hissed, moving the gun somehow even closer to my face.

    "Okay," I said, "Then shoot me." The dark of the room felt oddly symmetrical with the situation, since I was flying blind.

    "I don''t want to shoot you Mike."

    "Give me the gun and try to convince me to do whatever it is you''re here for me for willingly, or I can let the archive of my facial scan records send you to prison for decades."

    "Mike¡­" she took her finger off the guard and onto the trigger. She might really do it, I realized. Even corrupt cops seemed to find killing a lot easier than I got the sense was normal in the MCU. Zealots like Hydra? It could be even worse.

    "I might agree if you explain why you''re here," I said, doing my best not to sound hurried. "Don''t expect crooked cops to stop my killers from being caught, I took that into account when I designed my failsafes. But you can kill me, go to jail, AND fail this mission if the idea of having an adult conversation is too scary."

    She took her finger off the trigger and lowered the gun. "Fine."

    "Give me the gun, Andromeda. Neither you nor your bosses will get what you want unless you hand it over." She hesitated and then handed me the gun by the barrel. I took it gingerly, turned it on her, and said, "Sit down," as I got out of bed.

    She did so. Which was good, I was not a great shot and my nerves wouldn''t help. "You need to hurry," she said, "They want me back out there in," she checked her watch, "three and a half minutes. And they won''t go to jail if they kill both of us."

    "Tell them I sleep naked," I said breezily. I actually sleep fully clothed, which tended to freak people out more actually. "Who''s them by the way?"

    "The first line of defense for humanity. You''ve met a lot of our members already, not that you knew that. We''re saving the world."

    "Gonna need a little bit more."

    "An organization like the Agency for Mankind."

    "And does this organization," I said patiently, keeping the gun as level as possible while backing away from Andromeda. "Have a name?"

    "Really it''s a little misleading, I don''t want you to get caught up on that with a gun in your hand."

    I moved my finger onto the trigger, "I will shoot you Andromeda, and probably die to the people waiting for you out there. Then you lose, I lose, and your organization loses."

    "We''re called Hydra. We''re here to enlist you."

    Well, it was definitely do or die now. I let out a long breath, "Have they considered a rebrand?"

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    Andromeda laughed in a way that belied her kidnapper agenda. "Not really."

    "Why the gun?" I asked, "Doesn''t seem like optimal recruiting."

    "Our retention rates are very, very high."

    "Do a lot of people die in the recruitment process?"

    "I knew you wouldn''t," Andromeda said, leaving unsaid that a lot of people did indeed die in the recruitment process.

    "And why''s that?"

    "You don''t let your feelings get in the way. People get caught on the Hydra thing. You don''t care."

    I sighed, "No, I don''t." I did care, I told myself. But a little voice in the back of my head mocked me for lying about what I was lying about to myself. I turned on the safety of the gun, ejected and emptied the clip of ammo, and cleared the chamber of the loaded bullet, and then handed the gun back to Andromeda. "Alright, let''s go join Hydra."

    "I need ammo," she said.

    "No," I said. "My leverage reduces substantially if we leave this room and I want to make sure there are two of us invested in it not degenerating into shooting."

    "Fine. But you need to wear this hood," she said, pulling the wad of cloth out of her pocket. "They''re expecting me to bring you out under duress."

    "Sure," I agreed, "But you hood me at the door, not before."

    We walked to the door, "Do you have internal security recordings?"

    "What do I look like, Nixon?"

    She leaned in and kissed my cheek, "I love you Michael Trent. However scary this gets, remember that."

    Weird thing to say to the guy who you just held at gunpoint, I thought as she pulled the hood over my head and the world went black. She put the empty gun to my back, opened the door and pushed me out.

    I felt two strong hands grab me by the arms, one from each side. I was pretty sure they were two separate people from the feeling. They zip tied my hands behind me. "Any trouble?" a gruff male voice said, to my left.

    "He sleeps naked, but besides that no."

    "Nothing you haven''t seen before, right?"

    "Just keep walking," Andromeda said, her voice irritated.

    I wondered how, exactly, they were operating a kidnapping in the open like this but I knew I couldn''t ask. I was totally helpless now, and most of my leverage had gone out the window. Andromeda might have a personal attachment to me and a stake in not going to jail, but these two guys didn''t have those problems. If they''d kept clear of my cameras, then it was likely they could wipe the hall security and put me in the ground without any trouble for them. I didn''t know where Hydra marked my value, but it couldn''t be as high as I deserved.

    They threw me in the car once we made it out of the apartment. Three car doors opened, none of them a sliding van door, so I figured that reaffirmed for me that there were three. Andromeda reached over from next to me and buckled me in, which was considerate of her. As we accelerated at, frankly, an unsafe speed from the parking lot, I could hear a woman whimpering in the trunk and I got a twisted feeling in my stomach.

 XIV - Nicole Arden

    <div>

    <div>

    The car ride was long. To be fair, at least that meant that we were going somewhere there wouldn''t be a ton of witnesses. So, maximum of two deaths, minimum of one.

    When we finally came to a stop, I had to guess it had been an hour and a half. We pulled over and people started to climb out of the car. I could smell a variety of trees thick on the air and hear the crinkling of loose brush under their feet. So we were out in some forest - Probably Washington and Jefferson since I wasn''t choking to death on the scent of pine.

    There were five sets of footsteps. Mine, Andromedas, my escort, the hostage, and the hostage''s escort. It was a moment of great relief when I heard the hostage couple pulling away from me. I hoped that meant they''d just been trying to save a trip, though I knew in my heart that was unlikely. We moved in a different direction.

    "Sit down, Mike," Andromeda said and I obeyed. She took the hood off me and I looked around. A camera and tripod marked the space separating Andromeda from a lean, muscular dude dressed in black and fatigues - Nathan Skinner, a mercenary for one of a dozen Blackwater equivalents in this damn universe. And, apparently, a Hydra agent.

    "Mr. Trent," Skinner said. "Do you want to save the world?"

    "Obviously. I pictured it involving less, you know, kidnapping, but you can''t have everything." I didn''t want to seem too obsequious. Projecting weakness on my way into an authoritarian death cult with aspirations to world domination seemed like an obvious mistake.

    Skinner smirked. "I apologize for the rough intake process, but I work for a very important organization. We are trying to save the world."

    "Is that true, Drama?" Had to stick to the part.

    She nodded.

    "Alright, sensible enough," I said. "So you dragged me out of bed, held me hostage, brought me out to a forest to offer me a job? What''s the job?"

    "Have you looked around at the world lately? American hegemony in tatters, the greatest empire on earth run aground in a backwater in Afghanistan. Russia and China rising. The world is falling to pieces, Mr. Trent. We''re the people who are going to pull it together."

    "Past time," I said. I considered spitting for effect, but when I imagined it, it looked ridiculous.

    "Indeed," Skinner said approvingly. "We''re a network of people of vision like yourself. You''ve already benefited from our largesse. In order to advance, we need people who can see the big picture and make the big moves. People like you. But we also need people who can follow orders. We need to be of one mind. Are you able to do that?"

    "My entire life I''ve been surrounded by discord. Everything out of joint, everything noisy and pointless." I said. "One mind, one purpose. Sounds like something I''ve been looking for my entire life."

    "That''s good," Skinner said, "What do you know about Hydra?"

    "Hydra, a rogue science division from Nazi Germany. Sort of like the Western Front''s equivalent of the division between the Army and the Navy in Japan, but the divide was much more lopsided. Captain America died defeating their leader, known as the Red Skull, and downing a plane with an armed, experimental nuclear bomb. I could also explain the various preceding clashes with Captain America and tell you about Herr Schmitt. Some historians theorize a connection between Schmitt''s preterhuman abilities and Captain America''s. Some of its scientists were vacuumed up in Operation Paperclip."

    "Goddamn, Andromeda, how did you find anybody this nerdy?"

    "Isn''t it great?" Both I and Skinner glared at her, "Look, I told you he''s better than Wikipedia, you just thought I was exaggerating."

    "Half that report sounded like puppy love."

    Andromeda snorted, "Your mistake."

    "Anyway," Skinner said. "After the fall of Hydra, some of its members reflected on its failures. Can you guess what those were?"

    "Bigger bombs don''t create greater obedience." People are born to be free would, of course, be beyond these fanatics.

    "Not bad. Fascism as a plan was a crock. Racism was a dead end, violence was not the meaning of human life, and the division of men into nations was a mistake. People wouldn''t give up their freedoms at the end of a gun. No, we needed a better idea. So now Hydra labors in secret, working to transform the world - Not in accord with the chaos of the markets or the envies of the masses, but in accord with order, peace, and sanity. Cut off one head,"

    "And two more shall take its place," Andromeda intoned.

    "Do you want to join us?"

    "A chance at a noocractic ruling class instead of these gibbering idiots? I''m in." I said, not hesitating. There weren''t a lot of other options on the table right in this moment.

    "Noocratic?" Nathan asked, looking at Andromeda.

    "Noocracy is the rule by the wise, Nathan. It''s from Plato. It''s as good a fit as any, I suppose."

    "Ah, good," he said, turning back to me, "You''re a sensible guy. Andromeda thinks the world of you. I think you could be a great agent. But we need you to prove your sincerity. So, we need you to kill someone for us."

    Well. Boo. "Alright," I said.

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    Andromeda leaned over, drawing a knife out of a holster under her pant leg. She walked over to me and sliced the zip tie off my wrists. "She got in the way," Andromeda whispered, "We''re not psychos, we don''t kill for no reason." I wondered if this was supposed to be a good cop/bad cop thing, or if the ''she got in the way'' was the sort of thing you said because you were an anxious girlfriend.

    Yeah, killing everyone who makes your life harder. That''s not psycho. Normal, sane behavior. My mind was racing for a way to get out of this, but I was in the middle of the forest with at least two and probably three trained killers, my hands were still zip-tied, and nobody had any reason to risk letting me live.

    Andromeda flipped the knife around and held it out to me, "You''ll take the camera over there, you''ll set it up facing you and recording, you''ll kill the woman with the knife."

    "Give him your pistol instead, Andromeda. The bosses want you on the line too in this one."

    And I felt the moment spiral for a second as Andromeda''s eyes flickered with fear. "But this is my service weapon, I can''t just report it stolen, if the bullet is found¡­" She was clearly casting about for some excuse, any excuse, not to give me an unloaded weapon.

    "We''ll protect you. Unless you''re worried that your boyfriend is disloyal and when we unearth the case, you''ll go down with him."

    "Of course not," Andromeda said, "It-"

    I grunted, "It''s fine Andromeda, give me the gun." No point getting killed here or losing a potential asset.

    Her eyes wavered but she unhooked her gun holster and handed it to me. "She''s about five minutes that way," Andromeda said as I buckled the holster onto my pants. I walked over to the camera and picked it up, holding the tripod and camera in each hand.

    "I''ll go over there

    "Hail Hydra," Nathan said, throwing his hands up in that ridiculous salute.

    "Hail Hydra," I said back, lifting my hands into the air in return. Andromeda burst into a grin like a mother on the day of her child''s baptism. I walked towards the woman.

    Ten minutes, alone with my thoughts. Ten minutes to try to figure out some way out of this. Skinner, at least, could probably track me. There were only three of them that I knew of, but if I were them I would have people waiting. And, furthermore, I was just in worse shape than they were. I had chosen a focus on knowledge and information, not physical stuff. I might be able to play that out, since I could use the stars to figure out where I was, but I wasn''t sure how much longer I could do that. We had to be getting closer to dawn.

    Ten minutes is not really that long of a time and I reached the woman. She was bound and gagged in a clearing, surprisingly well lit by the moon. If you''ve never been out at night in the summer, so far from city lights that the stars and moon are clear, it would surprise you. The fifth set of footsteps was fairly well concealed, but I thought I could see the flash of a scope about a football field away.

    One of the things about my powers is that I know almost everyone in the world by name, face, and age. I can tell you what they do for a living, where they live. Most of the things that they would put up on facebook. Some other stuff as well.

    Her name was Nicole Arden. She had pretty silver hair from age which she refused to dye at forty two and two girls at home and an ex in town. She was a tax finance expert who worked for the IRS in auditing where, given her skillset, she probably investigated billionaires and multi-millionaires for tax evasion. It was easy to see how she''d run afoul of Hydra.

    I closed my eyes and took a breath. There was no point in making excuses to her or to myself. I set up the camera and pointed it toward her. She looked scared. Of course she looked scared. I was scared, but I was keeping it tapped down. I unscrewed the silencer and checked the clip and chamber just in case Andromeda had managed to reload it without any of us noticing, but it was still empty. Damn. It would have made this smoother. I turned on the camera and made sure it would be able to record the whole gruesome scene.

    I walked up to her and I wanted desperately to apologize as I saw the terror in her eyes. To tell her it wasn''t my fault. To make excuses. Here was this kidnapped woman and I wanted her to comfort me, her murderer. It was too disgusting to countenance. I twisted the pistol in my hand, feeling its heft, and I slammed it into Nicole''s head.

    She went down to the ground, screaming in pain, and I pinned her so she couldn''t move. I wanted to hit the same spot as much as possible. Pity shot through me, but I ignored it. Slowing down would only make it worse for her. I lifted and swung. Lifted and swung, lifted and swung. She went unconscious at that point. I pounded and kept pounding until I heard the crack of skull, the mush of brain, and the slow of the flow of blood to a full stop.

    I got up, noticing the blood on my hands and skin like it was alien to me. I didn''t feel, well, much of anything as I stared down at the corpse of the woman I had murdered. I wanted to feel something, but it didn''t really make sense to do so. I had killed her. I wouldn''t make a new set of decisions. I walked over to the camera, turned it off, and walked back to the area where Andromeda and Skinner were waiting for me.

    "Jesus," Skinner cursed. "How''d you get that much blood on you?"

    I handed the gun and holster back to Andromeda and shoved the camera into Skinner''s chest "That should more than prove my loyalty to Hydra."

 XV - Morning After

    <div>

    Alright, so there was no point feeling bad about the woman. Nicole. I wouldn''t be able to intervene to help her family in any discrete way for some time. But I was in a new position - Whenever I exited Hydra, if I ever did, I was going to be spending a fair amount of time in prison or on the run. That was just the score now. I''d done that to myself and I hadn''t even gotten leverage over Andromeda with it because I didn''t record my own apartment - Just goes to show you, you''re always the wrong kind of paranoid.

    That meant I should be thinking in terms of how I could leverage Hydra to serve my own ends, technological uplift and averting the snap, while expanding my own knowledge of Hydra in order to have something to trade out for immunity or at least a plane ticket to some tinpot dictatorship where I could live in relative comfort. Both of these needs pointed in the same direction: I needed more power within Hydra.

    Was this just a clever excuse for me to pursue my own self interest? Wasn''t that what had wound me up here in the first place?

    I emerged from the bathroom as the daylight began to leak into the house. Andromeda was waiting for me, changed into a yellow sundress, her legs propped up on the woodsy couch and a small, contented smile on her face. The emptiness in my chest wanted something to fill itself with and it would be more than happy to go with the pretty woman in front of me. I waved without getting closer. "Can we go back home now?" I asked immediately. "I''m tired."

    "Sorry babe," Andromeda said with apparent sincerity, "Rules from on high are you spend the next forty eight hours on an all expenses paid vacation with me." Well, that made sense as far it goes. I too would not let anyone fresh off a murder a chance to reconsider.

    "So¡­ Disneyland?" I said sarcastically.

    "If that''s what you want to do, we''ll charter a plane and rent a penthouse suite."

    I got the principle of showcasing benefits immediately after initiation, but if that''s what I wanted to do, I would just do it. I''m fabulously rich. I sighed, "Well, let''s go get food. If it''s on company dime, I''m starving."

    The car ride was long and quiet, which gave me some much needed space to think. When we got to a nice retro-breakfast diner I had suggested to Andromeda, she smiled at me, "Have you been to every restaurant in the world?"

    "Only the good ones," I said, smirking. The truth was I should probably tone it down, but I was tired and glued together by spite. We walked in and got a table in the sparse morning crowd. Our waitress was a younger lady - Natalie Keys, recent high school grad. Didn''t know exactly where. The sensation of recognition of a stranger took me back to Nicole and I shook my head for a moment.

    "Sorry, my boyfriend and I have been traveling since before dawn," Andromeda said, putting her hand on mine. "He''s just a little tired. He wants Dr. Pepper, I want water."

    "Thanks," I told Andromeda as Natalie walked away. "It''s just been an eventful morning."

    Andromeda laughed at the understatement. "Yeah, I wasn''t planning on getting disarmed this morning. I mean, damn," she leaned in and I mirrored the action, "Would you really have let me shoot you?" She whispered in my ear.

    I pecked her cheek before pulling back to make it look more normal. "Never make a threat you can''t keep."

    Andromeda nodded approvingly, "You really don''t let your feelings get in the way."

    "So, I guess now that I''m in, my first question is¡­ how do I advance?"

    "Getting in is the main hurdle, especially for mature adults like you. That''s why initiation was so stringent." Yeah. ''Stringent.'' I had to murder a woman on camera, it was just like getting into Yale. "We want our members to succeed, that''s important to us. And internally, talent and work are always rewarded. Nobody skates by on blood."

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    "Not even you?"

    "I may have hatched from the cradle," Andromeda said, weird phrase, probably Hydra language. "But I''m also a fairly good agent and I have an important role in obtaining exotic materials and knowledge. But it''s nothing compared to what you could be."

    That was ominous on multiple levels, but luckily we were interrupted by Natalie returning with the drinks. I smiled as brightly as I could at her and she smiled back, perhaps a little shyly. Maybe she was confused. Maybe she saw the emptiness in my eyes. I turned down the brightness and softened my eyes, "Thank you so much, sorry about earlier."

    "Oh its fine," she said, waving her hand dismissively and snapping to full confidence. "I get it, you do a lot of traveling?"

    "Usually I fly," I said honestly, "But my girlfriend woke me up this morning and said we were going on a trip, so here we are."

    "Aw!" Natalie said dutifully, "That''s a nice surprise."

    "Anyway, I''m treating myself, so I want this chocolate-and-ice-cream thing."

    "You''re having ice cream for breakfast?" Andromeda said, offense in her voice.

    "Look, I''ve taken this little morning surprise as well as I think can be expected," I slowed down, fearing I was leaking real anger into the joke. "But if you deprive me of my choice of sugar and carbs so I can have syrupy pancakes instead, we''re gonna have problems."

    Andromeda laughed and threw up her hands in surrender, "Far be from me to get between a man and his ice cream." She seemed calm about it and I didn''t know whether that was to brush off suspicion and calm Natalie or if I was just expecting her to notice I was angry. That''s the problem with deceit - You can never see how you''re doing at it until it''s unsalvageable. "I''ll have a grand slam please."

    Natalie walked away and I turned back to Andromeda and tried to maneuver the conversation back to Andromeda''s own speciality: "Exotic materials and knowledge, huh? Could I get some of those?" I couldn''t use, say, Captain America''s serum - my brain''s exotic physiology was too weird even for me - but I could certainly use it on someone else. Put a few more Steve Rogers into the world, that would be a good thing to do.

    "Sure," Andromeda said. "I mean, you''d need to have a good reason to take something off my plate, but we''ve got some other stuff. We try to provide everything our people need. But I was say-"

    "And could we get help finding people? Or could we get¡­ leg waxes?"

    Andromeda''s mind churned for about fifteen seconds as she decoded what I had meant. "If the company can see the benefits of the, uh, leg waxes for the company, then you can get leg waxes. And yes, the company is happy to help with finding agents or expanding our ring of helpful contacts."

    Good. That meant I could probably find freaking Kilgrave. I''d managed to get a bead on places where he had been, that wasn''t particularly hard. But I''d never managed to find where he was. Maybe I could wax Fisk or the Hand while I was at it. For that matter, feeding the Rand Corporation to Hydra was basically a public service. "Good, I have a few that I was-"

    "Mike, listen to me," Andromeda said, looking me dead in the eye with such a serious look I went silent. "You''re the smartest, calmest person I know. You see opportunity and you take it, people like you, almost everybody in fact. And this tech stuff you can do is truly Stark-esque, it''s basically cheating. I learned this morning you can do what it takes. I didn''t put this in your file when I recommended you, but now that I''ve seen what you can do.." she leaned in and I met her halfway across the table. Then she kissed me. And I wanted it. It was long, it was in public, and it was really not an optimal kissing position. This woman had held a gun to my head not twelve hours ago, I had held selfsame gun on her not a minute later. But I still wanted it. "I think you could be the head of Hydra who achieves our dreams," she said in an intoxicating whisper. "And I will do whatever you need for that to happen."

 XVI - Into The Prides Den

    <div>

    Hydra is full of ambitious, intelligent people who don''t hesitate to kill and believe fervently that they (and with them, Hydra) should rule the world. One extension of this fact is that if it were possible to rise in the ranks of Hydra by killing upper level members, embarrassing peers, or undermining others'' projects, Hydra would''ve imploded decades ago.

    The path to advancement in Hydra was straightforward - Earn acclaim from other Hydra members. The way to do that was to advance the interests of Hydra - Fear among the masses that drove them towards authoritarian solutions and moving Hydra members into place to be those solutions by advancing their interests and reducing the interests of potential alternatives.

    That was why, a week into this, I was sitting in a house down the street from the Wilders. The Pride were, fundamentally, bad people. A little circle of criminals working for an alien who controlled a cult called the Church of the Gibborim in exchange for control of some the more profitable companies in LA - Nemo, Wizard, Synergy, and Wilder''s Construction (which was a front for a variety of criminal activity). But they were mostly bad people the way I was a bad person, so I saw a lot of benefit in bringing them into my circle of influence. And if I could kill the Gibborim - I couldn''t remember his name, in retrospect I should''ve watched the second and third seasons - and obtain video evidence of a sacrifice, I''d have five powerful families in my thrall. And unlike the Gibborim, no yearly human sacrifice. A win for everyone involved.

    "What do you know about the Church of the Gibborim?" I said, the glow of my monitors bathing my face, the mask and gloves to hide my face for emergencies at my feet.

    "That weird cult that worships the Beings of Light? Isn''t Tom Cruise part of it?"

    "Frank Dean," I corrected. "Anyway, I think there''s some truth to the beings of light. I think they''re maybe extraterrestrial."

    "Mike, these people don''t even attend the Church of the Gibborim. They''re AME, it literally says so on their Facebook pages."

    "The Wilders have more significance than mere membership. I''m pretty sure he runs a local gang. And they''re close to Leslie Dean, the head of the Church of the Gibborim." The Wilders have a little place in their basement, it has a pod that facilitates human sacrifices to the Gibborim. "A member of the Church of the Gibborim has gone missing, every year around the same time, for the past decade. Always a member who''s been in for about year, someone who''d lost connections. I think they were sacrificed in the basement over there to an alien." I pulled out a sheet of paper with the plans of the building, "It should be under the office. Try fiddling with the coasters, I think that desk is rooted to the ground. Regardless, I think the path to the room is behind the bookshelf."

    "An underground conspiracy that makes human sacrifices to an alien?" Andromeda looked genuinely concerned. "Mike, you know how crazy that sounds?"

    "Your agency is literally in charge of alien artifacts. Look, I''ve been monitoring them for awhile. I got a few exotic energy readings and I''ve been trying to figure out why ever since. This is my best working theory, but even if the sacrifice thing doesn''t bear out, there is something weird in that basement and I want to know what it is. Remember, don''t disrupt anything if you can avoid it." I offered her the stick of small monitoring crawlers I''d designed for this purpose.

    "Fair enough," Andromeda said, taking the bugs into her hand. No question about leaving a human eating sacrifice machine in the ground. Hail Hydra. "And they''re out for the evening?"

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    "You''ve got the depth scanner?" I asked, to which she nodded "Tracking Mr. Wilders credit card, they just started watching a movie and their car is parked and off." I said.

    "We''re going to be making those movies soon," Andromeda said with a smirk as she pulled down her mask.

    Yeah. Great.

    "Hail Hydra," she said, locking her goggles and heads up camera into place.

    "Hail Hydra."

    Say what you will about the moral implications, but having a zealot girlfriend with more than basic competence at breaking and entering was nice. Andromeda wasn''t a Black Widow, but she said she was "about as good as the average professional" and that had been more than enough. All kinds of crimes I didn''t really have the competence to commit, now made easy with someone who was (at least in theory) disposable to my plans.

    I watched through the heads up camera as Andromeda deftly avoided cameras, disabled the security system without setting it off, and picked the lock to the door. It was genuinely impressive. She glided into the office, which had no cameras of any note, and looked around. It was a nice looking place, there was a lot of old wood, ostentatious materials, and the big windows that were endemic in California.

    She approached the desk, found the coasters and fiddled with them. Sure enough, they twisted and opened a secret door behind the desk.

    "Man, disagreeing with you never works out for me," Andromeda said as she walked through the doorway, her way lit up by night vision from the camera.

    "I''m a thorough guy," I said back. She gave the camera a thumbs up as a gesture of good humor and kept walking. There was a great staircase pointing downward, older than the house it was built under, and there was a weird wallpaper on the place.

    "That''s it," I said as she was cross a balcony and came across the sacrificial room.

    "Well, certainly looks creepy enough to be a sacrificial area," she said once she was towards the bottom and could see no one was there either. There was a lot of gothic architecture at the bottom - Tall, arched roofing like an old church. Red robes, hanging on one wall, and a white phone, like an old spin dialer.

    Huh. I did not anticipate that. It was on an ornate stand, of gold with strange bends in it. "Put one of the bugs on that, please." I told Andromeda. It looked like an old school landline, but that made no sense when you thought about it. And, sure enough, I could see the symptoms of advanced tech. "Yeah, definitely not terrestrial," I whispered into the field. "Do you see, like, a pod or anything like that down there? Maybe some cameras?"

    "No," Andromeda said as she went down into the chamber. "Weird little box room though, with a lock on it and a giant chair."

    "Definitely leave a bug there," I said, having no idea what it was. "Get a good sweep of the place, please."

    Andromeda spent a few minutes giving the place a deliberate perusal before I heard a beeping and turned to my monitor, "Uh, Andromeda, looks like there''s motion in the car and it''s coming this way." LA Traffic, don''t fail me now. "Put the last two bugs down and get out of there."

    "Roger that," Andromeda said, putting one of the bugs on a wall in the central room that was the sacrifice chamber. She jolted up the steps to the balcony, put another one down there, and headed back up the staircase. "On my way to you now," she said. The camera was wobbly with a threat of getting seasick, so I turned away to watch our tracker on the screen as the car sat in traffic, winding its way home. It was about ten minutes away when I heard, "Mike," Andromeda said.

    "Yeah," I said, looking at the screen. And she was staring at a wall where the door had been. "Uh, have you tried pushing it?"

    She shoved it once for dramatic illustration, "I''m trapped."

 XVII - Exfiltration

    <div>

    Ideally, I would''ve walked at a slow pace up to the house without the mask on. Circumstances, however, were pressing. Ten minutes can quickly become less, especially as we were already down to nine minutes. So I bolted. Look, I''m not out of shape but neither am I in it and when I worked out, I generally swam laps instead of running - Better on the joints. I was running as fast as I can, my heart was like a jack hammer in my ear.

    I made it to within perimeter of the cameras without much trouble. The house was a gargantuan thing, with beautiful lawnscaping and large windows and a guest house. The building could''ve housed a baseball team and did house a grand total of three people. I preferred much smaller living spaces, but I assumed when you came up from nothing like the Wilders it was the symbol of the thing that mattered most. I looked around the neighborhood and nobody was looking at me, though I supposed anyone could''ve made me out in the evening light. The Wilders were not big on vacations and so we''d taken our best option - An evening outing with their son to the movie theater. We had hoped that would mean it would be less erratic than a date night.

    But we don''t always get what we hope for.

    I was at seven and a half minutes according to my watch and that was an estimated time, so I had to hurry. Dodging through the camera''s line of sight was not hard in the strictest terms, but it was burdensome. I knew what the pattern was and I could move through it, that wasn''t the issue - It was just that it meant a sort of lurching movement across their lawn. Camera gap to camera gap to camera gap until I reached the door.

    Five minutes left according my watch. The security system was off, obviously Andromeda wouldn''t be able to extricate herself if we had left it on, and the door was unlocked, so I slipped inside and locked the door behind me. Just in case we needed to make our egress through another door, I didn''t want anything tipping the Wilders off.

    Thankfully, the Wilders subscribed to the anti-Nixon school of privacy like I did. I bolted down the hall to the office, unlatched the door, and turned the coasters to open the door. Three minutes left, not a great amount of time but this house had a lot of doors. The door to the dungeon was cool in a secret agent way though. It shifted the whole bookshelf and left Andromeda visible in her all-black breaking and entering garb. Ah, takes me be back to that moment she kidnapped. I shoved those feelings away.

    And then, in the distance, I heard voices. I held my finger up to Andromeda in a shushing gesture. "I''m sorry I got sick," said a child''s voice. That would be Alex Wilder, their son. Well, at least it hadn''t been a trigger on Geoffrey''s phone for the opening of the door.

    "It''s fine baby," said Mrs. Wilder, the high powered attorney of the PRIDE. "We don''t blame you for being sick."

    "I threw up in Dad''s car," Alex said. Well, that explained the swift return.

    Our masks covered our whole faces, so it wasn''t really possible to mouth things at one another. I held up a hand and made a three motion and then mimed opening the door. She nodded understanding. I gave her a thumbs up.

    "Babe, did you forget to turn on the security?" Mr. Wilder asked. "The car''s gonna be fine, Alex, I can always take it in for a steam cleaning."

    "I don''t think I forgot," Mrs. Wilder said

    "Well it''s off," he said in a tone that implied he didn''t quite believe her but didn''t want to push it. "Let''s both try to remember in the future. I''ll turn it on for the night."

    Fan-tas-tic.

    I held up my hand and made button pushing motion with my other hand and then a locking motion with one hand.

    Andromeda nodded understanding and mimed opening a door before closing and expanding her hands together in a wee-ooh wee-ooh pattern.

    I gave her a thumbs up after a few seconds.

    Andromeda grabbed my hand and dragged us out of the office into the hall. I raised a hand and drew a question mark in the air.

    Andromeda pointed at the door and its glass.

    The front door opened, "I''ll go get you some sprite, bud," Mr. Wilder said, heading towards the kitchen and (by extension) us. The other Wilders were going up a staircase, probably to Alex''s room.

    I held up one finger and then made a three stage height tier and then made the tallest height. Then I made a stepping gesture.

    She pointed at her ear and made a cutting motion.

    I looked back at her. Ah, yeah, that probably wouldn''t be audible to her would it. I made a motion to my own ear and then made multiple jerking thumbs up.

    She nodded and grabbed my hand and dragged us down the hallway towards the front door, moving very softly and carefully.

    I resisted the urge to panic, she knew what she was doing. Right? She opened a door to one side of me, a hall closet, and we both went inside and pulled it shut just as I heard Wilder''s feet round the corner.

    The redeeming feature of Wilder''s obsession with large rooms was that he also, apparently, liked large closets. We were able to fit pretty comfortably into the back of the coat closet, but we weren''t able to pull the door fully shut.

    Wilder got closer and closer and suddenly stopped in the hallway in front of the door.

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    I held my breath.

    And then he pressed the door closed with a little thump.

    I let my breath out, but slowly. Andromeda''s features were draped in shadow. I was pretty sure she couldn''t see anything at all. I picked up her hand and putting my finger on hers and pointing like a compass to show her where Mr. Wilder was.

    We sat in silence for a minute as he fished a sprite out of the fridge and Mrs. Wilder comforted Alex upstairs. Then he walked past us and past the hallway closet and up to his son. I breathed out a sigh of relief, "Upstairs," I whispered as quietly I could intro Andromeda''s ears.

    "How long?"

    "Don''t know. Kid sick."

    She took a second, "Don''t think they''re going to open this closet, no coats when they left. Let''s not risk it."

    Great. But she was the expert at these things.

    Sure enough, after a minute or two of conversation with Alex, the Wilders came down the staircase and I shushed Andromeda and put two fingers in her hand as a compass.

    "Well, that wasn''t as much fun as I was hoping tonight would be," said Mrs. Wilder.

    "It''s okay baby," Mr. Wilder said. "It may seem like tonight was a loss, but he''ll remember stuff like this for years."

    "I know, I know. I just know you were stressed from work and the crew, I wanted to give you a nice night off, not full-dad duty."

    "Well, when Darius gets out, the crew won''t be a problem anymore." Darius must''ve been the guy who fought him over disloyalty in the series. He was giving him control of the local crips? Well, whatever I guess. "And in a few months, I''m sure Trent Industries will finally get me my damn solar panel orders."

    "They still haven''t gotten those to you?"

    Thankfully Andromeda couldn''t hear them or she might have laughed at me.

    Look, folks, it''s hard to completely transmogrify the whole energy sector. We were nearly three percent of the whole energy sector! From basically zero, that was hard. Supply chains are more than procurement requests, employees require training even in the relatively automated factories I designed, factories had to be gutted and renovated in line with my standards. And if something went wrong with the factories, I often had to intervene myself because my engineers barely understood the underlying principles. Simultaneously, I was trying to invent a particle that would allow shrinking, totally revolutionize the shipping industry, and time travel and I was distributing computer systems that would nuke the Hollywood system from orbit.

    I had a lot going on.

    "They say there''s a back order." You''re damn right there''s a backorder you ungrateful prick. I''m going to own you soon and then you and all your friends will answer to me. Nemo, Wizard, and Synergy will be afflicted with the same problems as Trent. I guess Wilder Construction probably wouldn''t be, but that''s just because this dude didn''t contribute anything to society.

    "That''s ridiculous," Mrs. Wilder said, dismissing all my hard work with singular ingratitude. "Aren''t you paying them enough?"

    "Lots of people are paying them enough," Mr. Wilder sighed, popping a cork of some kind and pouring two drinks. "It''s fine, it''ll be a lot of work when they come through. Between Trent and Stark, we''re rolling into the future faster than we could''ve hoped."

    "To our future, then," Mrs. Wilder said with a smile.

    "To our future."

    They stayed up for talking for what seemed like a year. I mean, good for their marriage but it left Andromeda and I crammed into the back of a closet, breathing on each other. Then, finally, mercifully, "Mm, I want to take you to bed."

    Five minutes later we were out into the dark of night.

    "I should''ve left you in that damn dungeon," I said, laughing hysterically as we got into the van.

    "Oh my gosh, we were right on top of each for forever!" Andromeda said, sliding in and peeling off her mask. "You should''ve! I could''ve gotten in some cardio running up and down the hall!"

    "What a terrible reward for my chivalry."

    "Sir Lancelot, let''s get out of here."

    I got into the driver''s seat of the van and turned it on, pulling out and driving off. Hopefully nobody had seen us or nobody suspected anything.

    "Hey, how could you hear them so well? You got some kind of bionic implant I don''t know about?"

    Well.

    "No," I said after a long moment. "Listen, you can''t tell anybody about that."

    "Why not?" she asked, genuinely confused.

    Girl, you are the reason why not. If Hydra found out, or even suspected, that my abilities weren''t one hundred percent natural, they might decide to put me on an operating table. "Look, I did my best to get to the root of it, trust me when I say it''s all dead ends. I don''t know how it works. I just know I don''t want to end up on an operating table."

    "You wouldn''t end up on an operating table! You''re a part of Hydra now. Besides, many hands make light works."

    "Andromeda, you told me you''d do whatever it takes to achieve Hydra''s dreams. I need you to swear to me that you won''t put that at risk because you''re curious about my hearing."

    "Alright, alright."

    "Swear to me, Andromeda, on your loyalty to Hydra."

    She placed her hand upon her heart. "I swear, on my loyalty to Hydra and to its cause that I will not tell anyone about your weirdly keen hearing."

    I''d just have to hope that held up long enough.

 Rhodey: Consequences II

    <div>

    "Come in," Tony said through the comm, opening the gate with a button.

    James drove down into the garage, where Tony was now apparently keeping all his¡­ suits. There were four of them now. One was plain steel, the next one was red and gold, a thinner, lighter red one was hanging on the wall, and a blue one with a star on its chest around the mini arc reactors.

    "Tony," he said. "Unless you''re going to be handing those over like you should, why are we meeting in here?"

    "Rhodey!" Tony said with a smile before downing a green drink so dark it was almost black. He made a face. "It''s good to see you too."

    "It''s good to see you Tony," James said, doing his best to be patient. Tony was fun, but he was, ah, unpredictable. He''d settled down a little since he got together with Pepper, but in the context of Tony that didn''t mean a whole lot. "I just don''t get why we couldn''t have met somewhere else - A club, a restaurant, a park. Somewhere that wasn''t, you know, your bunker."

    "Rhodey this is a garage." Tony said, "Surprised you don''t know that. Though I kind of like the sound of that. ''Bunker'' sounds likes something I''d have as a mad scientist."

    Was he ever going to get a straight response from this guy? "Pepper worries about you."

    "Pepper worries about everything."

    "Yeah, Tony, that''s what girlfriends do."

    "No, I mean, not just me, Stark Industries, climate change. Crime, since that quote-unquote mugging."

    "You''re being paranoid," James said. "There''s no evidence that guy was anything other than a normal mugger."

    "So he claims," Tony said, beginning one of his circling, anxious walks around the shop. "Who doesn''t recognize me?"

    "Lots of people, Tony," Jame said, exasperated. "You''re not Jesus or George Washington."

    "I mean, I think of myself as more of a Prometheus, but I could see the case for a kinder, gentler kind of god."

    James resisted the urge to smack Tony. "A little humility, Tony."

    "I''m kidding, you know that right? You know I''m kidding? See, so why are you complaining about a joke? Really, Rhodey, you need to lighten up."

    "I need to lighten up, you spend most of your days underground working constantly on what''s basically a personal tank!"

    "It''s more of a jet, or a prosthesis, it''s not really a tank. Those have these big treads. I mean, come on Rhodey, you''re a fighter pilot."

    "Tony, why am I here? Because if you''re just looking for the chance to rag on me, I''ve got other things to do."

    Tony paused, almost like he''d been struck. "No, no, it''s not¡­ I''m sorry. I wanted to talk to you about taking the Iron Man suit."

    "Tony, we talked about this. I don''t want to work for you."

    "No, no, you wouldn''t be working for me. You''d be working for your country. And Pepper, of course."

    "Of course." James said, "Tony, it''s not about you personally. You know I like you. You''re not always as serious as you should be, but you''re a good guy. And in spite of your pacifist kick, I know you really care about our troops and our country. But I''m a soldier, Tony, not a hired gun."

    You might be reading a stolen copy. Visit Royal Road for the authentic version.

    "It''s not," Tony sighed and leaned against a wall. "It''s not that. It''s¡­" Tony took a deep breath and looked as serious as James had ever seen him. "I''m dying, Rhodey."

    "Is this some kind of a joke?" James said, mind reeling.

    "Would I joke about something like that?" Tony paused and thought about it, "Okay, yes, it''s not a joke."

    "God, Tony," James said. Tony was his friend. He was a good man and, James would never have said it out loud, sometimes even a great one. "I''m so sorry."

    "Well, happens to everybody," Tony said, trying to sound philosophical about it. "Pepper''s the only other person I''ve told."

    "What''s wrong?"

    Tony tapped the glowing circle on his chest, "Palladium''s toxicity is pretty low - But these things do eventually melt the stuff. Tried some other things, but basically no way to power the thing without incident. More power is worse, so I''ve been keeping out of the sky. You''re welcome for that, by the way. I''m trying to get everything in order for-" Tony put a hand over his mouth, "Well, I want things to be simple for Pepper when I''m gone."

    "Well, is there anything we can do?" Jame said.

    "I don''t think so," Tony said with a sigh, "But if they have some kind of magical cure for blood toxicity, I''d love to have it. Anyway, we''re straying from the point."

    "The point? Tony, you''re dying."

    "And, again, that happens to everybody. I''m¡­ I''m trying to leave behind a legacy, Rhodey, of something other than war. Of peace and prosperity, not bombs and bullets. My father, all his life, the thing he was proudest of¡­ It was his participation in the Captain America project. He invented so much stuff, but he had this¡­ fixation. And as I find myself staring down the inevitable, I want to do something like that too. Oh, I''ll fix climate change and plastics and all that before I go, but I want to leave a legacy that''s a little bit more heroic. A bit more George Washington than Albert Einstein."

    James shook his head, but tried to focus. If this was what Tony wanted to focus on, it''s what Tony wanted to focus on. After a few seconds he said, "Tony, look. I can''t."

    "Can''t what? I''ve got a sheet of paper here," he turned and looked at the robot arm, "That''s your signal," and the robot arm brought over a clip board with a stack of papers as this a Rhodey''s hand, "that lends the Patriot suit of armor to the U.S. government, to be piloted by James Rhodes or whomsoever he should appoint on missions of national security importance, as determined by the U.S. government and an independent ethics commission elected from the MIT Philosophy department and including one Ms. Pepper Potts. We''ll even cover the cost of maintenance."

    "What?"

    "I mean, I know MIT''s philosophy department isn''t great, but it''s our alma mater Rhodey, don''t act like it''s a ridiculous suggestion. Just, take this back to your superiors and think about it."

    James took the clipboard and thumped it against his hand. "Alright, but I''m not giving up on you just yet," he said. And then he hugged.

    "Alright," Tony said, hugging him back, "That''s, yeah, it''s alright."

 XVIII - Meet The Unions

    The large array of protestors shouting at me as I drove up was not a surprise. Between the various Hollywood guilds and the energy unions, I had known people were going to need to let it out. "Out With Thoth," read many of the signs, decrying the new Hydra subsidiary using my engine that was being boycotted by every guild in Hollywood, "Job Destroyer" was next to images of nuclear reactors and oil wells on others. At least it wasn''t West Virginia. I had been burned in effigy in half the towns there by this point. Four percent of the national energy supply was a lot and I was eating everybody''s lunch.

    The cab pulled up and said, "Yikes, tough break."

    "Don''t worry about it," I said with a smile, handing the man a hundred dollar bill and getting out of the car. There were going to be protests here until I dealt with them. That was just the score.

    My decision to move to California was the only rational one in the context. Alexander Pierce was certainly the head of the D.C. branch of Hydra and probably the present head overall of the organization. If I wanted to grow, I had to move somewhere that I could expand under a less totalizing project. Besides that, if I got control of the PRIDE, I should live where my power base is.

    It was late August and no sacrifice had yet been committed. I had gotten lucky enough to have missed the attack on Culver University by Banner, now "still-at-large." The U.S. had rolled out the first Iron Man suit, here called the Patriot Armor, and silenced a very large number of international disturbances with it. Tony, well, I didn''t know what Tony was doing, but he was getting more permissions for his Arc Reactors at a high pace.

    The move to California had required a bit of finesse, but once I had lined everything up according to my interest, I had come down to move in. Now was the tough part - Meeting with my critics. This wasn''t a picket line, I could''ve walked straight inside and not interacted with them. My sleep might not have been great for a few weeks, but they would''ve gotten tired of standing outside eventually.

    Probably. Protests are fun.

    I walked up to the crowd and a wall of boos and shouts hit me like a wave. I let the wave wash over me and stood there, patiently, as wave after wave of boos continued. Each one was an ebb, the end of the high tide. Once I was fairly sure I would be audible, I said, in the calmest possible voice, "If anybody wants to talk to me, let''s do that. Open porch for awhile,"

    The clamor that broke out at that also took a few minutes, but people did want to talk. Protestors are passionate people. But they want to be heard - Being heard is the point! That''s why they go out and do it.

    I waited while they worked it out - The organizers would speak to me first. So there I was, sitting cross-legged on my house''s lawn, the first union organizer, a woman from the Screen Actor''s Guild came up to talk to me.

    Her name was Maria Gonzalez, she was in her mid thirties, and she had been in a few big name pictures but she wasn''t (in my opinion) anything all that special as an actress. Pretty enough with some solid but no stand out supporting roles. Still, she had a reputation in Hollywood for fair-mindedness, a useful form of likability that didn''t quite blunt her edge. A classic straight shooter.

    "Mr. Trent," she said, holding out her hand. I shook it, smiling. "We were surprised you decided to move to a town whose key industries you are directly assaulting." I put that smile away and replaced it with a concerned, thoughtful look. I said nothing. "You know that half the guilds in Hollywood have called for a boycott of your products." I nodded thoughtfully and waited. " You''re threatening to put thousands of people out of business. Doesn''t that bother you?"

    "Well, firstly, I''m primarily a technology supplier but I get the worry. Still I think it''s a little premature," I said after a moment. "I have faith in the talents of all the people who come to this town to make art. The actors, stage managers, and so forth will still have lots of work in old-style films and television. What I envision is an expansion of human creative forces that means more options and choices for everyone - A veritable cornucopia of art. Art that might be produced by union members if the SAG weren''t calling for a boycott of Thoth."

    Enjoying this book? Seek out the original to ensure the author gets credit.

    "Yeah right, you hired scabs but you''d really love to hire union labor."

    "I don''t know why that''s so unbelievable," I said. "Trent Industries is a union shop. It''s literally in the company charter, a mandate for the workers to have a voice and the voice of their choosing. I wrote that, nobody held my hand to the fire and demanded it. I''m not the only board member of Thoth but if the Screenwriters or Animators brought us a contract, I''d vote we sign it." It would probably not matter - I doubted that the Hydra members on the board were great lovers of unions - but I would sincerely vote yes.

    "And the actors, props, costumes, and lighting? What do you say to all those people you''ve replaced with holograms?"

    "I say two things, I''m not replacing anyone," I was absolutely replacing people, "as I''ve already said. And insofar as Thoth leads to market crowding, which we''re a long way from any proof of, we''ll be employing a lot of those people in new functions. I continue to support expanded training and education options as well as local theaters and arts programs and projects. I''m not the bad guy here."

    The exchange went on like that for awhile. I never really won her all the way over, but she just didn''t have a lot on me at this point. Thoth was a long way from its goal of running over the Hollywood system. And honestly, Hydra was so hellbent on using it to put out propaganda that I thought it would continue to underperform for a long time to come.

    Next came an energy union organizer. This was going to be, ah, worse. Pete Hoffman was in his late forties and less ideological than Maria, a classic hard hat with a belligerent attitude towards employers born of genuine resentment of upper class dweebs.

    "In December you said that you thought Oil, Gas, and Coal were going to be with us a long time. How''s that working out for us?"

    "Well," I said carefully, "Fossil fuels still account for eighty four percent of U.S. energy demand."

    "Ah don''t give me that bull," he said, getting up in my face. "This isn''t some college debate, you know what''s happening to our work, our jobs, our families because you''re undercutting us."

    I paused and sighed, "You''re right that things have moved much faster than I thought, I''m sorry, that was a dodge. This is your lives and your pocket books, and you know how hard hit your industries have been. But I''m not undercutting anybody, I was selling at market rate before Stark undercut everybody," I said, which was objectively true,  "Do you want me to send my guys to the unemployment line with you? Do you think that would help, make this whole country a little poorer, gouge a few more wages on the race to the bottom? I provide good, union jobs. Any of your guys get laid off, we need lots of men with experience who are willing to work hard. We''re growing fast, we''re going to keep growing. Batteries are the next big stage and you''d better believe I''d love to have your guys on the line."

    "Half your jobs are in tiny little states like Wyoming and Montana."

    That was objectively true, but I had to do it or else I''d be getting all my subsidies stripped by the Senate right now. Buying Senators by putting your industry in their cities is a time honored American tradition. "Look, I''m bringing jobs with me. We''re repurposing a local Tesla solar factory and it''s not going anywhere." There are, after all, still House seats in California.

    After awhile, my conversations with the union leaders wound down. The frank truth was that I was the friendliest industrialist to labor in California or basically anywhere, for all my aspirations to monopolistic robber baron-ism. So while my actions were the cause of rising labor unrest, it was just hard to find anything particularly blameworthy in my actions. I was only doing what made sense in the market, I wasn''t stiffing my employees, I just didn''t have a bunch of bureaucratic fat to cut out and I didn''t want to pay people to do nothing.

    Eventually, I got a chance to speak to the crowd at large for a few minutes as it got to be time for everybody to go home for the evening.

    "Folks," I said in the loud, clear voice I''d been graced with upon entry. "I''m so glad you''re out here, demanding a response from me. I''ve tried to answer as many people as I could tonight, but I''ll be back out tomorrow and for the next week if you need to talk to me. I know that the economic downturn has been hard on all of us and that you''re worried about your industries, your jobs, and your futures. I want to make sure we can leave a better, more beautiful world for all of our children, not just my children. I''m continuing to call upon the U.S. leadership to undertake a real industrial policy so that Americans can get to work on building our country, I hope you''ll join me in that. I hope you''ll continue to challenge our feckless leaders in Washington, Republican and Democrat, who say there''s nothing they can do. Folks, there''s a lot that they could do if they were willing to make even the most basic of sacrifices like you did by coming out here today."

    The crowd was much larger the next day.

 XIX - Taking a Little PRIDE In

    <div>

    The designer, maintainer, and guardian of that pod was Victor Stein. Stein was a brilliant mechanical engineer and much of his company was cutting edge. His self-driving cars were already close to human levels of proficiency - Well ahead of where we were on my home timeline. In a few years, they''d like be able to replace human drivers altogether. Or a few months, if I got my hands on the software.

    Stein, like everybody, wanted our new batteries at an affordable rate, so he was the easiest of the PRIDE to get a meeting with. "Doctor Stein," I said, shaking his hand and inviting him into my home with a wave. It was an upper-middle class house, which in Los Angeles meant it cost less than a million dollars but more than a couple hundred thousand. It was unimpressive for someone of my class and station, but honestly who needed a huge house anyway? One and a half people lived there.

    "Mr. Trent, call me Victor," he said as he entered. Victor Stein looked like James Marsters, who I knew better from Buffy the Vampire Slayer. I swear the only thing that maintained my sanity was that Rhodey and Howard Stark both looked nothing like their movie actor equivalents.

    A large painting of the construction of the Pyramids of Giza hung behind the kitchen table. My house was mostly sleek and modern, but I had commissioned a number of prominent local artists to paint the constructions of all the great wonders of human engineering. That had been done mostly in reverence to Andromeda''s insistence that I put a thumbprint on the place and not continue to live, ''as monkishly as possible''. "Well, you''re welcome to call me Mike as well," I said. Stein was a good deal older than I was, so it was a little weird for him to call me Mister anything. "I''m not quite done cooking, but please sit down."

    "It''s not normal for a CEO to invite me to lunch at his own house, but I appreciate the courtesy."

    "Well, it''s simple chemistry, isn''t it? I could afford to hire a cook as good as I am, but it would be a huge waste of money." Also, my house was an easier place to record and display blackmail than your average four star restaurant.

    "Your panels and batteries are simply phenomenal, I wish my engineers had half your talents. I''m still outdoing them in my garage."

    "I wish my engineers had half your talent."

    "Well, I suppose if they were as smart as we are, they wouldn''t be working for us."

    "Here''s to the merely talented," I said with a laugh. What I did not say, because Victor Stein had a terrible temper and a vicious streak, was that if his engineers had half my talents, he''d be working for them. That might not have been entirely fair, but also he was a wife-beating scumbag, so I didn''t really feel a strong urge to leap to his defense internally.

    "Cheers," he said, raising his water as I moved the Massaman Curry into bowls. "You know, this is my favorite dish."

    "I always I do my research," I said as he dug in and made a savoring face.

    "This is amazing," he said after several minutes of silent eating, "But you said you wanted to discuss important business."

    I nodded my head and walked over to a drawer, pulling out a clicker looking point device. "Victor, I know you want our batteries. I''m happy to provide them. Nemo is going to be a major force in the U.S. auto industry going forward, especially as our transition off of fossil fuels continues to take off so rapidly. This meeting isn''t about that."

    "What''s it about then?"

    "I want you to know that I''m more than able to match whatever offers your present patron is making," I said as I walked over to the painting and pointed the clicker at it.

    "What patron?" He said, in a perfectly believable and serviceable tone of disbelief. "I''ll have you know-"

    I pressed the shrink button. The painting shrunk to the size of a postage stamp and I caught it as it started to fall down the wall. I brought it over to Stein, whose eyes were wide as saucers now, and slid it onto the table next to his curry bowl. "The alien you work for."

    "I - What the hell is that? How did you do that? It''s amazing."

    "A synthetic particle I named the Minos Particle," I said drawing out a miniaturized laptop out of my pocket and positioning it in a comfortable position. "Our animal tests survive but they''re mentally addled. We''re still working on that. I also have high hopes that, through access to lower quantum distances, we''ll be able to slip the bounds of time," I dropped in. Stein, it turned out, was obsessed with time travel. "I''d love to have you onboard working with me to transcend that limit." The TVA probably didn''t exist if the changes I had already made hadn''t gotten them on me. It''d be easy to check anyway with a test timeline. "But we can''t work with the Gibborim."

    "I," Stein was stumbling to find his words, "I still don''t know what you''re talking about about the alien, but can we-"

    I pressed the clicker on the miniaturized laptop. It expanded to normal size and I opened it. "I was hoping it wouldn''t come to this. I wanted to be civil, Victor, I truly did. But I cannot allow the alien to live - He''ll destroy Los Angeles if he isn''t stopped. And you''ve killed too many children already." And then I clicked play on the video.

    "Alright, that''s enough." Stein said with a sigh only a few seconds in, "You don''t have to play it. We''re the only people who remember them and we killed them. The first time, we had no idea what was happening. Well, except Tina and Leslie. Then they had a video. A lot like this, actually."

    "Well, I promise that if you work for me, I won''t make you kill any more children. I need help contacting and approaching the others who would be sympathetic. And I need you to tell me the alien''s alias here on earth."

    "The Yorkes and the Wilders were taken by surprise, same as me and Janet. I think Robert was too, awfully cold of his wife. Tina''s not a Gib, so she''s probably not as loyal as Leslie. Nobody''s loyal like Leslie. And the alien name''s Jonah."

    And there I had it.

    ¡ª¡ª

    The Yorkes were basically your standard middle aged tech hippies. They listened to Weird Al unironically, they had adopted the Hernandezes'' daughter Molly, and they worked for Synnergy Bioengineering (spelling correct). Dale had an affable dad beard and a kind of goofy but not unattractive face, Stacey had frizzy red hair and a very hippie-mom vibe to her clothes. Both of them wore square frame glasses and were in much better shape than you would expect from such consumate nerds. They murdered children once a year. Not trying to throw stones in my house of glass about that, it''s just an important piece of information about the kind of people they were.

    This content has been unlawfully taken from Royal Road; report any instances of this story if found elsewhere.

    According to Stein, Jonah had offered each of them money (of course) but he also offered them a leg up on the technological competition. There was a book with Gibborim tech in it. From the sounds of it, the Gibborim were further up the technological food chain than the average set of aliens in the Guardians neck of the woods. But they weren''t further up the tech tree than me. Nobody was further up the tech tree than me.

    Dale and Stacey were enjoying hot cider with me outside in the evening as Andromeda entertained Molly and Gert with a sleek little tabletop app I''d designed.

    "I''m surprised you wanted to have us over," Stacey said.

    "And I''m even more surprised Victor agreed to facilitate," Dale agreed, looking out at my garden. "You really are a bright spot recently. We got your solar panels, absolutely phenomenal."

    I had been enjoying the moment. It was nice to deal with people who were just¡­ normal and not beholden to or afraid of me. Yes, yes, they were serial killers, but at least there could be this illusion of three nice liberals sitting around a porch in the night air. A moment where I wasn''t Hydra and they weren''t PRIDE.

    But with the mention of Victor, I knew they must be getting anxious to know why I''d asked them here. It was time to put an end to the moment and move onto my grim work, "I know about Jonah and what the PRIDE does under their basement."

    Both of them stiffened. These two were not fabulous liars - But lying isn''t really about lying, it''s about trust. A liar can''t make a man believe the truth before his own eyes and honest men can sell the biggest lies. And the Yorkes had an honest man aura going on. "I''m not sure what you''re accusing us of," Dale said, faltering, "But I think it''s time we leave. Stacey, go get Molly and Gert."

    "You can do that if you want to, they''re not in any danger. I would never threaten your daughters." I said calmly. "But I''d rather you stay and listen to my offer. I have your holiday reunion taped."

    "Oh as if we don''t have enough problems," Stacey said under her breath. "Gonna be a whole series soon."

    "Calm down, Mrs. Yorkes," I said, "I''m here to set you free."

    "By blackmailing us?"

    "We''re all beholden to someone. I''m offering you an upgrade - You give up on Jonah, you come over to my side. I''ll make Synnergy a household name and you''ll never have to murder any children ever again. Isn''t that worth a few minutes of your time?"

    They looked at each other and Dale sighed, "Alright," he said after a moment, "What''s the deal?"

    "I''ve already brought the Steins onboard, as you''ve no doubt deduced. I''m¡­ significantly more talented than I have so far displayed publicly. Synnergy would make an excellent medium for me to spread major medical innovations and I could use your help to implement some of my knowledge."

    "What''s the catch?" Stacey asked

    "I''d be an angel investor, like the Minoru family. I''d expect an ordinary stockholder''s return and a first bid opportunity on any independent research, in case I consider it dangerous or I have a particular interest. Also I''m going to kill Jonah and I thought you might dissect his corpse, see how his powers work."

    Dale let out a breath, "It sounds like a good deal. Do you have any proof you can do that?"

    I fished a flash drive out of my pocket and handed it over, "Look it over and get back to me."

    ¡ª¡ª

    Geoffrey and Catherine Wilder were my last couple before I set things in motion. Geoffrey Wilder was a big man, with a bald head and beard, and Catherine wore professional dress and had her her slicked straight and back into a ponytail. They were both Black and had risen from a difficult life in a rundown neighborhood, not entirely legally in Geoffrey''s case. With the knowledge that Tina had precipitated things, I planned to move on her, Jonah, and Leslie as decisively possible. Andromeda was sitting next to me, ready to play the bad cop.

    "Word is you''re quite the rising star, Mr. Trent." Catherine said, cutting into her steak. "And we''re grateful for your intervention to make sure Wilder Construction is able to build on time."

    "I try my best," I said with false humility. "Starting something new is hard work, and I always have a lot of respect for people who got there by themselves."

    "Thank you," Geoffrey said, leaning back in his chair. "Why do I feel like there''s a business offer coming up?"

    "Mr. Wilder!" I said in mock defense, "It''s pretty straight forward. I look at the two of you and I see real community leaders - Not people checked off by churches, mayors, or social workers, but the people with real reach down into the roots of a community. People who made a way where there was no way. And I''d like you working for me, not against me." In truth, of the PRIDE I had contacted, Catherine and Victor were the only two with what I saw as the ambition and drive necessary to be Hydra people.

    "And why do you need us?"

    "I don''t need anybody," I said mildly. "Just like you don''t need me. But what I am offering you is an upgrade - in exchange for your connections and some small measure of your energies, I want to improve your working conditions and going rate."

    "The Wilders don''t work for anybody but the Wilders," Catherine bristled.

    "Catherine," Andromeda said, taking on the role of bad cop. "We both know that you work for Jonah, that he bought land off of Geoffrey here, that you and your husband have participated for many years in a sacrifice of young people from Leslie Dean''s church in your basement. We have tapes. We''re offering to¡­ buyout your contract. We''ll dispose of Jonah and you come over to us."

    "And how''re you going to do that without their tape getting out and sending us to prison. You think we didn''t think of putting a bullet in this guy? Do you think our brains were scooped out of our skulls?"

    "Mr. Wilder," I said, not allowing myself to be draw into contention about it. "I understand that Wizard is widely lauded for its computer prowess, but even if I can''t hack it, by this time next evening you can expect that I will have scrubbed the file system."

    "Do that," Geoffrey said, "And we''ll take your damn deal."

 Andromeda - Catch and Release

    <div>

    "What the heck were you thinking!" Andromeda heard a voice shout. Leslie Dean was an attractive woman with red hair and a stark white pantsuit. She was a decade older than Andromeda, the leader of a (locally) powerful cult in California that worshipped the "beings of light". According to Mike, those beings of light were actually aliens with "glow-y and blast-y" powers. She''d learned not to question him about these things.

    "Oh my gosh," Andromeda said, getting out of the car, "Oh my gosh, I''m so sorry." Nobody went down these streets, but she still made a point of scanning the horizon. Mike had said to keep casualties down, so casualties would be kept down. "Oh man, this is my first wreck."

    "You just pulled out in front of me! Did you not even look?"

    "I was on my phone¡­ I''m so sorry. Jeez, okay, come on, let me give you my insurance." Andromeda waved Leslie over. People were suggestible if you looked like you were co-operating with them, so this made it easier to get her within a good, solid range. Predators like Leslie Dean, especially, lurched toward weakness by default. It was always a mistake to operate in that mode,

    "Wow," Leslie said as she got up to the car door, "Your car can really take a beating for such a little thing."

    "Yeah, my boyfriend''s super paranoid" Andromeda said, miming fishing through her car. Then, once Leslie was leaning against the car, she came out of the car and whipped out her pistol. "Hands above your head and against the car, quick and careful."

    "You bitch!" Leslie said, but she put her hand up against car as instructed.

    "Mrs. Dean, I''m surprised you have such a low opinion of the mothers of children out of wedlock." Mike had said to be as mean as she could manage, that Dean was a fanatic and needed to know that her whole life was at stake. "What would Karolina think if she discovered you were ashamed of her?" She patted her down and pocketed her sleek Wizzy smartphone, but Leslie wasn''t carrying any weapons.

    "My daughter was born in wedlock to my husband," Leslie said as Andromeda drug her hands down and put them into a zip tie.

    "In wedlock, yes, to your husband, no," Andromeda shoved Leslie down onto the ground and dragged her a little bit till her white suit was good and dirty. "Try not to lie to me going forward, Mrs. Dean."

    "The Church won''t pay a ransom if you kill me."

    "We aren''t interested in a ransom." Andromeda shoved her into the backseat.

    "You won''t get away this," Leslie shouted. "I have powerful friends."

    "Mrs. Dean," Andromeda said as she opened the trunk "Your baby daddy is dead. Killed by a strike team this morning. We found out that you''re his heir, but it will probably be a few weeks before anybody else decides he''s dead."

    "You''re lying."

    "That would be a stupid thing to lie about," Andromeda said, taking the hardened computer out of the trunk and opening it in front of Leslie. "Computer, play."

    And the scenes from the HUD of the Hydra strike team that had killed Jonah. They''d blown up his car on the road, sending a burning, flaking wreck onto the roadside. They''d closed ranks at that point, found his burning body regenerating in a flow of technicolor light, and started firing round after round into his body. Eventually, his recovery faltered and there was one last glow of light - Peaceful and even-keeled. Then life left Jonah''s body - The alien was dead.

    This content has been misappropriated from Royal Road; report any instances of this story if found elsewhere.

    Leslie began crying. It was so pathetic. This woman was kidnapped and she didn''t even know to stay steady. Andromeda wanted to slap her, but the vulnerability would be useful. "It''s alright to cry," Andromeda said, carefully keeping her voice steady and soft. "We killed him because of his involvement in your little human sacrifice cabal."

    "No, no, this is fake, you must be using that new Thoth engine¡­ he can''t, he can''t be dead."

    "He is. We killed him. We got the video files from Wizard, we used a fairly basic EMP to permanently fry all of the electronics on your church. I''m told both of those were pathetically easy." More accurately, Andromeda had listened to Mike cackle with rueful laughter for ten minutes after he finally bothered to hack Wizard''s servers. He said a teenager could''ve done it. "But we wanted to make sure there were no loose ends" Andromeda took a deep breath, "Computer, show live footage of Karolina Dean."

    A beautiful little blonde girl appeared on screen, smiling and chatting with her friends in the school cafeteria.

    "She''s a beautiful child. I''m sure she loves her mommy and daddy very much. We also have evidence that she''s a human-alien hybrid. Absolutely fascinating, in our view, a very valuable piece of a puzzle about life on this and other planets. Can you imagine what would happen if that got out? Maybe she would be taken to a secure government facility if we published that information. Maybe she would wind up on an operating table. Maybe it would just destroy your marriage and reveal your church as a cargo cult in our little backwater world."

    "No¡­" Leslie said, "Please, she''s just a little girl. I''m begging you."

    "You killed¡­ five other people''s little girls, if my count is correct? What makes you think I should go soft on you?"

    Leslie shook her head, her body shaking. This was weak. This woman literally blackmailed some of the most powerful people in the country into sacrificing children to her alien god. Now the shoe was on the other foot, she fell to pieces. Andromeda had stared down a gun held by her own boyfriend and hadn''t even shaken.

    "Mrs. Dean," Andromeda said. "I can kill you now, put a bullet in your head and send you to join your warped idol. Or I can send you home to your husband and daughter, to your church, and you can never see me again. The only condition is that you transfer all of your inheritance from Jonah into this charitable trust in the third world." Andromeda shoved the card into Leslie''s suit coat. "Good press, a chance to go back to a happy life, and no money you weren''t expecting lost. If you fight me on this, I will destroy your little cargo cult, have your daughter taken into federal protective custody, and then kill you."

    "Alright, alright. You win, I''ll do it."

    It was impossible to know, of course, what Leslie would do when released. But Andromeda drove her to the nearest rest stop and dropped her off.

    "It''s done. These people aren''t exactly master criminals. How was Minoru?" Andromeda asked, getting on the phone after switching out the plates on the side of the road.

    "It was surprisingly smooth, didn''t need to threaten her basically at all. She said Jonah didn''t have any back up personal tapes. She was happy to transfer."

    "Do you think she''ll suspect Amy''s anaphylactic shock was our doing?" Mike had a decently clever idea to induce anaphylaxis and then take Amy out of her high security private school in an ambulance.

    "I hope not. I still don''t know what Minoru can do."

    Mike not knowing was the scariest thing to Andromeda.

 XX - Alexander Pierce

    <div>

    "Gavin isn''t thinking downside," I said with a sigh. He''d been part of the elimination team on Jonah, so I thought he should be a bit more judicious than he was turning out to be. "We don''t know if Jonah''s ship has security functions, a stable weapons cache, even a failed internal nuclear reactor that will melt our faces when we walk through the door. Maybe just seven or twelve cryostasis Gibborim, we got enough firepower for that? We still don''t know why Jonah''s body registered as human - If these are molecular shapeshifters, we could have an army of Jonahs pouring over the earth. No. Downside risk is too high." Also I knew that in the future where Jonah had raised the ship, the thing had blown up Los Angeles.

    "Your mission, your call. And Leslie Dean? Was it wise to let her go?"

    "We got a whole cart of alien tech from it. But if this exercise has taught me anything, it''s that blackmailing powerful people as the primary insurance on their loyalty is a mistake. No, Leslie knows we can take everything away from her. That might check her vengeance, but it won''t make her obey us." I looked out over the night in Vegas and the glistening cornucopia of American wealth. "Leave her alive to face our blowback so any failsafes get disabled, watch the girl from a distance to see if she develops in an interesting direction."

    "You know I was very skeptical when Andromeda recommended you so quickly."

    "I¡­ got that impression," I said, trying to keep my words polite. Saying that he''d made me beat a woman to death with a blunt instrument was probably not the right response.

    "But you''ve proven me wrong. It was a good thought to use the kids as leverage. People can be so sentimental about children."

    I resisted the urge to shiver. It wasn''t some genius level deduction to use children as leverage, but maybe he was just praising my ruthlessness. That also wasn''t praiseworthy - Karolina would grow up to be a decent young woman, with a good heart who put doing what was right over her own family, and I''d put her straight into Hydra''s crosshairs.

    "Hydra has traditionally taken the approach that broader access to technology is contrary to our interests of fear and a hunger for guidance. It seems like your projects run counter to that theory, with Wizard and Nemo especially. I tend to think that''s a bad idea, but you''ve proven me wrong before. Convince me."

    I took a long breath. I''d been waiting for this. Vanko had talked about the ''many-headed dragon'' and I knew now how stupid it had been to assume that meant anything other than Hydra. Many headed dragon. He''d all but said it! I was an idiot. "Take the Thoth engine as a proof of concept. Right now, it still has watermarks and little imperfections that a smart computer could figure out. But if I make a breakthrough, one software update could render it able to completely distort every evidence proceeding, every news cast, every basic attempt to discern the truth. Only reliable institutions, like national and local news stations, will be accorded credibility. And suborning those should be relatively easy going forward, especially as new media expands and cripples their income levels. Until then, Thoth streams nearly as much content as Netflix and it''s all under our control."

    This story originates from a different website. Ensure the author gets the support they deserve by reading it there.

    These were easy enough lies. I had the ability to build a perfected Thoth engine right now, I just hadn''t bothered to do so. Of course, at any time, somebody might crack it and figure out how to make an un-watermarked version, but there were few tech geniuses at that scale working for Thoth at the moment.

    "Yes, but Thoth''s market reach is shorter than Netflix''s."

    Because instead of writing mass appeal shows and focusing on what worked with each series, Thoth was a propaganda network for a very specific worldview that wasn''t popular. "Our worldview runs deeply against the manufactured beliefs of our constituents. It''s going to take time to reach through to them."

    "What does all this have to do with Wizard and Nemo?"

    "Wizard is going to be putting out a top of the line, open platform software for smartphones. We''ll have an eye in every pocket and an ear on every conversation. Nemo is going to be designing the end of human drivers. Not only will that keep our citizens safe, but it will mean an army of cameras that we can control and the ability to turn off any car at a distance."

    "Hmm, do you have equal ambitions with Synnergy?"

    I made a face. "Not really. Synnergy is a bioengineering company, so we''re planning on using it to expand cloning, help infertile parents, work on synthetic organs, and such. It''s just a chance for us to give back a little. The Yorkes aren''t quite as aggressive or ambitious compared to the others." I did not mention that the Yorkes had told me they had figured out the basic principles of an amnesia serum. I tried not to think about that at all, lest Hydra have some sort of telepathic regime. "All in all, my plan is bread and circuses, something to keep the people occupied and happy to follow orders. Medicine is a big part of that and so is Thoth."

    "It''s a sound enough plan. The alien tech?"

    "My primary interest, for the moment, is in broadcast power. Power lines are a huge fire hazard and the Dematerialization Box, that''s the Sacrifice Pod, seems to have a broadcast capability that transfers life energy point to point. It''s a bit elaborate, but if we make it affordable, we could seize total control of the power system."

    "Well," Pierce looked out over Vegas and raised his glass to me in salute, "It''s not a bad plan. I''ll be interested to see if it all pans out. Of course, if it doesn''t work, you can always take all of it down with your backdoor programs. If we want to convince them of what''s at stake, that''s always open to us."

    "Of course. Hail Hydra," I said, after checking that the coast was clear.

    "Hail Hydra," Pierce said, finishing his glass and leaving me to wonder.

    Had I told Pierce what was necessary to get him to let me improve people''s lives? Or had I told myself what was necessary to get me to hand the world to Hydra on a platter?

 XXI - Priorities

    <div>

    all the alien DNA you could come up with?" I said, looking at scrapings with a skeptical eye. It was about the size of a shoebox and it was only half full.

    Stacey looked a little abashed, "Oh, well, I dropped about a toenail''s worth on the floor, so we put that in another box as a potential contaminant but yeah. It looks like the alien DNA was regenerating his body, but most of the body is human."

    "I mean, that makes sense right? You said Karolina is a human-alien hybrid, I mean can you imagine the evolutionary convergence necessary for aliens that look this much like us? Much less cross fertility?"

    I looked from Dale to Stacey and back again before shaking my head, "You''d be surprised," I said, tilting my head to the side as I stared at the box.

    "Are you an alien?" Stacey blurted out, getting a glare from Dale.

    "You don''t have to-"

    "I''m a human," I said, waving it off. Technically speaking, I was an alien, but most people here didn''t know that.

    "Did you grow up on another planet?"

    "Stacey!"

    "What, he doesn''t seem to mind."

    "I grew up on Earth," I said, laughing. "It''s fine Dale, I''m not offended. It''s almost more plausible than the truth." It was really more plausible than the real truth, that I was from another world where this world was represented through fiction and had been granted powers by a godlike being for its amusement.

    "We were wondering," Stacey said, looking at Dale with reproof for his betrayal. "Because Jonah had all this tech knowledge and you have all this tech knowledge and we thought maybe this was like¡­" She leaned in, as if to keep a secret, "a gang fight."

    "Nah, I just got lucky to spot him. I''m very good at that sort of thing."

    "And very good at biology!" Dale said, "That file drive you gave us is amazing. We have so many new ideas."

    "Aren''t you worried we''ll¡­ use it for evil? You know, with the whole PRIDE thing?"

    "I''m not worried about that," I said. Dale and Stacey were wracked with guilt about the human sacrifice thing. Not that that was an excuse, of course, but all in all I was taking Nicole''s death better than they were their victims. "Our deal gives me more than enough knowledge to put a stop to really bad idea." I picked up the box and put it back into the lab fridge. "How''re the gloves coming?"

    "We''re working on it," Dale said. "Healing at a touch¡­ The applications are literally limitless."

    "Let''s go get something to eat and you can tell me some of your ideas."

    "Oh, food! We were thinking that we could design some meat-replacement cultures¡­"

    ¡ª-

    "Little guy bit me again," Victor said, showing me his hand as we got into our observing seats. The great asphalt sea before us was as yet unclotted with Nemo cars.

    "Yeah," I said, acknowledging his grievance. "But if you use lambs you won''t know if you''ve avoided the negative mental aggression issues."

    "How''re we supposed to tell they''re not just panicked from being shrunk to the size of thimble?"

    "Well, they do get used to it after a few hours if you put them in those shrunk rooms."

    "Why haven''t you gone public with this for materials, though? I know it''s expensive per dose, but you could cut running costs on things like aircraft carriers to a tiny percentage."

    "I strongly suspect that there are government agencies that have already cracked it and might not be enthusiastic about the release." By that, I meant that I didn''t want to be socked in the jaw by a six inch tall Hank Pym or whoever he hired to thwart me.

    "Makes sense," Victor said. "You''ve got your sequence picked out?" He waved his tablet at me.

    "Yeah, obviously," I said, waving it back.

    Unauthorized duplication: this tale has been taken without consent. Report sightings."Alright," he flicked on the cameras and recording device, lowering the Nemo cars. "Hopefully we don''t wreck another car like last time."

    "It didn''t hit the model pedestrian and the crash dummy survived, so overall, still a win." I didn''t want to deal with his anger issues like I had to last time.

    "If you say so," he said through gritted teeth, and he hit the green light.

    Two cars bolted out, drove around the concrete seat without coming near each other at and settled down. I looked down at my tablet and clicked confirmed to show that it had landed where it belonged. Victor''s had too, I saw as my green light met a red one.

    "Well, I think you were right about the quantum realm. It should allow us to muck about with one of the most fundamental forces in the universe." Two more cars bolted out of chambers and all four were swirling around the concrete sea. "Very impressive if we can get it to work."

    "Yeah, let me know if anything weird happens with the fruit." One thing I did not want to miss is if he had the glitch that reversed aging.

    "I keep everything in those handwritten notebooks like you asked. You can read them whenever you want. Gives me a hand cramp," he complained as the four cars came to a stop.

    "Round three," I said, watching four more cars join the dance. "After I hacked Wizard to clear Jonah''s cache, I''m never trusting electric storage again."

    "Don''t need an explanation for why time travel shouldn''t get out, at least not initially."

    We watched the cars swerve around each other at eighty miles an hour. The sensors were external and still pretty gaudy - It was unlikely that people would want their cars to look like that, but it was a good sign for inter-Nemo co-ordination nonetheless. They came to a finish and I got a light that confirmed they were in proper position.

    "Sixteen?" Victor asked, his mind back on the cars.

    "Sixteen," I agreed.

    Sixteen was easy. "Model pedestrians?" I asked and he nodded. "Twelve?"

    "Sounds fair."

    I released the little robots on stands and we set the cars going. No problems.

    "If our position were reversed, you''d still be the one working on the cars."

    "I''ve got some other major projects," I said with a sigh. And I did - With how butterflies were working out, I wasn''t sure Captain America would be found, so I was looking into technological improvements that would help us deal with Thanos. But also, time travel and I have¡­ complex moral issues. The way it works in the MCU, you''re basically creating worlds, which I suppose from the perspective of the abhorrent conclusion is perfectly fine, but seems¡­ iffy to me as a moral decision. Still, it would be fun to go back in time and pass off my existing researcher to my initial self. Form a Council of Trents, ah funny pun for an Mdiv, be sure to tell myself that one.

    "What''re you working on without me? Aren''t broadcast power and time travel enough?"

    "Weapons," I said simply. Although I had a broader definition in mind. I wasn''t enthusiastic about being the Thirty Seventh person to try to crack Erskine''s formula, but if I just left it to fate they probably wouldn''t find Cap at all and that was, frankly, really unacceptable. "Clean power, medicine, all of that isn''t worth anything if the Gibborim show up and invade us." Really, I should''ve started on it earlier, but I had been hoping that Pierce would put me on the Cosmic Cube project. No luck. I was "too high profile for SHIELD" and "I think you''ll be more productive elsewhere."

    "Do you think that''s likely?" Victor''s voice actually shook with fear. I suppose he knew better than most that the aliens were way out ahead of us.

    I shook my head. "But the tail risk is very high."

    "Damn right," he said as we released another sixteen cars.

 XXII: The Winter Soldier Program

    <div>

    "Don''t sound too enthusiastic now. How''d you get the job here?" I asked, walking through the bitter cold to the large metal door.

    "I asked for it, fool that I was," he responded, pulling the door open and beckoning me in, "Get in here quickly, quickly."

    We stepped onto an elevator down into the bowls of the dungeon. I felt the warmth of the place rise considerably and Yeliseyev started stripping off his outer layer to reveal a Hawaiian shirt. I snorted. It wasn''t warm enough for that down here, even if I were used to it.

    "Dress for the job you want, not the job you have, Mr. Trent." Yeliseyev was an older man, who must have been working when the Berlin Wall fell, with a scratchy beard he did not bother to keep well groomed. We entered the inside of the facility, walking down the hall. "I wanted to create a new breed of super soldiers - As superior in spirit as they were in body. Wise. Disciplined. A mirror of the original super soldier, Captain America. They gave me¡­ blunt instruments."

    We came to an office and I walked in after him. He pulled out a thick file and dropped it onto a metal desk. Then another file, and another, and another, and another. "Five bloody minded instruments. Warriors, not soldiers. Once the deadliest squad Hydra had ever produced. Still the deadliest squad, I suppose. But I would not recommend it if you intend for civilization to survive within a five mile radius of the drop zone."

    I opened the files and started paging through the one on the top. It was a monumental thing, page after page of information of vitals, activity, reaction time, physical endurance, thawing period. "No sample on the original?"

    He sat down in a rickety old wooden swivel chair, "Nothing more than you, I''m afraid. After the failure of the second project, it was decided that the focus should be on usage of existing resources and not expansion of it. I thought I could do without the original on the budget they were offering after Karpov. It hasn''t¡­." And here he spun the chair in a circle, "turned out that way."

    "You been spending the time working on your comedy material?"

    "Of course not," Yeliseyev growled. "I am always trying to devise new solutions. I''ve just run my mind over this for so long I can''t see straight. Erskine¡­ Eighty years and we''re no closer to cracking his formula then when Herr Schmitt injected himself. Every one of our achievements on this, stolen. Even these five, stolen. An unconquerable genius."

    "Well," I said after a moment, "If it''s so hopeless, why not give up? Hydra has always been agreeable to my transfer requests."

    "Ah, Mr. Trent, you are rich and powerful and a genius. These things are rare individually, still rarer when they are united in one man. I am a failure. No doubt, at some point, one of my superiors will have pity on me and transfer me to some more functional position. Or I will crack the Super Soldier Serum and become the most well-regarded scientist in Hydra after Arnim Zola." He yanked on his Hawaiian shirt, "Probably not the latter though. We must be realistic."

    If you spot this narrative on Amazon, know that it has been stolen. Report the violation.

    "Well, not much competition from a dead guy."

    Yeliseyev began to laugh, a mocking, cruel laugh. "Oh, they have not told the golden boy?" He paused, savoring the moment. "Zola is not quite dead, Mr. Trent. They have his brain on magnetic tape. The gears are, as you might say, still turning."

    Oh.

    Right.

    One thing you need to understand is that for all my enhanced mental prowess, my pre-insertion memories were not necessarily more reliable. And I had just forgotten that Arnim Zola was even in Winter Soldier. And that must have been the Swiss voice in Greene''s ear.

    Damn it. I thought I had done a good job of remembering important plot points. If I had remembered Zola, I might have remembered that he was in Captain America''s base. If I had remembered that, I could''ve taken Coulson there and avoided this whole fiasco.

    Also, hold up - "We have brain upload tech?!"

    Yeliseyev nodded his head. "It is¡­ not very civilized," he admitted. "Usually, a mind¡­ disembodied. They do not enjoy it. We are feeling, touching, hearing creatures. Not smelted steel. But it has worked at least¡­ once." He held up the finger with a slight smirk that, on a Russian, must have been very cheeky.

    Well, file that under Long-Term Lines Of Investigation I needed to address. I was pretty sure souls existed in the MCU. If nothing else, Strange seems to have a non-corporeal essence. I didn''t know if they persisted naturally after death or how they were formed or functioned. Peter Parker didn''t seem to have a bunch of memories of his afterlife. Was that because the afterlife was basically non-interfaceable or was the Elan Vitale of the soul tied to the body? It was an interesting question for which I had no reliable answer.

    We spent the next few minutes in silence, as I thumbed through the materials. Most of the knowledge was minutia, stuff that I could''ve learned on a flash drive. Maybe it was one of those petty little gestures to make me come out and see it in person. "Well, this is a very thorough documenting. Can you take me to your subjects?"

    "Of course," he said, leading me down a hall.

    We came into a mortuary and I looked at him, "What happened?"

    "A heart attack," he said tapping one of the door of one of those metal cubbies you always see on TV crime shows. "Musculature became cancerous, antibodies attacked nervous system, the negative aggression effects but no other benefits" and so it went, up and down the line for something like twenty cubbies.

    I didn''t want to ask. I knew the answer. But I could hope. "Weren''t there only five subjects of the Stark Serum?" That was the official Hydra designation for the batch of super soldier serum held at this facility. Presumably they''d stolen it from Howard.

    "No, no, the originals are not test subjects. These are my failed replication attempts."

 XXIII - Tail Risks

    <div>

    Jessica Jones was the protagonist of a TV series I had only watched one season of. She was waifish and pale, with dark hair. She had super-strength, which she acquired after a car accident from a secret organization. I had hired her as a New York gofer more to keep tabs on her than anything, but also to hunt down the people who had given her super strength. Or rather, to provide a pretense for hunting them down which I could believably pass off to Hydra as a personal interest. Also, I hoped a bit of stability would make it harder for her to be kidnapped by Kilgrave who (in the series) had mind-controlled and raped her for years.

    Jessica had super-strength and the classic noir detective''s inability to let a case go or give up on someone in need. I hoped, with time, I might persuade her to go a more Avengers route with her powers, but for now I was just hunting down IGH.

    "They''re bulletproof," I said, standing up and playing with the shrunken RV on my wrist.

    "You wear bulletproof suits to a syndicated television conference?" Jessica asked, nervous, "Why?"

    "I spent my youth backpacking across Europe, Jessica," I said, staying calm. I still didn''t know if Jessica was nosy by nature, or if she got that way as a defense mechanism after Kilgrave. Either way I didn''t really want her looking into me and exposing Hydra before I was ready to book it out. "I had some close calls with muggers. Money''s not a big deal, but I don''t want to get shot in the chest. A heavier suit coat? Perfectly fine risk management strategy."

    "Whatever makes you feel safer, I guess," Jessica said, not sounding very convinced.

    I paid Jessica on a salary that was pretty good, even for New York City. The job was being on call - When I came to town, I usually got a full week of hours out of her doing a variety of prep and call work. Jessica wasn''t¡­ great at it, if we''re being honest. She had an abrasive personality and she wasn''t very organized. But in her free time, there were a bunch of personal development perks that we put into the contract she could spend her time doing. Combat training, guns and hand-to-hand, educational programs, acrobatics, a pool, a gym, anything that counted as personal development.

    "Wish me luck?"

    "Good luck," she said with a smirk.

    ¡ª

    "Mike, can I call you Mike?," the hostess, Alayna Mason. We were in a brightly lit studio with a friendly looking audience, recording at seven for one of those late night talk shows.

    "Well, that''s my pen name, so I''d appreciate it, Alayna."

    "Yeah, so you wrote a book! It''s a bit controversial," she held up the thin, one hundred and twenty page book to the camera. "It''s called, Tail Risks: Solving Big Problems That Might Be. It''s a bit of a departure from your usual work as a green energy producer. Before we get into the controversy, what made you write it?"

    "I had a real feeling that our leaders weren''t doing their job, which is to think and consider and make the long-term, hard choices we won''t. Tail risks are things that are unlikely, but could very much happen. Losing with three of a kind in poker - Not a bad risk when the stake is a 50-50% chance if the stakes are a hundred or a thousand dollars. Absolutely insane if the stakes are the future of the human race."

    "Right, so you talk about five major tail risks - Alien Invasion, AI Conquest, Super-Terror, The Great Plague, and Uplift. Could you lay out why those five scenarios?"

    One, because it was a useful framing device for a set of relatively non-partisan policies that would be popular. Two, Avengers, Age of Ultron, both Civil War and Iron Man 3, Covid, and, well, me. "Uplift was really the jumping off point for me, especially as I''ve seen how radically my tech can disrupt existing energy industry. Here was this very tail risk, energy becomes basically free, and now it''s well on its way to reality. When Tony Stark''s existing bids on power production go into force, he''ll be a provider for something like fifteen percent of America''s current energy demand. Right now my products provide six percent of the energy demand and there''s nothing but growth space with rural co-ops. What''s more, as we use more clean energy, energy demand goes down, not up. That was two guys, with maybe five good ideas between us. What happens if there''s ten of us? Fifteen? Who''s making sure that the benefits of that get distributed where they need to be? The free market? Doesn''t check out. And then I looked at the ''plans'' for the other problems and it''s even worse."

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    "Alright, so in this book you suggest some unorthodox solutions to these tail risks. You talk about industrial policy, a universal basic income, a centralized testing apparatus for flus and colds, an international AI treaty, military reform and renewal reoriented towards non-terrestrial threats. But what''s put you on the map is your vocal opposition to the bioengineering ban that President Ellis promised in his election campaign. In light of the disastrous fight between the Hulk and Emil Blonsky, why do you think Americans should take this risk?"

    Ellis had run in 2010 against Obama, who had run in 2006. I don''t think Obama really deserved to lose - For one thing, the Great Recession wasn''t his fault at all. But he did, so we got an empty suit in Ellis, a bland, boring Business Republican whose core claim to fame was that he had terrible positions on human bioengineering. Going head up against Ellis this early wasn''t something I wanted to do - We were still in the honey moon phase, but also it seemed likely to me that we were on course for a boring, elite-consensus presidency with a Blue Senate and House preventing Ellis from doing anything controversial. It was a small-c conservative, old-world framework interested in reaffirming American hegemony without looking too closely into the fraying of the system. It was so obviously a sinking ship, especially as people like Stark and I came onto the scene and laid waste to the old order.

    But here I was, arguing against it on national television. It was one of the moments where my sympathy with Hydra was highest - Clearly these clowns shouldn''t be in charge.

    "Americans are already taking the risk. I outline in my Super-Terrorist what I would consider a highly realistic scenario - A terrorist cell cracks the Super Soldier Serum. There''s not a government in the world that hasn''t tried to do that, and you can''t tell me otherwise. Suddenly, even if the terrorist cell is fairly minor, you''re looking at the possibility of hundreds of peerless warriors, preternaturally fast and strong, willing to engage in violence to achieve political goals. Captain America''s kill count in the war, conservatively, was in the dozens but probably into hundreds. But he was attacking fortified bases of a cutting edge research division - These guys would be attacking schools and hospitals. And if these guys get the jump on us, we''re not going to survive it. It would be much, much worse if it were a hostile autarky like Iran or North Korea. Blonsky and the Hulk were disasters, but we can''t let that stop us from solving this problem for ourselves and for our fellow Americans."

    "''Our fellow Americans,'' Mr. Trent, are you running for office?''

    I grinned sheepishly at the camera and shrugged, "I think if people want me to serve, they can call on me to serve."

 XXIV - Shrinking

    <div>

    so much worse before it got any better at all. The world of the MCU basically laid down and took it when it came to a mass resistance to aliens. It was Wakanda''s army that had turned up at the final battle.

    That wasn''t a showing, it was a disgrace. Bullets worked against the chitauri, Bucky and Black Widow used bullets. Hawkeye used arrows. For goodness sake, Gamora used a sword.

    They needed to learn to stand up for themselves, to make a path, to wake up.

    I was going to make them do that.

    The mass stares of the press welcomed me onto the stage of the expo, backlit by the close up camera that had zoomed in on my face. I walked up to the glass podium and did my best to look perfectly ordinary.

    "People have criticized me for having too aggressive of an imagination, for paranoia and blind fear, people have said that the world which I imagine is one of the nightmares and fairy tales from children''s books." I said, getting a dig in on the President as I looked out over the crowd of reports. "We are already living in an unimaginable future. Today, an iron man flies over the United States, a unique, highly controllable war prosthesis that defends us from threats abroad. The power industry has been completely overturned by just two men. Tonight, I''m going to help us move further."

    I took out a baseball and a knife, holding it up for the close up camera. "This," I said, "is a baseball." I took the knife and cut through it enough to peel it open, "As you can see, it is a normal baseball. I know that''s not an auspicious beginning for an unimaginable future, but bear with me." That got a few polite laughs from the friendlier reporters.

    I put the baseball onto the podium, "Now watch carefully," I said pointing the shrink ray at the podium.

    I stepped back, drew the shrink ray from my pocket and disengaged the safety. I aimed and fired, and the podium vanished, sending the baseball rolling. Gasps filled the room. And I walked up to the podium as the baseball dropped and sloppily rolled off the platform.

    I grabbed the podium and held it up to the camera, "This is the podium." I looked at it carefully. "Pete, could you give me the baseball?"

    Pete grabbed the baseball and squeezed it, looking it over. "What''s the trick?" He asked. Pete was one of my more hostile interviewers. One of the benefits of the tech press was they were all technophiles, so it was pretty easy to get them to like you as a genius inventor. But Pete was genuinely tough. "How does it do that?"

    "Oh, that doesn''t do anything. It''s a baseball," I said. "This," I held up the shrink ray to the crowd, "does that." The room looked skeptical. "Here, trade you," I offered him the podium and he handed me the baseball, "Pass that around everybody. You''ll find it is light, that it doesn''t retain its weight, but not fragile or easy to crush between your fingers." And then I put the baseball on the ground and pointed the shrink ray at it and shrunk it too.

    By this point, every few moments somebody was holding the podium and saying one or more expletives. I waited as the ball and podium moved around the audience, pictures being snapped for papers, the sound of amazement a constant chatter.

    After a sea of hands had gone up, I pointed to one of them. "What does Trent Industries plan to do with this new technology?"

    "Well, it costs about a dollar per pound at this point and you need a dose per day or so." I said honestly. "And that''s a major problem for some of our hoped for applications. We''re hopeful that we can get the cost of harvesting the necessary particles down over time, but until then we think that it will be a huge benefit to space construction and medical care."

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    "Mr. Trent," one of the reporters, Grace, a newbie at Wired, asked.. "You''ve shown us a baseball and a podium. Does it work on biological creatures?"

    "The shrink ray causes molecular instability in biological matter that is sometimes resisted, often fatal, sometimes causing explosive liquefaction." I said. "We have no intention of pursuing further research on that front. It was a dead end." The actual explanation was that it required a stabilizing field and a brain shell protection. But it was better if I signaled to Hank Pym I wasn''t looking into it.

    "Mr. Trent, are you worried about military application?"

    "I''m excited about military application," I corrected. "I know Tony Stark has mostly settled on power supply, but Trent Industry hopes to help the military in mobile deployments, from helicopters that fit in paratroopers pockets to whole bases that can be carried in a suitcase. I''m a patriot and I hope that we can contribute to keeping America on the cutting edge. I won''t let personal politics get in the way of that."

    "Mr. Trent, what if a terrorist gets access to the shrink ray?"

    "Look," I said in full seriousness. "Obviously, there are some major tail risks on this question. Like smuggling a nuclear bomb into the State of the Union. We''re working around the clock with government agencies to develop ways of detecting a shrunken object. Their unaltered density and decreased weight make that a fairly straightforward process. Trent Industries is keeping its sample supplies separate from our production center. And we''re keeping our production center under security that makes the nuclear security look more outdated than it already is." Gotta get a dig in on the establishment while I''m here.

    "Mr. Trent!"

    ¡ª

    After the press conference, when I had made it back to my private room, Andromeda hopped out of my pocket and enlarged.

    "I didn''t see anybody who looked suspicious."

    "Neither did I," I admitted. I guess Hank Pym had benefited from it being his own former company when it came to getting a tip off. It was nice, really, that for once things were spinning my way.

    "You sure you can''t make any more of these?" She said, flexing the armor. "Hydra could use a few more of them."

    "No, no, they need Gibborim tech." It had cost several potentially useful devices and a week of work, but I had managed to convincingly fake that this was the truth. Actually, no Gibborim tech was necessary. "I think Pym must have gotten his hand on extraterrestrial tech and then pretended that he''d managed to crack it independently." The key to the lie was flattery, the belief that Hydra hadn''t been flat out smarted, but that Pym had cheated and lied his way to the achievement.

    "That makes sense," Andromeda said, collapsing onto the couch and taking off her helmet. "Still, it''s kind of great to have this."

    "Yeah," I agreed, sitting down next to her. I''d made it for Andromeda without asking permission, because I figured they wouldn''t be able to make a good fit with other agents and I could at least keep tabs on her. Plus, Andromeda was basically my subordinate at this point. I was a major force in Hydra, which had spared me from many negative orders. Not a lot of people were really higher than me. I was about Stern''s rank, and he was a Senator!

    "Well, you did great. You should be proud. Hopefully this gives Ellis pause when he wants to lash out at you again." Andromeda said, kissing me.

    "We can hope," I said.

    "Oh, I didn''t want to distract you during this. But I got word from Pierce that Zola wants to talk."

 XXV - Arnim Zola

    <div>

    <div>

    <div>

    fairly sure, given what I could find based on untraceable FOIAs and a dozen books, that the Hydra internal structure was also a product of his design. Somehow, against all sense and reason, he had managed to design a social system in which ambitious people had to advance the group to advance. Organizational design and cliodynamics had become a dominating passion of his in later life. He was one of the most brilliant men who had ever lived, possibly the most brilliant man before the MCU movies started.

    "How''d that work out for Poland?"

    "The Polish people survived, Mr. Trent," Zola said. "And there were many opportunities to work both sides of the conflict. It is not as if aliens will be interested in carrying out an ethnic cleansing, if anything such a government would cut down on genocides. Race theory may have been the cutting edge of intellectual thought in the thirties, but time has proven it false and I doubt they will have any interest in it. In some ways, an alien regime might be an improvement of conditions. They are likely centuries ahead of us. Better to be a slave in the palace of Xerxes than a yeoman worried for his next meal."

    I didn''t agree with that at all. It was better to be a yeoman worried for his next meal than to live beneath the caprice of a tyrant. But it wasn''t something you could argue with in Hydra''s worldview. Power was its own justification and it could not be argued with. "And what if they want to kill us?"

    "Mr. Trent, even the deployment of a few thousand nuclear weapons would suffice to destroy us. If they prefer it, they could drop them from orbit. In short, if the aliens come here to kill us, we will simply do the sensible thing and die."

    It was hard to argue with full honesty here because Thanos'' plan was somehow the most unreasonable thing imaginable. Cutting life, possibly all animal, possibly just sapient, in half was clearly a mistake. It didn''t make sense on the face of it. Why not make more resources? Or schism the universe? Extract resources from unoccupied systems? Thanos'' ego substituted for any kind of moral clarity and his insistence on proving, once and for all, that he had been right during the death of his own world was an egregious mistake. How was I supposed to convince people that some megalomaniac with reasonably opposable goals was coming?

    "Look, maybe." I admitted, "Why send up a signal flare like the energy from the cube? Why not consolidate our control on earth before we take the risk?"

    "Mr. Trent, the Tesseract is a product of science and artifice. If indeed there are mighty alien species abroad, no doubt they have their own equivalent technologies. Sooner or later the human race must move forward and it shall continue doing so. Even if you could convince me, SHIELD has other masters. The man we have placed in charge, Fury, would prefer that we focus our energies upon the cultivation of heroic individuals. But the World Security Council has insisted."

    Ah, yes, the world security council. The dumbest, most worthless characters in the entire MCU. The ones who tried to nuke New York. A plan that doesn''t even make sense. What if they''d had anti-nuclear missile equipment? What if they''d simply jumped here with their spaceships? What would be the upside to having killed millions of Americans in the scenario? Would that win loyalty? Would it strengthen our resolve to fight? "Are you sure the Tesseract is a created object?"

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    "As near as can be. The discussion is closed, Mr. Trent, and I would appreciate you to respect our methods as we respect yours."

    "Of course, Doctor Zola," I said, bowing my head in deference. "I simply felt that I should attempt to persuade you on the issue."

    "A reasonable decision," Zola replied. "Hydra is not interested in being stupid. We welcome voices that offer alternative strategies. The days of a dictator ordering us around, those are behind us. But while I appreciate your input, your concerns about the Tesseract are not the primary why I invited you here today." I nodded my head for him to continue. "Your shrinking device, it is a¡­ disappointment that the shrinking cannot easily be grafted onto human subjects."

    "Pym''s cunning was greater than we anticipated," I said apologetically.

    "You are right of course. A clever man never reveals all of his resources, and Pym more than most was like that. Still, there is a non-biological person we could shrink."

    Ah, that made sense. "Well, I don''t know how that would effect your tapes."

    "I understand," Zola said as if discussing the weather. "But in truth, I am not altogether enthusiastic about continuing in my present state. A chance to move about the world, to see the world up close once more, I would like that very much. And we have test subjects, who could go on ahead of me. They are¡­ quite incoherent, to be sure. But we kept them online and running to see the long term effects."

    God in heaven. They''d kept a sample for what looked like at least forty years. Human beings, stacked inside boxes where they couldn''t move or touch or taste. Quite possibly where they could not see or hear anything but silence. "If I might ask, that seems like a lot of bases worth of power."

    A mechanical laugh echoed through the voice synthesizer. "Ah, Mr. Trent, I was an early prototype. We store them much more compactly now. Did you think that we had given up on the possibility of immortality?"

    No, I supposed not. "Of course not, Doctor Zola. Your vision has always been expansive and ambitious."

    "And of course, if those test subjects are insufficient, we can always provide you with more."

    "I shall," good Lord what was I saying, "endeavor to make do without putting more strain on our resources."

    "Your frugality is appreciated Mr. Trent," Zola said in dismissal. His face flicked off the screen and the whir of the machines continued. I climbed up into the elevator and ascended to the base''s ground level.

    On the upside, I now knew where Zola was. The old base he was built under was in New Jersey of all places. Downside: I had no idea how to kill him without it being traceable directly back to me and he wasn''t listening to me at all. Pierce had seemed more persuadable and he had more noble aspirations to a world of a Pax Hydra, a Pax et Securitas. Zola seemed to be unconcerned with those things. Power, and power alone, was on his mind.

    After I had cleared the base and gotten back in range, my cellphone pinged.

    Victor: Janet and I would like to have you over for dinner, she is making my favorite dish.

    That was the signal that he thought he had cracked time travel.

    </article>

 XXVI - Me and Myself

    <div>

    "Poetic," I said.

    "Well, I''ve been thinking about it for a long time. Can''t really go into the future, which is a disappointment. Go get whatever chore you need done, done, and I''ll stay here and get to work checking on the temporal effects and imbalances."

    The rules of MCU time travel were straightforward enough. You go back in time, you create a divergent timeline. Maybe it''s close to the one you''re from, maybe it''s not. Regardless, it is never again your timeline. I had checked and Peggy Carter had married someone else in my home timeline, so I was pretty sure we were close to the top of timeline piles. Banner explained it in the most confusing manner possible in the movies, but those were the rules. That meant that if you went into the future and then went back into the past, you were effectively creating a timeline without yourself in it. And for everything that had gone wrong already, I didn''t think the world would be better off without me.

    I stripped out of my ''leapfrog'', the green-black suit that Victor had designed and codenamed, before unshrinking my suit and putting it on. We had wound up in a storage unit of Victor''s in California. Minimal time in the past wasn''t really a problem - The platform of curbed inhibitors and mirror sheen panels was a beacon back to our own moment in history.

    So, for our initially jump, we had decided on something relatively close and simple, so we could be confident in our future success. I had chosen the date and time - 2009, the day I had killed Obadiah Stane, a fair few hours before hand.

    Since I had already created this timeline anyway, I wasn''t going to let an opportunity go to waste.

    I banged on the window of the white van when I reached it, "Tango!" I shouted.

    That got his attention, my twin emerged from the van and caught sight of me. "Damn." He said, looking at me for a moment, "I like the silver. Really works."

    I was only two years older than he was, but I was starting to gray. "The fake nose and wig don''t work for you, take them off."

    "Uh, dude, you know what I''m here to do."

    "Yeah, so, if I''m here to stop you, maybe you should stop?"

    He tilted his head back in thought and then nodded. "Yeah, fair enough. Come on. Let''s go get some food. Ice cream?"

    I climbed into the van and we started driving away. "I know we''re genetically hot now, but we''re not genetically fit, so I''ll pass on that. Trying to stay in better shape."

    "Your loss. So how bad did we fuck up?"

    "Tony Stark isn''t Iron Man. War Machine operates under the name Patriot."

    "That''s¡­ not good," he admitted. "Captain America?"

    "Still haven''t found him!"

    "Well. Banner?"

    "Wasn''t there for his rampage, but he inspired a huge amount of anti-bioengineering activism and now the President and I have an ongoing feud about it."

    "Is the anti-bio-activism new?" I shrugged. "Did you at least catch Mjolnir in Nevada?"

    "It was actually in a small town in New Mexico, Puente Antiguo."

    "Damn, did you get the girlfriend''s name?"

    "Yes. Jane Foster, spitting image of Natalie Portman."

    His eyes darted as he sorted through his memories and found her. "Wow, she is. I''m never going to get used to that."

    "You absolutely do get used to that."

    "Oh I get used to it, huh?" He said in a tone that made me want to punch him. "Do I detect romance in my future?"

    "Look man, if you want to go for it, go for it." It couldn''t possibly be worse than my own choices. Plus Jane Foster was smart which would make her much less boring than most of the pretty girls I had flirted with before Andromeda.

    "Alright, so I won''t kill Stane. How far in the future are you from anyway?"

    "2011."

    "2011?!" He asked incredulously. "Has the Invasion of New York even happened yet?"

    "No¡­"

    "Did you start a nuclear war?"

    "No, I just¡­ made some personal mistakes."

    "But you can''t change them by coming back here you doofus! I already checked, no stable-time-loop Cap."

    "Yeah, I know." I said, hoping my voice wasn''t too bitter.

    "Did you blow up the space stone and cause a fissure in reality or something?"

    "What, no. I just¡­ fell in love with the wrong woman, I guess." It was so weird to be explaining my regrets to this past version of myself.

    "Ah, so I really should go for Jane Foster."

    "Yeah, I mean, yuck it up man. She puts out an internship offer for summer 2010, maybe get some of your hot for teacher on."

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    "Doesn''t she lift Mjolnir in the next movie? Seems like she wouldn''t go in for it? Abuse of power and all that."

    "The internship thing was a joke, but I encourage you to try to romance her. Mjolnir material is girlfriend material."

    "Wow, we broke this girl''s heart huh?"

    "No¡­ no, things between us are great actually."

    "Then what happened?"

    "This is a test run."

    "Lots of potential test runs that go back further than this and help loads of people. You came here, now, to me. To yourself. That means something went wrong with the plan."

    "Look it''s fine," I said hurriedly.

    That got a glare. Then he pulled over and held out his hand, "Give me the thumb drive and get out or explain your goddamn self."

    "Look, I came back with Victor Stein, alright?"

    His eyes did the ''mentally looking up'' motion again and he said, "Oh, you fell in with the PRIDE? Yikes, dude that''s pretty bad. Who''s the woman? Janet? She''s very pretty, I don''t think that''s that poor of taste. I mean, adultery, but you''re hanging out with murderers so, really that''s not that big of a line to cross is it. Plus Victor''s a wife beating shitstain."

    The awkward truth was that the PRIDE were the upper half of my social circle in moral terms. Most of them had done it because of the blackmail.

    "Oh, it''s not the PRIDE, is it? You just said that to throw me off. Jeez, dude, what''s worse than the PRIDE?"

    I didn''t say anything.

    "I''ll leave without any more advice and you won''t be able to guarantee any more changes."

    "I joined Hydra."

    He stared at me for a moment, his eye flitting upward in the ''lookup'' position, and then punched me in the stomach. Or tried, anyway, banging against the bullet proof of my suit probably hurt his hand more than the hit hurt my stomach. "You stupid son of a bitch. What the fuck were you thinking?"

    "Would you believe me if I told you it seemed like a good idea at the time?"

    "No! They''re fascists!"

    "Oh come on, you know they''re actually synarchists. Fascism is a nationalist movement that glorifies violence."

    "Am I speaking to a dictionary? Man, when I say they''re fascists, I mean they''re authoritarian monsters. Did you join the American Nazi Party while you were at it?"

    "Wow, next you''ll be telling me the Democrats are the real racists because of the Klan?"

    "That''s not even an analogous case! The modern Democrats represent black people and the Civil War Democrats fought to keep them enslaved. Hydra tried to take over the world with bombs and now wants to use its weird killsat plan to take over the world. Serious Supervillain Brain, obvious continuity."

    "Yeah, I''m working on that part."

    "Gah, you suck. Okay, so you joined Hydra. Partially because of a girl. At least tell me she''s some Black widow level bombshell we hadn''t seen coming."

    "She''s Andromeda Albertson, the niece of the governor of Louisiana. And she''s nice looking."

    "You went out with a governor''s niece? Why, that seems like a lot of potential problems."

    "She was a SHIELD agent!"

    "You didn''t see SHIELD agent plus powerful family and immediately say, ''Hydra''?"

    "I considered it! But she''s kind of like Daria," I said, referencing a very peppy friend from college. "Very patriotic, very peppy, nice when I was around her. And hindsight is really twenty-twenty on this one."

    "Wow, I guess I wouldn''t have suspected Daria either."

    "Yeah, pretty much."

    "Look, you''re obviously a terrible person, but since we''re the same person I''ll cut you some slack. Stay here with me. Sounds like your old world is kind of a crapsack."

    "I can''t, I''ve messed it up and I have to fix it."

    "What, from inside of Hydra?"

    "That''s the plan."

    "Well. I guess I don''t want you here then and you wouldn''t be here if you thought I could stop you. Give me the damn thumb drive and get out of my car."

    I handed him the thumb drive and climbed out of the car. I had deserved that and I hoped he took caution from my words. I was emotionally exhausted by the time I made it back to Victor and the suits were missing.

    "Victor, where are the suits?" I asked, leaning up against the wall, tired.

    Victor was leaning back in a lawn chair, looking pensive.

    "I''ve stored them in a secure place, Mike, don''t worry. But before you and I go back, we''re going to have a talk about the future you came from."

 XXVII - (Some) Honesty is the Best Policy

    <div>

    Alright, he had concluded I was a time traveler. That made sense, I had handed him the keys to time travel and said, "work it out." What was he supposed to think? But that also meant he must have deduced I didn''t know how to time travel. He knew what day we had come back to, but not necessarily why. He might remember Obadiah Stane''s death, so I might as well fess to that one right here.

    What did I know about the future that it would be good to tell him? I decided to tell him as close to everything as possible. I didn''t know what he knew, so it was better to look as forthright as possible in case he had cracked anything else.

    "Well, for starters, almost all of the things in Tail Risks happen in the next ten years. Some of them happen multiple times. The great plague is a bit of an approximation of a different, much worse catastrophe, but there you are."

    Victor stared at me, his eyes wide with horror. "Damn. And you came back to stop them?"

    "Better to say I messed up." I said. "I didn''t intend to come back in time at all." I hadn''t asked to come to this mad, mad world anyway. "I got thrown back into my younger body after an accident. The rules of time travel are public knowledge in my future and I knew they''d used Pym Particles to achieve it."

    "Pym Particles?"

    "The Micron Particles, sorry. Hank Pym designed them originally."

    "Are you planning on going back?"

    "No" I said. "Did you get those measurements I asked for before you stowed the suits? I''ll explain why."

    "I got them after," he said, popping open the laptop and putting it on a crate in the storage unit.

    I looked at it for a few minutes and pointed, "There we go." I tapped a sequence of numbers, "I can''t get back to my home timeline because I don''t have that. A sequence of numbers that identifies where we are in the quantum fields. I know it''s more complicated than that," I said, before we had to have an advanced physics conversation about this. "But you get the idea."

    "Right, so you''re stuck in our timeline and you decide to help."

    "Well, the timeline was already altered by my presence, so yeah. I still have no idea how powerful the butterfly effect is. Some things have been pretty successful," I said. "I handled the Gibborim long before your kids outed you and you got arrested. Some things I did worked but the consequences aren''t right - In my timeline, Tony Stark saved and damned the world enough for three messiahs as the Iron Man. So I thought I was doing him a favor when I got rid of Stane. Now apparently that''s mothballed and I still don''t know why."

    "How does Chase turn out?"

    "He''s an impressive engineer, he designs these gloves that fire force that are amazing when he''s about seventeen - But he never really takes to schooling. He''s a better man than you or I."

    "That''s not the highest of bars in my case," Victor said with a sigh. "But I''ll take it. Tell me as much as you can about the future."

    "Alright, but the first thing that you need to understand is that whatever happens, you''ll be asking yourself, ''shouldn''t the government have done something about it?'' And unless I tell you otherwise, just assume it didn''t."

    "The government did nothing?"

    "Well, for awhile there, there was an organization that addressed these sort of things but then we just gave up on it because of some internal corruption. Of course, immediately after that, a rare genetic mutation empowered hundreds with super powers."

    "Okay, so we dissolved the let''s call it extra-normal response organization immediately before the mass mutation event?" There was raw fury in his voice by this point. I mean, who could blame him? If you describe what actually happens in the Marvel movies, it''s the ultimate embarrassment.

    "That''s, yeah, that''s essentially what happened." I couldn''t remember the Agent of SHIELD timeline, but I thought that was right.

    "And the government didn''t do anything during this?"

    "Well, I think they tried to patch the SHIELD structure back together eventually. Lost track at some point."

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    "Why''d they dissolve?"

    "Internal corruption."

    "So we disarmed ourselves in the face of a hostile universe because¡­ what, because of bribery?"

    "More like some members worked for a terrorist organization,"

    "Still doesn''t make any sense. You fixed the terror cell yet?"

    "It''s ongoing. Andromeda''s a member of SHIELD, so that helps."

    I broke down the plots of each movie I could remember - Iron Man 1, 2, and 3.

    "Good job with Vanko. You can''t remember who the guy who developed the fireball regeneration recipe was?"

    "It was restricted access information, so it was really more of a curiosity."

    "They can regrow limbs and they just¡­ let it go?"

    I shrugged helplessly and left the Thor movies out - I hadn''t watched Thor 2 and Ragnarok took place completely off. I included Captain America: Civil War but not Winter Soldier - The fights between Tony and Steve, the assassination of the king of Wakanda, Black Panther, the framing of Bucky. I was a bit fuzzy on the connective tissue and I told him so.

    "So you''re saying Wakanda is some kind of weird mix of throwback monarchism and hyper-tech Afrofuturist country?"

    "I know how ridiculous that sounds but you have to believe me."

    "Alright, so two dudes gather up their closest friends and just start beating the tar out of literally Earth''s only line of defense over what amounts to a jurisdictional dispute?"

    "Yeah."

    "With heroes like these, who needs villains?"

    I explained that it was actually Pym who I had feared breaking into my facility. Scott Lang still hadn''t been arrested here and I didn''t want to involve myself too much in his life just yet. There wasn''t any point in including Peter - And whatever happened with the Sorcerer Supreme, she had said that she had lived many, many times and always came back to that balcony, so I figured that Strange would make his way to her eventually. Also the degree to which I did not want Strange to catch up with me was very high.

    I went over what I knew of Kilgrave, Kingpin, and Cottonmouth as well as the Hand. "And then PRIDE of course, got caught out by your own kids, so good on them."

    Finally I ticked through Avengers one and two.

    "Okay, so Thor''s brother, Loki, who is a god, comes back at this Thanos guys'' behest? And then, the World Security Council tries to nuke New York? But, lucky New York, Iron Man, who no longer exists, saves them?"

    "Right, you got it. Working on a replacement plan."

    "And Thanos'' is trying to get these Infinity Stones but he sends one with him?"

    "Thanos'' M.O. is really aggressive plays but carried out by his subordinates. He trains child soldiers, I''m not sure it''s about what''s the most sensible."

    "Alright and then the Infinity Stone in this staff, the mind stone right, Tony Stark designs a robot with it that almost destroys the world. And then, for some inexplicable reason, his solution to this is to design a new robot with the same stone to save the world?"

    "Listen. Tony was a hero but he was a mad scientist. Also, to his credit, it worked."

    "Then Thanos came to collect the Stones to kill half of everyone?"

    "Yeah, he did it too. The only country that put up a fight was Wakanda."

    "And they fixed it only after five years?"

    "Won''t be nearly that long now that we''ve cracked time travel."

    "So why, of every time we could have come to, did we come back to this time?"

    "It''s very early in my new timeline. Beyond that, two reasons," I said, leaving aside my guilt about Nicole and everything I had done. "One, I''m making powerful enemies in the home timeline and if it all goes south, I want to be able to bolt somewhere hospitable. I left some advice for avoiding those enemies here. Two, in case Thanos succeeds again, I''m certain this timeline would help us bail our timeline out." My secret fear, that we would need to sacrifice someone we truly loved for the Soul Stone, also meant that I wanted to optimize the number of times we (as in every timeline) had to do that to as low of a number as possible.

    "Alright." He tapped his foot for a moment. "I''m in. We have to stop this stuff. Let''s go home."

    I counted that as a win for now.

 XXVIII - An Important Date

    <div>

    this," the voice in the monitor said, "kill me," it begged. Long enough sensory deprivation generally had led to a form of verbal incoherence, but in this case the subject retained enough self-awareness to express.

    "Yeah, I don''t love this either." I said, clicking a record button. "Subject nineteen, to be subjected to the effects of Micron Particles in a shielded case."

    The laboratory I was using for the project was a beautiful thing, magnificent really. No expense was being spared on the investigation of immortality. Huge glass cases with computers that held the minds of dozens of old Hydra agents who had taken the risk of upload for a chance at immortality. For all of them, it had been a mistake. Hydra left them screaming on mute, monitoring their growth and their mental patterns.

    I wanted to be researching Carol Danvers'' disappearance and hunting down the SHIELD documents on the crash. But instead I was in here, trying to discretely euthanize a bunch of tortured Hydra agents while also obtaining useful information about the effects of shrinking on uploaded minds.

    "Do tell me if anything happens," I said hopelessly as I clicked the shrink button.

    The metal box containing the apparatus shrunk down to the size of a book and I looked at it, checking its internet connectivity against my own. The internal mental patterns were gobbledygook, but that was always the case with an upload. I couldn''t see any disruption in the pattern and it looked fairly stable. We''d fitted the case with Pym Particles, so it was just a matter of sitting and waiting for an abrupt shift.

    When Andromeda had come back in, I was listening to the begging. She was wearing a silk black dress and heels and, in my very biased opinion, looked stunning.

    "Yikes, why don''t you mute that?" she said, curling her arms around my shoulders.

    "It''s useful data if there''s any change. The inside of the box is all shrunken, so they can''t tell that anything has happened. Normally, they don''t say anything but this guy recalls enough to be mad that he''s¡­ alive."

    "Damn, I''ll have to recommend to Mom not sign up for the upload treatment. Seems really unpleasant."

    It was weird how Andromeda worked. "Doesn''t it bother you that Hydra agents are suffering?"

    "They signed the waiver. This was a risk of the procedure. Besides, their sacrifice is helping us move closer to understanding the upload process. What''s a few years of momentary suffering to the gift of immortality for the elect?"

    I had no idea what the benefits for understanding were. The ordinary scientists got a bit out of the first few days and then just through up their hands and said it was all junk and noise. They couldn''t establish a pre-upload mental indicator for success and they couldn''t crack the way the computers represented the mind. It wasn''t helping anything to leave them on like this, they were just hoping it would help at some point in the indistinct future. Even I couldn''t make useful head or tails of the information.

    "Anyway, go get changed into your suit. It''s dinner time and you promised me a date."

    ¡ª

    I had, in fact, promised Andromeda a date. Andromeda had booked us a meal at a fancy Italian restaurant and both my instinctive familiarity and the internet reviews said it was very good.

    "So is this one of the restaurants you''ve been to?" Andromeda said.

    "Yeah," I said jokingly as I took her hand, "I go here all the time."

    "You just always know the best places! Is this one of them?"

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    "I think so? I haven''t actually eaten here."

    "Good," she said, leaning against my arm. "I never know where to take you."

    "If it''s with you, that''s where I want to be," I said, leaning over and kissing her forehead. It wasn''t even a lie. God. What had I gotten myself into? I should''ve stayed in Divergence 2009. I shouldn''t have come back here. But love, as Willow once said, makes you do the whacky.

    Andromeda let out a happy hum that was almost a purr. "That''s what a woman likes to hear."

    Dinner was, in fact, very good. We about halfway through the meal, having talked mostly about Andromeda''s family drama. "Hey, saw some news today that I thought would interest you."

    "What''s that?"

    "An American serviceman has been identified as a member of the Wakandan royal family."

    Oh. Good? I guess that was good? How should I feel about that? "Wow, good for him I guess. It''s a tiny little country."

    "Mike, come on, I know you went to their embassy the night we were texting."

    Ah shit. Right. Hydra Girlfriend was, of course, monitoring that. Should''ve figured. "Okay, I was banging around the embassy trying to figure out if the whole ''secret unconquered empire'' stuff was true. I chase down leads! Sometimes its a dead end."

    "You were a Wakanda truther?" She asked, mocking me.

    "It''s not that I bought it, I just wanted to, you know, check."

    "What''d you find?"

    "Well, their educational numbers don''t seem to be cheating and their ambassadors are rude, but mostly nothing. I don''t think there''s any there, there. Sometimes you run things down and its a dead end."

    "Ah so that''s your magic trick. A bunch of legwork that never pans out."

    "Well, if I told you every dumb idea that popped into my head I wouldn''t look very smart."

    "Can''t have that."

    "Right, you love me for my brain."

    "I love you for a lot of things, Mike."

    "I love you too Drama."

    "You know we''ve been going out almost two years now?"

    Oh no. "Yeah, of course I know."

    "They just shoved me over to you when the more," she stumbled for a word, "extravagant girls weren''t getting your attention. And I thought, oh gosh, this guy he''s really rich and hot, he must be boring as a stone to be single. But you were really interesting! And I was hooked. When I got back to my hotel that night and texted my mom, she literally called me to tell me to get a grip."

    I laughed at that. It was a funny mental image. "You never told me that before," I admitted. My mind was racing. Was there any way to abort this conversation? I wasn''t seeing one. Maybe I could set a curtain on fire?

    "They thought I was overestimating you because I was young and you were charming. They all told me I was wrong that you were member material. You were just an asset. And I had to keep telling them. Because I believed in you."

    "And you were right." Not sure how to set a curtain on fire from here without giving myself away. Explosive diarrhea? I don''t know, literally shitting yourself is a funny story but it isn''t necessarily going to stop this.

    She slapped the table, "And I was right. I was right about you and who you are. Mike, was I right about us and who we could be?"

    There wasn''t an answer to that question that got what I wanted, so I just went with, "Andromeda, you know I love being with you."

    "Mike, I''m not asking if you enjoy my company. Gah, Mom said that men are dumb about this kind of thing, but I didn''t think you would be. Well, she had to be right at some point I guess. Mike, are we going to get married?"

    Goddamn it.

 XXIX - Helpful Advice

    <div>

    "Mike, this isn''t a user interface. What don''t you know that''s making it difficult to decide, when will that be resolved, and how will I know?"

    "Well I''d really like to exit limerence before I decide to get married."

    "Limerence?"

    "Uh, it''s the emotional state of infatuation. You know, the thing that makes your brain blurry about romance." I snapped my fingers, "The reason your mom told you to get a grip."

    "So¡­ if you''re still in love with me we can''t get married?"

    "No! Sorry, uh," I felt very distinctly that being a super genius was not helping me as much as I felt like it should here. I took a breath and focused on remaining calm and thoughtful, "The state of limerence usually lasts about two years, and I''d say I fell into it with you around Christmas of 2009."

    "Alright, Christmas 2009. So you''ll know by January?"

    "I think that''s more than fair," I said. The real truth was I almost didn''t know why I wasn''t saying yes right now. Andromeda was a super villain now and keeping her on a leash was very important for my long term success. And I really did love her. Why was I fighting it? It wasn''t like getting divorced would somehow be worse than even half the things I''d done.

    On the bright side, I said as that thought occurred to me, if I needed to break free of Hydra, I could always sacrifice her for the soul stone.

    On my bones, I wondered, what had happened to me?

    --

    "You blew it," Gert said, peaking her head around the door. She was a cute ten year old, with a round face and a bob of black hair.

    "Sweetie," Stacey replied, looking at her seriously, "Mike is working through an important life decision. He shouldn''t make up his mind at a dinner table because that''s when Drama brought it up."

    We were standing around in the cluttered Yorkes kitchen, which had lots of knickknacks and a heavy aroma to it. I had come over to try Dale and Stacey''s new meat substitute, which was excellent. But I had been so visibly distracted that I had explained the whole thing to Dale and Stacey.

    Look, they''re the top of my social sphere in terms of sociableness and morality. Their marriage was good. Who else was I supposed to talk to about it?

    "When a woman asks you if you want to marry her, you''re supposed to say yes."

    "I''m with Gert on this one," Dale said, raising a glass of juice in salute. "Women like to hear yes, you''ll be paying for this one for a long time."

    "Dale!" Stacey said

    "Look, Chaucer figured this one out a long time ago is all I''m saying." Stacey glared at Dale for that one, but let it slide. Referencing the Green Knight is always a risky move, but it looks like Dale had skated through it.

    "I appreciate the honesty," I told Gert, offering her a fist bump which she graciously accepted.

    "Drama''s cool and you like her, what''s the problem? Are you guys not sexually compatible?"

    I laughed as Dale blushed. "Gert, that''s uh, that''s not something that you ask people about their relationships."

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    "Mom says its really important."

    Dale made several faces before settling into an acknowledgement. "Your Mom''s right, of course it is, but it''s also private. Why don''t you come with me and we can get you started on your Spanish homework."

    "He''s being dumb," Gert said as Dale escorted her from the room.

    "Maybe," I acknowledged. Yes, I thought privately, probably in many different ways.

    Stacey leaned over after her husband had left the room, "Are you though? Sexually compatible, that is."

    I covered my face with my hands, "Let''s go back to talking about the meat substitute. Food meat substitutes. Food meat substitutes."

    "She''s not pregnant, is she?" Stacey asked, throwing in a helpful hand gesture as if I might otherwise be confused.

    "No."

    "Good. Not that it matters of course, don''t marry a woman because she''s pregnant. You''re very well off, you can ensure your children are taken care of and you can live with whoever you choose."

    "I''ll keep that in mind. Now, the meat substitute, what''s your price point right now?"

    "Oh! So, right now we think we''ll be close to breaking even with normal meat, maybe fifteen percent more. But once we get the supply chains up and running at an appropriate scale, we think within five years we''ll be charging half the cost of a normal burger for a replication that tastes the same and has a better health profile."

    "That''s amazing Stacey. Any word on the miracle gloves?"

    "Ugh," Stacey said, beginning to pace energetically. "We''ve been trying to piece it together, over and over again, and I think I can understand the process that it uses but we''re not any closer to understanding how its produced. It''s not enough to say how it functions, which is somewhat limited anyway, we need to figure out how to produce them."

    "Well, let me know how the procedures go."

    "So are you really going to run for office?"

    I grinned at the question. "Tell me honestly, would you vote for me?"

    "Sure! Why not? You got Jonah off our backs and you''re helping all of us a lot more sincerely than he ever did. Catherine thinks you''d be good at being in charge. Are you going to run for Senate here?"

    "I don''t know, I might try for the Presidency if Ellis keeps running his mouth."

    "Dale and I read your book," she said. "Do you really think those things could happen? Are Gert and Molly in danger?"

    "Not any more here than anywhere else. I haven''t told the public, but I think you know that every single one of those has come dangerously close to happening already. What you''re doing should help. That''s part of why I''m doing this - I don''t want to leave any resources on the table in bringing us up to a competitive level."

    "Yeah, but even if we get all this worked out, I don''t know how what we''re doing helps us in the short term."

    "Well, I know I''ve got you in a holding pattern at the moment. But after I acquire some original samples, I''m hoping to have you working on the Super-Soldier Serum."

 XXX - Getting the Formula

    <div>

    "By all means," Erskine said indulgently, completely unafraid that I would succeed at persuading him to hand over the formula.

    I turned off the lights and pointed my pen at the wall and images began to play of old news reels from my timeline''s 1940s. "What I''m about to tell you is a dangerous secret for me to share and I hope you don''t spread it," that was true. In an objective sense, actually persuading Erskine had been fairly low on my list of options - Telling him about time travel meant risking the SSR finding a way back to my time once they reached parallel with my own present. But the old man was paranoid and wily and had only become more so with time and opposition. "These are images from my past and what was once your future."

    "Was once?"

    "My technological prowess is less prowess and more theft. You see, I am from a future where you were murdered by Heinz Kruger in 1943. It took us a full extra year to win the war. Millions died. And only Steve Rodgers ever became an Enhancile." The SSR was very particular about that terminology. They''d spent the years since the dawn of the Korean War branded as servants of dangerous subversive super-soldiers. To be fair, they were servants of dangerous subversive super-soldiers. Senator Brandt''s committee investigation into the SSR''s engagement with the anti-war movement had uncovered the brute fact that they really had been opposing military action and subverting orders with regards to Korea.

    Erskine hmm''d, watching the screen. "And you saved my life I suppose?"

    I rolled the pen a little and began playing my interaction with Kruger before his death, thoughtfully edited to leave out my or Victor''s face in the final footage. "The issue is primarily targeting. I shall endeavor to destroy Herr Erskine, the runt of a man, and hopefully some others, such as Herr Stark," the pen announced in low-audio quality.

    "Well, I will not say I am not grateful. I am very grateful. Who would say no to another decade? But do not think I will give you my formula out of pure gratitude. Perhaps every huckster in the future has a time machine."

    "Well, actually, the time machine is breaking down. I only have two more trips total and I''m the only one with a machine. But I''m not asking you to do it for me," I replied and rolled the pen again. The next scenes were concocted with the Thoth engine - A replication of the invasion of New York, but across dozens and dozens of cities throughout Earth.

    Erskine looked increasingly grave as he saw Thanos'' stormtroopers (as best I could remember them) clearing streets and dividing people in half and murdering them. "This is my earth, right now. Brutal subjugation of cities, one after another. Military alien overlords - Stronger than us, faster than us, and more technologically advanced than us. And we need help."

    Erskine frowned.

    "Look, I want to give you this tech upgrade stuff. But if I have to negotiate with Brandt instead for samples of Rebel Knight and his ilk, I absolutely will." Siding with the SSR wasn''t exactly as easy a choice as it might seem - For all its faults, the United States government was legitimately elected (except for the Jim Crow South) and the SSR really was a cabal of super-soldiers. But I''d decided that siding with the SSR was the better choice - Why send justice to a vote?

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    Erskine thought for a long, long time.

    ¡ª

    "I got the formula," I said, unclicking my helmet as we landed on the platform. And I''d only had to make a half dozen very false promises about how I would use it ''only to liberate earth'' to get it.

    "How long did it take?" Victor asked, looking at my unshaven face.

    "Subjectively? About a month, including the post-war check in. Objectively? A little less than a decade."

    "Good lord," he said. "Well, at least you got time to think about your engagement."

    "It didn''t help, but thanks." I said, showing him the sheet of paper that Erskine had written his formula on.

    Victor smiled and shook his head. "Do we have a planned subject for this stuff?"

    "I want Dale and Stacey to look at it more closely, see if I missed something about it."

    "Then who will you give it to?"

    "It depends," I said, stripping out of the damn Leapfrog and swearing it off for a few months at least. "Erskine proved it had a fairly broad range of potential subjects and I''m not sure, in full honesty, that he didn''t take it himself. Or maybe a prototype version. He was seventy four in 43. But he was very selective about personalities and even so they managed to turn the SSR."

    "Like Captain America did in your timeline," Victor said.

    "One thing the Serum does not seem to do is imbue you with a sense of humility and a respect for the democratic process."

    "Well, why would it? It''s all a crock anyway."

    My kingdom for just one person in this damn universe who believes in good government even in principle and likes me, "You know I''m running for Senate next year right?"

    "Sure," he said. "It makes sense for you to run. You need the political power to be able to do the things that need doing. And that''s just my point. Why should people like you and I have to scrimp and bow for people who don''t understand the most basic principles of science or logic? My god, some of these ''elected officials'' don''t even believe in climate change. They can''t see what''s right in front of their face."

    I wanted to argue, but I didn''t have it sincerely in me. Brandt had been, well, I wouldn''t characterize him as particularly bad for his era - He''d been a replacement level Senator in the forties. A bit bigoted, a bit of an imperialist, a glory hound, and an unreconstructed believer in American power and the cause of capitalism. He''d tried to have me taken into custody, yes, but I would have done the same - I was an invaluable resource. As far as I could tell, the modern array of senators were even emptier and more venal. Brandt had been shaped by the war, but this current crop were a bunch of late-imperials that could no more imagine sacrifice for any cause beyond their own personal advancement than they could the end of American hegemony.

 XXXI- Micron Particle Work

    <div>

    "Alright, we''re going to need to add to the stabilizer here," I called out to the room full of worker drones. "Doctor Zola, I had a few survivals, and I don''t see any reason for your experience to be any less successful than theirs, but you know I can''t guarantee your life.

    Killing Arnim Zola had not been a hard choice. You can''t advance in Hydra by killing your superiors, the internal system is incredibly wonky but it does in fact provide that benefit. There is no Hydra bank account.You can''t get Stern''s senate seat by killing Stern, control over SHIELD by killing Pierce, or the credit line of my financiers by killing them. Any amount of murdering your superiors means reducing Hydra''s resources, no heads come to prominence without power and influence of some sort. You certainly couldn''t get anything of Zola''s from him. But I wasn''t killing Zola for advancement.

    "That is alright, Mr. Trent," Zola said from inside of his screen. "I am prepared to risk much to live in the world once again."

    In Zola''s case, the power he offered (much like the power I offered) was his mind. Zola was not the commander of any substantial resource when he had come to the U.S. in chains that would be lost in the event of his demise. His primary property, so to speak, was the bunker in which his mind resided. And from my perspective, his mind was the problem, not the solution. Someone had designed the Project Insight program and, given everything I knew about Zola''s expertise, I knew he had probably done it.

    "Alright, the stabilizer should hold you at a portable size," I said, discretely pouring the shrunken vials that contained my home-grown magnetic-tape hungry bacteria. When the shrink process went through its first phase, they would stay small but the ray effects would wear off and the size of the shrunken bacteria would become appreciable again.

    I''d finished my research on shrinking machine minds and the answer seemed to be that it was basically fine. A few euthanized Hydra machine minds, however, had allowed me to increase to implication of risk. Building a wheelchair for Werner von Braun wasn''t the worst thing I''d ever done, but it also was very far from how I wanted to spend my time.

    "Thank you, Mr. Trent, you have done an old man a great favor," Zola said. It made my stomach squirm a little, I''d never actually known someone I was killing before but the idea of not killing him was too absurd to contemplate. However beautiful and unique Zola''s mind, Project Insight had to be stopped.

    "Just giving you a wheelchair, that''s all," I said with my best smile, "Alright folks, that''s the last setting, everybody let''s get the outer case on this thing."

    ---

    I leaned over Kilgrave''s body in a morgue set aside for my use in Sydney, Australia. He looked exactly like David Tenant and I had finally, finally nailed him through a credit company that a Hydra agent worked for catching a cluster of anti-confirmed suspicious splurges in his standard spending pattern. Sent Andromeda over, had her mute her headset and then slit his throat. Easy enough.

    "So what are you hoping to get from him?" Andromeda said as I stuck a needle deep into his spinal column.

    "I''m more interested in an immunization to this sort of influence than a replication."

    "Kind of boring, isn''t it? Think of everything we could do with mind-control¡­"

    "You mean, nothing?" I said, taking out the syringe and putting it into a freezer with the rest of them. "Kilgrave is dead because he had to maintain a nomadic pattern to go unnoticed and he didn''t do it perfectly enough that I couldn''t catch him. Look, if I just wanted to be rich on the move, Kilgrave''s power is very useful. But any fool who thinks that the structures of power wouldn''t hammer stomp this guy the moment they found out how his power worked if he was trying to influence things is a moron."

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    "We could use mind control to carry out high profile assassinations," she pointed out.

    "A few times," I admitted as I grabbed a knife to cut Kilgrave open. "But being body controlled, probably the more accurate term, is¡­ not subtle. People would start to recognize the testimonies of victim-assassins or the murder-suicide pattern would get suspicious. And then, once again, everyone with any stake in anything would come down on the users like a ton of bricks. Unless you want to mass disseminate a mind control drug, that would be us."

    Andromeda pulled a face, "Fair enough. The sheer amount of trouble the plebs would cause with such an ability is probably not worth the marginal benefits."

    What I didn''t tell her was that in fact I did intend to figure out how to replicate and propogate the effects. As a self-defense mechanism, it was a convenient form of neutralization for anyone who closed the distance to me. It might also be useful for crowd dispersal or as a replacement for drone strikes, if I ever reached a prominent enough level in the U.S. government to use it.

    But nonetheless, Kilgrave''s power was intense. I couldn''t remember if the power from the show was the chemical one or the biological one, but it looked like it was a viral one now that I had it in hand. A viral delivery at a much higher load might give me persistent control for long period of times - But it could also be used to control me for long periods of time, so that was a problem that needed fixing before I considered any other path.

    "Looking forward to my session with Stern and your uncle," I said. "Hopefully they can give me some useful organizing advice for running a campaign." Jonathan Stern and Keith Strider were the two highest elected officials in Hydra - Stern sat committee chair for the Democrats on Armed Services as Senator from Pennsylvania, Strider was the Republican governor of Louisiana. Neither of them had much in the way of personal charisma or funds, they''d been buoyed by Hydra membership and a deep connection to their state''s party machines. That was somewhat opposite to the way that I intended to take California, but any insight that they have would be useful.

    "Seems risky to be running against the Democrats in an off-year for a Republican president."

    "Ellis hasn''t been able to do anything, and there''s nothing voters love more than a quiet government. But thanks to the new jungle primary system, I''ll be able to run as an independent who plans to caucus as a Democrat." In my old life, I had been a literal party officer within the local Democratic Party in the reddest square of Texas, but here in the MCU I wanted to win an election in California against an ossified Democratic incumbent who hadn''t updated his policy position since he won the seat in congruence with Reagan. Hawkish, socially more-moderate-than-my-opponent, pro-government actually working. Responsible, non-radical governance with a reformer''s air. That''s what I was planning on offering the world.

    And being right about the aliens of course.

    "You''re the genius," Andromeda said as my phone started buzzing.

    "Worst case scenario, I have to go back to the drawing board, sorry, let me get this," I had told them only to call for emergencies.

    "Sir, there''s been a Micron Particle backfire - We managed to evacuate the workers, but the whole plant just collapsed into a singularity."

    "What?"

    "The Micron Particles self-accelerated, took the whole place down."

    That¡­ shouldn''t have been possible. Of course, I would check before I decided conclusively but my mind couldn''t help going to the most likely explanation.

    Pym.

 XXXII - Hank Pym

    <div>

    Things weren''t looking great on my other end either. "Pierce is concerned," Drama said as if stating the obvious. "But luckily, you''ve got Zola in your corner now."

    "That''s encouraging." That wasn''t encouraging at all.

    According to my projections, Zola would probably live another month but he''d inevitably have a nasty and grim demise as his materials were corrupted. Then, in the eyes of the heads of Hydra, I would have two massive fuckups on my hands. I would have lost a crucial factory, embarrassed myself in the public press, and lost one of the greatest minds of science and sociology and the only successfully uploaded human being.

    We drove up to the site of the production facility, or what was left of it. Millions and millions spent on security, but there are limits to how much you can secure while getting workers in and out of a factory. Storage was easier. The asymmetry of shrinking tech was showing. I walked into the short stack of walls and loose debris that hadn''t gotten picked up by the singularity. Shrinking singularities are remarkable bombs - They leave no traces, they disappear with their materials, they scrap months and months of productive work, and nobody can question it.

    As a military application, a singularity was a lot more expensive than a normal bomb. Not particularly worthwhile - Especially when you can shrink and unshrink a normal bomb. I had a few launchers discretely placed around Stark Tower in the event of an attack for those big space whales. But there wasn''t much use to it in terrestrial combat. On the bright side of this attack, I could probably pass the launchers off as research now. Say some local researcher had clustered them urgently? Yeah, that seemed likely to work.

    Instead of using your own Pym Particles, setting off someone else''s supply? Like igniting an oil refinery.

    "I''m sorry babe," Drama said, wrapping her arms around the trunk of my chest and resting her head on my shoulder. I breathed, letting the moment pass through me. I reminded myself that this was only a moment. That I would survive it, one way or another. Nothing had been lost that couldn''t be rebuilt. In ten years, I would look back on this moment and see it as a bump, a difficulty that led to many blessing. Or I would be dead and not have anything to worry about. Unless God was angry with me of course.

    The claims had all been much more plausible before Hydra.

    So I focused on the feeling of Drama at my side, the warmth of her body against mine even in the mid summer heat. The pleasant knowledge of her loyalty, as steady and absolute as any I would need.

    "We''ll survive this. It''s one obstacle, that''s all."

    "Do you think they''ll find any evidence for sabotage?"

    "A bomb like this is, by nature, pretty clean," I said, my eyes giving one last glance over everything before kissing Drama''s forehead. "What it does spit off - Loose Micron Particles - are exactly what you would expect at a Micron Particles production facility."

    "So no?"

    "We''re still doing post-event interviews with employees," I said. We''d signed an NDA on all admitted information, guaranteed severance, and to hold all employees non-liable. I didn''t want to be wrong about this because someone had lied to cover their own ass. "But I''m not optimistic."

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    "Could the particles have self-accelerated?"

    I knew it was bad when Andromeda was questioning my science. "I haven''t ever seen them do anything like that - The electrical stimulation process is fairly specific."

    "Gonna need to be more persuasive sounding for the congressional hearings."

    I let out a long groan, "I know."

    "Hey," she said, pivoting on my chest to be looking me right in the eye. "You''re a sexy Benjamin Franklin. You''ll get through this. What''s the worst case scenario? A few years of delay on this, some setbacks in Hydra. In the long run, you''ll be fine. We''ll handle this obstacle."

    ¡ª

    Never underestimate the benefits of catching people off their guard.

    "Mr. Pym," I said politely as I sidled up next to Hank Pym in the grocery store.

    Hank Pym looked at me and, for just a moment, his eyes dilated. But he tamped it down very quickly, "I''m sorry, do I know you?"

    I wasn''t quite famous enough that the question wasn''t credible, but it was a near thing under the best of circumstances. For the designer of Pym Particles, it was a joke. "Oh, I imagine you do," I said, leaning down and opening a package of eggs to check it for cracks. "After all, I was the first to crack shrinking particles since the seventies."

    "Shrinking particles? I think I read about those in Wired," he said, beginning to move away.

    "Mr. Pym, I''m here because I''m worried about your safety."

    That stopped him in his tracks. He turned around and stared straight into my eyes, "Is that a threat?"

    I held up my hands in surrender, egg crate now held aloft like an ancient sacrifice in one hand. "Not at all," I said. "My factory¡­ imploded."

    "Did it?" Pym said, as if surprised. But it didn''t reach his eyes properly.

    "I was then assaulted by a shrunken person. I didn''t think that was possible, but somebody else must have cracked it. And as a courtesy I thought I should warn you. If they came for me, they might come for you."

    That caught him off guard. It was a lie, of course, but we hadn''t found any suspicious financial activity in anyone from the factory, so an Ant-Man was the best option on the table. As I watched his eyes, I could see the concern set in. "You''re lying," he said after several moments.

    He was right, of course, but I was quite sure I wasn''t displaying any tells. "Mr. Pym, I''m a patriot, and I appreciate your service to our country. There''s not much more to it than that."

    "You''re a thief," he said. "You stole my work. That''s how you knew to warn me. Now someone''s stolen from you and you''ve endangered the world."

    I thought to myself that stuff isn''t yours because you had a good idea forty years ago, but what I said was, "So help me protect myself and the world."

    "It''s easy. Somebody''s trying to send you a message about that. Stop making Pym Particles."

    "No."

    "Then I don''t have anything else to say to you."

    He turned and left me standing there, holding these eggs I didn''t want to buy. I put them up gently. We''d watch Hank, see if he got into contact with his new Ant-Man, whoever that was. Give him a week or two to rethink my offer. I hadn''t wanted to kill Hank Pym. He was a cranky old codger, who''d held humanity back by his paranoia, but that didn''t mean he deserved to die. But if he wouldn''t reconsider this vendetta, it looked like I might have to vanish him.

 XXXIII - Senatorial Meeting

    <div>

    I hadn''t wanted to do this. I had to do this. There wasn''t a choice. He''d shown he was willing to act against me.

    Real persuasive, I thought with active malice towards myself.

    "Andromeda," I said, crumpling the page and setting it on fire. It was in Farsi, so I doubted that she could read it.

    "Yeah?"

    "I need you to get rid of Hank Pym."

    ---

    One benefit of being exorbitantly wealthy is that you can bribe a lot of the right people. Such as Russians with tapes of the old Ant-Man.

    Senator Grace Farfield was the Republican senator from West Virginia. That made her somewhat idiosyncratic and a relatively small dog in the Senate, but she was the ranking Republican of the subcommittee on Security within the Commerce, Science, and Transportation. It was no exaggeration that the coal unions had burned me in effigy. As a Republican, Farfield was no doubt relishing the opportunity to get them fully onside.

    "Mr. Trent," she said, holding up a file for C-Span, "You''ve given us a bunch of data on the process for activating the Micron Particles, pointing to sabotage. Could you point me to an independent researcher who backs up your findings on activation?"

    This was an obvious play. "We have a proprietary right to the developmental process the Micron Particles. Still, we haven''t kept an absolute stranglehold on the materials - The only licensing requirement is that it not be used for human testing." Functionally, anyone who defied me would be risking their license. But I highly doubted that Farfield had read the contracts and I also just wasn''t suppressing any research on this front. "If any researchers have had different findings, I haven''t heard of it. We have offered some to the U.S. government for free, in case it wants to verify my findings on activation."

    "We may do that." She helpfully turned on the recording of my plant''s implosion on a large demonstration screen. "Mr. Trent, do you feel it is appropriate to have built a facility that can explode in an inhabited area?"

    "Our facility," I said very carefully, "Imploded. That means that it got smaller. The only risk was to my own staff and workers. We had thorough safety procedures in the event of sabotage or an accidental activation, which proved adequate to the occasion." That Hank Pym had thoughtfully avoided a single moment singularity was something I left out. "Regardless, I continue to believe that sabotage is the most likely culprit."

    And then it was on to the next Senator. I had no idea how these kind of hearings were supposed to be productive - I could talk circles around any kind of real critique. I was smarter than they were and I knew the science better, the main reason I was here was that I needed to make sure that my name remained intact and we kept the restrictions on Pym Particles to a minimum.

    "Mr. Trent, do you have any evidence anyone other than you possesses the knowledge of the process for the Micron Particle?" Stern asked. This wasn''t his primary committee, but he managed to show up and be well-informed most of the time. Hydra - At least they do their damn homework.

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    This would have been easer if this universe had a sane FOIA equivalent but unfortunately in a world of memetic threats, freedom of information wasn''t a treasured national value. "If you''ll look over at our demonstration screen," I said, pointing to the TV with a Wizard tablet.

    "We have strong evidence that shrinking live specimens induces psychosis. A few weeks ago, I was attacked by a miniature man." I played the old videos from the Cold War of the Ant-Man. "Somebody cracked that problem in the 1970s, working for the United States government. I had reason to believe that someone, either that person or somebody else, had cracked shrinking again. Unfortunately," I said, clicking over to the next video clip of my conversation with Hank Pym, "I don''t think the original was involved."

    Suing Hank Pym, dragging him before a military tribunal, would''ve been satisfying. But just about the only thing I remembered from the Ant-Man movies at this point was that Hank Pym''s obedience to legal restraint was functionally zero. I could take away his stuff, but that would''ve made an enemy. And it would''ve created enemies and liabilities for me in the long term.

    "Did you report this attack to the police?" Stern asked.

    "I did," I said. "Not that they believed me of course. Why would they? A shrunken man? It sounded absurd. My own research had been that it was impossible. I went looking for answers anywhere I could find them - And I found these videos. So I warned the man I thought had been America''s original Ant-Man, Hank Pym, and hoped for the best. And now Hank Pym is missing, has been for two days."

    Going outside in the Marvel Universe when somebody serious wants you gone is always a mistake. I tried to maintain a reasonably thorough protective kit. Shrink ray, bulletproof suits, quick-don helmet, and a bug-out RV in case I was ready for a warning.

    Hank Pym had gone outside and Andromeda got him with a handful of shrink bombs.

    I didn''t know exactly where he was, but I was pretty sure it was deep in the quantum realm, held in suspended animation. It was possible that he was also dead. Hope had managed to get over and spirit away the Ant-Man suit, largely thanks to my running interference with Hydra. The last thing I needed was them figuring out we could mass produce the damn things.

    "President Ellis has said that we shouldn''t take the most aggressive path. But my path is not one of aggression even if it is aggressive - I wanted to use this technology for peace, for the advancement of all mankind. I opposed shrinking men down and using them as spies. I believe that now, the enemies of America have let us know that they''re not interested in a peaceful advancement for mankind."

    "How do you propose we respond?"

    "When I wrote my book on tail risks, the Super Soldier problem was a theoretical one. Now it''s obvious that it isn''t any more. We had this technology in the 1970s and now we don''t because we let an old man sit on it for decades. Now the old man is missing. How many more major risks are we going to endure for the sake of meek reluctance? There is a virtue to being peaceable, but it''s clear that we''re under attack. It is past time that we reject this ostrich approach to America''s security," I thumped the desk in front of me. "It is past time that we move into the future, past time that we act!"

 XXXIV - Thoughts on the Beach

    <div>

    I am not given to regretting. If there is repentance, better restitution than a rending of garments. But I could feel the tug from the back of my mind, that Hope had lost her father. I couldn''t give Nicole back to her children, but I might be able to give Hank back to his daughter.

    But I had done what I had done for good reason and I would not undo it. Not now. Probably not ever. Perhaps I couldn''t even, depending on how his body and mind responded to the deep quantum realm I''d stuffed him into. I was not sure if I liked that thought more or less, but it was easier on my shoulders so it was what I ended with.

    "What''s the matter?" Andromeda said, finishing off a corndog as we sat in the sand of the beach.

    "I''m worried about Zola''s condition," I lied. I lied a lot. There was no one left I was honest with, not even myself.

    "Is he- is he getting worse?" Andromeda''s voice was shaking, as if asking after a beloved uncle.

    "Yes," I said, without further elaboration. Zola''s mind was slipping from him, he was losing words and continuity. They had unshrunken him once the symptoms became unmistakable, but it didn''t do a lick of good. The wheels had come off the wagon, things would continue to label themselves to the wrong parts of his minds, the tapes would continue to fray, the noise would increase, it would end in agony and silence.

    Andromeda let out a scared, sad little noise and I pulled her to me beneath the summer sun. "Oh my god, how''re we going to go on without him?" Andromeda whispered from my breast.

    "We must be strong like he taught us. He bound together and gave us destiny, which we are closer than ever to achieving." I said. Soft words, memories, fear, doubt - Andromeda did not want the ordinary comforts which life affords to us mortals in truth. She wanted strength, the comfort of power and destiny, the new millenarian hopes, these were what Andromeda wanted to hear in a moment like this.

    Andromeda extracted herself from my chest at that, straightening up and wiping the tears from her eyes. "Of course. It''s just¡­ so hard to imagine. Zola has been our shepherd since the war."

    "Then now we must be wolves," I said, my voice sure and steady. "There was never room for shepherding, the costs are too high."

    Andromeda nodded, growing more confident in reflection of my bravado. "They won''t be happy that he is dead. This will be a black mark for you."

    "I warned Zola. If he had been satisfied with a basement, he could''ve lived forever in a basement. But he is Hydra, nothing less than the world could satisfy him. I will answer for my choices, but I will not answer for his."

    "He is Hydra," Andromeda affirmed. Of course, Andromeda was easy to convince. When I answered to Pierce, it would probably be different.

    "Still, it is not as if they could strip me of my rank. I am an integral part of the West Coast operation, worth billions of dollars, and, though I love you dearly, I do not will my goods to you upon my death." As a matter of fact, I actually willed them to Phil Coulson. Maybe my attorneys would be able to find him with a billion dollars attached to the task.

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    "And that''s smart," Andromeda agreed. "I don''t want to marry a sucker."

    "Well, fool me once¡­"

    "And shame on me for it!" Andromeda said with a laugh, before managing to look almost contrite. Not quite. No, to her, the deception was a part of the sweetness of this moment. There could be no regret for it, no sorrow. It had given her what she wanted. And it had given me what I wanted too. Hydra had cleared the field for me to raise the tech level and they''d left me to it. "But I don''t want to be a weapon your rivals can use against you. Pierce and the other heads will have to work with you on this. It''s a setback, but it should stay a temporary one, especially after that Senate appearance."

    People were really talking about me as a senatorial candidate now, Ellis was stubbornly refusing to adjust his policy in any way that made any kind of sense (where did they find this clown?), and I was getting a bunch more bookings on talkshows to talk about the Threat to America. Of course, this particular threat was mostly fabricated, especially since I''d disposed of Pym. But given that I''d failed to derail the Space Stone''s activation, I didn''t feel dishonest in directly and openly stating that we were in mortal peril.

    How had I managed to attack almost every single plot between arrival and Infinity War (except whatever the Dark World was), but not Infinity War itself? Of course, some of the stones were in space. I had no idea where, on the great map of the cosmos, the Soul, Power, Mind, and Reality stones were. The Time Stone was probably somewhere in New York - Or one of the other Sanctums, not that I had any idea at all where those were. But the only plausible choice for a house was locked to me and not, like, a normal door locked but blocked and protected. I guess that in however many futures the Sorcerer Supreme had walked, the ones in which we met were not the ones she was looking for.

    And the Space Stone was somewhere, locked away with a bunch of geniuses for SHIELD, and I had no idea where. There were limits to what I could obtain from SHIELD''s files and Pierce seemed to have deliberately cordoned Andromeda and I off from it.

    "You''re drifting again Mike," Andromeda said.

    "Sorry Drama," I said, standing up and dusting off my trunks. I offered her a hand. "These are heavy times."

    "They are," she said, grabbing my hand. "We''ll face them together."

    "We will," I agreed.

    "So, what''s the next big project?"

    "Victor cracked broadcast power, so we''ll be putting solar panels into geosynchronous orbit, cutting power costs down to less than half a cent per kWh."

    "Goddamn, why? Why are you obsessed with pushing power costs lower?"

    "Lots of ideas I have require massive amounts of energy."

    "Like?"

    "Blasters, sustainable shields, robot drone armies. But mostly, interstellar travel."

    I laughed at the look on Andromeda''s face as I got into my car.

 XXXV - Pitch Meeting

    <div>

    I had killed his mentor, his friend. I had killed Arnim Zola. I needed to convince him that I should not be relegated to the back bench if I wanted more power within Hydra, if I wanted to do more than write checks and build gadgets. And, as far as he could see, I had blown one of my first big tests.

    "Mr. Trent," Pierce said, standing next to his corner window in a room almost too sleek and new. There was no humanity here, no warmth, no pictures of his daughter or his niece and there was nothing in here of glory or battle or songs. Like all of SHIELD, he had been scrubbed from whatever knowledge base my ROB had stripped my knowledge of people from. No fingerprints, no traces. A sharp and silent room that said nothing. The perfect place for the greatest spymaster, the greatest criminal mastermind, in the whole world.

    "Secretary Pierce," I said, standing calmly in my best tailored suit with a briefcase in my left hand. I hadn''t been able to smuggle in any of my traditional accoutrements. SHIELD had instituted a search policy that would''ve stopped me from bringing the shrink ray or my helmet or the pocket RV.

    "Zola is dead, I ordered his shutdown this morning."

    "That''s unfortunate, sir."

    Pierce walked over to his desk and pulled out a can from under it. A Dr. Pepper can and he offered it to me, "I understand this is your drink of choice?"

    "Yes, sir," I said, accepting the can with unease. Was it poisoned? Laced with a truth serum? Was it just an attempt to intimidate me with knowledge about my life? Oh, there was no escape for me if he wanted me to stay. I propped my briefcase against my foot and popped the can open with a hiss to take a drink.

    "Mr. Trent, you''re quite brilliant. Can you tell me how you didn''t see this coming?"

    "I did, sir," I pointed out. "Doctor Zola and I had conversations on the possibility of his death. There were many failed trials, and there wasn''t any way of knowing if I had identified the proper exception. It was his choice, not mine, to go through with the procedure."

    "Mr. Trent, do you know why I joined Hydra?"

    I wished that anyone in this universe would speak in a straight line. But some things are beyond even my excellent social skills to fix. "To assure peace and security throughout the world?" I hazarded.

    "That''s right," he said as he poured himself a short glass of whiskey. "The world was full of chaos and violence, war in perpetuity. Do you know why?"

    I did know why. I knew exactly the answer he wanted me to give. It was not an answer that would help my cause, not at all. But it was Hydra doctrine and it was better to walk into the trap as it clamped shut than to be a heretic at this moment. "Because people do not know how to choose what''s best for them."

    He held up his glass in silence, looking at it with a sour face. "You''re right again, Mr. Trent."

    I breathed in and out. There was no point in fleeing this moment. I let it hang in the air for a long, long time. I wasn''t going to be the fool who punctured it and gave something for Pierce to lash out at.

    Pierce finally put the glass to his lips and slammed the two thumbs of whiskey down his throat in one gulp. "One of the things I like about you," Pierce said, "Is that you know not to say stupid things."

    Responding to that would''ve been a stupid thing, so I just stood silently, waiting.

    "And I think you did well at the hearing. I see that and I can''t help but think that you could be someone, maybe even an heir." He let the compliment hang, as if waiting for me to take the bait and thank him. But he was angry, this wasn''t a compliment session. Any response at all would lead to a sucker punch. Better to let him step out to attack me, to put me into a verbal arena where he had already set the terms. "But then we come back again to your failure to aid Zola in making the correct choice. What happened?"

    The lie had been carefully chosen and crafted. Something specific, something clear, and a conclusion that reflected the deep tenets of Hydra.

    "I let my heart get in the way, sir. I imagined my life in a box in a ground, my face glued to an internet screen. And I knew of Zola. Andromeda speaks of him with the highest admiration. So I thought that he was wise enough to make the determination. I regret the error and will keep my own counsel on my technology in the future."

    "You let your heart get in the way," Pierce said, tapping the rim of his glass. He was thinking. "I had heard you seldom do that. Ms. Albertson''s report, failing me at last?"

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    "I won''t lie to you and pretend that Andromeda is unbiased, but neither will I say her report is inaccurate. I had a moment of weakness, he was Hydra. Hydra would never be satisfied with a basement. I should have told him no, counseled patience, gathered more test subjects. But sometimes even our strength fails us."

    "That they do."

    I wondered if he would pull out a gun and shoot me then, in a brief moment of horror and reflexive memories of Bond villains. But Pierce is a cooler, gentler kind of tyrant. He doesn''t dispose of what he can use. He had employed Fury for years, not because Fury was loyal to the same causes, but because Fury was the best choice for the job.

    "Tell me, Mr. Trent, what do you think Hydra''s plans should be, going forward?"

    "In light of the presence of the Gibborim, it is time we gave humanity something new to fear."

    I had to hope this worked. It had been my plan for a long, long time - Something that would offset the natural suspicion of what I had previously dealt with.

    "The Gibborim is dead," Pierce pointed out.

    "Not Gibborim," I said, kneeling down to my briefcase, Dr. Pepper in hand. I popped the briefcase open and fished out the brief in its manila folder. I slid it over to him.

    He opened it and peered at it, "I''m not an engineer, Mr. Trent," he commented.

    "It''s spaceship sir. One that could traverse the stars themselves."

    "Mr. Trent, humanity is not ready to encounter the wider universe."

    "Of course not," I waved a hand dismissively. "That is precisely why we must go."

    "Explain," Pierce said, his voice patient, calculating.

    "We send out a small team of our professionals, Hydra preferably but that isn''t really important. They gather knowledge and then return to Earth with reports of giants and monsters, like Joshua''s spies. When humanity discovers that it is not alone in the universe, it will rightfully be afraid. A whole universe of beings, creatures not as unlike us as we might have hoped or feared, but powerful, numerous, and more advanced than we are. And we will look at each other, we humans, as we do in fire, flood, and famine." I held up my free hand closed it into a fist. "And we will come together. As the allies overcame ideology for fear of the Germans, as Americans overcame our enmity with the Germans to face the Soviets. In one fell swoop, we would be united. One tribe, one blood, one people."

    "Perhaps instead fools will slip out to sell us for trinkets, like the Aztecs and their enemies tore each other to pieces before the Spanish."

    "I admit it is a possibility. That is why Hydra must maintain a tight control on interstellar travel. But it seems more likely that mankind will at last see its interests united." I said, scurrying at the thought. "We''re a long way from a final decision."

    "They may never come," Pierce reminded me. I wanted to laugh. I knew destiny was calling for us.

    "They have come already and if there are GIbborim, if there are Asgardians, than who knows what greater threats are out there in the universe. There are more. Many more. Stronger, fiercer than us."

    "So you want to charge out to meet them," Pierce said.

    "I want us to see them," I said. "And I want the world to cast around for a voice, a leader, someone who can speak for all mankind."

    "You?" Pierce sounded more amused at the idea than it really deserved.

    Yes, of course me, you old fool, I wanted to say, I wanted to shake him. Me because I can see the world, I can see its people, its bright future, and I can chart a path. I who would give them a hope and a future. Not you, hoarding secrets and hiding futures, chewing on humanity like a dog on a bone.

    But megalomania is not appealing to other megalomaniacs, even if ambition is respected within Hydra. And if I offered up such a plan, he would''ve rightly laughed me out of the room. "Maybe some day," I said instead. There was no profit in pretending that there was no profit in it. "But not soon, certainly not now. I''m very young."

    "Then who?"

    If you want to tempt someone, you have to offer them something they want. And I had an idea of what Alexander Pierce wanted. "There is a global organization, dedicated to the defense of mankind in the face of threats far larger than one government could handle."

    And Pierce''s lips quirked upwards and I knew I had him.

    "It would only be natural to look to it for guidance. To its leader, a seasoned man, a sure man with the years and experience we need for such a massive transition." Worst case scenario, I could always kill him and let Fury take the reins. "You."

 XXXVI - Captains and Ships

    <div>

    He hadn''t been back long, just a month or so. They''d put him in a cabin in the woods with something called the internet and a screen that pumped films into the room. But he didn''t have much to him on that front - He was just out here, detoxing.

    Someone knocked on the door and Steve Rogers straightened up. He was a legend now. Captain America, the great symbol of America''s nobility of spirit. He didn''t want people to see him like this - Didn''t want them to be let down. Steve walked over and opened it.

    "Natasha," he said, waving her in. She was beautiful, her hair was red at the moment, and she was carrying a folder with her.

    "Guess you haven''t seen the news," Natasha said, looking at the teevee screen. It was gathering a bit of dust.

    "I, uh, was enjoying the quiet."

    "Told Clint we shouldn''t put you in a place like this. Got you contemplating. your own shadow."

    "It''s not too bad, the weather''s nice, I can go for a run, think."

    "Don''t have to give anybody autographs?" Natasha said with a turn of her head as she flicked on the teevee with that little black wand.

    "That too," Steve grinned sheepishly.

    "Look, I get it. My line of work, attention is a problem. But paying attention, that''s important. Come on, Grandpa, let''s have a look at the news, give you a glimpse of my future. This son of a bitch slipped it right past us."

    "This a mission?"

    "Probably not, we''ve got the guy responsible in interrogation, but it''s mostly above board. He''ll have to pay some fines, but he can afford to. Plus, we don''t put guys who can do this sort of thing away permanently."

    "What''s this sort of thing?"

    Natasha clicked on a glowing icon and toggled into the Thoth screen. There was a picture, a picture Steve was still getting used to, of the Earth taken from outer space. The future wasn''t all bad, Steve thought, as she clicked play. "People who can make the world a whole lot bigger."

    ¡ª

    I felt the thrum of my ship beneath me, the design of the core was stable. I had performed this jump a dozen times with drones. From a safety perspective, it might be better to send someone else, but that would be illegal in a way I couldn''t pay off with fines.

    This had been my plan in general, but Pierce''s in particulars. I needed to publicize it wide enough, without SHIELD''s intentional permission, that we got the response I needed. I was broadcasting onto the Thoth monitors world over.

    I turned on my screen and began to broadcast to the custom buoy I had designed to carry communiques.

    ¡ª

    "Fellow citizens of Earth," the lean looking man said, his handsome face tinged with the beginning of frown lines and gray hair. "You may not know, but my name is Michael Gideon Trent, and I am about to be the first human being to exit our solar system."

    Stolen from Royal Road, this story should be reported if encountered on Amazon.

    "The solar system? I thought we hadn''t even made it to Mars?" Steve had been a bit disappointed when he discovered that Mars had been a barren rock and not the romantic world it was in the pulps, if he was being honest.

    Natasha shrugged, "You knew Stark, you''ve seen what these geniuses can do up close. He has a gift. Just wish he hadn''t blown it wide open like this."

    "Blown it wide open?"

    "I just wish that we''d had the chance to think before he made it public like this."

    There was a secondary viewpoint on the screen now, a vision of the outside of the cockpit, hovering over the pale blue earth from a significant distance.

    "As I depart from our mother world''s warmth," Trent began, pressing a button on his console.

    Then there was a lurching, blurring of lights, a stretching effect, and the ship coughed out over a new planet, a brown one, whirled with red light and littered with drifting stones. If Steve was being honest, Trent looked a little sick on the viewpoint.

    ¡ª

    I took a moment to look on the world I had discovered with my own eyes. I had left Earth. I had left the cradle of our world, I had left it all behind. I had done what no human, except Captain Marvel insofar as she counted, had ever done.

    I''d like to say the first thing I said was my speech, but the first thing I actually said was, "Guh." Hyperspace travel is a nasty thing.

    I took a moment to breathe it in, to feel the moment wash over me, and then I finished my speech, "I leave behind the childish squabbles of earth. Let us live now, together, in peace and unity, as the children of one mother."

    There was a long silence and then I said, "If I might take this moment to do something a little bit more personal and a little bit more intimate, I know that I''ve just made the world bigger for everyone. But there''s someone whose made my world bigger than I thought possible. Her name''s Andromeda Albertson and I''d love to face this broad new future with her. Andromeda, will you marry me?"

    ¡ª

    Steve smiled, "That''s nice."

    "Bit flashy," Natasha said with a shrug, but Steve didn''t believe it.

    "Did she say yes?"

    "She will, probably, but she''s under interrogation. Works for us, claims she had no idea."

    "Do you think that''s true?"

    "I think it doesn''t matter," Natasha said. "We''re not gonna fire his fianc¨¦, even if it was technically illegal and she was under obligation to report."

    "Innocent until proven guilty, I guess," Steve said uncomfortably. Truth be told, he didn''t think it was appropriate that Ms. Albertson was getting special favors based on who her boyfriend was, but it also didn''t make sense to fire her if they didn''t know she''d done anything wrong. So it all balanced out in the end. "Why''re you here?"

    "That''s the big news for you, Captain America," Natasha said, handing him the folder under her arm. "He wants you to lead the next mission."

 XXXVII - Job Offer to Rip Van Winkle

    <div>

    "Captain Rogers," I said, smiling and extending my hand. He took it and shook it back.

    "Mr. Trent," he said, sitting down in the mostly featureless interrogation room where I had been waiting for him.

    I began to internally recite goals to myself to stay calm. I must not reveal my evil schemes. I must not appear to be a smarmy asshole. I must appeal to Captain America without doing either of those things. "Congratulations on your life as a bridge of trust in an untrusting world I guess."

    "Thanks," he said, sitting down across from me. "Saw your proposal. Did she say yes?

    "Unfortunately, she''s been incommunicado since I got back to Earth two days ago," I said, not bothering to hide my grumpiness about the fact. That was a good proposal and I was having to wait for her response for far too long. "She works for the government, some nondescript threat analyst. I guess people are worried she leaked something? Not really clear on that. I''m getting worried about her." I wasn''t actually worried. We''d agreed in advance that losing her position in SHIELD was something that might happen anyway. And Pierce would prevent any serious legal consequences for her.

    Steve smiled and shook his head, looking down at the ground. "She''s fine," he said after a moment.

    "Do you know where she is?"

    "No¡­ But I know who she''s with."

    And there it was, an opportunity to use his honor against him. "Then how can you know if she''s okay?" I fretted momentarily. "I don''t know if you can appreciate this, Captain, but Andromeda is my first love and I''m worried about her."

    "I understand that," he said, taking a breath and looking distant. "Believe me, I understand."

    "Oh. I''m sorry," I paused for space, "I guess you left somebody behind when you left New York in ''43."

    Steve laughed for a moment, "Not exactly."

    "I''m sorry," I said sincerely. And I was sorry. We hadn''t had the aging glitch in our time travel practices, but I was still conducting minor experiments hoping to get it going. If I did, I would be able to give Steve his true love and SHIELD a figurehead that could rival Pierce in prestige. And then I could probably dose Carter with the Super-Soldier serum and they could have a hundred and twenty years.

    Look, I really like Captain America and Peggy Carter okay. They''re cool.

    "Thanks," he said. "I''ll check on your hopeful fianc¨¦ after this meeting. So, they said you wanted to talk about me being your next captain?"

    Space was, technically speaking, the "province of all mankind, held in trust" by a "select committee" appointed by the U.N. that was actually the SHIELD board of directors. There are lots of those little select committees that are made up of the same people or their lieutenants because SHIELD, technically speaking, does not exist. Or rather, its extant forms are actually deputized agencies of national governments. SHIELD exists to protect Earth from alien threats or from runaway technological chain reactions. Is it good at this job? For awhile. But that shared interest was enough to knit together real concessions from the leaders of Earth''s nations.

    Expanding on those concessions was the crux of the whole plan here

    "Sure, the deal''s simple - I build the scout ship and SHIELD staffs it with reliable people, you included. Together, we broadcast early exploratory efforts. Humanity takes its first broad steps into a wider world."

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    "I gotta ask, why''d you do it yourself?"

    "I didn''t know that SHIELD existed," I said after a moment. "But I knew that extra-orbital space was ''held in trust'' for all mankind. And I don''t trust people who think they know better than everybody else."

    "But you know better than all the leaders of the free world?"

    Yeah, I guess Cap would have a rosier vision of the United Nations since he just came from them being the strongest force against literal Nazis and Hydra terrorists. "It''s not about me knowing better. The world is full of people who try to rule by brooding over their secrets. I''m not trying to rule anybody, I''m just trying to lead. To show that there''s a better world out there. I''ve never made a secret of my inventions or tried to leverage them without the consent and feedback of a free government and a free nation. But I''m not going to sit in silent reverie to laws written by bureaucrats when nobody was looking. If mankind wants to stay on Earth, well, they know they can leave. I''ve done my part."

    "But you think they don''t,"

    "You wouldn''t be here if they didn''t." I shrugged, "Democracy is a beautiful thing."

    "Now that, we can agree on."

    "So will you do it, will you be the representative of the free world into the wider universe?"

    "Why me?" Steve asked

    "Seriously?"

    "I''ve spent almost seventy years on ice. I don''t know how to work a computer or how to operate these modern telephones. Why put me on this ship?"

    "Well, I''m a big fan of yours, first of all, and I wanted to give you a chance to make a mark on the world that was as beautiful and peaceful as you deserved. I guess that''s a silly reason, but I''m far from the only one. You''re new to the twenty first century, so I know you don''t have too many allegiances. But all the reports I could find about you were that you were smart, kind-hearted, and brave. That you fought, not just for a flag, but to, ''vanquish cruelty, evil, and privation in all their forms'' and to advance the cause of democracy on the earth. I don''t know what''s out there - I hope that space is full of gentle-hearted geniuses who''ve outgrown our earthly foibles, but I''m afraid that there might be some stellar empire ready to turn us into slaves or a rubber colony or to slaughter our families and children and steal our homes. I want to send someone out there who can fight, who is smart, but I don''t want to send someone to start a war. I want to send our best - And that isn''t just you, obviously, but it definitely includes you. "

    My stomach churned within me. The words were close enough to true. They could''ve been true, in another life, in another world. They could''ve been the reasons, all of the reasons, for doing this. But I actually thought that Captain America would always be at odds with life as a standard agent of SHIELD, a spy. Life as the leader of the first interstellar team would be different, and I didn''t know how long the missions would be. That would keep Cap busy for anything I was doing.

    "I think that the reports you''re reading are a little too flowery," Steve said. "And I''m flattered. But if there could be stellar empires out there, why go at all?"

    "It''s not really very complicated from my perspective. If there are stellar empires, they''ll come here one way or the other. There''s no safety in the ostrich approach. Better to know and be able to act. Imagine if they came to Earth when we were in the middle of a world war, think of how dangerous that would be. Better to know the truth, make our decisions from there."

    Steve thought about it for a long moment and extended a hand across the table, "I can work with that."

    I shook it and said, "Can you please get them to let my girlfriend go, though? I''m getting anxious about that question."

 XXXVIII - She Said Yes

    Look, I was expecting her to say yes. Obviously I wasn''t expecting her to say no. We''d had a conversation about it. But I''m not going to lie that when she jumped into my arms and gave me a very long, fierce kiss that I was not relieved when it ended.

    "Of course I''ll marry you," she said as I lowered her back to the ground.

    "Would''ve disappointed people if you''d sai-,"

    Andromeda put a finger over my lips, "No quips," she said, her voice almost shaking.

    I smiled, pulled her against my chest and whispered, "I''m glad you said yes," into her hair. We stood there for a moment, breathing in the smell and the warmth of each other.

    "You ready for the press conference?" Andromeda said after a too short forever.

    "Hand," I demanded and she put her hand into mine and I slid on a ring. "I love to talk to The People, Andromeda, you know that."

    "You''re the best of us at it."

    That was certainly true. Everybody else had too much of a superiority complex to speak to the masses without seeming hollow.

    I held her hand and walked out to the flashing of cameras outside the Triskellion. I waved, totally confident. If there was one thing I trusted in this world, it was my ability to carry off a press conference just fine.

    There was a huge chatter and I held up a hand to quiet them, "Let me just start with the most important piece of news for me in the past of couple of days," and I lifted Andromeda''s hand into the air, "She said yes!"

    That got a polite smattering of applause and laughter.

    "Alright, let''s get started, hands up for questions."

    "Mr. Trent, you''ve opened up a new front in science yet again. What''s the next step for you?"

    Gosh the tech press could be fawning at times, "I intend to hand over serious exploration to the nations of the world and support them in the decisions. Personally, I''m working with Nemo on some exciting efficiency improvements on power delivery. Though who knows, maybe next week I''ll break out the super soldier serum."

    I expected people to laugh at that one. It wasn''t particularly funny, but it was such an obviously ridiculous idea that I was waiting for the crowd. Instead, someone meekly put their hand up and I pointed at it.

    "Really?"

    I put my free hand behind my head and scratched a little, "Ah, sorry. That was a joke. What I''m doing makes sense to me, I guess it must seem pretty incredible to you all. I do not expect to be releasing the super soldier serum any time soon. Another question for the brave fellow who asked that one."

    His name was Andrew Keys, big writer for a space news zine. "Do you know anything about what sort of missions are planned?"

    "Well, I think we''ll try to jump single jumps like I did for the early missions, so they''ll be pretty short. I expect there will be lots of news for you all to dig into."

    "Mr. Trent, given your conflicts with President Ellis, do you think there will be issues between the two of you on this front?"

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    Sometimes, it''s better not to throw your political rivals under the bus. I had little doubt that Ellis wouldn''t be excited about space exploration - He was too small c-conservative for that. But he could pretend and I could make this not a fight if that''s what he wanted.

    "The United States has long been a country of frontiersmen and people who want to see over the edge of the world. Our flag is planted on the moon with a message of peace from all mankind. We''re a monument to the questing, exploring spirit of humanity that''s reaching ever outward and upward. I don''t think President Ellis will deny that spirit whatever our differences, but even if he does, extra-orbital space belongs to all mankind, and it isn''t solely up to him."

    Another hand, another question. It went on like that for awhile, talking about the specifics of the ship - it had a mild gravity field that helped it achieve take off, I had designed it personally, all reports of re-appropriated alien tech were rumors as far as I knew, you get the picture. I tried to wear them down but there were too many of them and eventually I just wanted to go eat and change my shoes.

    "Alright, that''s a good set of questions. You guys are too tough for me! I''m going to make one final comment and then I''m going to go have a celebratory dinner with my fianc¨¦e."

    The reporters smiled at that.

    "Two days ago, I looked down upon an alien world and I thought, not of how strange and marvelous it was, but of how strange and marvelous this world of ours is. I thought of the freedoms that I had gotten, the education I had received, the kindnesses that had been done, this country that I love and this love that I have found," I held up Andromeda''s hand like a trophy and she laughed a little. "Such wonders make the marvels of planetary rings and alien stars seem small. There are those who will insist that this proves how small we are. But they are wrong, these are just our first trembling steps into a wider world. There is reason to be cautious, to be careful, to be wise. But there is no reason to feel small and pathetic, I have every conviction that our light will expand to fill a thousand stars with all the wonders I have found here. Nothing can stop it. But because I want that light to spread brighter and faster, because I feel an even stronger bond today with my fellow countrymen and sojourners on this earth. It clarified some things for me. That I want to serve my fellow Americans in the best way that I can. So tonight, I want to announce my candidacy for the position of Senator of the great state of California where I hope to bring my own unique perspective and skills to advancing our nation and the world."

    The chatter broke out again, but I grabbed Andromeda and rushed through the crowd to the limo waiting for us, climbing in grinning like a maniac.

    "Wow, you almost sounded like you believed that," Andromeda whispered from her seat next to me after we told the driver where to go.

    I kissed her forehead and didn''t say that I did believe it. Who knows, maybe I didn''t.

 XXXIX - A New Head

    <div>

    My beautiful fiancee was sitting on the mid-century couch of my sparsely populated living room in some very flattering workout clothes, looking up at me with a smile that somehow still took my breath away. The world wasn''t fair. There were so many people with so much less than me. But I was the guy sowing the seeds of prosperity for all mankind, an end to scarcity, to hunger, to want. This was just an early return on that investment.

    "You know they say your body is your temple," she said, referencing when we first met.

    "Well, it''ll make you praise with a joyful noise," I replied with a wink.

    She laughed at that and got up off the couch, throwing her arms around me, "Thank you for working on the dance routine with me."

    My dance skills weren''t great, but it was important to her that we have a good dance for our wedding. I put my hands around her hips and started to step slowly to an invisible tune. "It''s basically the only thing I have to do with those planners you hired."

    Andromeda laughed, kissed my cheek and said, "So glad I don''t have to worry about the details. The invitations are basically written up by my mom, the planners handle all the stuff, and I''m wearing my mom''s dress for the wedding."

    "Very uncomplicated."

    "I like things uncomplicated," Andromeda said, stepping up the tempo and forcing me to match her beat.

    "You''re a spy,"

    "I have desk duty now. I''m not sure I want to keep doing it. Would that be okay?"

    I smiled at her, "I''m richer than the Pharaohs, unless you want to buy a million dollars worth of prostitutes a day, it''ll be fine."

    "So a hundred thousand dollars worth of prostitutes is fine?"

    "I would prefer no prostitutes."

    Andromeda gave a theatrical sigh, "No prostitutes it is, then. May it never be said that I am not agreeable."

    I kissed her then, felt her body drawn up against mine, and then almost forgot I was feeling at all. Just her and me.

    It ended too soon of course, and we were back to slow stepping in my house. After awhile, we separated. I, at least, had things to do today. I always had things to do every day. It wasn''t as bad as building the ship had been - That had been an endless series of disasters I had to fix, but it was still something.

    Today, though, was worse.

    "I knew you''d make head fast, but I wasn''t expecting it to be this fast."

    "Hey, I''m the Man of the Year," I said teasingly. "Not a ton of other choices available."

    ¡ª

    I was sitting at a large, long table, holding a Time Magazine naming me Person of the Year. I had already finished it obviously but it was a demonstration of my relative standing in the world. My right leg was shaking from nerves, honestly though not involuntarily. The great roofs of this wine cellar were private and had heavy Hydra guard outside.

    "I''ve never seen you this nervous," Pierce said, leaning against the table and facing away from the door.

    "You''ve never seen me acting this nervous," I corrected. It was a calculated display of vulnerability. I was now, effectively, Pierce''s lieutenant. Or I would be, after tonight. "You''re sure they''re ready for a neophyte to sit at their table?"

    "Hydra is an organization predicated on the belief that the worthy elect should rise and lead the world. They will not resent you¡­ too much. We''re only human, after all."

    "A weakness they should overcome."

    "Of course," Pierce said, offering me a Dr. Pepper before sliding into the chair at the top of the table. "But ambition is a key component in leadership. If I weren''t comfortable with that, you wouldn''t be sitting here."

    I nodded my head in understanding and turned back towards the door.

    The room began to fill. Gideon Malick, presently sitting on the world security council, a middle aged man with a receding hairline. Daniel Whitehall, a skinny scientist who I believed might have been the Nazi from Agents of SHIELD. It had been so long since I watched that show I wasn''t sure. Baron Von Strucker, with his weird little monocle and bald head. He and Whitehall were the two mad scientists besides me within Hydra. Both employed, legally speaking, by SHIELD. An absolute waste of materials. The best we have - And they''re not even that good. The Baroness and the Banker, an upper class woman from Europe, a rich Swiss banker who was probably a major source of pocket books. Octavian Bloom, one of the most prominent men in a number of fields, arrived last, his hair receding like his relevance in the world.

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    "Thank you all for coming," Pierce said. "Things have changed a lot this year. Some for the better, some for the worse. I would like to introduce you to our newest head, Michael Gideon Trent, who''s been making some major splashes."

    There were polite head nods. Whitehall was gauging me like a frog he wanted to dissect. I could see that Strucker was particularly uncomfortable with my preference, his thumb had a very slight twitch that was suspicious. I didn''t grin at them, many of them were European and do not have the effusive face language that we Americans speak natively.

    "I know his unconventional approach has at times struck us as reckless. But I think it''s borne itself out in influence. Today, we welcome him as a head of Hydra. Hail Hydra!" Pierce raised a drink and we all took one with a matching Hail Hydra. I felt a little silly drinking Dr. Pepper, but I don''t like alcohol, it''s only worse with my heightened senses, and I have no idea what it would do to my Super-Brain? so I''m not risking it. "Mr. Trent, if you would, explain the initial plans of Operation SWORD,"

    "The Starward World Organization for Research and Development is the largest opportunity for Hydra since the Tesseract. Space includes a vast supply of materials for our use - And lots of space to move dissident populations ultimately. Earth seems to be a relative backwater for space travel, if our sparse archaeological records of contact are any indication. But we shouldn''t be overconfident," I cautioned quickly. "We all know that the capacity of non-terrestrial species that made contact with humanity was awe inspiring. Indeed, I''m counting on it. Humanity is born to strife, to contempt, to war. Hydra has always understood this. Once, we believed that we could come to power by embodying that trait. But we learned better. So what humanity needs is something outward to target. And there will be many options. We will be ready, ready with political and economic and operational expertise. People will flood to work at SWORD and we will create its culture from the ground up, unlike SHIELD. One dedicated to humanity and the future, not the soft promises of comfort that are all liberal democracies have left."

    "And how," Whitehall said, "do you propose to do that when Captain America is leading a ship?"

    "We shouldn''t view Captain America''s presence as too much of an impediment. I simply want the exploratory vessel to have a viable chance of surviving encounters. That means sending the best. For extraction industries and long-term research, we can make more ideological hires."

    Strucker frowned, "All of this is reckless. Pushing forward without thinking, it''s incredibly American. We should be careful. Precise. There is no rush."

    "Mr. Strucker." I tapped the table, trying to hold my anger in, "The future is full of unknowns. It doesn''t become less dangerous because we bury our heads in the sand."

    "Gentlemen," Pierce interrupted, "It''s a little late for this argument now. Rest assured, all of us will profit handsomely from SWORD''s military, scientific, and industrial contracts as we work toward Hydra''s supremacy over the globe."

    And the meeting went on from there. Strucker was going to be a problem for me. He was not pleased to have me around. Fractiousness was wound into Hydra like barbed wire but it wasn''t anything spectacular. Strucker couldn''t do any more to me than I could to him, not with the social incentive structure that Zola had worked out.

    Afterward, Gideon Malick approached me, "I have an alien artifact, that I''d like you to take a look at."

    "I can make time eventually," I said cautiously. "What''s the artifact?"

    "It''s an ancient object called a monolith, I think it might be a faster form of travel than the spaceship you designed."

    "Fascinating, I''ll definitely make time to look into it," is this the space cult guy? I had stopped watching SHIELD but I heard that there was like a secret space cult origin. "But I have a wedding in process now."

    "Of course, when you''re able," he handed me his contact info.

    In the meantime, I had some destinies to reshape in Sokovia.

 XL - Sokovias Twins

    <div>

    "Power is the only path to liberation for Sokovia," I said, my voice steady. "Power enough to protect yourselves, to change the course of Sokovia."

    Giving people super powers is risky business. Giving people the Super Soldier Serum is even riskier. As far as I could tell when I was on Erskine, the personality effects are fairly mild - Mostly increasing confidence, the sort of thing you would expect when you went from a normal human being to a titan of physical musculature and health who could live to be comfortably a hundred and thirty. It was the effect you had on other people that was the real difference. Red Skull, Captain America, the Erskine Enhanciles. They had moved nations, changed the world. Inspired fanatical devotion.

    "What kind of power," Wanda asked, taking the lead on the negotiation while her brother tried to menace behind her. "Can we stops tanks and bullets?" The Maximoff siblings began their life as anti-war organizers, a fact that brought me a great deal of pleasure. For my purposes, this is a perfect disposition. SHIELD was being petitioned to intervene there, they were petitioning for a free government.

    I slid her a picture of Captain America from the war, "That kind of power." It said

    She picked up the picture and held it in her hand before she threw it to the ground. "We don''t need more soldiers."

    "I''m not looking to make you one," I said politely, leaning down and picking the picture up, folding it in my hand. "I''m looking to set you free to protect Sokovia as you see fit. Captain America, the Red Skull, both had a charismatic power to them. You know people, but you''re basically anonymous. Just two kids, living hand to mouth, trying to make the world a better place. I sympathize with your cause. I can make you icons."

    "And why would you do that?" This kid was remarkably cold and suspicious for someone who got suckered by Ultron. I guess the contexts were different.

    "The world is very interconnected now," I said, trying not to spout off about the drawbacks of globalization and the exploitative nature of capitalist extraction from developing nations that had undergirded both superpowers'' international strategies in the Cold War, "And it can no longer afford to be interconnected on the basis of force. The time is already here where there need to be¡­ bonds of friendship. But friendship isn''t born on the edge of the sword."

    "And this is your beatific gift?" Wanda asked, leaning back as if the thought appealed to her.

    "Sometimes I may ask you for help," I conceded, "To protect the world from tail threats. And I''d like you not to ever mention it was me. I don''t think that''s objectionable, do you?"

    Wanda turned to her brother, who was pacing anxiously and he nodded.

    "Alright, we''ll do it."

    ¡ª¡ª

    The lightshow and screaming came to their ends pretty quickly from within the pods and I switched them off. Wanda and Pietro stepped out of their green pods in my mobile tent. Pietro was six and a half feet tall now, all lean muscle. Without looking I tossed Wanda a shirt. Pietro laughed, "Surely you''ve seen plenty of ladies."

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    "I''m engaged," I said sitting down on a stool next to my lone desk and shrinking both the pods once they were clear. The whole process was much easier in the twenty first century.

    "It worked," Wanda said after she pulled on the shirt. She was shorter than Pietro at six feet tall but she was much buffer than an average woman. More of a mixed martial arts build than the Body Builder Captain American, but it was a very much muscular build. "So are you going to use it on yourself?" She asked.

    "Can''t," I said, tapping my skull. "Not sure this thing is vanilla and I don''t want to risk it." I was sure it wasn''t vanilla and didn''t want to risk it, but it was barely even a lie.

    "Fair enough," she said, lifting the shirt to touch her abs.

    Pietro was standing on his hands as an exercise, then on one hand as an exercise, then on one finger. Much more aggressive with his powers. Interesting. "So this is it, we part ways here until you send up a signal flare."

    "That''s about the size of it," I said, taking out a measuring tape and walking over to him. My senses were very precise, but I wanted to make sure I got measurements right, "I''m going to be making you both combat gear. But you want your country to be free, so I don''t imagine most of it will be useful."

    "People will listen to us?" Wanda asked, spinning around like a ballerina .

    "It''s not magic. I''m not even sure how it works. But the experimental evidence points towards yes on this question and you''re leaders already," I said. I wrapped the measuring tape around his upper torso.

    "We are," Pietro agreed. He looked down at his clothes. "Leaders who are going to need new clothes."

    I laughed and fiddled through the bracelet of charms, unhooking a suitcase on it and dropping it onto the ground. I sized it up. "I can''t escape you if you decide to stop me," I admitted. "You''re faster and stronger than me. I wanted anonymity so I didn''t bring my usual guards. But if I go missing and your mutation is known to the public, the people who figure it out will have you killed." Or brainwashed like the Winter Soldier. "And I don''t want that. It gets in the way. There''s five hundred thousand American dollars in that case." I enlarged it with a click of a button. "Up to you."

    "I wasn''t threatening you," Pietro said, his head lurching back in offense.

    "Sincerely," Wanda said, walking up next to me. "Thank you for caring about Sokovia." She wrapped her arms around me in a hug. I was so stunned that I froze stock stiff and she pulled back and looked at me cautiously. "Sorry," she said softly. "I didn''t mean t-"

    I felt strangely naked, receiving unconditional warmth from the twins. I wondered if it was the charisma of the Super Soldiers or if it was just... how different this was from working with Hydra. "It''s fine," I said shaking my head clear. "I''m just.... used to more cutthroat environment. You''re welcome."

    Eventually I left, but that stuck in my mind.

 XLI - Unexpected Guest

    <div>

    Victor and I were walking alone on the field as the guests began to arrive in the Nemo Autocabs we were demonstrating.

    "I just want to see her," I said, anxiously spinning the case I''d temporarily replaced my emergency bracelet with. The bracelet was a bit too much for the suit.

    "We all do at these things," Victor said, squeezing my shoulder amicably. We walked a bit further, "I don''t suppose you want my advice on marriage?"

    I winced, "Not really." Victor and I had the most honest of all of my relationships and I didn''t want to impinge on that with deceit.

    "Well, I''m going to inconvenience you on this one then. You''ve only got one shot at this, make sure to get it right."

    I laughed, "Thanks."

    "No problem, Mr. Senator."

    "Not a senator yet," I pointed out.

    "A formality," Victor said with a wave of the hand. "You''re the most popular man in California and the unions have your back."

    "Maybe so," I said. "Do you think she''s having cold feet?" I was having¡­ well, not cold feet. But nerves.

    "I''ve never met a woman who adored a man so much. She''d set herself on fire if you asked her to. I''m sure she''s on pins and needles to get this over with." We walked up to the rows upon rows of chairs and looked the crowd. "Most of these Andromeda''s?"

    "Some political invitees as well, yeah. My invitees amount to the pride and a handful of business associates." Dale, Victor, and Andromeda''s brother Achilles were my groomsmen which was embarrassingly weak. In my old life, I had prided myself on cultivating male friendships and here I had been so consumed with work and conspiracy that I was down to two murderers and my brother in law.

    "Less Leslie, not that I miss her."

    "Mrs. Dean has been very careful to stay within her lines," I said, looking at the guests. Plenty of new SWORD members from the Security Counsel nations were also here, looking slightly uncomfortable. The whole thing was nice, illustrious, a bit too showy with the marble and bronze statuary on either side of the audience.

    Victor got a ping on his phone and fished it out of his suit breast pocket, "Huh. Look like there''s an issue with one of the autocabs," he handed the phone to me. The cab had stalled out, turned off somehow.

    I nodded at it and sighed, "Send one of our security forces out to check on it."

    "I could just flick it back on," Victor suggested.

    "Absolutely not. It probably is just a glitch or a busted tire, but the Security team should be able to make sure that''s true. We''ve got a working prototype spaceship here, it''s what the security is for." Paranoia was my bread and butter by the point, so it didn''t harm anything to have someone go check it out.

    Victor nodded and took back the phone, calling security and telling them to check on it. We kept walking for awhile, eventually making it to Dale, who was presently being kissed by his wife. We waited patiently for them to finish.

    "Hey guys," he said, smiling at us without embarrassment.

    "Dale," I said with a laugh. "I hope I am having as good of a time being married as you are in fifteen years."

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    "Well you should!" Dale agreed without complaint, "It''s a good time. Andromeda and you are so good for each other."

    Stacey grinned at him and said, "I''ll get back to Gert and Molly and leave you gentleman to Men''s Business," and she made a fake yuck face. I laughed at her as she was waved goodbye.

    "Any last minute advice?" I asked Dale as we walked.

    "Marriage isn''t that complicated, Mike. My advice is the same as it was last night, be kind." he said. He shot his eyes to Victor and back to me, but didn''t say anything more than that. Victor might have noticed, but he didn''t care. He was confident that he made the right choices with regards to his marriage. It was an impressive sort of recalcitrance.

    We made it to the front as the crowd continued to trickle in and then Victor''s phone pinged again, "They say it''s all clear. Minor glitch, switched it on and off, on its way now."

    "Good," I said. The groups continued to file in and I started to count them off. Pierce had sent news that he wouldn''t be able to make it, urgent international matters I needn''t concern myself with. Achilles arrived a few minutes after the message and came up to me, "Good to see you Mike," he said. Achilles looked like a body builder with a crew cut and he had Military written on his soul in bold, bright letters.

    "Achilles," I said, smiling. Achilles was far too stodgy for us to bond, but he wasn''t opposed to me at all. Andromeda had thoroughly convinced her family that she had been right. They were in my camp now and of my party within Hydra, thank God, and I was still doing my best to cultivate them.

    "Andromeda said to tell you how excited she was. There were a lot of exclamation marks too, but I''m not going to yell it."

    I grinned, "I''ll tell her you did though."

    Achilles didn''t scowl, he just nodded. As I said, he was a stodgy guy, no real sense of humor. I feel like if we had drunken our way through the bachelor party that might have helped, but my teetotaler nature had driven off any possibility of that.

    Now was just the waiting as people continued to stream in. The anxiety of it was starting to get on my nerves, I wanted to get it over with, I wanted to be married and in my spaceship, not here on this planet grinning amicably.

    Then my eyes locked on a guy a few rows back. There was¡­ something off about his appearance. His skin was¡­ I don''t know. Almost too smooth. That''s not right either. I wasn''t sure exactly what it was but it was suspicious. And he had a short cain. I grabbed Achilles'' arm, "Who''s that guy?"

    "One of my sister''s guests? Gilbert, I think? Some old college buddy."

    "Victor, was Gilbert in the car that stalled?"

    Victor blinked but pulled out his phone obediently, "¡­ Yes," he said after a moment of searching.

    "Alright, Achilles, go get your family, Victor, go get Andromeda, Dale go get the PRIDE families. Everybody head to the ship. Wait there." I did my best to look as casual as I could during this. I didn''t know anything for certain.

    "Why?" Dale asked even as Achilles and Victor headed off.

    I looked at him for a minute, "That was an order," I hissed and he blinked, taken aback. I hadn''t pulled rank on him¡­ ever, really. But I was not exceptionally interested in raising extra questions if the scepter was in play.

    Loki was why.

 XLII - Seeing the Light

    <div>

    Probably.

    Unless he did that earlier.

    Why was he here?

    Loki Odinson, a pseudo-god, was my first interaction with an Asgardian. The lord of lies, with literal millennia of experience and the personality of a twenty four year old dipshit. He was working for Thanos, presumably. Was this him picking a fight like that thing in France with the old man? I guess I made an ideal target, very public, fun to make a spectacle of.

    His presence was inconvenient to me and it raised questions. Where was Barton? Selvig?

    I couldn''t see them. Had the thing in France happened yet? I had no idea. Pity we were going to miss that, ''There will always be men like you'' scene but life can''t always be like the movies.

    I slid out my emergency case and walked a distance before I popped it open. It was clear for a long way - I had chosen the venue because I figured that the clear view would be useful to me in the face of ambush. Just goes to show you, no matter how clever you are, no matter how paranoid you are, it''s always the wrong kind of paranoid. My head was on swivel, watching Gilbert, who was definitely watching me. But so were a lot of people. It was my wedding, after all, natural that people would be concerned with me. I popped open the case.

    Gun, shrunken, don''t want that. Is Loki even vulnerable to bullets? No point wasting time on it.

    A handheld controller for the drones, which I immediately unshrunk with my ray. I directed my drones to sweep toward the center.

    I grabbed my shield and helmet, put them both on. The crowd and Loki were beginning to respond to my activity. The crowd with chatter, Loki was standing up.

    I sent a message to Pierce with the controller and then I turned back to the crowd. Loki was standing and shedding his illusion, the whole green and gold garb appearing. I had no idea how long this would take. I aimed the drones at him, tapped the emergency message system.

    While my voice was peacefully informing the guests to evacuate the area as quickly as possible according to designated routes, Loki started blasting down the drones as they tried to shoot him and put him in the ground. Complex maneuvering wasn''t an option when I didn''t know if he''d subverted my own people and as I myself fled as quickly as possible.

    Not toward the ship, though, basically all my important people were there. I ran off in an essentially random direction. I had my doubts that I would be able to escape Loki at this point.

    "Where are you going, oh breacher of the stars!" Loki called after me. Even a brief glance saw me watching my drones fire completely failing against him. Asgardian physiology was so busted.

    I didn''t bother to turn around and argue with him. Loki Odinson was not someone I wanted to match wits with.

    Suddenly he was in front of me, "There''s no use running," he said. I hesitated for a moment, but I couldn''t recall Loki exhibiting the capacity to teleport so I pushed forward and, sure enough, the image evaporated in front of me. Loki fired his staff in front of me to create a crater and I fell in.

    This text was taken from Royal Road. Help the author by reading the original version there.

    Look, I''m not a ninja.

    Loki''s footsteps were advancing on me in that taunting pace, "Hallow," I said into the mic on my handheld device, not bothering to scurry up. Loki was already stronger, faster. I was probably not going to make it away from him much longer. My drones were down. I could only hope the others had made it to the ship.

    "Wanda, Pietro. Red alert, find Captain America. Remember you don''t know me. Do not trust me henceforth."

    Loki dropped into the pit with me, staff in hand.I raised my shrink ray and fired at him. It looked for a moment like it might work, but then the coursing yellow light just sputtered out, leading Loki standing and unharmed. Damn ray was never as effective as it should be in combat. The whole, ''effects on biological matter inconsistent,'' was not an exaggeration for the convenience of not giving it to my superiors.

    "Tetragrammaton," I said into the machine, initiating my forty eight hour lockdown of my tech.

    Loki looked at me sideways, "Starbreacher," he said, kneeling down over me. "What on earth are you doing?"

    "I know what that staff of yours does," I said, struggling without much use to escape him. "I know why you came to earth, the folly of what you''re doing, Loki Odinson."

    "I am not! Odin''s son!" Loki shouted, covering me with his spittle.

    "Okay, my bad, geez," I lifted up a hand and wiped the spit off my face. "Thanos'' staff, the shell around it is made of the same stuff as the Tesseract. But inside the shell is something so much more."

    "This trinket," he waved the staff, "Is nothing to me. How did you see through my illusion, I wonder?"

    "Seems like a dumb thing to expound it but," I groaned as Loki knelt over me. I had to keep him talking as long as I can. "Not really sure myself."

    "My father would have difficulty piercing my illusions and yet you spotted me."

    Explaining that I had gotten my powers from a ROB and had no idea how it worked. didn''t seem like the right play in this instance. "No illusion is perfect," I went with instead.

    "Well," Loki said, "And you know me? And my scepter? I thought I knew who you were. The Starbreacher, the man of the future, whose folly would swallow the world. But you''re something more, aren''t you?"

    "I''m the groom," I said hopelessly. Really running short on excuses.

    "Sorry to ruin your wedding day," Loki said, lowering the staff toward my chest.

    "I know who kills you!" I shouted.

    "Oh?" Loki said, surprised. "Well that''s valuable information."

    And he pressed the staff to my chest. I hoped, fruitlessly, that it wouldn''t work. That the same ultra-high mental powers that had protected me from Loki''s illusion would protect me.

    The wrenching feeling was like being sucked out of my own mind. Something new filled it. Something cold, clear and blue. Fire bright. Beautiful.

    The schematics of the universe, the baseline code. I could see it and I could understand it. All it wanted from me was obedience. Simple, reducible, understandable. The numbers confirmed it.

    Loki, my master, stood up and looked me over. "Starbreacher," he said, extending a hand to help me up. "I''ll have to ask you to explain more later. For now, get out of here. I have others to deal with."

    I nodded my head, "Yes sir."

 Andromeda - The PRIDE Reacts

    <div>

    Stacey rushed to obey, finding the seem of the corset and slashing down it as carefully as she could. Andromeda held in her frustration. First her wedding and now her dress were ruined and she was going to make whoever was responsible pay. But first she had to go get her fianc¨¦ back, the chivalrous idiot.

    "Andromeda!" Andromeda''s mother said, scandalized at the fact that she was now basically naked in front of a crowd of their family, friends, and several minor children. But there was no time for privacy or modesty. Hydra itself, as far as Andromeda was concerned, was endangered.

    Andromeda ripped her suit off her inner thigh, heedless of the face that she was barely wearing anything at all. She whispered, "Mi amor," to the suit and it enlarged to her size and she started climbing into it. She almost had her helmet on when she heard the spaceship announce, "Tetragrammaton protocol active."

    Andromeda''s heart plummeted into her stomach. The Tetragrammaton protocol was the code for mind control. If Mike had activated it, he was certain that nothing could save him.

    "Computer, Sly Dog," she announced, putting down her helmet. The ship jolted into the air, the vague vertigo that came with that laying onto everyone in unit. She hustled to the front see and jumped into the cockpit, directing the ship straight upward. "Raise Pierce," she said to the computer, "Operation code Gamma-Foxtrot-Delta-4-2-5."

    "Ms. Albertson," a voice said over the intercom, "Yes, I just got word from your fianc¨¦, I am so sorry about the wedding."

    "Mike activated his anti-subversion protocol, he''s locked out of all his stuff for forty eight hours, what''s happening?"

    "There''s been an extra-terrestrial incursion, an alien called Loki has a mind-controlling staff."

    "And you didn''t warn us?" Andromeda could barely contain her rage.

    "I thought you would soon be safely in space. My apologies, Andromeda. You''re right, of course, it was a major strategic mistake not to involve Michael."

    "Damn right, what do we know? Can we get Mike out of being mind controlled?"

    "Nothing is certain," Pierce said and Andromeda felt a hand on her shoulder. "I''ll let you know more. I''m sending you the coordinates for the helicarrier, come quickly."

    "Got the PRIDE aboard."

    "Bring them, we could use all the brains we can get. Andromeda, is Mike still a ten on threat without his stuff?"

    "Yes. We''ll make it to the helicarrier and interface with Fury when we get there. Over and out."

    "If anything he''s higher," Victor said from next to Andromeda, where he was staring out over space.

    "Um, excuse me," Stacey said, "What''s going on? Why''d we leave without Mike?"

    The whole PRIDE was behind her, as was most of Andromeda''s family. They were all terribly frightened. The ship was quiet in upper atmosphere, the fear on everyone''s faces was very loud. Andromeda was not a leader. She never had been nor had she hoped to be. She was happy as a soldier of Hydra.

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    In the end, it was Victor who spoke up, "The earth is under attack by a would be world conqueror named Loki Odinson. He carries a staff with a mind control effect. It compels active loyalty, so we should assume that Mike is operating as his loyal agent. I do not need to tell any of you how intelligent and dangerous Mike is, but I do need to tell you the stakes. If Mike is able to aid Loki long term, it is very likely that hundreds of trillions of lives will be lost."

    The group stiffened and then thought for a few seconds. Dale said, "Uh, you mean hundreds of thousands?"

    "No," Victor said. "The invaders who are working with Loki aim to wipe out at least fifty percent of the population of the entire universe."

    The security guards were slumping and the PRIDE kids were visibly shaken.

    Tina Minoru spoke first, "The children need somewhere safe to go,"

    "We''ll handle it on the helicarrier."

    "We need to go my house," Victor said with a sigh. "I need to blow up the time machine in my basement."

    "We have a time machine in our basement?" Janet said, echoing more or less what Andromeda was thinking. He must have had Mike''s help on that. Why hadn''t he told her.

    Victor clenched his jaw and flexed his hand and Janet visibly shrunk. That relationship was not healthy. "Yes, Janet. Obviously it needed to be kept secret. It''s not very useful anyway - It creates alternate worlds and if there''s one benefit to blowing it up it''s that Mike won''t lecture me on the ethical complications of creating universes."

    Stacey raced a finger and said, "Ah, if we''re securing things against Mike, our office has several batches of super soldier serum we should probably take."

    "Super-soldier serum?" Molly asked, "Like Captain America?"

    "Not now honey," Stacey replied.

    "And if it''s really the fate of the universe at stake," Geoffrey said, "We actually still have the Abstract." Every adult in the PRIDE''s head swiveled to Geoffrey, including Catherine, who looked... annoyed. Geoffrey shrugged, "We''re talking about trillions of people dear." Catherine pursed her lips and then nodded in acknowledgement.

    "Alright, what''s the Abstract?" Andromeda asked.

    "It''s the blueprint book that helped us build things," Victor said, "And I can''t believe you still have it!"

    Geoffrey didn''t even bother to defend himself.

    "Okay, does anyone not have secret super experiments in their basement?" Tina and Robert raised their hands. "Alright. So, we''ll land at Victor''s, Mike must know exactly where that is. He''ll destroy the¡­" she couldn''t believe she was saying this, "time machine. Tina and the Yorkes will go retrieve the super soldier serum, I and the Wilders will retrieve the Abstract. My family and Robert will watch the kids and move them to a secure location, does that work for everyone."

    The adults all nodded and Alex Wilder raised his hand, "Uh, are we going to discuss the fact that you guys are like superhero mad scientists? And Mrs. Minoru is a wizard?"

    The whole crowd of adults echoed, "No!" simultaneously.

 XLIII - Super Soldierizing

    <div>

    That was why I was not berating my new team member for his folly in failing to obtain the iridium and allowing my former allies to escape. It also freed me from irritation at the fact that Loki had, apparently, deliberately gotten himself captured by Captain America.

    Barton and I were standing in the presence of the Tesseract and it was hot in my mind. The blue shell resembled the blue shell around the staff. We were using it as a power source for this next experiment.

    We were making Erik Selvig a superhero, someone fit to serve and fight for our master.

    A horde of SHIELD and SWORD agents had rampaged through all my materials and caches over the course of the last twelve hours. Andromeda and Victor had turned over all of their knowledge and broken into a truly expansive pool of my materials. PRIDE had ghosted and my hard back ups for their tapes were gone. But I still knew the formula and process for the Super-Soldier serum and it wasn''t that delicate.

    Selvig was more a lab rat than a useful candidate. The real intention was to use it on Barton and a squad of hired muscle so that we could make a clean hit on the Wakandan embassy.

    After a few moments of screaming from pain that not even the light of the Tesseract could render number, the pod unfolded open. Erik Selvig was now ripped and buff as any body builder. HE stepped out and his eyes were still ice flush blue, but he was smiling. "It worked Barton, lower the bow," he said calmly.

    I grinned, the righteous skill of my techniques proven. There''s no pleasure like work well done. I gestured to Barton, "You''re up."

    He handed me his bow, ripped off his shirt, and got into the pod.

    ¡ª¡ª

    We''d hooked up with the Hand in order to pull off this job. It would be inconvenient to deal with the Hand later, but a super-soldier was still vulnerable to bullets and I needed people who could access materials in New York. Barton and the squad didn''t have much problem breaking into the Wakandan Embassy with my guidance. The guards had stronger weapons and armor, but they weren''t super-naturally enhanced super-soldiers. A few brief minutes and they were dead and Barton signaled me in.

    I went into the Wakandan Embassy confidently. It had been a long time since I had come here. I had to assume that most of it was perfectly ordinary, early twenty first century technology. But I knew they had a room where, ah, yes, there it was. I took out a scanner that would tell me about densities and frequencies quickly, followed closely by mercenaries we''d paid in super powers.

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    "Mr. Trent, this aggression will not go unanswered," the comms console said, showing me the face of the King of Wakanda. T''chaka and I had not spoken since I had been made to grovel before him all those years ago. I did not resent him for it then, I do not now, but I will admit that the new asymmetry of our situation was a pleasure of righteous work.

    "I no longer find it convenient to pretend to be less than I am, your highness," I said, walking around the room without bothering to unplug it. When my master''s army arrived, it would be better to deal with Wakanda directly. The quietest acceptance which I had resigned myself to was a sign of unacceptable weakness. Loki would be the unquestioned master of the earth and I would see to it if I needed to glass the entirety of Wakanda down to ash. "Don''t bother with your fail safes," I said dismissively, "My mercenaries already located and deactivated them."

    "I have dealt with you in good faith." Did he not understand that I didn''t care? It was too late for that.

    "I had dealt with you in good faith," I said, aiming my voice to be as mocking as possible. "Perhaps I should go on television, announce the murder of your own brother."

    "I will not be blackmailed!" King T''chaka was a proud man. He would have to be disposed of if we wanted to achieve true dominance over the earth. There were many such unfit vessels, unready to be filled with the holy fire that now consumed me and made me whole.

    "That is a pity," I said, ripping up the floor at the densest point and signaling to my crew to rip it open. Soon enough, I was down to the small Wakandan communications array. "You know, it is a real vulnerability of your culture that so much of your technology depends upon Vibranium," I said before yanking out the computer and cutting off communications.

    I looked up at Barton and grinned, "We''re back on schedule. Try not to get hit in the head on your attack."

    "You''ve mentioned that a lot," he said, holding the machine in one hand. "Any particular reason?"

    "It could mess up your connection to the Tesseract." What I did not tell Barton for Opsec reasons was that it had in fact done that last time. The added benefits of the real explanation were not outweighed by the risk of informational leakage both of my understanding of the score and of my situation. I would explain everything to Loki when he got out.

    "Noted," he said.

    We made it out of the building, Barton shot us a couple cars in the late night and we made off into the night before the police arrived.

 Avengers Helicarrier

    <div>

    "Do you have any regrets?" Agent Coulson asked, standing nervously as they set up the pods. The last time Steve had seen one, he''d lost the man who''d seen him and seen, not a weakling, not a loser, but a good man. He''d lost his best friend in some foreign country with no body to bury and no ability to go under the table to get rid of him. He''d lost his new best friend, a woman who he loved, with nothing more than a kiss. He''d lost his whole life and world, all he had left was a country he barely recognized. So in a sense, he had a lot of regrets.

    "I''d do it again," he said, giving Coulson a pat on the shoulder. "We''ve all got regrets, but this?" He pointed at the pod, "Not one of them."

    "These aliens are really trying to kill the whole human race?"

    "That''s what they''re saying,"

    "How do they even know that?"

    "Honestly, no idea. Mr. Trent apparently is the one who cracked that. They''re certain enough they are going in first though. I''d believe them," he nodded toward Dale Yorkes, who was calmly explaining to his kids by phone that he was going to be undergoing some physiological changes. Steve wondered if that was a normal words for kids to know now and not just library rats like he used to be.

    Maria Hill came down the stairs, "They want you upstairs Cap, you too Mr. Stein."

    ¡ª

    Andromeda

    The large table on the bridge of the helicarrier was crowded. Tina Minoru, a calm and lean Japanese woman carrying a magic staff, Victor, and Andromeda, formed a party, sitting long form. On the other side, Captain America, James Rhodes, aka Patriot, and Tony Stark. Thor was up and pacing.

    "Let me get this straight, you all had a super-science cookbook, a shrink suit, the super-soldier serum, and magic and you all decided to keep that to yourself," Nick Fury said, looking at Andromeda''s party.

    Tina didn''t even flinch before saying, "Director Fury, are you trying to preach to us about transparency? When you''re using the Tesseract to build weapons in your world-spanning spy organization''s basement?" Andromeda couldn''t help but think that Mike was right. Tina would make a fine addition to Hydra.

    "Do you people never learn?" Captain America said, his voice full of contempt. He had been a bit of a disappointment, honestly, very straight-laced. "Always a bigger bomb, a bigger bullet, as if the solution to the world''s problems was down the barrel of a gun."

    "Mike wanted them to launch it into the sun," Victor said. "Pity he isn''t here because SHIELD''s secret keeping stopped him from being in a safe location."

    "This isn''t ab-" Fury began.

    "Your folly has put the whole earth in danger!" Thor shouted. "At least this pride has been honest with us from the start."

    "You''ve all been very bad boys and girls with very big secrets." Tony said, waving his hand in annoyance. "But Michael Trent, the second smartest man in the world," Andromeda snorted. Did this idiot really think he was smarter than Mike? "Look, I may not be the smartest person in the world, but I''m the smartest person in this room, so I''ll make the rankings until there''s competition. Anyway, as I was saying before I was rudely interrupted, Trent is presently in the thrall of some omnicidal megalomaniac and a wanted war criminal from the world of the gods. He knows a dangerous amount about all of us, he wants to put us in the ground."

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    Victor clenched his jaw. Yes, Mike had said he was arrogant and they''d always plied him with far too many compliments. "If Loki leaves the helicarrier, he''ll just hit us with a bevy of missiles and fish the staff out of the wreckage. But since he''s on here, I''d assume he''ll do his best to deploy as many super soldiers as possible and seize the ship for his own purposes. Unbound by morality, Mike would see a lot of advantage in nuking a few cities to scramble military response."

    Andromeda wondered if Victor really thought an amoral Mike would do that or if he was just worried about the nuclear weaponry being used in the conflict. He''d expressed worries about excessive force on the trip while they''d been comparing notes. Mike had been very compartmentalized, a thing they were definitely going to have to discuss now that they were getting married.

    "Jesus," Fury cursed and the whole table got abnormally quiet. "I''ll order the nuclear weaponry moved. How many people do you think he could deploy?"

    "It''s hard to say," Andromeda said, shaking her hand, "He was working on a mind-control virus, to immunize himself to this sort of situation, but it''s possible he broke it and could deploy it. If that''s the case, he could have millions. But if not, Mike is not a trusting person, I''m only just beginning to understand how deep his paranoia runs. If he ends up being listened to strategically, I doubt he''ll make too many as long as he can''t mind-control his servants. After all, he intends to betray them." The stupid control freak hadn''t even begun to inject Hydra agents with the super-soldier, which was the first real proof of a character flaw Andromeda had ever seen in him. Mike could be empathetic, he was a regular guy most of the time, likable, interested in other people. But he could turn it off like a switch and just work without getting caught up in the sentimentality of it all, without becoming afraid or hesitating. Truly the best of all worlds in terms of a personality. It had been irrational to think it would come that clean and perfect, but love makes fools of everyone. Now the first subjects were the PRIDE''s more normal members and whichever SHIELD agents were on hand to take the needle.

    "Aren''t you engaged to this guy?" Rhodes said. Typical normals.

    "Mike wants to win and doesn''t make excuses when it matters," Andromeda said. Whatever she thought internally, she wasn''t going to throw Mike under the bus. They were still getting married, damn it, and no alien gods, no omnicidal quest, no mind control would get between her and that. "That''s what America needs in a leader, what I want in a partner. If you settle for less than total victory¡­." She shrugged. It didn''t matter to her. Men like Rhodes were the reason for men like Mike. They needed guidance in order to actually exist and thrive in their station.

    "We need to work together," Fury said. "I''m not proud of the secrets I''ve had to keep. I''ve had a dream of working with a group of exceptional individuals to try to protect the world for all the threats we couldn''t foresee. We called it the Avengers project. This is our chance to do that, to work together for the common good, to save the human race from tyranny and the universe for an apocalypse. Let''s focus on that, shall we?"

 Pierces Speech

    <div>

    Loki was on Earth? Jane shuddered a little. Thor had been so powerful and now his brother was here? Mind controlling a famous scientist?

    ¡ª

    "Find Captain America, he said," Pietro said as they walked off the plane. "How are we supposed to find Captain America? Put out an ad in the news paper?"

    Wanda grabbed his arm and pointed at a screen, where a man in a suit was standing next to a quartet of pictures, one of them Mike''s.

    "We now have reason to believe that Loki''s quest is nothing less than the conquest of Earth and an apocalyptic culling of half of all human beings upon the planet. He has enthralled at least these three men, Erik Selvig, an expert astrophysicist. Clint Barton, a veteran military operator. Michael Trent, the world''s foremost scientific mind. Be advised that all these men are extraordinarily dangerous and make sure to contact the hotline below if you see any of them."

    "We have to find him first," Wanda said urgently.

    Pietro nodded his head. If they didn''t, he''d probably end up dead.

    ¡ª¡ª

    "Make no mistake - If Loki succeeds in his goals, it will be the greatest calamity which has ever been visited upon the earth. Even as I give this address, the heads of states of every nation on the Earth are co-ordinating forces for a rapid deployment. This is not the time for panic - It is a time to come together"

    Natasha turned off the screen. She didn''t need to hear any more about the situation from Pierce and she was still getting used to her new height and strength.

    Dr. Banner looked up, his face scrunched up from his analysis of the staff. "Problem with the secretary?"

    They''d quarantined the staff once they''d heard that it caused ambient strife from Victor. Fury was frustrated with the information that the PRIDE had and had held back, but he wasn''t able to conduct, ''a damn dental exam to this horse'' at the moment. Especially with Trent gone rogue, there was really no telling what that guy knew and how. He''d unveiled lots of information to which Albertson had never been privy to.

    The narrative has been taken without permission. Report any sightings.

    "Pierce and Fury go way back. He trusts him."

    "I didn''t ask about Fury," Banner said, looking at Natasha carefully. "I asked about you."

    "I don''t know Pierce but I''m feeling really antsy. Probably just the serum increasing my energy levels." Natasha had been trained from an early age to feel and control her body and now it was all off balance, so she couldn''t pin her perceptions where they needed to go. Sensations live in the body, the body that had been disciplined to obey, and now it fairly thrummed with energy.

    "You should trust yourself more," Banner said, his voice encouraging.

    "Weird coming from a guy who ran two thousand miles from himself."

    Banner shook his head and straightened up. He was shorter than her now, which was weird to realize. Not many men were going to for a woman who was taller than them and overpowered them. She''d known that was a tactical loss and it wasn''t like her new shape was unattractive, it was just buffer than her traditional look. And taller. Eight inches taller. "I ran a few thousand miles from the other guy. He''s a- less nice than you are."

    "Don''t be so sure," Natasha warned. And she really was warning him. Even at the edge of the world, Dr. Banner had directed his actions towards helping others. She wasn''t sure he deserved to have been dragged back into this. Natasha, well, she''d been dragged back from inside the abyss and she was still a black ops specialist. Big green problem or not, she didn''t want him to get the wrong idea.

    "You know I worked for years on the Super-Soldier Serum and he just has it? No failed tests, no missing subjects, no big green accidents, just the formula, delivered in a shrink wrapped package from nowhere?"

    "They''re more scared of Trent than Loki. " Natasha said. "But right now, Loki''s the mission."

    ¡ª

    "Those who would act against the security and health of the earth, whether from fear or vile ambition, will be opposed with all the might that the governments of the world can manage. We will fight and we will win. By God and under heaven, the earth will endure."

    I put down the headset and walked over to Barton. "We have to act now," if we didn''t our erstwhile mercenaries would get word we were trying to conquer the world. And the Hand had no desire to endanger the world so long as it contained Kun-Lun. He nodded and strapped on a mask and signaled to the Hand mercenaries to do the same.

    I walked over to the console over the portal opener and tuned the Tesseract to its twin in the scepter. Likely the product of the last civilization to unite the Stones, making it easy to use them as targeting tools. I peeled open space and without hesitation Barton launched the gas grenade through the portal. He and the half dozen Hand mercenaries jumped through the stabilized portal and I snapped it shut. They''d signal me when they were ready.

 Attack on the Helicarrier

    <div>

    Though anything was possible.

    She tried not breathe in the seconds it took them to close, but it was going to be hard to deal with these thugs. Most of them were tough and fast - Adapting to their new bodies quickly. Banner was already on the ground, screaming in pain. She just had to keep them busy enough to get them plummeting through the floor when the Hulk showed up. She''d probably die, but those were the risks. But Barton was grabbing the staff. Natasha fired off one last shot, aiming for the helmet he was wearing and hitting him in the back of the chest but it wasn''t good enough.

    The moment she took to aim was too long and one of the thugs got hold of her hand, they were met in a few moments of grapple and then the gang was on top of her, slashing at her with swords.

    Who still uses swords? were her last thoughts before she saw the big green hand slap two of them against the wall and the world went dark,

    ¡ª

    "The Hulk has left the ship, no communication from Widow. Cameras identified seven attackers, poison gas and gas masks, launched with a bow. Likely Barton is in the boarding party. Unclear how many left, scepter no longer in the research facility." Fury said over the intercom.

    "I thought you said that the ship should''ve been proof against teleportation?" Andromeda said from on top of Tina''s shoulder. The effects of the serum were truly intense and coupled with her small size, she should be more than able to help in case the plan went wrong.

    "Anti-ingress spell is still functional," Tina said, waving her staff. "He shouldn''t have been able to do that."

    Typical, of course Mike had found a way to bypass magic that he didn''t even know existed. He had discovered time travel - The limits of his capacity to do things was almost zero. "We have to keep the staff on the ship," Andromeda said over comms. "If he can teleport in, he''ll teleport in bombs the moment the scepter and Loki are clear."

    "You should go on Newly Weds, really make use of this intimate knowledge of hubby''s psychoses." Stark said over comms. "Victor and I''ve got the staff moving towards the bridge."

    "Heading up," Rhodes said.

    "Four of the attackers are heading towards the drop cell chamber."

    "We''re waiting for them," Andromeda confirmed.

    And they were. An extraction of Loki had been inevitable - Loki had planned on being captured, the absolute moron. Victor had suggested just killing him, but Thor wouldn''t hear of it. So they were doing this instead.

    You might be reading a pirated copy. Look for the official release to support the author.

    And soon enough, four men opened the door and Tina shouted, "Freeze!"

    The freeze spell was pretty short, especially on super-soldiers as they had discovered through testing, but the principles of its effect were pretty simple. It lasted about fifteen seconds, locking them into place for a very short period of time. But by the the time it had worn off, Wilder had grabbed one and twisted his head loose, grabbed his sword and thrust it into his neighbor and Captain America had bludgeoned his two men totally unconscious.

    "Shield back up!" Andromeda shouted as the gas they were using to clear rooms started seeping back into the room.

    Tina began waving her staff, evaporating the gas, and the group sighed in relief. All that they needed to do was wait for Barton to get clobbered on the main deck and all would be well.

    That didn''t feel right at all.

    Andromeda walked up to one of the bodies and started examining his gas mask. A few moments later, the awful conclusions was unavoidable.

    "Goddamn it. Guys, they have cameras."

    Everybody in the room knew what that meant - Mike knew that Loki wasn''t here and that the PRIDE was.

    "Get the staff!."

    ¡ª

    "Get the staff she says," Rhodey complained over the comms, "What does that even mean in this context?"

    "It means we''re about to depressurize a massive air-ship that is really impractically designed if we''re being honest," Tony said. "Thor buddy, how''s it going with your little brother?"

    "He is still very tiny and irritated!" Thor said, laughing over the comm.

    Hawkeye was moving onto the bridge, leading his men into the thick of it, and launching his poison gas arrows into the crowd on deck. They were being forced to clear out quickly and he was moving in. Nothing to be done on that front, Tony decided. He was going to get the information he came for, whatever that was. But he was also clearing the room of friendlies.

    "Now!" Tony shouted, and Rhodey busted through the viewing window. He hit one of the grunts with two blasts, but he got back up. These people were ridiculous. The shoulder gun popped up, aimed, and fired. The bullets tore through one of their masks and then another one. Barton was near by, blasting at Rhodey through the glass with the staff.

    Rhodey started to close and Barton literally jumped from the command deck and onto Rhodey''s suit. He clung to it for a moment, but then let go.

    Rhodey didn''t hesitate, he grabbed him instantly, stopping him from falling into an expanding teleportation hole. "Oh no you don''t," Rhodey said triumphantly. Barton glared back, twisted the staff in his hand to blast Rhodey and it fired straight into Rhodey''s chest. The blast ripped up the suit''s internal power, "Uh, Thor, Rhodey''s gonna need some help," but Rhodey held onto Barton even as the suit started to collapse in power supply.

    "I''m on it!" Thor announced, racing over.

    It was only then that Tony noticed that Barton was no longer holding the staff and the portal was gone.

    He dialed up Pepper and told her he loved her. It was several minutes before they realized the bombs weren''t coming.

 Post-Attack on the Helicarrier

    <div>

    <div>

    "You won''t be able to hold me forever!" Loki cried, his voice oddly unmuffled by his size. Thor had to admit that the wizards of the PRIDE were valuable allies. They were fearsome, but perhaps too bloody minded. The man that Loki had seized from them was far too willing to meddle in matters far beyond his station. Perhaps he would see the error of his ways once they had stripped this mind control of him. Earth was not ready to face the universe and it was reckless to reach out and touch it.

    "I have been reliably informed," Fury said, holding the case in his hand and giving it a little shake. Thor had been told this effect would be largely disoriented, because Jotun royalty was seldom injured by short falls. "That I can hold you in this cage and at this size forever." More specifically, the local wizards had said that if Loki were to somehow escape, he wouldn''t be able to breathe. It was a shockingly effective prison effect.

    "The Starbreacher will find me and free me," Loki said confidently.

    "But he won''t. He''s run off with the swag. Killed dozens of my people, left four super soldiers screaming in pain from poison gas." The Hulk and the widowed woman were both missing, disappeared from the staff room. They could only hope that Hulk had landed somewhere with the widowed woman and not on top of her. "Took the staff, hacked my database. Didn''t rescue you."

    "Impossible! The staff subjugates him to my will!" He sure made a lot of noise for being so small.

    "He''s not lying brother," Thor said. There might have been some thoughtfully neglected truths, but it was all true. "It seems your masters have played you for a fool. I swear by Father''s spear, the words he has spoken to you are true."

    Loki appeared to pace around the disk, not that Thor was at an ideal angle to observe it, though he craned his neck to try. The moment stretched out and began to become troublesome on Thor''s conscience, but a glare from Fury stopped him from saying anything. They just waited until Loki was finished pacing.

    "He''ll need to open a portal. My master, as you call him, will want a display in a major city at the core of the reigning empire. The United States, obviously, especially given the Starbreacher''s pathetic patriotism. You people love your flags." Here, Loki paused for the taunt.

    "We do have a certain sentimental attachment," Fury said, scowling. Thor did not know if it was sincere or not. This Fury was a spymaster and Thor had always worked his deeds by daylight. He was Loki''s sort.

    "At any rate," Loki continued, satisfied, "My ''master'' is coming for the Tesseract. If he comes himself, it''ll cost you so much more than my conquest. Really, it was a beneficent deed. I should get a medal."

    "Thanos," Thor said, "will destroy half the universe if he gets the Infinity Stones."

    "Brother! Squeeze a thought from that big melon of yours for once. No one has seen any of them for centuries. Now this Tesseract is the one he was looking for? Convenient, to say the least. Even if it is, there are five more. What are the odds that he finds them?"

    "Trent believed your staff held one of the stones."

    "Now that''s just ridiculous. Why would my ''master'' risk it?"

    "Enough!" Fury interjected. "What''s Trent''s next play?"

    "I hardly know - It depends on myriad things. But likely, if he has my master on his side, he''ll tear open the sky over some imperial city and drop an army the likes of which this world has never seen."

    "Gonna need more than that if you want favorable treatment."

    "Look, the Staff gives people a new cause - That''s why the archer was so helpful. It makes the world clear - That''s really all I know. I haven''t spoken to the man."

    The author''s narrative has been misappropriated; report any instances of this story on Amazon."Brother, how could you be so foolish?"

    "I was lost! In the dark! And you never came! No one ever comes. And they came."

    ¡ª

    The idea of breaking Loki out at this point was completely ridiculous, even if I wanted to. Only a braindead stump of a man would fail to secure him against everything, isolate him from my potential location, and never, ever yield him, even if I started using a death laser. The Tesseract hadn''t managed to open a new portal after the heist anyway. That meant that if I wanted to free my master, I needed to conquer the planet and demand him as tribute.

    The loss of the Hand Mercenaries had been part of the plan - People can be bribed to do many things, but there was no reason to think the Hand would be any less opposed to the destruction of half the human race than any other people. Selvig and I were clearing out the last of our local crew - Loki had been averse to using the staff and I didn''t fully understand it.

    Barton was more of a problem. And the PRIDE had sided with my enemies, the fools. They should''ve realized that I would find a way to punish them for their insolence. They should not have listened to my uninformed theorization. The insult of calling my new insight mind control¡­ It galled me. And I still didn''t know how Tina''s stupid staff worked.

    "That''s the last of them," Selvig said, wiping his hands on the shirt of the man he had just killed. "We going to be able to move this by ourselves?"

    "Don''t have to move it, it can move itself."

    "That Vibranium design you used was really something."

    "Thank you, Dr. Selvig. You have a beautiful mind," I said and I meant it. The inspiration that had worn through me, shaped me and made me, now asked still more of me. "I have an experiment that should help you become even stronger," I said confidently. I wasn''t confident. But the inspiration knew that I needed real muscle if I was going to beat Thor or the Hulk.

    Selvig grinned, "Of course! Happy to help."

    ¡ª

    Natasha woke up screaming.

    "Good, you''re awake," Banner said, sitting next to her, knelt over in clearly borrowed clothes.

    Natasha''s body was so full of pain that she felt like someone had replaced her veins with barbed wire. Every inch hurt. "Not- not good!" Natasha shouted, thrashing and tearing a wound on her abdomen open.

    "Natasha, Natasha you need to calm down. You can''t thrash like that, you''ve got a lot of injuries other than the poison. I know it hurts."

    Natasha felt the barbed wire under her skin and threaded her breathes like she had been taught. It was a technique she''d learned for resisting torture. It wasn''t super-helpful, but she could do it.

    Banner knelt down next to her injury and started explaining with stitches. "The other guy bailed us both out - The whole way out, best as I can tell. No big crash, so I sent off a signal. Fury got in touch."

    "Where are we?" Natasha asked.

    "Some people found me out by the road, saw how banged up you were. I told them you got injured fighting Barton. Everybody''s been doing everything they can since. We''re in this little town, but half the town has been by to offer to help, refused money. Lent me the clothes. They''ve been nice."

    "Why?" The question needed a lot more precision. Why did they believe he''d been fighting Barton? Why were they helping? Why hadn''t he taken her to a hospital? There were a lot of whys here, if only Natasha could''ve made them come out of her mouth.

    "Natasha, these people know that the world is under deadly threat," Bruce said, standing up after he finished the suture. "They''re desperate to do anything they can. So am I, to be honest. Which is why I have to apologize. I''m gonna have to leave you like this. The other guy is plenty able to shrug off that poison, but Fury said he''s expecting Trent to move quickly."

    "I can¡­" Natasha began, but it was a stupid lie. Sentimentality, attachment. An instrument that was broken shouldn''t act like that. She stopped herself. "Good. Other guy''s not so bad."

    Bruce smiled as he stood up. "He saved you."

    Natasha grinned, "You too."

    Bruce didn''t respond to that.

    </article>

 The Battle at the National Mall

    <div>

    The plan was simple, they''d drop down into atmosphere onto whatever city Trent attacked. Tina would locate and use a spell to break the enchantment, which went onto the list of the weirdest things to have happened since he thawed out, on Trent just as she had for Barton. They''d launch the¡­ pocket nuclear weapons, which also went onto the list, that Andromeda was carrying into the alien fleet and shut the whole thing down. Then they''d rescue Erik Selvig.

    Simple plan.

    Steve tried not to fidget. Everyone was looking to him - He''d grown to be a legend across the time he''d been on ice. He couldn''t help but feel everyone was wrong.

    "Cap," Ward said. "He''s hit the Triskellion, Pentagon, the White House, and The Capitol Building with bombings. Got a big beam in the sky in D.C."

    "Head in to D.C." Captain America said. Confident, calm. Centered. That''s what these people needed right now. Not the anxious energy of a man who spent most of his life asleep and was now tasked with saving his country from an alien armada.

    ¡ª

    The ship pulled up onto D.C. The grand buildings of the United States were in rubble - Trent had found some way to lay bombs near their foundations. Who was still alive and who was dead was a difficult question to answer and not for no reason. They''d count the dead when they got the chance. The beam was plowing upward from the National Mall.

    There was a giant humanoid creature, three times the size of the Hulk, lumbering around the beam and glowing a similar shade of blue to the Tesseract, guarding it. It was standing in the rubble of the Lincoln Memorial on the far end of the reflecting pool. There were massive aliens streaming downward, worm-like from the sky, and some flying down on sleds.

    Steve looked at Andromeda, who nodded, "Let''s go!" He shouted and they opened the mouth of the ship. The ship itself hadn''t been armed - It was a peaceful mission ship. But they''d managed to equip the soldiers with specialized guns and armor piercing bullets. The attackers were shredded by the bullets, which ripped through them, as the super-soldiers took aim and fired.

    "Rumlow!" Cap said, "Covering fire! Minoru, we''ll notify you when we find Trent!" And he led the other soldiers into a parachuting down to the ground. They scattered onto the ground, fire piercing through things. Rhodey followed close behind in his armor.

    "Patriot, use the shrunken anti-air-missiles on those lizard worms!" The big blue one turned towards them. "Andromeda, you got any idea what that big blue guy does?"

    "Move!"

    And then the blue monster pointed both hands towards them and they only had a few moments to scatter before the blast left a crater in the ground. It was a big one too. "Bruce, now might be a good time to get angry."

    "That''s my secret Cap, I''m always angry." Bruce said over comms before dropping from the ship and plowing forward as a giant green brute. Thor followed after him.

    "Anybody got eyes on Trent?"

    "Not visible!" Andromeda said as she shrunk down and started to fly. It truly was an impressive little suit that Trent had made for her.

    "Negative!" Ward said, blasting a few more of the drones in the face.

    "Andromeda, focus on delivery! Take out those ships!"

    "On it!"

    The squad of super soldiers was pulling through, pushing deeper in, towards the monstrosity while eliminating attacks. The attackers were viciously outclassed by the professional soldiers who were attacking them, almost like they were drones. Steve himself managed to knock a few out with a relatively simple juke and began to wonder if they were people at all. They looked like people, they had the bodies of people, but they didn''t quite act like people. It was a weird thing to see.

    This novel''s true home is a different platform. Support the author by finding it there.

    Thor swept down and launched an electrical blast to clear the area around him. "Where is Selvig?"

    "Don''t know," Steve said, distressed. "We expected both of them to be here. We were choking off their potential avenues - It''s this or nothing, but I haven''t seen either"

    The monstrosity aimed another blast towards them. Steve dodged out of the way fast enough, but Thor took the edge of the blast. Steve guessed he wasn''t used to dodging around in fights. "Argh!" He cried as the blast hit. He went down. Steve dodged back and grabbed him before he got hit by another blast and dodged off. "That guy is so damn big!"

    The Hulk plowed past them, leaping towards the monstrosity, which reached up a hand almost casually and slapped him to the ground in midair. The Hulk staggered back up, rolling out of the way of a blast that he apparently had the good sense to realize was dangerous. The monstrosity got fixated and tried to hit him again and again, blasting and turning to rubble the National Mall in the process. Steve and his crew of super-soldiers managed to put bullets through much of the enemy forces who were plowing through but there were far too many of them.

    "In position, can''t see Mike!"

    "Andromeda, launch the attacks!"

    "What if he''s on the ship?"

    "We''re all going to die if you don''t pull the trigger, I''m sorry Andromeda."

    There wasn''t any more hesitation than that. "Registered targets, firing now." It was an impressive act of self-sacrifice. The rockets streaked upward through the portal and into the enemy ranks. "They''ve hit." Andromeda said. The quietness of the explosions really drove home to Steve that the aliens were coming from space.

    You''re not in Kansas any more buddy, he thought to himself as the attackers all suddenly went dead around him.

    ----

    Andromeda watched the nukes hit target with a sense of deep dread. She may have just killed the salvation of the whole world. It needed to be done, she told herself. It had to be done. She felt so anxious she just hovered, she didn''t think to dodge or try to break the linkages between the earth and space. Her work was done. Her life was over.

    Then a blue blast hit her. It slammed into her tiny form and she spiraled down in agony as her flying apparatus failed.

    "Dear," she heard Mike''s voice say. "I''m sort of impressed. You''ve really fucked this up for me."

    Where had he been? How had she missed him? She looked around and caught sight of him sopping wet and in light armor. He''d been hiding in the reflecting pool. She staggered to her feet.

    "I should''ve expected that Selvig wouldn''t be able to spot you at that size. Goddamn it. This is what happens when I rush a plan, every damn time."

    It was true. Mike''s plans weren''t the best when he was improvising them. The Wilders house proved that. "Mike, remember when we were stuck in that closet?"

    Mike launched another blast that Andromeda barely dodged. It was surprisingly easy to jump extraordinarily fast. "Ah, are they listening in? If they knew I only loved you for Hydra, do you think they would trust you then?"

    Andromeda was reeling and rolling as Mike tried to blast her again. "Nobody''s going to buy that bullshit, Mike, at least come up with a plausible lie." Andromeda said, hoping nobody was listening anyway and launched forward, hitting Mike straight in the helmet. He staggered back and started to rally. She hit him another couple times and he went unconscious.

    "Tina," Andromeda said, "The big guy''s Selvig, try the enchantment breaker spell on him."

    Suddenly, the monstrosity stopped and settled down, covering its face with its own hands.

    Victor and Stark came down and figured out how to turn off the damn machine and its vibranium features. It was over.

    She just had to hope Mike would wake up. They had a lot to talk about after this.

 XLIV - Andromeda Debriefs

    <div>

    She was in a new car I hadn''t seen before, a sleek red sports car, but not a Nemo. The windows were tinted, but she had hers rolled down. She had a book in her hand, reading it while she waited for me. She folded it closed when she saw me and got out of the car.

    She looked¡­ really good. Honestly, and I probably should not ever say this aloud, much better than she had before. The serum had rendered her skin radiant and clear, made her just about six feet tall and very fit. She was wearing a nice new dress, which I did not take to mean I was not in trouble.

    "Hey," I said after a moment. What was I supposed to say in this moment? I had attacked the capital. I had tried to expose both of us as Hydra agents. I''d shot her with the scepter. I''d also kept so many secrets, my secrets had secrets.

    She looked me over, "No comment on the new appearance?"

    "Any way you look," I said, "I think you look great."

    She kissed me and gestured, "Come on, let''s get out of here."

    I slid into the car. It was a security precaution we''d established in the event of either of our arrests to buy a new car for pick up, clear it of bugs with an EMP, and roll out. But it was still funny to see that she''d torn out the voice radio even though it was probably voice activated. The inside still smelled of new car.

    "Sorry I attacked you," I said nervously. "And blew up the capital."

    "Don''t worry about that," Andromeda said and I couldn''t help but notice the emphasis. "You were under a thrall and you managed to get everyone else out safely enough." She reached over and squeezed my hand at that. "It was very selfless, but in the future keep in mind that you are our most valuable asset."

    I felt uncomfortable about that. It was too cold a perspective for me to enjoy - These were my friends and my fianc¨¦e, I wanted them to be safe. But she was right. In light of everything, she was definitely right. I had almost wrecked the United States. I squeezed her hand back. "So are you a big name superhero now?"

    "Yeah," Andromeda said, her tone still light. "They''re calling me Hornet."

    "That''s good," I replied. It would be useful later on if she had a good reputation. Heck, it would be useful right now, given that my name had been plastered all over the world as its most wanted man shortly before I launched an attack on the United States capital. "What''s the damage on my reputation?"

    "Well, we haven''t done any snap polls yet but the general consensus is that you shouldn''t be imprisoned for terrorism and sedition."

    Finally, we made it onto a highway and going sixty miles an hour. "So¡­" she said after a moment to be sure there wasn''t traffic up ahead. "What the hell?"

    I sighed, I knew this was coming.

    "A time machine? You built a time machine."

    Okay, so I didn''t know that was coming. "Uh¡­ Yeah." I scratched my head uncomfortably. Really thought we were going to start on Wakanda or the Super-Soldier Serum. Or the Hydra thing, depending on how confident she was about the standard lie or confused she was by phrasing. Didn''t know Victor had told her what the Lilypad was. "Technically it was Victor''s design."

    "But your idea."

    "I mean, yeah. Anyway, the ethical issues got overwhelming, the security threat was non-zero. I''d gotten the Super-Soldier Serum, that was enough."

    This content has been misappropriated from Royal Road; report any instances of this story if found elsewhere.

    "Mike, it''s not that you stopped using it. Why didn''t you tell me?"

    "We live in a world with mind control. Minimizing people with information minimizes risks."

    "Mike, I am your fiancee!" Andromeda grumped.

    "Victor is my best man," I pointed out. Okay, not the best move. I was letting my emotions catch up to me. I breathed in and out. "It doesn''t really matter, the principle is the same. I didn''t tell him about your shrink suit."

    "And Wakanda? Pierce has reported what you told Barton. Mike, you lied to me about one of the most important secrets in the world!"

    Wakanda. I''d explained the tech theft to Barton and while he might not know the exact nature of Wakanda, he definitely knew about it being technologically advanced and a source of Vibranium. Sooner or later, they were make me pay and it wasn''t even my fault this time. I mean, it was my fault in the strict sense. To me, it proved the old-school doctrine of Wakanda. T''chaka was too merciful. He should''ve had one of his lackeys do the murder and take the fall for it. Make up a motive after the fact. Andromeda wouldn''t have been able to protect me at that point, it would''ve been simple, clean. Now I was going to have to do unto them before they did unto me.

    "Wakanda isn''t some plum target, Andromeda," I said. "It''s the most politically backward, monarchial oligarchy imaginable with tech decades or centuries ahead of the rest of us. It is a nest of viper-bees, it is poison fruit, it is a real danger. It was obvious from the very start that it was a deadly problem. I wanted to have a more secure hold in America before I risked confronting."

    "THIS ISN''T SOME SPIN MEETING! You lied to me, Michael. You could have told me the truth, trusted me, and you didn''t. On the night we talked about marriage and everything! Why?" Her voice broke at the end.

    In situations like this, the answers are delicate. There were wrong answers, all of them true. ''You lied to me'' for example. Andromeda had actually stuck her neck out quite far to bring me into Hydra. She had trusted me more, faster, than she had been taught all her life to trust and she''d risked everything to bring me in. So to her, it would be an insult to bring that up. She had basically been perfectly transparent from her perspective. ''Hydra is a truly crazy organization and I knew your loyalty to them was your central motive.'' While true, was also not the sort of thing one says about his own organization that he''d moved towards world domination. SWORD was now in a perfect position to acquire huge hordes of new employees of great talent and then turn them towards its objective. ''I''m a chronic liar whose paranoia knows no bounds'' was certainly on the table, honest, and forthright. But a major problem was that I was a chronic liar whose paranoia knew no bounds.

    Anyway, I went with, "I should have, I''m sorry." Which was, objectively, a lie.

    "Okay," Andromeda said, loosening her grip. It turned out ''I''m sorry'' was the right answer. "Did you stick to the standard explanation?"

    "Yeah, it was an off-color joke. You had a secretive government job and I was a business tycoon politician. I had used it to set you off guard, especially given the presence of Captain America."

    "And it slipped my mind because I was in the middle fo the combat." She winced, "Sorry about that."

    "It''s not your fault," I said reassuringly. Now was not the time to be unforgiving.

    "How''d you get the knowledge of Loki and the scepter?"

    "The Gibborim wasn''t my first contact with alien life."

    "And that is how you got all that information?"

    "Yeah, the hearing stuff as well."

    She seemed to accept that.

    Well, for now anyway.

 XLV - Capital Victims Fund

    <div>

    "Mr. Trent," Alicia Howard asked me, leaning back in her interviewer''s chair, "Do you consider it appropriate to be continuing your run for office in light of your participation in the attack on the United States capital, including the very place where you hope to work?"

    I didn''t really like talking about my mind control time. I actually didn''t like thinking about it. The profound powerlessness that had been involved, to be.. replaced by that terrible blue light, I still woke up sweating with it on my mind. I had killed three thousand, seven hundred, and eighty five people. It turned out that I could focus on the death count and know their names, where they lived, and how they died. It was not the funnest trick, but when I needed to really get the water works going, it was pretty easy. It took three names this time before my voice was substantially shaky enough. "I think about that every day, Ms. Howard," I said, breathing in for a moment. "I think about the people who died. I think about the gun I had in that case, I wish I had found the courage to turn it on myself. I wonder how many people would''ve still been alive," objectively, I would probably save more lives if I just replaced the air planes and cleaned up long-distance travel. It would''ve been a catastrophic mistake to waste my life for theirs. The math didn''t even kind of work out. "But that chance is gone. I must find a way of living for all of us." I said, as if pushing away the difficult thought.

    "What could you possibly do that would contribute in light of the damage you''ve done?"

    "There are really two prongs to that question. Personally, I have to dedicate myself to forward progress. It was the Super-Soldier Serum I developed in the hopes of looser policy that empowered the elite Defense Team from SWORD. It was the spaceship that I designed that brought the Avengers to capital within three minutes of the attacks. It was Ms. Wizard," Tina Minoru, "whose life I saved by quick thinking, that deprogrammed Erik Selvig and Clint Barton. It was my fiancee who ultimately delivered the shrunken bombs that disabled the control ship using the shrink suit I designed. It was my foresight to look into every rumor and myth, to prepare for every eventuality, that allowed me to see the possibility of mind control coming and set up safeguards against it. So I look at the world and I see a lot of problems that could still use someone with my abilities and foresight."

    "Is that the best that you have to offer Americans who wonder if you can be trusted in light of your mind control? You had some good ideas in the past?"

    Taken from Royal Road, this narrative should be reported if found on Amazon.

    "I did a lot of good in the past, I''m running against people who have had bad policies in the past." My opponent, a Democrat incumbent, actually had had perfectly sensible anti-militarist policies in light of extant American hegemony, but I had a hawkish streak that was useful in these contexts. "But I also want to show America that I''m sincere about making good on it. I''ve been convicted that I must dedicate myself to the work of putting my mind to the use of our country and our world. That was always going to mean divestment, but I started earlier than I intended. I put over half of my money into the Capital Victims fund, which will help to care for those who have suffered loss from the Burning of the Capital."

    A round of applause erupted from the crowd. It is shocking the amount of forgiveness you can buy for a few billion dollars. Nineteen billion dollars meant I could deliver five million dollars for each of "my" victims, either lump sum or in stocks of my companies (which was always the right choice). The amount of money involved was mind boggling, but also functionally trivial for me. The market is fickle. Before the Burning of the Capital, my market valuation was seventy three billion dollars. Afterward, it was thirty nine billion, almost a 50% drop in the market cap - Not for any good reason, I might add. Stupid investors were following their heart rather than the obvious precedent that I was the most brilliant, cutting edge inventor in the world. It wasn''t like I was now less likely to pump out a world changing technology - When Nemo and Trent Industries released the "receiver" design for free our broadcast power system would dominate world power, I''d be back where I was before.

    "Wow," Howard said after a moment. "That''s¡­ a lot of money. Some might call it blood money." She was still talking about money, thinking about the money. The money was nothing, a score on a screen.

    "It''s not blood money," I said, shaking my head. "If I could be blamed for not managing to avoid Loki''s scepter, how much more could others be blamed for being unprepared? President Ellis? My opponent who dismissed the possibility of an alien invasion as the product of too much science fiction? I was as ready as anybody in the world for the attack. But I don''t blame anybody. Now isn''t a time for laying blame. It''s a time for taking responsibility and if I can give some comfort," I let my voice choke up a little bit. "To the people who have been harmed in this brutal attack, I will. And I promise them, I promise you, that if I am elected to national office, I will do everything in my power to ensure that everyone in the world is as prepared as I was. I will ensure we are ready to fight back against invasion, tyranny, and potential genocide."

 XLVI - Trust and Issues

    <div>

    At last, Ward tapped out. Steve got off him and extended a hand to him. Ward paused and took it, getting up off the ground and dusting off the black and white SWORD armor he''d been issued. "I''m just not used to my new strength," he said, trying to salve his pride. "I''ll get you soon enough."

    Steve smiled at that and thumped him on the shoulder, "I don''t doubt it." And he really didn''t. Ward was immensely practical and effective in combat. Quick and effective, a real expert in combat. Honestly, he should''ve been doing better today than he was. "Got something on your mind?" Steve asked, handing Ward a bottle of water as they stepped out of the practice ring.

    "News is distracting me," Ward said, twitching his shoulders in a small shrug as he accepted the water.

    "I never liked the attention much either," Steve said, trying to be amicable. Ward had lived more than Steve but Steve was his superior. It was important for him to have a rapport with his soldiers. Romanoff wasn''t fully recovered yet and Rumlow was friendly enough. Barton was steady enough. Ward was¡­ pricklier.

    "Not the problem, Cap," Ward said.

    "Then what''s the issue?"

    Ward took a drink of water, "It''s a personal problem, Cap. I won''t let it get between me and the mission."

    That was when Steve remembered Ward''s brother was running for re-election in Massachusetts. It was one of the problems with the new visibility that the S.W.O.R.D Defense Team that Christian Ward was able to use his brother''s work in the Capital Battle to shore himself up against the oncoming shellacking of the Republican caucus members after Ellis'' policies led to the Burning of the Capital. Steve didn''t like that - Back when he''d enlisted, the expectation had been that officers didn''t vote, and it seemed to him like heedless profiteering off the back of a tragedy. Ward hadn''t let on that it was bothering before now. "Alright, I get it. Sorry I asked," Steve held up his hands in surrender. Ward seemed to de-tense at that. "Let''s talk about the mission then. Why''d you sign up?"

    Ward didn''t re-tighten, but he gave Steve a sideways glance. "You must''ve read my file."

    "File only says what''s in the file, I want to hear what you say."

    "I did it all for the love of country," Ward said, his voice thick with sarcasm.

    "Really?" Steve said. He did his best to look amused. It wasn''t really a funny answer, but he understood bristling at the question. "Because I didn''t."

    "You''re literally Captain America."

    Steve shrugged. "Didn''t name myself. I love America, but the name is¡­" Steve shook his hand, "Kinda on the nose."

    "So why''d Captain America join the military?"

    Steve looked into the distance for a moment and said, "My dad died before I was born, serving. I was always real proud of that, but it meant we were poor and I was just a little guy. I spent my whole life knocked around by bigger, tougher guys. So when this new Napoleon emerged to ravage Europe and Roosevelt was on the radio talking about living at the point of the Nazi gun, I felt for them. I was sitting there furious. People were dying fighting tyranny and we were, what, sending them a care package? Promised myself I would do more than that."

    "And you did."

    "Eventually."

    Ward took a drink of water and stared into the middle distance for a moment. "I got recruited out of juvie. SHIELD cleared my record."

    "Term of service is only two years," Steve pointed out. "You''ve been out of the academy for five, got a lot of commendations in that time. I don''t think that was just about a clean record."

    "Guy who recruited me said it''d be the hardest thing I''d ever done." Ward said, putting down the empty water bottle with a hollow thud. "It was. But I learned to be a man, take care of myself and not get screwed with by anybody. Got to contribute to something greater than myself. I wasn''t in juvie for no reason, my life growing up was - Well, you read my file." Ward''s home life had been a disaster.

    "Alright," Steve said, gesturing to the ring. "Let''s do this again. This time, focus on the reason you joined."

    Ward won the next bout.

    ¡ª

    "Michael," Pierce said, as the Heads were sitting at a long table. "Congratulations. Today, the fruits of your plans have born out. SWORD is the most trusted institution in the world and we''re leveraging that into high talent recruits from all over the world. President Ellis'' approval is in free-fall." In Ellis'' defense, he had a big boost from the attack at first. It was only as the Senate and House had returned and started exercising their oversight that he really started plummeting in the approval polls. "Andromeda is the member of a team of heroes known all over the world. Hydra agents make up nearly half of the Defense Team. You''ve cracked the Super-Soldier Serum, bringing us to the future of human evolution. We owe you a great debt."

    You might be reading a pirated copy. Look for the official release to support the author.

    There was a warm round of applause from the group. It was good to be appreciated for my contributions. I wasn''t dead in the water for election, but I wasn''t doing great, and my opponent was taking the opportunity in the Senate to hammer Ellis and bump up her approval rating. I had been right about literally everything and the public was blaming me for things that weren''t even my fault. If I lost this election, I''d be forced to work with (maybe even for) S.W.O.R.D. instead of working over S.W.O.R.D. That wasn''t what I wanted, even if I was getting many plaudits for now. I ultimately wanted to replace Pierce, not to labor for him and his cause.

    "We''ll open our meeting today on the issue of Wakanda. Wakanda is a new player on the field. Public notice has not yet been given, but Wakanda is believed to be substantially ahead technologically of the first world, to say nothing of its superiority to neighboring regime. Michael, would you mind explaining why you obtained and failed to share this information?"

    You''re a bunch of psychos was not the right answer. No matter how appealing it would be to point out that we had a literal Nazi at the table and I had no interest in becoming King Leopold 2.0. I was not going to make a fool of myself by bringing up such irrelevant objections. "Alexander," I felt his name on my tongue uncomfortably. Whatever else had happened, I was still a son of the south and it was weird to refer to the most powerful man in my organization by his first name. "instructed me to ensure nobody made any foolish mistakes. Intervention into the politics of Wakanda would certainly constitute such a mistake. Wakanda is a dictatorship, a genuine throwback to the divine right of kings. I would not be optimistic about the possibility of overthrowing the local regime or its subversion in the short term. It was more reasonable to hope that they would just leave everybody alone as they have so far, and obtain control of their government in the mop up phase of our pursuit of global domination. The possibility of a fool''s gold rush was liable to lead to catastrophe. My continued recommended policy is to avoid entanglement with Wakanda - If you leave it alone, it leaves you alone, the perfect neighbor."

    The other heads nodded along. "We''ll defer to your advice then," Pierce said. There was a chorus of heads nodding in agreement. That was it. No questions, no pressure. I had proved I had the foresight to be a Head and they were willing to defer to me on matters in my sphere. "Michael, you''ve spent too much time and energy managing your internal affairs for privacy. Hydra gave you your company, we gave you the PRIDE. We''re not trying to take things from you. Relax." This received non-verbal affirmations from everyone but Strucker, whose fist was curled.

    "Thank you, sir."

    "Are there any other major issues you''d like to bring to our attention?"

    I''d lost the staff to Thor, who''d taken it with him to Asgard - Though I guess that spared us Ultron for sure, it also cost us the Twins getting their powers at least in the short term. Wakanda was on the shelf. In the Abstract, I finally had access to technological guidance at my own level. In Tina, I had an actual contact with someone who had some measure of literacy in magic. I had two major potential problems on the horizon. "I''ve been looking into a phenomena called ''inhumans'' and I would appreciate any information you have about it. Try not to aggravate the phenomenon, I just need data. And I have reason to believe that the recent quote-unquote mandarin terrorist attacks are faked, potentially a cover story for failed biological experiments. I need help narrowing the potential suspect list and, ideally, for someone else to broach it."

    "We''ll look into both, they''re your project and we''ll be deferring to you." Pierce said, nodding his head. "We do, however, have a request of you." Ah, yes of course. "We''d like you and Andromeda to try to persuade Tony Stark to share his tech with S.W.O.R.D."

 West Coast Avengers Meeting

    "Tony!" Andromeda said enthusiastically as I pulled open the door for Pepper and Tony. She gave him a hug, as I smiled politely at them both. Pepper was dressed in comfortable middle class evening wear and Tony was in a nice t-shirt.

    "Drama, good to see you," Tony said after a moment of shock before moving to a much cooler voice, "Michael."

    "Tony," I said with a nod of my head. "Ms. Potts."

    "Please, call me Pepper," Pepper said, extending a hand for me to shake. I took it and smiled. She seemed friendly enough, but her response to Andromeda was significantly less muted. "Andromeda! It''s good to meet you in person, I''m sure you get this a lot, but we''re so grateful for your service."

    Andromeda grinned modestly and waved her hand, "I think anyone would''ve done the same in my position." Andromeda did not think that, but she was a good liar.

    "Come on in," I said, gesturing them inside. Just like that, the two smartest men in the world were inside my sleek modern house. I knew it was tiny compared to Tony and the Pride''s houses but it was still large enough for me and Andromeda, plans for children weren''t immediate, so I didn''t let it bother me.

    We walked to the kitchen, Pepper enthusing over the house with Andromeda and admiring the various paintings of historical events. We got into the kitchen and Tony said, "Oh, look slave labor," as I migrated over to the stove.

    "Corvee labor, actually," I said lazily as I took a long whiff of the food. "More like taxes than slavery." Of course, people hated corvee labor, it was terrible, it was why Solomon''s son was overthrown, but it was an easy way to score points against Tony. It wasn''t like he was mistaking my painting of the pyramids for an enthusiasm for slavery.

    "Big fan of taxes?" Tony said, pulling up next to me and grabbing a pair of tongs and snapping them open and shut.

    "Tony¡­" Pepper said, but I made a calming gesture.

    "Off the record, I actually do. A beautiful way for all of us to contribute to the well-being of our fellow citizens and fellow human beings." I meant it, too.

    Tony laughed at that and snapped the tongs again before putting them back down. "So if the government raised our tax rates to ninety five percent?"

    "Well, they did it to hit Rockefeller, why not us?" I said, stirring the pot both literally and figuratively.

    "Maybe I don''t trust them to spend it," Tony said, putting down the tongs. I couldn''t tell if this was his real opinion or he was just looking for a fight.

    "I''ve learned an important lesson about trusting myself recently," I said, sliding easily toward what I thought might be the real point of this conversation.

    Tony looked at me and paused as if he had just said something very stupid. "Right," he said after a moment. "It''s a good thing you had that Tetra-whatever protocol. Added one to the suits after I saw that."

    Did I just succeed at making Tony Stark feel bad? I guess whatever bothered him wasn''t that I was mind controlled. Or maybe it was? Was I overcomplicating this? Lord, what if it was actually that stupid energy debate from nearly three years ago? Pepper seemed to take it as an opportunity to steer the conversation away from politics, "We were so disappointed that Rhodey had to cancel. He''s got some big thing."

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    "Yeah, would''ve been nice to get all the West Coast Avengers together under one roof," Tony said. Tina was coming soon.

    Avengers was an interesting term in this timeline. Because SWORD retained most of the Supersoldiers as "the defense team" after the attack, the news tended to refer to "the avengers and the defense team" even though the defense team was a part of the Avengers. So when people referred to "the avengers" they usually meant Ms. Wizard, Hornet, Rhodey, Captain America, Hulk, and Thor, even though from a legal perspective the Defense Team was also part of the Avengers initiative. In this context, it meant the people who had involved in the combat defeat of Loki. An uneven category that we were using to get Tony over to our house as an excuse.

    "I''ve gotta ask, Tony, why aren''t you in the suit?" I had been wondering for three years, but it wasn''t like I had access to the guy till now.

    Tony waved the tongs, "I do look good in one. I did it for a little while, but then I had a health scare. Its all sorted, but it was a chance for me to focus on the things that were most important to me." He looked over at Pepper and I resisted the urge to slam the boiling pot into my head until my brain joined the stew.

    It was shockingly hard not to scream. Of course. That stupid movie and its weird plot. That''s what the element in the fair was for. It burned cleaner than Palladium did under the Arc reactor. And Pepper never liked Tony being Iron Man but he hadn''t gotten together with her in the first movie because he''d forgotten her on the roof. By the time of Ivan''s attack, it didn''t matter, but if it had been making him sick, he''d have told his girlfriend, and if he had told his girlfriend, Tony would''ve never gotten into it in the first place. And then Ivan hadn''t attacked him because he wasn''t a massive locus of attention and I''d dealt with his father''s medical bills, so there was never a personal reason to be Iron Man.

    "Uh, earth to Mike," Andromeda said, "Do you want me to go get that?"

    "Yeah, please do." How on earth was I going to explain freezing up at a man talking the most important things? I guess Tina and Robert had made it.

    "Well done," Tony said as I stared after her.

    "Yeah, I guess I got caught up thinking about our wedding being crashed. I don''t know, I''m incredibly proud of the work Andromeda does. She''s not just a hero, she''s my hero."

    Pepper said "Aw" as Tony said, "She can''t hear you, you know." Pepper shot Tony a glare.

    Tina and Robert came in. Tina hadn''t taken the serum yet, she wasn''t sure of the effects on magical proclivity but like half of my social circle at this point, Robert had. I just got used to all my friends being Tall and Buff at a certain point.

    "Tina," I said happily and waved to Robert.

    "Mike, thank you for having us." Tina said warmly. Our relationship hadn''t exactly been frosty before the Burning of the Capital - I had been a step up from Jonah and I didn''t interfere too much. The relationship was much better since I had her kids hustled out of the wedding before myself and she''d fought Selvig alongside Andromeda. We''d been working together more closely since then. It turned out she really was a wizard, which was just ugh frustrating. "Tony, it''s good to see you again."

    "Tina, it''s so good to see you again," Pepper said. Again? I hadn''t known about any again. Oh, whatever, who cared. They were people, not pets. It wasn''t like she knew anything that could ruin me. "How''s work?"

    "Fascinating," Tina said as I took the pot off the stove. "We''re working on a full immersion digital experience. Touch, taste, sight."

    What we were really working on was immortality, but the immersion digital experience was a core part of it. Once we could make stable environments for human minds, we could use even the retro-grade upload process of Hydra to achieve true immortality for all mankind. And the immersion digital system would also let us engage in all kinds of useful training exercises or even to make bad tasting food taste good.

    "Have you heard from Selvig?" Tony asked as Pepper carried the salad he had abducted the tongs from to the dining table.

    "He''s¡­ adapting to Asgard alright. But we''ve exchanged our data and neither Mike or I can figure out how to revert him to his normal form." I felt a weird twinge of guilt about that. It didn''t even make sense. I felt worse about Selvig''s new big blue form than I did about all the people who had died. But those people weren''t Main Characters to my brain, so I guess that was part of my problem.

    We followed Pepper into the dining room and sat down around the table to eat when something on Tony buzzed. "Oh, it''s Rhodey. He says, uh, ''hey, check out the news.'' Trent, where''s your TV?"

    Why did no one in this world just communicate what was on the TV? It was the only reason why I had a TV. It was a cultural rule, no Spoilers for Real Life. "Come on," I said, jerking my head towards the living room and verbally turning it on.

    "AIM CEO Aldrich Killian was arrested last night by the Defense Team of S.W.O.R.D. for the so-called Mandarin bombings," oh, yeah, that was him. I''d wait and see how to get the formula from A.I.M. If I was lucky, S.W.O.R.D would just have it but you could never be too sure. I had some money set aside to purchase his patent rights or something. "In the process of coming to a deal with prosecutors, he has named many co-conspirators. Foremost among those conspirators was the Vice President of the United States, Joseph Rodriguez. Patriot, also known as Colonel James Rhodes, has just now escorted him out of his Washington residence."

    Wait. A.I.M. had been involved in a conspiracy with the Vice President of the United States?

 XLVIII Hansen Meets The Yorkes

    "I''m so excited to be working with you," Dr. Hansen said as we walked into Synnergy. She''d been recruited into S.W.O.R.D, flipped on Killian and was now researching Extremis with Synnergy. "I''m impressed with your work in clean energy."

    I grinned at her, "I''m pretty much done with that work now," I said. "Moving on to bigger things."

    "What could be bigger than the energy crisis?" Hansen asked as we handed our badges to security.

    "Politics, but I''d be moving on anyway. By the end of the year, the cost of a full year of energy usage by the average American will be less than the cost to fill a truck with a tank of gas." At $3.60 per gallon, things were real bad for the oil extracting nations. Hydra was keeping a close eye on the collapsing budgets of Saudi Arabia, Russia, Iran, and Venezuela. Mass unrest was stirring, OPEC was choking, and it was about to get much worse for them. Between Tony and I, a solid third of the United States was now running on clean energy at 2¡é/kwh. But once the satellites were in orbit, it would be .5¡é/kwh for me and maybe also for Tony, depending on if he had been sand-bagging this entire time to avoid monopoly accusations.

    "Wait, what? How"

    "We''re putting up solar satellites," I said, grabbing my badge back from Synnergy. "And once we''ve done that, we''ll be open-sourcing broadcast power receivers to cut infrastructure costs and help bring under-developed countries into the 21st century."

    "Really?" Hansen shook her head. "That''s amazing. You must be so proud of all you''ve accomplished."

    I shrugged. "Abundant power isn''t going to keep humanity safe from alien invasion," I said as we got into the elevator. "This might."

    The Extremis formula was one of the most useful technological innovations in world history. I had been disappointed to discover that it didn''t produce a permanent altered state, you needed regular dosing, but it was still one of the most incredible inventions ever. It brought with it the most powerful healing process known to mankind, it made individuals with it tougher physically, users had fire-related attacks, and it gave a regeneration factor that would''ve cost me a hundred points in GURPS. It just had the small, minor problem that sometimes when people used it they might explode. We were here to fix that problem.

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    "I''m flattered," she said as we got onto the elevator. "But don''t you think the Super-Soldier Serum is enough? I''m not enthused about making better, more powerful super soldiers."

    "Dr. Hansen, you shouldn''t embrace the idea that these technologies are solely military. When we develop it, men and women will have nearly even physical health, and they''ll be able to lead full lives to being a hundred. Yes, the military will use it too - But everyone will be safer for it, not just the military. But to answer your question about the Super-Soldier Serum being enough, I don''t think anything is enough," I said as the elevator began to rise. And I didn''t. Tony Stark had dropped a spaceship on Thanos and he''d walked it off. All that for a drop of blood. But if we can combine the Super-Soldier Serum with Extremis, if I reproduced my shrink suit and added the teleportation feature, and if I can persuade Tony to at least share his repulser tech, I think we''d have a good start. If I managed to complete my immersion upload system, of course, we''d be able to have an immortal phalanx of androids as well, but that wasn''t here or there.

    "You are very paranoid," Hansen said as we climbed off the elevator. I thought it was interesting description, even though it kept recurring over and over again. From my perspective, I was just an ordinary guy, putting in a reasonable effort to be ready for the common threat. Maybe my brain had been broken by Dungeon and Dragons optimizer thinking, maybe I''d spent too long on SpaceBattles in my old life. Maybe Hansen was just projecting my theory onto the defeated invasion of D.C. because she didn''t realize that that was a weak showing on Thanos part. Eventually, we made it to Dale and Stacey, both of whom had taken the enhancement and were now muscular, healthy looking super-soldiers in lab coats. Dale still looked weird to me without his glasses.

    "Dale Yorkes," Dale said by way of introduction.

    Hansen smiled and shook his hand, "Maya Hansen, consulting scientist with S.W.O.R.D. It''s a pleasure to meet you in person Dr. Yorkes. Dr. Yorkes," she said, extending her hand to Stacey who smiled and shook it.

    "We''ve been looking over the files you sent us," Stacey said as we walked towards the lab, "And we''re not sure what''s causing the glitch, as you call it, but we have narrowed down the causes of it. Also, Mike, you were worried over nothing - It looks like the insertion gap isn''t solved by the Super-Soldier Serum."

    I breathed a sigh of relief. I had been worried about that one. The extremis formula used an existing slot in human genetic code to amplify recover systems and I had worried it might overlap with the mechanisms of the Super Soldier Serum. So, once we had it up and running we should be able to splice them together. Just had to get it up and running, without explosions. S.W.O.R.D. had sent a consult copy to Tony, but he hadn''t answered and while I had hopes that Tony would actually warm to me at this point, it was going to take time we might not have. I didn''t know anything about the second Thor movie, when it was or anything like that, but I wanted to be ready when it hit regardless.

    "Of course we''re free next Friday, by the way." Dale said after a moment to me.

    I grinned at him and gave him a thumbs up, "Good, good, that should be everyone then."

    "Is something next Friday?" Hansen asked, confused. Right, we had just been talking the Super-Soldier Serum.

    "Well, Dr. Hansen, I''m going to ask you to keep this secret a bit better than Dale but my wedding was rather famously interrupted."

 XLIX The Wedding

    "Is this a bad idea?" Bruce asked, twitching uncomfortably with the cuffs of his shirt. "Should we be doing this?"

    "You got an invitation," Natasha said patiently. Bruce was not a big fan of infiltration, but this was a little ridiculous. It was a wedding, to which they had been invited. "It had a plus one and everything."

    "I feel like we''re trespassing anyway, I mean, what are we going to learn from a wedding?"

    "Lots of things." Natasha said patiently, walking over and giving Bruce a size up. He looked good, calm and collected, in a decent suit. Thanks to the miracle of Micron Particles, she had a shrunken pair of pants that would fit the big guy in case it came to that. "We could learn who he invited, maybe why he invited you, what his relationship is like that it produced, well, you read the after action reports on Andromeda."

    Andromeda Albertson, soon to be Andromeda Trent, had very strong opinions on how aggressive her future husband would be in pursuit of conquest. Most women thought their boyfriends were gentle souls or tender warriors or some crap like that, but Andromeda put all her money on, ''vicious killer'' and then had been right over and over again. Trent had been mind controlled, but it was still a disturbing picture of a loved one.

    "Are you sure I''m supposed to have read that?" Bruce asked. Bruce was not a vicious killer, not even a little bit. The green guy had a lower kill count than Trent did.

    "It should be fine," Natasha said. "As long as you don''t tell anybody anything about it."

    "Natasha!"

    "Relax," Natasha said, "Your security clearance as an Avenger would''ve let you read it if you''d done the paperwork." In all honesty, she doubted Fury would even give her a slap on the wrist for sharing it. He''d done a lot worse in his day in preparation for his work. She stepped back and looked at Bruce. "You look good."

    Bruce blushed a little at that and looked down, "You look stunning."

    Natasha grinned at that. She was still getting used to this new body and its ample muscles, but it was a good look still. She gave Bruce a peck on the cheek and said, "Thank you."

    ¡ª¡ª

    "I, Michael Trent, take you, Andromeda, to be my wife. Against all adversity, together through trial and tribulation, l pledge to stand by your side and come to your aid, to be of one will and one purpose, and to enjoy together all the fruits of life. Without reservation, I pledge to you all my life, my love, and my sacred honor."

    This tale has been unlawfully lifted from Royal Road; report any instances of this story if found elsewhere.

    ¡ª¡ª

    "We don''t go to enough of these things," Tony said, as Pepper and he finished signing the guest book. "Happy occasions, big celebrations. Most of the time. She could do better."

    "Tony," Pepper hissed, "We are at their wedding."

    Tony held up his hand in surrender. He had been intending for that to go in a bit of a different direction. "It''s good. It''s nice. Do people not get married any more?"

    "Well, Tony, you got a lot of invitations in your twenties and thirties. I met a few of the bridesmaids too."

    Tony tried not to wince. Why had he used to make Pepper kick women out for him? It was not helping him in his present circumstances. This conversation kept not going in the direction he was hoping it would go.  "You make it sound like I''m old."

    "Tony, you''re forty two. Most of your friends have gotten married, settled down. Or divorced."

    Pepper was being very successful at dodging the topic he was trying to move toward. That had been the main reason he had come to this thing. "It''s real nice, the wedding is. A little small, do you feel like it''s small?" It was in this nice little rustic church building, nothing wrong with it, Tony just felt it needed more¡­ something. He wasn''t sure what.

    "They had a big one, it got attacked. Tony, think before you say these things."

    "Right," Tony said. He decided to hang up this question for awhile yet.

    ¡ª

    "I, Andromeda, do take you, Michael Trent, to be my husband. You have given so much to me and to the world. I only hope to return in some small measure, the reverence, the sacrifice, and the honor you deserve. Whatever comes next, whatever happens, I pledge myself to you, to your cause, and to our life together, without reservation and with great hope."

    ¡ª

    "Wait, so we''re just going to jump out? No parachutes?" Ward asked, his voice skeptical.

    "It''s the same principle as the high dive," Steve said, "Water ingress and boarding is much easier than trying to land on a boat with a parachute without getting shot out of the sky."

    "I should''ve gone to the wedding."

    Steve grunted.

    "You still mad at them over that dumb joke?" Ward asked.

    "Not a dumb joke," Steve said. He still remembered the dull shock when he''d heard Hydra being referenced in the 21st century. He thought he''d left it buried behind him in Forty-Five. "I don''t get it, you know. It''s been almost seventy years, of course it seems less important now. But it still happened! These guys were real, they were horrible, and they hurt a lot of people. Red Skull''s looks were his best features. It''s the achievement of my life that I played a part in confronting them. Hydra was the worst of mankind. It''s not something to joke about."

    Ward looked thoughtful at that. "Think he was trying to rile you up, Cap. You''re giving it too much thought. Hydra went extinct seventy years ago."

    "Well, it worked. Alright, this is the jump site. I can go first if you''re nervous."

    Ward gave him an offended expression, opened the hatch of the plane and jumped out with a yell. Steve laughed for a moment, remembering his days with the Howling Commandos, and then jumped out after him.

    ¡ª

    "Mike is a man of singular vision," Victor said, holding up his glass. "He has moved us forward in so many fields in such a short time. He has foresight and wisdom. I''m so honored to count him among my friends, to listen to his counsel, and to see the future he is building for us today. For as long as I have known him that future has been one guided by reason and the good of all mankind. Whether that is in acting to control the climate crisis or it is sending so many of those of us here today to safety at risk to himself" Here, there was a smattering of applause from the PRIDE and Andromeda''s family.  "Mike has always demonstrated calmness and drive in the face of danger. Today, we are so happy to witness him receive a beautiful reward in his marriage to Andromeda, a hero known throughout the world. To Michael and Andromeda Trent, the heroes the world needs. May your marriage be as happy as your lives have been generous!"

 L: The Wedding Reception

    Andromeda and I danced until her father got up to dance. I sat down as she danced and watched her, enjoying what was the beautiful sight I had ever seen. My wife, enjoying herself. "Congratulations," Pierce said, sitting down next to me. He had officiated our wedding. It made Andromeda happy.

    "Thank you, Alexander." I looked over my crowd of Avengers, the Defense Team, Andromeda''s family, and the PRIDE. Cap wasn''t here, which was disappointing to me as a fanboy but I understood. I might have been hurt if it had been just a joke but it wasn''t. We''d lucked out to get Natasha as well as Bruce, who were both doing their best to look comfortable in a setting that clearly didn''t suit them. I got the impression they were looking into me as well.

    "I thought you''d want to know that the World Security Council has licensed the creation of twelve Super-Soldiers per nation, with twenty four for council nations, and an additional twenty four for the United States on the basis of its origin". It was an innocuous topic for us to be discussing in a formal setting - I was an inventor of the Serum.

    "That''s not nearly enough." It was also prohibitively low. There were so many people who would benefit from the serum''s effects who weren''t in the military and now it was off the table for potentially forever.

    "I knew you were going to say that. Michael, this is hundreds of Super-Soldiers, spread throughout the globe. Take the win."

    "The only victory I''m interested is a united earth, secure against all foes," I said. At the angle we were at, I could see Black Widow without turning. Almost certainly not an accident. She was watching me, reading my lips probably, though she thought she was hiding it well. To be fair, she was hiding it well. "I only want to ensure everyone is safe, Alexander."

    Pierce didn''t miss a beat. "That''s what we all want," he agreed. "Michael¡­ what happened with Loki¡­ That wasn''t your fault. You have to stop blaming yourself."

    I managed to fake what I thought would be a convincing flinch and looked away. "If I stop blaming myself, will it give those mothers back their children? No. I will rest when I know that no one will ever be able to do that again. Not a minute sooner."

    Pierce managed a grandfatherly wrinkle of his forehead in concern and put his hand on my shoulder. "Michael¡­" he took a breath in, "You should be proud. Or at least, take today to be happy. Please."

    Enjoying this book? Seek out the original to ensure the author gets credit.

    I gave him a half-hearted smile and he shook his head and stood up. "Congratulations, again, Michael."

    I turned my head back to the dance floor and went back to enjoying Andromeda dance, while keeping my face much more carefully neutral than it deserved to be. Stupid suspicion from stupid people making me look less happy than I was. I hadn''t even done anything to merit it except get mind controlled. I mean, nothing they knew of. Okay, when I put it like that it was fair enough.

    People started to mill through and Andromeda drifted back to me and under my arm. We were nearly the same height now, I having gained four inches to 6''2" on my trip to this universe and her having gained 6 inches from 5''6".

    "Thanks for the speech Victor," I said when he came by. "I''m almost embarrassed it was about me."

    Victor looked me in the eye deadly serious, "I could''ve said so much more and you know it."

    It was so weird to have people so close to me who saw me as the savior of the world. I''m not trying to downplay my accomplishments - I''d ensured free energy within a decade, we were on our way to a variety of forms of human immortality, I was building the forces to defeat alien invasions of a huge number of varieties. But nonetheless, it was weird.

    "Thank you, Victor," Andromeda said. "Mike is too modest."

    Tony and Pepper came by to congratulate us. "So, didn''t know what to get you, decided to send over the analysis you asked for. Just some spitballs. Hope it helps brings about that whole perfect health thing. Don''t forget to cut me in on the profits."

    "I won''t. Thanks Tony," I said sincerely. That was excellent news, his notes were our best hope to achieve stabilization in the short term. I didn''t care at all about the money. Honestly, I didn''t think Tony did either except as a pride thing.

    Bruce and Natasha came by, Bruce''s hands were a little sweaty from nerves or guilt? It didn''t make any sense. We had invited him to this wedding and even if he and Natasha were trying to find something out it wasn''t like I had brought anything crucial with me to my own wedding. I grinned and said, "So good to see you both. Natasha, again, I''m so sorry about the poison gas thing."

    "Not your fault," she said a little uncomfortably. I wonder if she bought the earlier display or if it was a general principle thing that she didn''t want to blame me for anything she didn''t blame Barton for.

    Gert came by with Dale, who was carrying Molly on his shoulders. "I told you you should''ve said yes."

    I nodded my head sagely, "You were right, I was wrong."

    Achilles came by and shook my hand, "Be good to her or else."

    Ah, the South. You could almost forget what it was like in the liberal West, but it came back to you in this weird machismo thing we always did. "She could bench press me with one arm, Achilles. Feel like you should be threatening her to protect me."

    Achilles waved a hand dismissively, "Yeah, but she can hurt me."

    ''I can hurt you too, you dumb buffoon.'' I didn''t say that. These rituals were important in the South. "Of course I won''t hurt Andromeda, Achilles. Stay calm about it."

    And eventually the reception wound down and it was time for Andromeda and I to leave. We ran down a line of sparklers and rice throwers into a limo and went to the very swanky hotel where we would be spending the night.

    It was a very good night.

 LI Nakia

    Campaigns are funny things, lots of town halls and meetings, lots of supporters to rile up. Sometimes, for me, big stadium events where people streamed in to hear me talk. I could give a barn burner, which was one of the big reasons I was in the race at all. But down six points in October, I wasn''t holding out much hope that I actually won. That meant it was time to have a conversation with my erstwhile Wakandan spy, before she decided to close the book on me one way or the other.

    I couldn''t remember her name from the movie, it had been almost five years since I had seen it, but I knew that I recognized her from the movie and since that meant she was either the bodyguard or the spy, since she had hair, she was the spy who dated T''challa. Anyway, it was unfortunate for Wakanda that they had chosen a high profile spy to send to me because I would''ve just been guessing otherwise. The sheer amount of paranoia that would''ve gone into insuring I wasn''t ganked would''ve been crazy and looked very racist.

    We were piling chairs in a townhall meeting in one of the less dense areas of California when I finally brought it up. "So, how is Wakanda doing?"

    "What?" Nadia said, putting up a chair in the little community center of the library.

    "Well, you are the spy from Wakanda, so I was hoping you might have been told how it is doing."

    "That''s not-"

    "Please don''t waste my time with lies," I said, stacking a chair after her. "I''ve no grudge with Wakanda, but I understand if it might have one with me. Just explain why you''re here, your cover is blown. If you don''t, I will be forced to assume you''re here to assassinate me. I think we both know that would go poorly for you." Anybody who had spent significant time around me eventually learns how thorough my protections are. And while they may not have cut it against Loki, even a woman in invincible chainmail with a one shot ranged weapon would be foolish to test herself against me.

    Nadia hesitated for a moment and sighed, "I am here to watch you. You are not what I imagined you would be." Her accent got immediately thick, leaving behind the Western tinge it had before and switching to Wakanda.

    "How so?"

    "N''Jadaka spoke of this ''Jim Crow Republic'' of yours so lowly and you had attacked an embassy. I suppose I thought you would either be a saintly prophet from your great spirit defying your nation and culture or a servant of an evil spirit making it worse, but you do not act like either."

    Ah N''Jadaka had to be Killmonger. Already fucking up Wakanda''s opinion of the United States. That had not been my intention at the time of my "N''Jadaka has suffered at the bottom of our racial caste system, I admit that was unfair to him. But I was not sent to save the world from America''s faults. I have a greater mission. The salvation of the universe."

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    "If I may say something that is irreverent," Nadia said. I nodded my head for her to continue. "You are doing a poor job."

    I scowled. What did she know? Did she have any idea the price that I had paid, the weight I bore on my soul, to try to help humanity reach its potential? I was binding mankind together, as no one before had managed, almost as no one before me had tried. I was leaving a legacy of peace and security for all mankind. But I did not say these things. It''s always good to get criticism from time to time and I had spent too long with people who believed I had done what was right.  "Why do you say that?"

    "This is not what a prophet should be doing," she said. "Going from meeting house to meeting house, begging for the approval of some few. Refusing to tell them the full truth for years until they had already been savaged by their enemy. You are a poor watchman."

    "So I should''ve, what, gotten involved with conspiracy theorists and told people that aliens were coming?"

    "The man who touched the stars does not know how to talk to his people?"

    The spaceship had been ridiculously expensive, even by my own standards. It wouldn''t have been possible if Hydra hadn''t let me do it. I had needed to wait, to get to an ideal position. "I don''t know how to make them listen," I said. "I didn''t want to wander with my lamp, crying out in the wilderness. Am I to listen to a spy?"

    "You are wasting your wit on deflections like that. If your own people are too foolish, you could have warned Wakanda," Nadia pointed out. "We could have helped you. The King trusted you, once. It was your counsel that returned N''Jadaka to us. If your own people would not listen, we would have."

    I froze at that. I hadn''t thought of asking for Wakanda''s help. I would have had better scientists. I would have had better materials. Why hadn''t I done it? Was it just the insults they paid to me made me angry? I felt my mind twisting away from the possibility, struggling for another explanation. Truthfully, I do not know if that was why. There are good and bad reasons for everything we do and we too often flatter ourselves that we are doing them for the right reason. In that spirit, I will admit a petty reason for continuing the argument: I was not terribly interested in losing this argument with Nadia. "I was not warmly received on my mission regarding N''Jadaka."

    "Wakanda is not warm to outsiders. I admit the process of a second petition might have been uncomfortable. But the king is not a fool. If you had offered your counsel, if you had told him there would soon be an alien invasion that threatened the whole universe, he would have listened. He would have helped."

    And if I had told the king, maybe I could''ve escaped ever joining Hydra. I closed my eyes and leaned against the stack of chairs for a moment. I resisted the urge to curse myself and my pride. "Well, regret is not a productive emotion. People believe me now, at least, and my best place is here. What will you do now that I have unveiled you as a spy?"

    "I will likely have to consult with the king."

    "Would you like the Super-Soldier Serum?"

    "You would offer the Super-Soldier Serum to a spy?"

    "It''s mostly an apology to Wakanda." I had sent a few messages and gift baskets, of course, but nothing vital could go by any of my channels, infested as they were with Hydra and its cronies and SHIELD agents and the FBI and probably every major intelligence organization in the world at this point. "But if you do not want it, I understand."

    "I will¡­ carry your offer to the king."

    "Nadia, would you mind telling me your real name?"

    She paused for a moment. "It is Nakia, Mr. Trent."

    "Good luck, Nakia. Bear your king my apologies for my actions under mind control. And for my foolishness in not seeking his help sooner."

 LII: Taking An L

    "You could still win," Andromeda whispered into my ear as we milled around thanking supporters and waiting for the results to roll in.

    "I''m down six points," I whispered back. "I wouldn''t just need a miss, I''d need a big miss." The awkward part of running for election is you had to pretend you weren''t losing even when you very clearly were. My opponent had said I was ''running over the graves of our congresspeople and his wife''s own co-workers'' which was true in a technical sense, but I cannot emphasize how much it was not my fault that I had been mind controlled. Short of blowing my brains out, I can''t think of a superior solution to Loki''s attack other than, ''Don''t have a public wedding'' and ''time major events to avoid blockbuster season.'' I''d had gun wielding drones and a massive security team and it hadn''t cut it. Sometimes, you just lose.

    "They''d have to be crazy not to listen to you," Andromeda insisted. I admired her belief in me, but it wasn''t that well founded. My contributions had been essential to the defeat of Loki, but it had also been crucial to the Burning of the Capital. People might be able to separate out in their heads that I wasn''t responsible, but I still teleported bombs into the White House. No matter how outdated much of it had been, people did not like that at all. And some people didn''t believe I''d really broken my ''alien programming'', putting aside that we had also neutralized the Monstrosity in the same way.

    "It''s not all about pure reason," I said.

    "It should be," she said grumpily. I wrapped my arm around her waist and kissed her cheek. Of course she thought that, she was my wife. I shouldn''t let her feelings about the results distort my own. The problem with thinking things like that is that they''re usually signs of a battle I''ve already lost. I did feel like the fact that I was right meant that I should be Senator.

    We made the rounds and stood around watching the election results roll in. At first, I felt a flare of hope - I did look to be doing better than I had expected in early ballots. But as the night drew on and the Election Day results rolled in, I knew I wasn''t doing nearly enough better about three hours before the news networks called it. So I spent three hours, sitting with supporters who were full of hope and energy, cheering me on, saying how we could really do this. I did my best not to snap at them and to maintain a cheery demeanor. But it was immensely frustrating and by the end of the night, I was so ready for it to be over that I abbreviated my concession speech and set off to bed without much glad handing.

    You could be reading stolen content. Head to Royal Road for the genuine story.

    As Andromeda curled against me in the dark, I couldn''t help but appreciate the difference between Hydra and the public. For Hydra, what mattered was if you were right and if you delivered.

    Los Angeles Times, Page 8, "The Trent Campaign Lost"

    Energy and technology titan Michael Trent from California lost to incumbent Democratic Senator Anna Heartwood by a narrow margin of three percent. Once the clear favorite due to his massive war chest, personal charisma, and unbeatable name recognition as the first human to exit the solar system, the race tightened after Trent''s enthrallment by the alien invader Loki.

    Trent ran a campaign on futurist and security themes. In a year defined by the alien assault on the United States, the themes were immensely successful. The candidate was not. Once regarded as an extraordinary outlier on interstellar security, Trent''s positions have become mainstream. In the aftermath of the Burning of the Capital, Senator Heartwood began to use her powerful position in the Senate Foreign Affairs committee to help empower the international project S.W.O.R.D. undercutting Trent''s unique appeal on the issue.

    Trent''s contribution to political debate has become even starker as one of his chief opponents, Republican President Ellis, has been engulfed in scandal. Trent''s hawkish approach to human experimentation might have taken a beating if the AIM conspiracy had escaped notice for longer - But thanks to the intervention of SWORD''s North American Defense Team, it instead vindicated his own concern of non-state actors pursuing enhancement and the importance of state superiority.

    Trent was also the only politician in this election cycle to receive an endorsement from any members of the superhero team known as the Avengers. Tina Minoru, also known as Ms. Wizard, had known Trent from his involvement with Los Angeles community organization PRIDE and attested to his character and reliability, as well as the deep importance to her of his actions protecting her family during the attack on his wedding. His wife, Andromeda Trent nee Albertson, also known as the Hornet was empowered by an experimental shrink suit that was subject of controversy at Mr. Trent''s backtracking on previous promises to avoid human experimentation. Mrs. Trent was also an early subject of the new Super Soldier Serum, thanks to her status as a former federal agent and her connections with Synnergy.

    Such a streak of political coups would have rendered most candidates unbeatable - But concerns about Trent''s mental health and security viability following his enthrallment, as well as offense at the propriety of running in the aftermath of his own actions, plagued Trent through his run. Without a strong contrast in political positions between himself and his opponent, the choice was simply a matter of personal trust. On that front, the incumbent senator and long-time public servant with deep roots in California beat out the genius scientist superstar. Trent was conciliatory in his concession speech, remarking on the shared interests of himself and Senator Heartwood and pledging all his dedication to, "our common cause, the security of earth and the prosperity of her people." Senator Heartwood has said she, "intends to make the fullest use of every willing California citizen to face the challenges ahead of us."

 LIV Trish Talk

    "How''re you taking your loss?" Trish Walker, a dear friend of my personal assistant in New York, asked me. She was a young blond woman, about four years my junior, and she was in a professional pantsuit with a floral print blouse.

    "Personally, I''m obviously disappointed. But from a policy perspective, I''m still excited about the new Democratic House and Senate super-majorities, and I hope they deliver the ambitious policy that we need on human and technological development."

    The Democrats had savaged the GOP. Between the collapse of traditional Republican industries in coal and gas, the mishandling of the invasion, and the AIM Conspiracy, the Democrats had an infinite supply of targets. Positive internationalism and support for SWORD were at all time highs and Democrats tripped over themselves to be the first to promise bigger and better support for other nations. Hydra picked up two seats in the Senate: One in Massachusetts, replacing Christian Ward whose brother had managed to discretely drop that he hadn''t spoken to him in years, and one in Louisiana, Andromeda''s uncle who had flipped to the Democrats to run. That brought Hydra''s seats in the Senate to three. We also had about a dozen in each caucus in the House.

    "Human development?"

    Trish and I had worked out in advance that I was not going to be focusing on the world-security aspects of my plans. I was here to talk about the trickle-down benefits to the general public and to argue for broader utilization, not to pound the table for military power. Women in their late twenties and early thirties were not fond of pounding the table for military funding. "Right now we''re seeing the tragic restriction of the Super-Soldier Serum to military use. There are so many people afflicted with diseases like muscular dystrophy that the Serum might address."

    "Do you think we might see a broader permission for anyone who wants it?" Trish said.

    Yeah, that. Trish wanted Jessica''s powers, which was fair enough. "I think in the medium term, there''s no reason to resist that. I have civilian friends who''ve taken the serum, and they''re enjoying the benefits of physical and emotional endurance that it brings. If people want it, I think, why not? But right now I''m focusing on medical applications." I neglected to include that we were still working on the Extremis serum. It''s connection with AIM meant that it was a delicate political topic, but once we stabilized the serum, we''d be going public with that too. Tony had shown us how to turn it off in a non-explosive subject, but that wasn''t enough. We needed, at a minimum, a serum that we could turn off in an explosive subject before we were left with a crater and a federal investigation.

    "Well, when you get the chance to open it up to healthy people, I would love to be one of the next round of guinea pigs," Trish said in a casual tone that her body language totally belied. She was tense. If I had offered her the Serum for her right hand, she would give it to me.

    "I''ll put you on the list," I said with a smile. I would. But I didn''t expect it to be actionable for at least a year. Still, Trish had been a good friend to Jones and a good person and if she got the serum, so what? Happy for her to be a subject. Ideally, I''d be able to smuggle some to Matt Murdock, but he wasn''t a candidate for the serum''s medical purposes.

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    "You first became famous in the energy business. Today, American energy is so cheap it''s almost unbelievable. How do you feel about that?"

    Tony had, in fact, pledged to match my energy rate of half a cent per kilowatt hour. That was bad in that it made my life harder, but it was good because a series of orbital satellites as the sole power source wouldn''t have been ideal in the event of an alien invasion. Between the two of us, the U.S. energy supply was now almost half clean and damn close to free. "Trish, I''m so excited about that. We''re providing clean energy, we''re giving our children a brighter future, cleaner air, and a better chance to live. But Trish, we''re only at step one to a world where everyone''s life counts," I said, grinning at the pretty blond confidently. "We in America have the joy of an abundant energy environment now, but we should be looking to shore up our fellow human beings well-being on this front. That''s why Trent Industries and Nemo have open sourced our power receivers and why we''re committed to delivering energy to energy poor nations around the world, as Wakanda has admirably demonstrated."

    In a surprise move, Wakanda also offered similar energy rates and educational aid to its immediate neighbors - Probably as a counter-balance to any international influence attempts and perhaps as their contribution to an anti-alien invasion. They''d declined my offer of the super soldier serum, politely noting that they had no interest in becoming a military power, ''twelve will be more than enough'' they had said. Stupid, but what can you do?

    "Do you think that Wakanda''s sudden generosity indicates the rumors about enhanced technological capabilities are true?"

    "Wakanda is a great and gracious nation, I''ve received nothing but fair treatment from them even after the attacks on their embassy during my enthrallment." I said immediately. "But I don''t know that we can take this new generosity as evidence that they''re far ahead of us technologically or scientifically. Wakanda has always delivered a surprisingly high educational attainment for its level of development and it would only take one Wakandan Tony Stark to provide abundant energy there."

    Trish smirked at the lack of a straight answer, but this was a fluff interview and she clearly had no interest in pressing it further. "Alright, how about space flight? When are we going to get to take a tourist escape to the stars?"

    "Unfortunately, commercial space flight is still off the table, even for the richest people. Industrial usage within the solar system has been licensed, but with the security dangers of a terrorist hijacking and the political danger of discovery, both extrasolar and commercial trips are off the table for the foreseeable future."

    "Well, that''s disappointing."

    "Trish, you have no idea. If you had seen what I''d seen, looking down on our world, I think you would see how precious and special we all are. How rare and unique and holy this world we call our home is. I think if I could take everyone up there just to look at it, enough of us would see all that we would have in common, and that the world would at last know peace." That''s a nice sentiment, of course, and I do actually think it would help - But the idea that it alone would work was nauseating sentimentality at its worst. Still, fluff piece, fluff show, fluff content.

    "That''s a beautiful idea," Trish said, grinning at me. "Congratulations on using one of the few civilian trips to propose to your wife!"

    "My proudest moment!" I said with a laugh. "It was a good proposal. We left everyone in suspense for a moment there."

    "Oh, tell me you didn''t spring that on her."

    "No, no, we''d talked about it before."

    "Good. Mr. Trent, what''s next for you?"

    "With energy supply in America reaching capacity here in the United States, Trent Industries is going to start shopping for national customers interested in securing low rates for their entire energy needs." It would also give me valuable international experience. "And I''m continuing to consult with SWORD. But without political office, I think my energies will mostly be focused on solving the problem of human mortality."

    Trish stared at me in stunned silence for a moment. "I''m sorry, human mortality?"

    Tina had cracked the sense-replicating programs, so at this point, I had reason to hope that we could achieve a successful transfer. "With our advanced imaging hardware and computational developments, I hope to design a means of consciousness extraction and preservation."

    The next day I got a call from a man named Holden Radcliffe.

 LIV Upload

    Dr. Radcliffe was, well, he was really awkward. He was also a brilliant scientist and the first person I had met in this world who wanted to be more aggressive than I was. "Yes, I read your paper on the risks, but consider the rewards! We could move humanity into a bright future overnight, just one intelligent program."

    "Or plunge it into everlasting darkness," I said, stepping out of the car. "I''m happy to be working with you on these questions and providing you funding," he had been painfully underutilized in his previous role at an agrochemical company, "but under no circumstances are you to invent an AI. This is the one, sole condition of your funding. AI are dangerous, we don''t know how to produce a safe one, therefore we will not build one."

    "What if we created a kind of nursery for AI. Put them in black box environments and see if they pop up crazy or not."

    "Dr. Radcliffe, putting aside the probability of creating stable people inside a box without egress, there''s also the massive issue of creating people as thralls to our will. Deciding if they get to live or die on the basis of how useful they are. Don''t you see the problem with that?"

    Radcliffe hesitated and then shook his head, "No, you''re right. Slavery is wrong. But that''s no reason to give up. We just need to come up with the right idea."

    "Let me know of any ideas you come up with before you implement them. Actually, before you make the design."

    A generic-looking woman walked up in simple dress. "Hello, Dolly," I said politely. "Who''s piloting you today?"

    "Oh, it''s me," Dolly let out a little laugh. Then she scrunched up her face in a way that gave away that it was Stacey, "Right, the audio isn''t correlated. It''s me, Stacey. You know Mike, you need to fix that."

    We had hauled the old Life Model Decoy program out of storage - The program itself had ultimately proved ineffective, the models were fairly ineffective, but the models looked like people and could ambulate, so they had made a good base on which to overcoat sensory interpretation hardware. "Stacey, a correlated speaking voice takes hundreds of hours of data with our present software. Do you have hundreds of hours of your voice to give it?" I took out a stick of gum and held it under Dolly''s nose.

    "Cinnamon," she said, identifying it correctly. "No, I don''t."

    "That''s right, we''ve had Jacobs recording full time for weeks, all kinds of voices." Technically, as a Hydra agent on the list for upload, Jacobs had recorded most of his tapes years in advance and only provided us with a set of ''update tapes'' so he wouldn''t have vocal dysmorphia, but Stacey didn''t need to know that. "Alright, let''s go see our patient."

    We walked into the smooth looking comfortable euthanasia clinic. I am not, and have never been, a proponent of euthanasia, but it served my purposes to use this one today. Hydra had used it for most of these procedures previously. After all, if anything went wrong, it was genuine euthanasia. Unlike my predecessors, I wasn''t going to abandon my subject in agony. As to the possibility of his death, I honestly didn''t care. If he died, one less fossil from the before times of technology suppression. If he lived, he would belong to me.

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    "Mr. Jacobs," I said with a warm smile as he walked up to us, the picture of health. "How are you feeling?"

    "This is working excellently," he said amiably, giving me a smile and a wave to demonstrate.

    "This is the guy we''re here to upload? He looks fine."

    I smirked to Radcliffe and held up the gum to his nose.

    "Cinnamon," he said. The LMD wasn''t as impressive of an imitation of human skin for me as it was for other people, not really enough loose hairs or little scars, the wrinkles were a little too even, but it would work fine for people without super-senses.

    "Excellent, no prohibitive smell deterioration after two weeks of use. Olfactory replacement would have been extremely tedious and hard on our budget."

    "That''s amazing," Radcliffe said. "Why does he look so old? Couldn''t you have made the drone younger

    "We''re trying to minimize any kind of dysmorphia," I said. We would also lose contacts if we lost Mr. Jacobs and since what I was doing today was definitely illegal, we had to keep it on the download. We headed back toward Mr. Jacobs'' room. He was laying on a hospital bed, his eyes closed and his body emaciated by the cancer treatment. He looked much better in the LMD. The room was soft tones and easy on the eyes, at least.

    "Hello Tina," I said, greeting her with a cheerful wave. She paused for a moment and waved back hesitantly, one hand gripping her staff hard.

    "I don''t like doing this," she said as I let go of her. No doubt, her mind was going back to all the sacrifices. We hadn''t asked anything like that of any of the PRIDE members since.

    "Tina, you aren''t doing anything except confirming results." I said calmly, holding her hands. "Mr. Jacobs, Dr. Radcliffe, and I will set up the machine and it is Mr. Jacobs voice command that will throw the switch." And that was true. The rules of the upload required it.

    "You brought it?" Mr. Jacobs asked and I held up the small box and unshrunk it. It was about the size  of fridge laying on the ground, black as the devil''s suit, and slightly rounded.

    I gestured to Radcliffe and we both checked over the box, carefully looking it over with specialized monitoring. "Any problems you can see?" I asked Radcliffe.

    "None," he confirmed. I would die of embarrassment if this didn''t work because of a test flaw. Jacobs'' LMD looked it over, seemed to feel satisfied that it was still in working order, and nodded to me. So I hooked in the hard drive onto which we would be copying Mr. Jacobs'' mind and, hopefully, his immortal soul

    "Are you ready Mr. Jacobs?" I asked solemnly.

    "I am," the LMD said. I walked over and unhooked him carefully, keeping my mind on my medical knowledge. He immediately let out a groan when I took out the sensor visor.

    "Argh," he grumbled. "This body is so awful."

    "That''s why we''re taking you out of it, Mr. Jacobs." I said reassuringly, nodding Dr. Radcliffe over to help me lower Mr. Jacobs into the box. Radcliffe came over and helped me put him in. We hooked up the equipment to his skull, closed the box, and waited.

    "Arnold Jacobs," we heard in a muffled and hoarse voice from inside the box. "Code phrase Embalming. Confirmed as a volunteer."

    There was a sickening sucking sound for several seconds and then I watched the destructive extraction take place in just under a minute on the box''s interface. The hard-drive took in the data and I handed it to Tina.

    She spoke a few words and nodded her head. "Oh thank god. He''s really in there. His soul, I mean."

    In one sense, that was good. We wanted his soul to be in there. But from a purely advantageous point of view, it was probably the less effective outcome. Souls couldn''t be copied, as Tina had insisted over and over again, so that meant a copy might develop a unique personality or might not work at all. I walked over to the LMD, rolled his shirt up off the insertion point in his back, slid the hard drive in between his plastic skin until I felt it hook into place, barely visible. I pressed the skin relatively closed, we could cover it later, and I waited.

    It took a few seconds but then Jacobs started to move. "I can feel, I can move," he said. "I''m alive!" He looked over at Tina, "Am I, you know," he jerked his head towards the box, "Him?"

    "Yes, Mr. Jacobs," she said with a smile that could''ve outshone the sun. "Your soul is still intact. You''re alive."

    It wasn''t exactly the correct phrasing, but goddamn if I didn''t live in a world of miracles.

 LV Meeting With Senator Heartwood

    After a bunch of celebratory events, I had returned to work. We were using Dolly and Ken to administrate Extremis in the wild to a variety of plant and animal life, trying to get it stable enough. I was looking into the project that had administrated Falcon''s backpack flier thing at this point, which is something of a signifier of how far down the list we were from core priorities of exploitable technology I had dug into from the canonical MCU exploitable tech.

    That was when I got an invitation to Senator Heartwood''s office.

    I showed up in a nice suit and a professional demeanor. After being pat searched, they sent me inside. The California Senator''s office was not as august as I had expected, she had a relatively modest modern desk and a bizarre taste for kitschy art and clay figurines which cluttered up the space. Senator Heartwood was in her early sixties, she had her gray hair tied back into a bun and a formal suit dress that seemed a little bit dated.

    "Mr. Trent," she said, rising from her seat and extending a hand.

    I took the hand and shook it in return. "Senator Heartwood," I said. "What did you want to see me for?"

    "We can spend a moment on pleasantry if you like," she offered with a laugh.

    "We just finished a somewhat acrimonious race," I said, my tone as neutral as I could make it. The woman had said I was ''running over the grave of the victims'' which was rude.

    Heartwood shrugged her shoulders and sat down, gesturing for me to do likewise. "Have it your way. Mr. Trent, who would you say were the brightest minds in the world on December 8th, 1941?"

    "Pearl Harbor? Abraham Erskine, Howard Stark, and Arnim Zola."

    Heartwood nodded her head. "Arnim Zola was already working for our enemies in ''41. But on the 9th, a senator was dispatched to persuade each of the other men to join the allied war effort."

    "They sent Senators to do it? Kind of ostentatious isn''t it?"

    "Mr. Trent, you know that Stark Industries was one of the biggest weapons contractors in the world for the past seventy years. We cut that deal, but they needed to know that we could sign the checks."

    "So I''m here for you to recruit me," I said. Shouldn''t they have sent, I don''t know, California''s other senator? It didn''t seem prohibitively difficult to just send the one I had no animus with. Maybe they just wanted to see if I could play ball with one of their committee chairs. I could, there was no real reason for a feud between Heartwood and I. My feelings were a little sore, but they weren''t ''prevent productive work'' sore.

    Heartwood gave a half hearted smirk like she was reading my thoughts, "We''re getting to that. Mr. Trent, the story of Senator Brandt''s approach of Abraham Erskine is something of a legend within the Senate. The deal he got was so ridiculously stringent it made his blood boil. Sole proprietorship of the serum. Sole administration of the Serum. The Serum''s formula to be held in confidence by Erskine and Erskine alone. It made it impossible to have any failsafes beyond Erskine and if Erskine died we''d lose it. Brandt walked. The goddamn moron almost cost us Captain America."

    Oh. So they weren''t sending her to test me, they were sending her to convince me they were willing to beg.

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    "Brandt had to be plied and persuaded by the SSR and then he underfunded the damn project, shoving it into the middle of New York City and leaving it vulnerable to attack. If the assassin had moved just a little faster, if he had been a bit less risk averse, we would''ve lost Captain America and, with him, much of the East Coast if not the whole war. Mr. Trent, I understand that your feelings may be sore from our race. My feelings are sore from our race. But I want you to know, I am not Senator Brandt. The whole world has seen what you can do. In May, the United States of America faced the first barrage of an attack by the first technologically superior opponent it has faced since the War of 1812. The United States will not be caught with its pants down again. So, how much will it cost to get you to come work for us?"

    "I''m sure that I''m very valuable," I said slowly. "But I''m also already the richest man in the world and my slush fund is more than sufficient for most of my research interests. It''s not as if I''ve been unwilling to sell to the U.S. government."

    "Mr. Trent, you came of age during the war on terror. You are thus accustomed to Congress uniting only in order to tamp down on civil liberties, start unnecessary wars in the Middle East, and rolling back welfare," Yes, the Democratic Senator from California was very liberal. "But the current Congress has super-majorities and we have them with an express purpose - To ensure that America is ready for the next attack from Thanos. I know that you''re rich - If you want to be richer, I can be back here next week with a check with your name and eleven zeroes before the cents mark. But if you have other things you want, if money isn''t your only objective, as I suspect that it isn''t since you wasted all that time in a run against me, we''re ready to provide it."

    "And what do you want in exchange?"

    "We want you to work under our aegis with SWORD to build protective technology for the planet," Heartwood said. "And we want your other technology to be used and provided at a mass scale. Particularly, we want to break your patent on your wireless power transmission system so we and other countries can use it. We''re willing to give you a basically unlimited budget. I want you to help America transition into the future today, just like your campaign promise. But if those things aren''t agreeable to you, I cannot emphasize enough that I am not Senator Brandt and I will take whatever you will give me."

    "I''m¡­ interested," I said after a moment. "What''s happening with Stark?"

    "We''ve tried with Stark, and while he was happy to contract for sixty more Arc Reactors in the United States over the next two years, he''s still on his pacifist kick."

    Sixty more arc reactions? He already had twenty five running and another ten contracts with various municipalities. If you added that up, it was literally more power than there was demand if you took out gas cars. I guess we were looking to modernize the power grid. Damn, it''s a good thing that my plants can ship solar panels all over the world.

    "Well," I said after a moment. "I have no intention of turning you down, but I guess my first request would be for time to think."

    "Of course," Senator Heartwood said, standing and extending her hand, "But please, Mr. Trent, every minute lost might be a minute too many."

 56: Arguing with Tony

    Tony and Pepper had come over to our house to celebrate the celebrate the signing of the American Energy Adaptation Act. Tony and I were the two most powerful energy magnates in the new clean energy future and it had seemed like a fitting occasion to get together and give another go at trying to move him towards sharing.

    "To the clean energy future we''ve created," I said, raising a glass. The rest of the table knocked glasses.

    "I mean, it was mostly me, but-" Tony said, before Pepper loudly cleared her throat. "And Pepper, of course, couldn''t have done it without Pepper. You would not believe the amount of paperwork I had to sign that she did." Pepper groaned and rolled her eyes.

    You know, it was a good thing Tony liked Andromeda because otherwise these things would be utterly insufferable. I just sighed and took a drink. "I was impressed that they bought up sixty Arc Reactor. But isn''t it sort of excessive? That''s enough for our entire energy demand."

    "Mm," Tony said, holding up a finger for a pause while he finished taking a drink. "Second generation Arc Reactors. These ones produce eight gigajoules per second, so it''s really enough for two and half times our energy demand."

    I blinked. Goddamnit. Always outdoing himself. "That''s impressive, Tony," I said honestly. I just hoped there were power plants pumping the energy over the border to Canada or something. Maybe the new Arc Reactors were zero-g and that was why they had bought it out. Or maybe the hope was just that energy surplus could be stored. "We''ve gotten a lot of battery contracts recently, so hopefully we''ll be able to move off these fossil fuel relics." Indeed, Trent Industries was almost more battery than power sales at this point. The announcement of the arc reactors had cratered domestic demand for the solar energy from our satellites, which I couldn''t begrudge them. The European Union was now our biggest customer on that front as it tried to ride out the roiling cycle of political upheaval in Russia.

    "Always out maneuvering the market, huh?"

    "It''s called business Tony. Don''t think I didn''t notice that you rolled out the second generation when Ivan Vanko started producing in Belarus." I had been hoping something like that would happen for four years and Vanko had finally done it, moving Europe a little close to its own clean energy environment. I guess he had been waiting for Russia to be distracted in order to get clear of somewhere to build. I''d told Hydra to stay hands off.

    "Yeah, I looked at those. Dreadfully out of date, not even a match for my first generation reactors. You know I called him, thought we could compare notes, maybe I could give him a few pointers. He hung up on me. Literally, let the call through, said, ''is this Tony Stark'' and then hung up on me. What did I do to deserve that, I ask you?"

    "He doesn''t like your dad very much," I said, not bothering to go any further. Tony''s Daddy issues would somehow make this dinner less pleasant.

    "Well, maybe his dad shouldn''t have been a thief if he wanted to stay in our country."

    "Tony," I said, "That''s got nothing to do with this."

    "I''m just telling the truth," Tony said defensively, even as I could feel both Pepper and Andromeda tighten up. "There wouldn''t be any conflict between us if he hadn''t done that. Anyway, I''m not my dad, he''s not his dad, who cares?"

    I put down my fork and knife and pointed at Tony, "You do." Tony scowled and took a bite of food to get a moment to think. I glanced between Pepper and Andromeda and tried to think of a less adversarial topic. "Senator Heartwood invited me to her office, wanted to hire me to work for SWORD." Politics, great choice Mike, I cursed myself.

    "Oooh, did she give you the Senator Brandt speech? God she loves that speech. She was like my aunt, you know, very sweet, very supportive. She''ll knife you good though if you stop being useful to her."

    ''You mean if I cost ten thousand factory jobs in her state?'' I wanted to say, but went with the more diplomatic, "I''ll keep that in mind,"

    "So, what are your three wishes going to be? Can''t be too expensive though, if it''s more than like a hundred billion dollars a year they won''t do them. They have this little sheet, estimate people like us are a Manhattan project a year. Bet she didn''t tell you that."

    She hadn''t. I ticked through the projects they recognized as ''mine'' - The Super-Soldier Serum, the Spaceship, and the Pym Particles. Realistically, it would be more accurate to count upload instead of the Super-Soldier serum which I sort of stole, but the count was the same. Huh, yeah, that made one major discovery a year. I wondered what, exactly, Tony and Howard had extracted besides their defense contracts. Probably the whacko patent laws America had in this timeline. SHIELD influence. Who knew what else. "Well," I said after thinking. "A hundred billion dollars is a lot."

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    "Yeah, but after the first ten billion or so you really can''t tell the difference." Tony said, taking another bite.

    "Obviously, I''m still a huge advocate for expanding human capacity through biological means, so I hope they''ll crack those laws into a more efficient form. But I''m also thinking," I said after a moment, "That I want them to spend more on developmental aid. Some of that on energy and such, but also funding SWORD Academies in a bunch of low-income countries - There''s plenty of places where a SWORD salary would be the upper crust. Why not snap up that talent, put it into humanity''s service?" Also recruit a bunch of Hydra agents that way, almost certainly. But it would be good for Hydra to be less Euro-centric. I''m an equal opportunity synarchist.

    "Wow, you really want the Democrats to lose the next election don''t you?"

    "I think people can see the importance now of funding international development, especially as we face a threat of an unknown scale from space."

    "Oh, people are already forgetting your mind controlled escapades," Tony said dismissively. "Do you think they''re going to remember the attack in two years?"

    "God, Tony, do you have to be such an asshole?" I asked, finally losing my temper. He didn''t need to be bringing up Loki again.

    "I don''t know, never tried anything else. Do you have to be such a duplicitous opportunist?"

    "At long last, you''ve found your words." I said, throwing my hands into the air, "This is all about that damn energy debate isn''t it?" Pepper and Andromeda looked upset with us, but I was done with the subtle approach.

    "The energy debate," Tony said, "Was just a proof concept, compared to what you''ve done since. You said you weren''t going to engage in human experimentation with your Pym Particles, yes I know Pym invented them first, you do too, and then you had a working shrink suit just waiting in the wings that fit your girlfriend perfectly. You broke I don''t even know how many laws to get into space and you used to boost your own profile and line your friends up with all kinds of power while saying no to everybody else. You were sitting on the goddamn Super-Soldier Serum before giving it to a secret government agency on the drop of a hat. Your native tongue is lies, your secrets have secrets, and everyone who knows you, and I mean everyone, thinks you have it in you to cut a baby if it makes things easier for you."

    I don''t know, I guess it kind of depends on where on the baby and how much easier. Probably not the right thing to say in this instance. "Let me try to not be a duplicitous opportunist, then. I was trying to make the world a better place. I took some chances, I made some deals, and I''ll admit it, I told some lies on the way there. I''m not proud of those things. But at least I''m not so suspicious of my own shadow that I can''t let anybody else use the technology I''m making to actually help people. At least I''m not so selfish that I keep the future and safety of this planet in a box and only let my friends use it. And when the time came I put myself on the line, and yeah I paid the price, but you hid behind a computer screen and played backseat quarter back to your best friend."

    Tony reared back and got up, "Well. Thank you for being honest, for once. Pepper, we''re leaving," he said, motioning to her. She shared a commiserating look with Andromeda and got up. Tony paused before he left the room and said, "Thanks for the dinner, it was good, always is," which I took as some sort of olive branch.

    I looked at Andromeda after they''d left and said, "Not my top performance," I admitted. He''d been testing me like that for awhile.

    "Those things he said weren''t fair," Andromeda said, getting up and giving me a back rub.

    The back rub was nice, but it wasn''t nice enough to erase the fact that everything Tony said was true AND fair.

 57: Hansen as a ducky

    ¡°It''s actually, technically, dark matter," I said as gesticulated to Hansen, who was sitting in a lotus position on a lab chair. The paint in the SWORD research rooms was still fresh enough I could smell it and Gideon Malick, one of the idiots who would have launched a nuke at New York given his continuous seat on the world security council, already had me trying to crack into the box that held the door to his alien god. I was doing my best to figure out how to lock it shut.

    "That''s a rock," my co-worker said, pointing at the black stone in the middle of the room ensconced in a cage with more sensors than most people knew existed, "And it''s observable. So if it''s dark matter, it has a funny way of showing it."

    The Monolith was literally a solid black orb that swallowed anything that touched it and spit out¡­ elsewhere. I had the Abstract propped against my knee as I stared at the damn thing. The Abstract was a manual for invention, for creation, and it was old and powerful. Out in the depths of space, there was a Gibborim civilization that would make us look like cavemen. They may have been fighting some other alien. For all I knew, the ROB that had summoned me and made me could be a Gibborim.

    Still got killed by bullets though, so I suppose at the end of the day things had worked out for me.

    The Monolith was old, older than human civilization, but it too was an aspect of wacky out there tech. Whoever had made these things in the original time was a Stark of tech substantially above 21st century humanity. "I don''t know, any kind of description of this in terms you would understand is probably gibberish. But there''s a dark matter element that has kept it active for millennia. I''d love to be able to put that into our power systems."

    "Always thinking in terms of energy huh?"

    "Not always," I said, walking around the monolith, the stupid sphinx box. I needed to find a way to alter the trajectory of its portal but it wasn''t really a programmable machine the way that most of our stuff. "But at the end of the day, it''s an irrelevant question - I might be able to move this kind of dark matter around but I don''t think I could align the cascade of technological innovations necessary to harvest this stuff and stabilize it."

    "So, what, put it back in the dungeon? Feels like you''ve been circling the nothing on this one. Nobody knows how it works, just give up."

    "No," I said irritated. I didn''t have much choice. Had to find a way to turn this thing off. I had no idea how it worked or what the alien god of Malick''s favor was doing in it, but I wasn''t going to let him get to Earth. Earth was, if nothing else, mine and I didn''t want to share it with an alien god that hadn''t seen its surface in a thousand years.

    "Up to you."

    "How''s the procedure going?" I asked

    She held up a hand and started heating it, the warmth of her hand casting a glow over her brown hair and long face. It might have been a good look if it weren''t for the fact that I could feel the heat off her thousand degree hand from here.

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    "That''s good," I said. We''d finally cracked how to turn Extremis off while people were in the process of blowing up and we''d straightened that out. Soon, we''d be putting that procedure forward to governments to cure serious injuries - Although Hansen reported that the anesthetics did absolutely nothing while the body was going through adaptation. Rough procedure, but it could give you back a leg or fix broken elements of your genetic code. And since we could turn it off, it wouldn''t qualify as a ''lethal enhancement'' like the Super-Soldier Serum did. It would probably require close monitoring but I could live with that.

    "Not looking forward to it wearing off, even if it means Earth is safer." Most patients never exploded under the effects of Extremis in the first place, so if the present Extremis patients made the full duration of dose without needing the off switch, that meant that we could give it to the Super Soldiers.

    "They''re not going to let you dose regularly, Dr. Hansen," I said bluntly. SWORD research contract or no, cooperative witness or not, Maya Hansen had worked for AIM. Dosing her had been illegal and I was fire-proof in terms of losing my job, but it was unlikely people would be overly sympathetic to a non-field usage of the Extremis again.

    "Can''t say I blame them," she said, shaking her head at the box. "I wouldn''t trust me either. Why do you?"

    It would''ve been fundamentally unwise to say that she was practically the best person I had a regular relationship with now that Tony and I were on the outs. It didn''t feel like it would be permanent, Pepper had sent along a card, and Tony had sent back a thank you card he''d probably picked out a CVS or something when I sent along an apology card. Not an apology back, but still not nothing. Tony couldn''t possibly be able to stay mad at people for getting mad at him, it would''ve made no sense. But a month had gone by, so I wasn''t expecting immediate reconciliation either.

    "Dr. Hansen, I''ve cut my share of corners," I said instead. "No conspiracies to assassinate the President, but it isn''t like Ellis is my favorite person either."

    "Alright, well, good luck with your box? Rock? Dark matter?"

    "Mm," I said after a moment, closing the Abstract and its bizarre luminous interface. "I''m working on this problem all the time. Needed to try to explain it to someone."

    "So I''m your ducky?" Hansen said, representing the ducky that computer programmers sometimes kept

    "Don''t take offense," I said with a sigh. The monolith was relentlessly disagreeable, resisted prodding. "But I don''t have a lot of peer advisors in the subject of ancient non-terrestrial portal rocks."

    Hansen laughed, "Fair enough. Good luck Michael."

    "Thank you, Maya," I said as she walked out the door.

    It would take me another three weeks to figure out how to mess with its inner portal without provoking the damn thing. Tony was just lucky I was a duplicitous opportunist. I never got any credit for the stuff I did so my close allies couldn''t achieve their most fundamental goals.

 58: Romulus

    One of the things about my transition to this universe that reassured me it was real was that so many things were so ridiculous, so unbelievably stupid, that they could not possibly be the product of a human mind imagining them. Fiction, as they say, has to be believable. For example, my brain could simply not compute for several minutes when Andromeda informed me that Hydra maintained a boarding school in Appalachia called, and this is not an exaggeration, the Hydra Preparatory Academy.

    So, as I walked down the emblazoned hall and asked myself how much political capital had been wasted on faking their records so that it looked like they went to a normal boarding school when they could have just gone to a normal boarding school. All really, fundamentally, so that they could put the damn sigil on the wall. Maybe so they had fewer non-legacy students, but really that paperwork would''ve been simpler to fake than this paperwork had to be.

    I walked into the classroom tossing a metal orb up and down.

    "Hail Hydra!" I said, extending my arms outward into the double-fisted salute.

    The classroom yelled back at an admirable volume, "Hail Hydra!"

    "Welcome to my guest class," I said politely, looking over the class with dissatisfaction. Dressed in orderly prep school garb. Perfectly presentable little minions with their suit coats with red badges on their chest. "I am given to understand you are approaching your graduation. I''m here to aim you toward SWORD placement."

    They looked at me like I was stupid for saying this, because they of course already knew.

    "Ah, so I''m beset by geniuses. Tell me, what is the most important part of lying?"

    Hands shot up, these were ambitious, driven kids, and I called on them one by one.

    "You have to stay calm." - "It shouldn''t be verifiable within the frame of the lie." - "You need to be consistent and unhesitant." - "Specific details are important." - "Suppressing facial tics." -

    "Wow, it''s like reading the textbook," I said, in a mock voice. "We have a bright future for the textbook writers in this classroom." The class seethed at that. They thought they were the future and I was insulting them. Hands shot back into the air. "There''s no second chance at the right answer." I pointed at one of the young men in the middle row, "What''s your name?"

    "Alexander Mason," he said. He was a willowy pretty boy who clearly took a proper liking to his clothes. Even in uniform you could tell the difference between those who took pride in it and those who didn''t.

    "Mr. Mason, I have an important test for you. I want you to use your full faculties as a future member of Hydra''s elite in this test, are you ready?" He nodded his head and I held up the ball, "Can you catch this?"

    "Of course I can," he said, his voice dripping with acid.

    "Good," I said and tossed it to him in the most lazily inaccurate way that gave him a viable chance of catching it. He nearly leaped out of his chair to get it, but he grabbed it. "Now examine it closely, please."

    He leaned in and about three seconds later the timed response to my command the orb sprayed his whole suit with red paint. He cursed and dropped the ball. I walked up to the ball and picked up the ball. A few kids laughed cruelly, but most looked just as mad at their classmate''s punishment. Devil with devil damned holding firm accord. "Can anybody else catch this? It''s perfectly safe."

    All the hands stayed down. I got a few glares that showed I might be accruing enemies.

    "Remarkable, an entire class of Hydra''s best and brightest who cannot catch a ball. Mr. Mason did something entirely natural to human beings and not particularly shameful. I, an authority figure widely trusted in his circles, asked something of him and he assumed, not unnaturally, that request would not bring him to harm or danger. He acted on that assumption and now he is covered in paint, but in an ordinary class with an ordinary teacher he might have received some acclaim. Yet now when I ask you if you want to catch the ball, you all balk. Is that because you are smarter than Mr. Mason? Are my facial tics different? Do I seem less calm? Have I been less specific? No. Even though you have my word, it is safe, you still won''t catch the ball. That is because you are not braindead. This is the answer to the first question. The most important part of lying is trust. All the armaments in the liar''s arsenal cannot protect one from distrust or a bad feeling. But it is true in reverse. No failure of technique will render a trustworthy person suspicious."

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    The class was less angry now. They saw the use that Mason''s suffering played and so they were putting aside their anger. That was good, you couldn''t get far without being willing to cope with suffering.

    "Today, SWORD''s mission is the secular creed of the whole world. The world looks to us, trusts us, and listens to us when we say there is a threat. There are already laudatory documentaries airing about the Defense Team, not financed by Hydra." We were financing a few too, obviously, we''re not stupid. "Because the Defense Team represents a force for the common defense of humanity, humanity puts its trust in it. Governments give us access to super-soldier serums and let us distribute it to whoever pleases us. I am allowed to research whatever interests me. All because the mission of SWORD and its evident commitment. That is why you should apply to SWORD and seek placement with us."

    The classroom was nodding along.

    "Sir," one of the students said, "What is your vision for Hydra?"

    "Will you allow me to be a bit grandiose? I''m kidding, I don''t need your permission. Think back to our memories and myths, the ones older than books, that tell of the founding of cities. Cain. Romulus. Both fratricides, both the founders of cities. The pleasant story we civilized people tell ourselves about civilization is that we brought order out of chaos. The truth is more complex. As the last ice age ended, humanity''s food supply dwindled and there was mass starvation. But in places where the cereal grains could grow, people instead settled to cultivate their food full-time. Then people began to raid, extract, and steal that food. These thieves and bandits made the first cities off the surplus of the crops, wretched dens of violence and disease. That was the birth of the social organism we call the state."

    The student looked uncomfortable.

    "I am getting to my vision for Hydra. This is not a history class, I will not tell you the story of how those cities grew into empires and how those empires conquered the world. Suffice it to say, today, outside a few islands, desert tribes, and the deepest corners of the Amazon, those new social organisms now hold dominion over the whole world. But growing through strife and conquest is in that social organism''s DNA, since the blood watered their first harvest ground to today. Hydra is the new social organism that will rise over those old forms and transform its nature. It was born within that order, but it holds chapters throughout the world. It will abandon the senseless superstition of its host organisms and embrace the true and natural interests of mankind - The sustaining of the planet, the mutual benefit of human society, and the rightful guidance of truth and reason. In the service of that new organism, I will wear Romulus'' moniker and shed what blood I must. I am asking that those who join me at SWORD be similarly clear eyed - We will unite humanity against its natural enemies of ignorance, waste, and war and we will do what we must to do so."

    It was a bit flowery for a speech about global conquest, but it got my point across.

 Captain America: Capturing Klaue

    They''d been inside the storage container for almost eight hours, waiting for the midnight to filter over the salvage yard. Only the incandescent glow of their skin were providing any light now that the sun was almost fully down.

    "This formula stuff is still so weird," Steve admitted, feeling the heat wrapping around his chest, shifting and balancing. The Extremis serum had hurt like getting yanked out of the ice burg but his dosage had leveled out. He focused and moved the heat into his hands and back out again before he put it back in.

    "We can leave you behind for this one gramps," Ward offered. They''d been going back and forth like this for a couple hours.

    "Wouldn''t be responsible to let you kids go out unchaperoned," Steve said, standing up and giving him a deliberately heavy clap on the shoulder. He liked Ward, he felt like they were starting to mesh well.

    Natasha looked at Barton, "They do need women in their lives." Natasha had been off scene for a few months and then they''d all been out making sure they didn''t blow up, so this was their first field mission together. She wasn''t too chatty, but she clearly loved Barton. It made Steve happy to see two best friends getting ready to fight side by side. It reminded him of Bucky.

    "Told you," Barton said, taking his bow off his back and leaning against the cargo container''s door.

    "For your information, I have a very active sex life," Ward said, pointing at his chest with his hand. Steve couldn''t believe he was falling for that bait.

    "Nobody cares buddy," Natasha said with a smirk, reassembling her guns for what must have been the tenth time. She knew her firearms. Once she''d put them together, she slid them into her side holsters.

    "Team two, ready," Rumlow''s voice said in Steve''s ear.

    "Team one, ready," Steve signaled back as he adjusted the straps on his shield.

    They pushed open the door of the storage container and made their way to the edge of the junked ship they were sitting on, slid down the side of the ship on ropes and made their way across the muddy water as quickly as they could. It was so dark, Steve could barely see team two trudged across the mud.

    Klaue''s ship had been in this wrecking yard for who knew how long. They were here to capture him and return him to Wakanda for acts of terror in the process of the theft of a national resource. What little Steve knew about Wakanda, he didn''t like. An honest-to-goodness absolute monarchy in the twenty first century and, according to information handed on by SWORD''s resident super scientist while he was mind controlled, it didn''t even have the excuse of poverty or a lack of education. Steve didn''t like that, but they still hadn''t deserved to get robbed and their people hadn''t deserved to get killed for Klaue''s profits.

    They reached the other ship, threw their hooks up and scaled as quickly as possible. Barton had already dispatched the guard on their section of deck when Steve reached the top. He wasn''t used to that - People getting anywhere ahead of him on a physical task. He''d spent years slowing down, letting other people catch up - Now he wasn''t even exceptional on his own team. He gestured to them to move and the team spread out.

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    Three popping noises in his ear meant three take-downs on Rumlow''s end, Barton sent back one, and Steve kept moving, looking for Klaue. Steve came across a soldier, barely older than eighteen, basically a boy, asleep at his post. Steve covered his mouth, pinned him, and was in the process of using the boy''s scarf to muffle him before he had any real resistance. He was a little faster than he had been before Extremis and he felt a little bad for holding the boy like this, but he''d signed on for this. "Shh," Steve said, "I don''t want to give you head trauma, but I will."

    The boy stopped resisting. Steve silently thanked God that he spoke enough English to understand.

    "Now, I''m going to put you in handcuffs, don''t panic." He took out the little zip ties that he''d spent an hour and a half figuring out and and tied up the kid''s hands, found a pipe and tied him to it with a second zip tie. "Now look, I work for," SHIELD, technically, "SWORD. Do you know what that is?" A head nod. "I and the others are super-soldiers, there''s nothing you can do to stop us, so stay right here and wait for someone to come get you. Do you understand?"

    Another head nod and Steve was off. He sent a pop noise to the rest of the Defense Team, moving through the hallways smoothly. The occasional pop in his ear confirming that one of his teammates had taken someone else down. They were still looking for Klaue, nobody had sounded off. Nobody had set off any crew alarms. Finally, Steve spotted a room that could be a captain''s chamber, guarded by one guy with a machine gun. This one may have been young, but he was not asleep, so Steve spared him the pity and just jumped out at him, landing a hit hard across his face. The guy tried to scramble get his gun up, but Steve smashed it aside with his shield and then hit the guy again across the face. Since Steve''s other hand was holding both a gun muzzle, he went down with a thud and clatter.

    "He definitely heard that, second level aft" Steve said over comm and tried to open the door. Locked. So Steve stuck his hand against the door lock mechanism and soon enough it rattled off. He yanked the door open to find Klaue lounging inside, pistol out.

    "You don''t think that''s going to work do you?" Steve asked skeptically.

    "I could try?" Klaue said, twisting his face as if considering it. "No, I reckon it won''t. You win, Captain America, I surrender." Klaue dropped the gun and held up his hands.

    Sometimes a reputation for honor came in handy. "Tell your men to stand down?"

    Klaue gestured to a radio and Steve nodded. "Alright everybody, the jig is up, if they haven''t put your lights out, escape if you can - No offense Captain America - But surrender instead of fighting."

    Steve scowled at him, but he probably couldn''t see it under the helmet. "Where''s the vibranium?"

    "Vibranium''s third level, port side," Klaue said. "I can show you, if you like?"

    "Let''s do that."

 59: Tony Confesses a New Hobby

    Radcliffe was a genius. He was somehow more fanatically pro-Transhumanist than I had become, but he was a genius. Tina, Robert, and I were staring at the program he''d designed, trying to parse out the exact meaning. The wide, white room of his office was mainly occupied by a giant screen.

    "So, it''s a full immersion reality, exactly like we''ve been trying to make" I said as I glanced back and forth between the bewildering notes next to the bed Radcliffe''s body was lying on and the screen emulation.

    "That''s right!" Radcliffe said excitedly on the screen, moving around the simulation of his house. "I''ve constructed this simulation from my own memory and the program fills in the gap. It''s amazing."

    "But how does the program do that? Is that within the safe parameters for AI?" Tina asked and I had to agree with her on that one. The immersion part was definitely staying, but the auto-fill seemed¡­ ominous. I heard the door drift open and footsteps come to a stop.

    "That Abstract thinks so," Radcliffe said. Oh good, the alien artifact I didn''t fully understand had an opinion on safe AI limits. The Abstract was going to be a damn problem. I was glad we had it, but it was making my employees overly aggressive. "It even thinks we can use the program to invent whole new lives for people within the framework, not just a present but a history."

    "Meddling with souls is dangerous," Tina said.

    "But that''s what so beautiful about it," Radcliffe continued. "We have souls, yes, irreducible cores but! Our lives are also the product of an endless series of accidents. And the Abstract, well, the Abstract thinks that''s a solvable problem."

    "So does it just makes stuff up? Wouldn''t it be drawn from the subconscious of the individual? The experiences won''t be informative if they''re the product of the individual''s own imagination." I said.

    "Not if we used sufficiently complex real world information. For facts, that''s simple enough, but we would need a bit more input than that for a responsive reality. A few human minds is all it would take! And we''re uploading people anyway, so we could have hundreds!"

    My mind started swimming with the benefits and applications. "We could upload lifetimes of experience - People with traumatic backgrounds could be given healthy homes. People who had missed out on education could be educated in a matter of minutes." I''d definitely have to sit down and crunch out if it was risking anything to upload it.

    "I don''t know, sounds pretty cyberpunk to me, some private corporation gives you the life of its dreams? Sign me off." Tony Stark said from behind me and I almost jumped out of my skin. Even super senses apparently did not render me immune to old fashioned concentration failures. "What''s the Abstract by the way?"

    I turned around and looked at Tony. He looked tired and kind of beaten down, "It''s an alien artifact that contains the secrets of the universe," I said. What was the point of lying?

    "Huh. Neat. Can I see it sometime?"

    "If you want," I said sincerely. Why not? Maybe we''d have Super Iron Man Suits within the year if I did. "Tony, what''re you doing here?"

    "Drama said you''d be here," he said, "Pepper''s mad at me. Rhodey, well, I haven''t told Rhodey yet. I wanted to talk to you. Can we talk? I mean, you look busy."

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    I nodded my head, "Yeah, Tony, of course. Tina, Robert, Holden, you guys keep poking this thing with a stick." We walked out into the hallway and I closed the door behind me. "What''s up Tony?"

    "So, the last time we talked," which was three months ago now, by the way, and yet Tony had just shown up. "You said that I had sat behind a screen and let my best friend take the risk. And at first, you know, I thought you were just being a dick. But I couldn''t get it out of my head and I kept thinking of Yinsen, kept thinking about how he died and I survived even though I had always been- Well, I haven''t always been my best self."

    I nodded along, "Right, Tony, I''m really sorry about that. I didn''t mean to-"

    "Don''t. Don''t apologize. You were right. I was playing backseat quarter back. And I shouldn''t have, well, I shouldn''t have said what I said."

    "Tony," I said, trying to figure out what to say. He looked so beat down. I should twist the knife, make him feel extra guilty. But then I paused and took a breath and I realized I just didn''t want to be that much of a dick. "Tony, I have my faults."

    "That''s certainly true," he said. "But I didn''t need to bring it up while we were having a nice dinner. And I definitely didn''t need to bring up, you know, Scepter-Trent."

    I nodded in agreement with that. The mind control thing pissed me off at the time. "Well," I said. "I forgive you. But I feel like that''s not what you came here to talk to me about."

    Tony nodded and took out one of his tablets. We were a Wizard family now, so it was weird to seem him using some other company''s but I understood to some extent. "Can you keep a secret?" Could I do literally anything else? I nodded. "So, I spend months agonizing over it. I feel this crushing weight of responsibility, I guess, to share my awesomeness with the world. Maybe help people in some less important ways."

    Oh.

    "And I think to myself, go back to basics, you know. I had the suit, I''d made the suit for a good reason, my Arc Reactors were much more effective now. And so I, well, I was watching the international news one night and there was this town and it had just been taken by these militant."

    Oh boy.

    "And so I got in the suit and took it for a spin. A new test run, really. And I freed the town, beat the militants, no trouble at all. That''s all good, no trouble, heck the local government is barely even mad about the flying metal man from America, but¡­"

    "Pepper didn''t like it?"

    Tony shook his head, "She didn''t, no. You know I had been - Well, I had been thinking - Anyway, it doesn''t matter at the moment. She''ll forgive me. Eventually. All the crap I used to pull, this can''t possibly be the line. But anyway, um, I came to ask, you know, did I do a good job? Was it the right thing to do?"

    I don''t like hurting Tony''s feelings. I murdered one of his best friends and, even if Stane had thoroughly deserved it, I still felt bad about putting him through that. But, at the cost of Tony''s personal happiness, I put a word in for the world he would have saved several times by now were it not for my own intervention, "Yeah Tony, you made the right decision."

 60: Big News

    The quiet of my home had been warmed by Andromeda''s permanent presence. I was cooking dinner, which was thoroughly unnecessary, secure in the knowledge the maid would get it the next day. I didn''t keep anything sensitive here and Hydra had vetted the maid, so I was fairly sure she wasn''t planting any bugs in my home. For now, anyway.

    "Hey babe," Andromeda said, her voice nervous. "How''s the food going?"

    "It''s¡­" I had no idea what was the matter, "going fine. Should be happy, healthy, and wholesome, like the Synnergy promise." The ever-healthier profile of the delicious tasting meat substitutes were tempting me back to vegetarianism, something the transition here had freed me from.

    "Yeah, Stacey was excited about this line when I visited her today."

    "How''d that go?"

    "Fine. Anything going on at work?" Andromeda asked, trying to stay conversational. She''d get to her point eventually.

    "Well, I''m making progress on replicating the effects of the Ant Man suit without alien technology and Quantum tunneling should follow that fairly closely," I lied. Obviously, I had made up the whole problem, but it was a useful cover that had run its course. I wanted to make sure that I was able to deliver a thousand super-soldiers to anywhere threatened by Thor''s next big adventure, wherever that was. SWORD had tapped Jane''s phone for obvious reasons, but she hadn''t had any interesting phone calls. "But mostly, I expect the first edition of Osiris should be licensed to move forward in California for people with terminal illnesses."

    Osiris was the public facing, deep-immersion system we were using. I had decided, as an executive decision, that the inner-reality would be supported by internal programming instead of by the inference engine that Radcliffe had preferred. But the prospect of success was still high.

    "I guess I''ll have to tell Mom to sign back up," Andromeda said with a laugh and her body seemed less tense. "But that''s good. I''m glad she''ll be able to use it if she wants to. You won''t make her do the labor exchange?"

    "Nobody has to do the labor exchange," I said, pulling the fake meat onto our plates. The labor exchange was a way for poor people who wanted to upload to offer their services for intellectual or artistic tasks within the system to people outside the system. Osiris got a chunk of the labor''s pay, of course. "As long as their family wants to maintain them at full speed, we keep them up and running without any labor. It''s only about three hundred a month. But under no circumstances will we make your mother pay her way." It remained to be seen how the Supreme Court would rule about Osiris'' uploads as people, though we weren''t contesting it. The whole theory of the product was that the person was still them, not a post-life hologram that did a good impression.

    "Thank you, Mike," Andromeda said, reassured. I realized, somewhat belatedly, that Andromeda''s real concern wasn''t about the compulsion to serve on the labor exchange as a general rule. It was her fear that I, her husband, might decide not to cover her mother''s bills. I didn''t think of my relationship with Andromeda as one with a subordinate - She was my wife, after all. But I was also a solid number two in Hydra''s internal pecking order, the Heir Apparent to my wife''s whole world, and so to her, anything I deigned to do was my discretion.

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    I didn''t like that thought at all.

    "Anyway," she said, "I''m glad you''re making progress on the suit, I think I''ll want to hang up being the Hornet pretty soon. If that''s okay with you."

    "Dear, whatever you want is okay with me," I said, looking her in the eye. "This is our marriage, we''re working together through life. We have more than enough money and good press to do without the Hornet, even if religious groups are kicking up a fuss about the Osiris project." Not surprisingly, most churches were not excited to take Tina''s word for the persistence of the soul and Tina''s former wizardly colleagues were not leaping out from the bushes to join her in agreement. Tina was now the only Avenger with a negative approval rating in polls.

    "Really?"

    "Yeah, really. Look, I make my Head decisions as executive decisions because that''s my job. I''m the one with all the information and it minimizes risks of other people" having villain brain, "doing anything stupid. But your life is yours, I''m not trying to micromanage it. If you want to start a line of pseudo-science wellness tricks, you can. You shouldn''t, but you can. If you want to be a stay at home wife and arm candy, that''s up to you."

    "I''m not planning on starting a pseudo-science line," Andromeda said. Something was still off and nervous about her. Her body language was much more confident these days than it was before the serum, but it was still genuinely off and it bothered me.

    I took our plates to the table, "Alright. So what''s bothering you?" Waiting was suffering and at this point I just wanted to know.

    "I''m not bothered!" Andromeda practically shouted.

    I held up my hands in a gesture of surrender. "Okay, okay, sorry I said you were," Oh no. "But something is different right? You''ve got something you want me to know right?"

    "I''m pregnant."

    What I didn''t do was say ''Shit'' or ''damn it''. We''d been using protection, obviously, but my grandparents had managed to have like eight pregnancies on 95% effective stuff anyway. I guess that was informative. I wanted to ask if she was sure, but I was fairly sure she was. If she needed to run a pregnancy test with a counter-example of a super soldier, she''d just seen Stacy today. So I managed to dodge any ''Are you sure?'' Or ''Really?'' questions as well. There wasn''t any reason to be worried about our child''s future, except that his parents were members of a totalitarian cult aiming at world take over. We had a ton of money, the air was unprecedentedly clean, and we were only going to have more money and cleaner air as time went on.

    So I managed to say something relatively inoffensive after a couple of moments of thought, "Yeah, okay, good."

 Captain America: Soul searching with Ward

    "So, imagine the dummy is the President," Ward said, sitting on a rafter beam with a gun and aiming it at the dummy on the other side of the room. "Say I haven''t seen you, which obviously I have, how would you do it?"

    The long space of gymnasium stretched between Steve and Ward. Steve tapped the screen on his right hand, locked it in on Ward, shrunk and then pressed the activation button. Steve shot through the strange, ephemeral light tunnel and appeared beside Ward. The strategy wasn''t complicated here, but it was an effort to stay oriented and focused.

    But he had a president to save. Steve kicked Ward down, leapt down after him while enlarging to get a pin, and pressed his hand against Ward''s neck. "And if you move an inch, I''ll fry it off."

    "Frying the gloves, they''re not gonna like it if you fry the gloves," Ward said, looking up at him with a smirk.

    "You''re trying to kill the President," Steve said.

    "You could just crush my trachea," Ward said, "And you wouldn''t be at risk of me do-" and Steve knocked the gun out of his hand.

    "Too much taunting, not enough flaunting," Steve said, laying his hand around Ward''s throat. "Now I''d crush your trachea."

    Ward laughed, "Damn it. I like my trachea. Let me up?"

    Steve got up and offered him a hand. "Not going to be fun to do that in a live fire combat."

    "It''s not," Ward agreed, walking over to their water supply. "Grateful for that Extremis regeneration after you kicked me out of the rafters."

    Steve raised his hands, "You said the dummy was the President."

    Ward shook his head and took a drink. Steve flicked his helmet off and opened a bottle of water, "They should figure out a way of doing that size reduction for a glove," Steve said.

    "Too many joints and range of motion, according to He-Who-Shall-Not-Be-Named," Ward said, poking fun at Steve''s distaste for Michael Trent.

    "Oh, come on. I haven''t made that big of a deal out of it."

    "It''s a reference," Ward said. "Klaue worked out a deal. Get''s a comfy cell in the United States to die in, instead of being shipped back to Wakanda, and coughs up his black market contacts."

    "Good for him, I guess," Steve said. He didn''t think it was fair to silver tongue your way out of a punishment like that, but he also didn''t care for executions. It all came out to nothing to him. They let the silence breath between them for a few minutes, drinking water, reflecting.

    "Hey, Cap," Ward said. "You ever wonder if you would''ve fought for the Third Reich if you''d been born in Germany?"

    Steve put his hands on his side. "I don''t think anybody ever knows," Steve had thought about. He''d thought about it a lot, over the years, especially on the nights he laid awake after his missions, thinking of the soldiers he had killed. "But I really believe - Well, it sounds old fashioned, but I think all men are created equal. I don''t think I''m made of different stuff than a Hydra agent. Maybe that means that they should be blamed, you know, they did the wrong thing and I did the right thing. Maybe it means that I would''ve done the same thing. I don''t know. I didn''t fight them because I resented them, though I won''t say I never did, I fought them because they had to be stopped."

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    Ward looked at Steve for a few moments and Steve thought he wanted to say something, but then he shook his head. "Everything they said about you is true," Ward said.

    Steve tensed at the statement, he''d turned into a legend in his time under the ice but he hadn''t asked for that or wanted it. "I''m just a kid from Brooklyn who ran into a German scientist at the right time, Ward."

    "Nah," Ward said, shaking his hand in rebuke. "You''re not. You''re a good man. They don''t make those anymore."

    "Made you."

    "Not a good man," Ward said, putting down the water bottle like he''d been insulted and started walking out.

    Steve didn''t believe that. "Ward," Steve said, walking after him and putting a hand on his shoulder. "I''m not great at accepting compliments either. But I promise it won''t kill you." Ward had a difficult childhood, he''d stepped up to serve his country. Joined the SHIELD Academy and served. Fought all over the world. There had always been people in the Army interested in it for the adrenaline, for the thrill of laying some other guy out or in a grave. Ward wasn''t. Every time he fought, he was all business. Clean, efficient. He didn''t have to be, the way they were now. Almost nobody could even injure them on a standard deployment, except a lucky shot to the head with an armor piercing round or a rocket launcher. Some guys started treating it like a game and Steve was increasingly questioning the wisdom of dosing them with the Super Soldier Serum. Not Ward.

    "I don''t need anybody''s approval," Ward said, but he didn''t remove Cap''s hand.

    "Not saying you need anything," Steve said.

    "I hate this, you know?"

    "Compliments? Conversations?" Steve had no idea what ''this'' was in this context. The situation was authentically confusing.

    "Yes! No! Sort of. I was an operator before, I was the whole solution. Send me in, I cleaned up the mess. Did it on my own. I''m more than skilled enough to handle it on my own. Now I''m stuck in this crowd because they think I need like a whole team of super soldiers."

    "Ward, feel more like it''s us who needs you."

    "Nobody on this team needs me," Ward said. "Everyone is so good and then they''re also laser handed super soldiers who can recover from a bullet like a paper cut."

    "I don''t know, I could use a hand. You all were agents before you became super soldiers, I always feel like I''m catching up."

    "You have a year of live fire experience in the densest warfare in American history," Ward said. "What are you catching up for?"

    Steve shook his head, "Maybe it''s stupid. It just feels like you''ve all proven yourselves on a you basis and I''m just the guinea pig you keep around as a pet."

    "You''re definitely not," Ward said. "Never seen anybody take a beating like you can. Can''t believe you do those stupid air jumps, things hurt so bad, Super soldier serum or not, Extremis or not."

    "You get used to it, but it''ll be nice to use the quantum tunnelers and not do that again."

    Ward snorted. "Anyway, I''m just saying I can do this on my own."

    Steve looked at him and said the words he''d needed to hear a long time ago, "But you don''t have to."

 61: Pierce Checks Mikeéˆ¥æªš Progress

    We stepped into the elevator and the door closed on the open air, green field. "It''s amazing," Pierce said. "A man made afterlife. An astonishing achievement." I was doing my best to ignore the thrumming of my brain and the occasional glitch like failure of visual depth. The system had been designed on a standard brain''s capacity for information processing and my brain was not like that.

    "Thank you," I said. "I''m immensely proud of it."

    "Then why are you grimacing?" Pierce asked

    "You know my brain is¡­ exotic," I complained. "But I wanted to see it for myself. Let''s go to an inside room - Elevator, let''s go to the lounge."

    The elevator made a jerking motion, not a necessary component but something we added so the mind would be less disoriented. Then we landed and the door opened on the new lounge. It was a large area, with food on the tables, fresh fruit and vegetables, and swanky tables that were mostly unoccupied.

    We walked into the lounge and took our seats, which managed to feel almost right. I had been raised not to be the princess with the pea and the local distances weren''t giving me the headaches the outdoor simulation had, so I said nothing.

    "Congratulations on your new baby," Pierce said.

    Pierce was a major problem for my baby''s future. My understanding of the genuine Project Insight plan was less stupid than it could have been, but killing the long tail was fundamentally a mistake that couldn''t be excused. "Thanks, Andromeda''s getting another sonogram today. Third trimester, very exciting."

    "Shouldn''t you be there?"

    "So I can give off visible waves of anxiety? Andromeda''s in the care of the best prenatal doctors money can buy. It''s fine." Moreover, I needed to maintain a close relationship with Pierce until I got lucky and he just keeled over or inserted himself into one of my afterlife projects and put himself in my power. Even though Pierce was bad, the other Hydra heads besides myself were all substantial downgrades - Irrelevant bankers, Strucker who still hated me, an actual honest to God Nazi, Malick of alien cult fame.

    Pierce grabbed an apple off the table and took a bite of it, "It really does taste like an apple."

    "Apples are easy, we''ve got lots of new residents earning keep on food testing. A couple dozen, really, but we''re a very cutting edge company." A new apple was ballooning on the table, which Pierce watched with fascination.

    "The SWORD Academies are proving an excellent recruiting system, just as you expected. We''ve got new recruits from all over the world."

    "Thank you sir." The benefits Hydra can give ambitious developing world members are almost infinite. It''s not surprising we can find solid recruits there or that an influx of cash resources meant that we could make a powerful appeal for elite level recruit. Only our early history of intimate connection to the Nazis and the influx of American authoritarians after the Vietnam war had prevented people from seeing this. We were also hoping to use Osiris to obtain control of old school dictatorships, offering immortality at the low price of obedience and compliance in our new order

    "Can we talk privately?" Pierce asked.

    I nodded my head and grabbed the hard screen out of my pocket. It looked like a smart phone with an Ankh on the back but it was just another way we made the interface more palatable to the uploaded mind. I hit the private conversation button and looped both Pierce and I in. "Our models won''t be visible or audible to others. Go ahead."

    "All of this technology stuff leaves me a little confused, but aren''t you pricing it a little low? Immortality for three hundred dollars per month?"

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    "Main point right now is to get subscribers," I said. "As the server space fills up, scaling up will cost money, which should justify making more money. Osiris'' economics run on a distinct monetary system from our world, allowing us to charge for the exchange each time; we exchange real money for Osiris money, we make money, Osiris money for real money, we make money. So anybody who hires someone inside is paying us as well as the worker. But yes, prices will rise as time goes on."

    "You''re an inspiration Hydra, Michael. I think I could be happy, knowing I was leaving Hydra in your hands."

    "Thank you, sir," I said sincerely.

    "In the three years since you joined Hydra, we''ve had an unprecedented expansion in power and authority. Where once SHIELD lurked in the shadows, SWORD now holds court in the open. The Defense Team is able to handle almost any threat to humanity as it fills up."

    I would like a promotion at this point. I felt like I deserved it. But I was also the youngest Head by a lot, so that probably wasn''t coming. No matter how frustrated being under ranked beneath Pierce. And besides, I couldn''t take the headship or directorship of SWORD so shortly after my mind control. We were only in late November.

    "So why''d you take a shit in Strucker''s backyard?"

    I raised my eyebrows, "What do you mean?"

    "After the alien attack, we looked into Pietro and Wanda. Wanda and Pietro Maximoff."

    Oh goddamn it. I did my best job keeping a straight face, "The Maximoff twins were test subjects for the serum. I needed disposable targets. I''m sorry I went picking in his backyard, but he''s the one who arranged biotesting laws to be so liberal in Sokovia, not me."

    "That''s not the problem. The Maximoffs are now two leaders in a domestic uprising that Strucker cannot seem to put down."

    That screamed Villain Brain. "That is because Strucker thinks everything is a medical subject."

    "He sent the Winter Soldier, but even so the twins survived. Nineteen dead civilians, an embarrassment to our local friends, and the Maximoff twins escaped." Frankly, go Wanda and Pietro. Making Strucker''s life harder and leading a democratic movement at home? Beautiful win for everyone involved. Maybe a long term problem for me, but I could work with it.

    My Ankh started going off, but I hung it up. I had to scurry out of this one.. "Look, I used to have their contact but they haven''t contacted me since the end of the invasion," which was true. "I guess the heat of your investigation tipped them off. Or maybe just that I told them not to. Regardless, I''ve got no help for anyone involved."

    "I want you to work with Strucker, at least try to clean this mess up."

    Absolutely not, "Sur-" and then my Ankh started going off again. I picked it up to see Andromeda was calling. "Goddamnit," I said. "I''m happy to work with Strucker. But my wife is calling and won''t give me ten seconds, do you mind?"

    Pierce gave me a permissive wave.

    "Yes, dear, I''m talking to Secretary Pierce. What is it?"

    "I''m so sorry but there''s something weird with the baby."

    I felt my stomach plummet, "Oh no, what''s happened? What''s wrong?"

    "Well, we don''t know exactly is happening but it looks like the baby is giving off exotic energy brainwaves."

    My stomach seemed to relax at that even as my brain went into overdrive. "Alright," I said after a moment. "Well, that''s probably my fault."

    "I know! I don''t know what to do!"

    "Dear, they''re doctors. They''re bound by doctor patient confidentiality. I will be there soon. Tell them you''re not horribly surprised and then stall."

    Worst come to worst I could have them all killed.

 62: Talking about the Baby

    ¡°At any rate, if any of this leaks, my child might be subject to horrific, unethical experimentation or I might be expected to¡­ provide other children to substitute for my baby. But I''m fairly confident that if you all keep your mouths shut, we won''t have any other problems," I said to a room full of medical personnel whose eyes had grown wide as saucers at the sob story that I had told them of the illegal experimentation I had undergone that had transformed my brain and the tragic pain it had brought me.

    There had been tears, but I figured it was better than killing everyone. I wasn''t sure I had the stomach to kill my wife''s doctors and killing everyone would have hung a giant target around Andromeda and the baby''s necks, from the other Heads if not from the U.S. government, and I didn''t want that.

    Andromeda walked over to me. She was still in ridiculously good shape, which was sort of unfair when you thought about it, and slipped under my arm and I kissed her head. "Please tell no one about any of this," I said sternly and the doctors and nurses nodded their heads in unison.

    We walked out together out to the car and got in, I got into the driver''s seat. I was actually part of a minority of people in Los Angeles who had rejected the Nemo fleet''s rising dominance, taking control of the roads and making them clean and efficient beneath their will. It made me safer too, since those cars were so much better drivers. But I mostly wanted to live in a car that wasn''t feeding information into SWORD''s master feed.

    "That was¡­ scary," I said after a moment.

    "It was," Andromeda agreed. "I hadn''t been expecting your, you know, to come up. I''m sorry, I should have thought of it."

    I shook my head, "It''s not your responsibility. And we wouldn''t have risked inadequate medical care to dodge any risks, that''s just a new risk."

    "It''s amazing that he''s going to have your brain," Andromeda said. I smiled. Andromeda was much happier about the ongoing situation than I was.

    Don''t get me wrong, I was happy. I liked that we were having a baby, I liked that the baby was going to be preternaturally smart, maybe I could speak with the child in sign language in a year. Good Lord, I could speak, with my child. It was such a humbling thought. A real live human being was growing in my wife''s belly and I felt humbled and honored and horrified at the fact. My baby.

    But over it all hung the long shadow of Hydra, of its thousand heads, and of the future it promised. A world ordered, if we were lucky, by my vision for Hydra. A narrow elite, collected from cells across the world, ruling over mankind. Bread and circuses, peace and security. The everlasting city and it''s everlasting tendrils, the city of man, my dominion. I don''t enjoy the prospect of global, elite rule. But it wasn''t like this world had proved itself able to take care of itself.

    "Do you ever think about," I asked hesitantly, "Running away? From all this? From this life and its¡­ responsibilities?"

    "Not really. This is great! You''re on the way to being the top head of Hydra, SWORD is about the most powerful extra governmental organization in the world, and we''re going to have a baby. What''s not to love?"

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    I smiled weakly and stared at the road ahead of me. Andromeda had always loved me, but she had also always loved the promise of Michael Trent, the master of Hydra. There would be no ducking out to a next door world and settling as a happy married couple, living off the income from the Extremis formula or the wireless power transmitters or any of the other ways I could become a billionaire with tech friends and willingness to rat out alternate timeline Hydras. No, if I wanted to pursue some other destiny, I should have fallen in love with someone else. My last exit from this life was a long time ago, there was no point regretting it. The little baby kicking my wife''s belly was my destiny now, the life I was giving him would be either as the heir of Hydra''s most powerful head or an orphan and experiment subject. There weren''t a lot of other options left.

    "Nothing, I guess." I reached over with one hand and squeezed hers. "I''m happy to be here with you. Strucker is angry about the two guinea pigs for the super soldiers causing problems in his background, so I may have to deal with that soon. Hopefully they''ll let me be here for the birth."

    "That''s great!" Andromeda said excitedly, "You wipe out his opponents and his opposition to your ascension will be completely illegitimated."

    But I didn''t want to kill the Maximoff twins. I didn''t want to kill people! I joined Hydra because I wanted power, but I hadn''t wanted to use it to hurt people. I had put out of my mind too many bodies - Hank Pym, Nicole Arden. I had delivered the most effective defense force I could - Rapid fire response teams that could go anywhere in the world by the thousands, with burning hands and singularity grenades. I was still working on making the suits be able to be donned or removed in a few moments, like the Panther suit and the time travel suits in the movies, but it was hard and that kind of nano-technology was genuinely complicated and frankly just a pain in the ass to design at the present tech level.

    Now my baby was going to have two serial killers for parents.

    Yeah, that was great, it was fine. I''m sure it would be fine. (I was not sure it would be fine)

    "Well, I''d like to be at home for the baby''s birth, at least."

    "I''d like that too, dear. But what''s important is the work you''re doing. If you succeed, our child will grow up in a world where there is plenty and peace for everyone. Clean air, bright skies, and a beautiful future where he will be the heir to the ruler of the world and the greatest person that he can be."

    But he wouldn''t be able to be who he wanted to be. Not in Hydra. I didn''t sigh. I had chosen this life. I took a deep breath and reminded myself of the peace and prosperity that I had promised everyone. I was going to make the world safe, both internally and externally. There would have to be sacrifices.

    "You''re right dear. Of course you''re right. I''m just nervous about being a father, is all."

    "You''ll be a great father, Mike. To this baby and to the whole world."

 63: Arriving in Sokovia

    I climbed off the plane with my backpack and suitcase, "Baron Strucker," I said, extending a hand to him. Strucker was dressed in a crisp black suit, a mirror to my own in some ways, his hair was cut very short and his monocle was on his face. He ignored my handshake and stepped to walk alongside with me.

    A rude way to greet a man who had left his pregnant wife to help you. Hail Hydra, I suppose.

    "I hope," he said, "You are prepared to clean up your mess."

    "I will do my best," I said, which was not a yes. "Our local allies are interested in the pacification of the Maximoffs?"

    "Pacification will not be enough for your little lab mice," Strucker said. "I must insist on their corpses."

    "Ah, yes. Vicious repression. A strategy that has never backfired in history."

    "If it backfires, Mr. Trent, it will backfire onto me. Surely that is a benefit to you and your¡­ experimental faction."

    To be fair to Hydra Heads, they usually did get around to the point. "I am not interested in any of our factions failing, Baron Strucker, and I hope you would not be either. We are all one Hydra, are we not?"

    To be fair to me, I was a duplicitous opportunist.

    "Your concern," Strucker said, pressing his lips together as if to stop any profanities from slipping out. "Is quite touching. But I am confident that I know how to handle a little protest movement."

    He wasn''t. "Tell me, what are they demanding?"

    "The Sokovia for Peace movement demands the removal of peace keeping forces, an end to the SHIELD presence, and a transition to democratic rule."

    I sighed. Well. That wasn''t really a negotiable set of priorities for us. "Democracy has not been prohibitive to Hydra''s working agenda and a population with at least the semblance of democratic rule would be helpful."

    "After your electoral defeat, haven''t you had enough of elections? American sentimentality at its most repugnant. The world needs a strong, guiding hand right now. These people have no vision, and where there is no vision, the people are unrestrained." I understood that reference.

    "It seems to me the people are unrestrained right now." Frankly, the United States elected officials were doing fine by my lights. We''d gotten plenty of funding for SWORD and SHIELD and the security council were working overtime to co-ordinate national defenses in the event of an attack. Whole new protocols were being erected for mind control, cutting down on the unilateral power of the nuclear football. It was a good situation all around.

    "I do not like your snide insinuations for a mess that is, by rights, a result of your own stupid experimentation."

    "We cannot all be so hungry and desperate for the past, Strucker. I look to the future. It was unforeseeable that my subjects would distrust me before I betrayed them, due to a catastrophic risk for which you were completely unprepared and to which my plans were vital. Tell me, how did your Tesseract project contribute to it, again?"

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    Strucker snarled and we walked on.

    "Tell me, Baron Strucker. Is there anything which your lackeys would be prepared to part with for peace?"

    "No. They are furious that my allies and SHIELD have undercut them with the presence of super-soldiers."

    To be fair, right now the twins were hardly functioning as Super Soldiers. Mostly they seemed to have gone back to their old life - Organizing. They were doing a good job of it, too. The structures they''d used hadn''t been crackable, their protests were often shocking or funny or conveniently timed for first world prime time. They picked discernible targets and ripped them to bits in dissident press. They had provoked confrontations with the international forces in their homeland.They even snuck out secure information about backing entities for the oligarchs to sympathetic media in the west which was, so far at least, most of the media in the West.

    I''d have to do actual work to crack where they were, even just to get to talk to them. "Well, Strucker," I said after a moment, "Not that I don''t enjoy these¡­ spirited conversations of ours, but can you take me to what you have on them?"

    Strucker made a gesture and I followed him into a waiting state car. He took out a briefcase and handed it to me. It was all in Serbian, perhaps a calculated slight on his part, but I could read Serbian just fine if I bothered. My speed reading suffered for it, but I started thumbing through it. Lesson number one: The local government really, really hated the Maximoff twins at this point. It leaked off the page. Strucker probably wasn''t kidding - These people had real contempt for the Maximoffs. One of their members had been exposed for child molestation and they were ringing up his associates for letting him get away with it in the press. The police forces were being named and identified, with regular leaks of conditions inside the prisons.

    Honestly, the Maximoffs were probably on their way to winning. You can have all the power you want, but when your security forces'' children march out against you, it''s over for you, and the Maximoffs were already well on the way to it. The smart thing for the locals to do would be to either reach a negotiated peace or make off with the family gold. But if I went back to Hydra with that assessment, this black mark would go on my record and not Strucker''s and I didn''t really need another policy failure on my end of things. And there was no guarantee that they would fail without my help.

    My phone started ringing and I picked it up. It had a SWORD number, which meant it should be important. I knew most of my researchers'' numbers, they could leave a message, but I didn''t know this one.

    "We''ve lost Foster," a voice on the other end said.

    "How did you lose Foster? She is a scientist, not a ninja."

    "Thor picked her up sir. They''ve vanished."

    Goddamn it.

 64: The Dark World But Only the Fighting

    It''s important to remember that I had no idea what happened in the second Thor movie. It was named like, "Dark World" there were, svartalves or something? It didn''t really matter. I had no idea what was coming in the next few days but I had learned, rather painfully, that the plots of the movies were pretty short in day terms. This movie could be different, but I''d put the Defense Team on scramble and the vanilla avengers who might be useful, Bruce and Tina, were on standby in orbit and would be for the next week. I had still not cracked the self-assembling suits for the Defense Team so I had resigned myself to losing tens of thousands of dollars in government money and set them up with the singularity bombs.

    I was doing all my managing from Sokovia, which I figured probably didn''t have anything to do with this plot. If it doesn''t have anything to do with the plot, it can''t bother you. But there''s only so much you can do to prepare for, "idk, could be real bad, could be nothing." For all I knew, everything important would happen in Asgard. I really knew nothing about that plot.

    So when I was sitting at my desk in Sokovia, waiting for the news of what might or might not happen and I got a phone call from SWORD I picked up.

    "What''s up?" I said, propping up a can of Dr. Pepper.

    "Distortions of reality are getting worse in Greenwich over the Old Navy College, sir."

    "How worse are we talking about?"

    "There are giant floating portals in the sky, looks like they go to other worlds."

    "Are they dropping bombs out of the sky?''

    "No."

    "Have you deployed the defense team?"

    "Well, no."

    You see, I am a man of stature now, unable to say witty things like, ''well golly, what do we have them for then?'' "Why not?"

    "We wanted to assess the situation for risk."

    "There are gaping holes in the sky, go ahead and assume the Defense Team needs to be there. Tell them to have reversion teleportation activated if they need it and to keep an eye out for forming beams, falling bombs, and so forth."

    "Yes sir."

    ¡ª

    Steve and the defense team dropped in on the roof of the Old Navy college, an august building that for all Steve knew was older than the United States. "You see anything?" Steve said into his communicator to the rest of the team. A segment of U.S. and British forces had dropped in ahead, numbering about twenty four, a full contingent.

    "Giant portals?" "Dirt floating upward?" "A wave in the water like a ship"

    "Wave in the water like a ship?"

    "Sailing down the middle, straight toward the park grass of the college court," the man said, one of the British agents. The crowd had seen it now too, they were all evacuating and the cloak was coming off the ship. It was a massive black T shape and it had an aura of menace to

    "Alien ship, probably hostile. Everyone keep your finger on the reversion button in case it decides to go boom." The ship was slowing to a halt.

    "Cap, I don''t like this. If it were friendly, it would''ve communicated," Natasha said over the comms.

    "Can''t risk starting a war we can''t win, hold off on actions but keep your singularity bombs and your reversions ready." Steve said, climbing onto the edge of the roof and landing in the center of the building.

    "Cap, what''re you doing?" Ward asked, his voice worried.

    "My job. Well, my original job. Well, my SWORD job." And then Steve leaped into the middle of the field in front of the ship, rolling through the grass and dirt and coming up clean. All that practice with Ward was paying off.

    A moment later, Ward joined him on the ground, "Can''t let you be this stupid alone," Ward said. "It would embarrass us in front of the British." The suit''s helmet covered his expression, but Steve knew he was smiling. Jerk.

    Steve clapped Ward on the shoulder, "Thank you." And he meant it. He wasn''t scared of guns and thugs anymore, but this could be anything. Literally anything. There was a gap in the ship and down it was coming an elevator that was backlit with red. What was it with bad guys and red? No, he told himself, they might not be bad guys. Steve did his best to look non-threatening. Hopefully the red, white, and blue get up helped in that regard.

    Suddenly, Steve saw Thor, landing on the ground of the yard. "Captain," he said. Steve looked at him and smiled. He probably couldn''t see the smile.

    "Thor, it''s good to see you. These friends of yours?"

    "Unfortunately not. They are the enemies of all life."

    "Everybody get that, Thor says the enemy of all life. Hit it with some singularity bombs."

    "Roger that," Barton said and they began dropping the bombs. Or in Barton''s case, launching with his bow. But when they went off, they didn''t scrape the metal of the ship, but flew upward and out, eventually detonating near or above the top of the ship. The ship itself received only a small amount of ripping from the distortion of the bombs.

    "We must distract them while Jane activates Dr. Selvig''s scepters."

    "Alright," Cap said, relaying the information to his team. "Thor, this is my friend, Ward, you''ll find almost two dozen other agents spread out over the buildings here in similar black and white getups. You''re the expert at the moment, we''re ready to take our cues from you."

    The doors of the elevator opened and footpath extended for the leader. A tall man with dark skin and white hair, a dark burn mark across his face and pointed ears. Behind him trooped a squad of faceless goons in white masks with the same sharp ears.

    "You''ve come so far Asgardian, but death will come for you and your friends regardless."

    "I will handle Malakith, the chatty one with the burn. If your men can handle the rest, we should be in good states."

    Steve nodded and started calibrating his teleportation, "Primary hostile is Thor''s, everybody else, let''s offer our visitors a surprise from the Quantum Realm."

    Steve teleported across the field and behind Malakith, shoving down the distortion from the intermediary matter and shoving his shield into the face of one of the masked men. The man staggered back but not down and Steve knew he wasn''t in Kansas any more. Ward appeared behind the man and twisted his head until the man stopped moving, choking on his own breath. "Gramps, come on!"

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    "Listen kid," Steve said, leaping towards another one of the maskless men that were starting to surround him. His reversion marker was still on. "These guys are tougher than normal humans."

    "When they were fighting Thor, I just assumed," he tossed a singularity grenade into the middle of the crowd and they didn''t react fast enough before it blew up and swallowed three of them. But there were still about two dozen.

    "Have the others not been practicing their teleportation targeting?" Steve asked as one of the men missed him with a red blaster.

    "They do seem to be shockingly lax," Ward said. One of the men lunged at him and Steve rammed him with a shoulder and knocked him to the ground. Then he had to knock what looked like some kind of grenade loose into the crowd of approaching attackers. The grenade went off without a hitch, turning into a black hole not entirely dissimilar to the singularity grenade, and took out another two men. They were clearing this honor guard remarkably quickly.

    Natasha appeared and started blasting away but he and Ward were really cornered now. The rounds from her guns weren''t having a ton of effect unless they bit flesh first and there weren''t a lot of instances of that. They were decently armored in a kind of magical chainmail, from what Steve could tell. She was also having to be careful not to hit him or Ward - She always carried armored piercing rounds and while they could survive most bullet wounds, dropping into a regenerative coma was not an ideal situation.

    Barton was shooting from a comfortable distance and all Steve could think was that he should''ve spent a decade mastering the bow to the same effect. One of the men lunged at him and Steve was too distracted, he hit the ground. Steve thought of Peggy as the alien raised his hand to shove it into his chest, which was a smart attack on the merits again people with Extremis, and then a blazing hand went through the man''s torso and he toppled off him.

    "You fried the glove, they''re not gonna like that you fried the glove."

    "He really needs to figure out how to take those things off without ruing the whole damn suit," Ward said, shoving a fiery hand into the throat of another one of the masked men. The honor guard was really thinning out now and the other troops had teleported in. They were outmatched, fundamentally, by the super soldiers. Ward stuck a burning hand into another man and pulled it out.

    "Looks like we''re winning this thing," Natasha said, finally reaching their side.

    "It''s not proving very difficult," Steve admitted, kicking the head of one of the men in a new kick flip he had learned. Steve didn''t fight for fun, but it was fun, especially when the opponent was a challenge.

    "Uh, guys," Barton said over the communicator, "You all need to clear out, primary is aiming his dark menacing energy tentacle things at you."

    The rest of the Defense Team hit their reversions and went back to base camp. They had so many doses in these things they could come back in ten seconds if Steve gave the order. But Steve couldn''t teleport, because Ward couldn''t teleport, and he wasn''t leaving Ward behind.

    "Teleport damn it!" Ward shouted as they began to leap out of the way of the dark energy.

    "Can''t! Let!" He said as they landed on their feet and started running away from the last of the honor guard, "You do something!"

    "Dodge left!" Ward shouted and Steve obeyed without thinking, just barely dodging a bolt from the laser blasters of the honor guard as Ward threw a singularity grenade into the proximity of what remained of the aliens.

    "This stupid!" Steve said, grabbing a singularity grenade and tossing it into the crowd. "Alone!"

    They peeled around behind a building and took a moment to breathe where they could catch someone who cornered with a grenade. Even for a super soldier, that had been a hard sprint. But the warmth of Extremis was already clearing the exhaustion from Steve''s body. "Can''t let you do something this stupid alone," Steve said.

    "You''re a gem," Ward said with sarcasm in his voice. But Steve knew he meant it, in his own prickly way.

    Steve paused, "Was that all of them?"

    "Could be, I lost count in the middle there."

    "There were like two dozen at most, don''t they teach you how to count to twenty four anymore?"

    "Do you know?"

    "No, I lost count in the middle," Steve said with a smirk.

    "Cap, should we return to location?" Natasha said. "Monitor says your alive."

    "Ah, sorry, uh, converge back around my location. There''s a building to my right, I''ll start tagging you places."

    Steve started sending tagged locations to each of the rest of the team and they started appearing. "Everybody intact?" Steve asked, as Natasha appeared.

    "All in tact," Natasha said. "Barton cleared too. You need to send another tag."

    Steve did so without complaint. He had a lot of free time for this sort of practice. "Alright, Natasha, clear the corner?"

    Natasha nodded and advanced to the corner, peering around it with her gun in front of her, "All clear. Looks like they''re down or dead. Some sort of black whirlpool the middle of the field. Might be where Malakith is, it looks like the tendrils." Natasha said, ducking back in

    "Alright," Steve said, "We pull around the corner, we lob some grenades, we see if it hits, if not, we see if it attacks us."

    But when he and the others rounded the corner, only Thor was there, laying on the ground as the building sized space ship started to fall toward him. Jane Foster, Thor''s girlfriend and the reason they''d been on high alert, was trying to drag him but Thor''s a big man - Alien - Whatever he was, he was very fit. Without thinking, Steve had crossed the field toward them and grabbed Jane under one arm and Thor under the other and started hauling out of the fall path. But once he made it to the other side of the courtyard, he saw that the ship had gone missing.

    It had been a wild fifteen minutes.

 65: To Give Her The World

    "Your super soldiers were very impressive, Mr. Trent," Strucker said as we walked towards the spaceship. We finished reviewing the last of the tapes from the suits'' cameras. "Though they are right that you should work on the suit assembly."

    "There''s just a lot finicky work to make sure the nanites don''t stop at a hair on your arm and don''t burrow into your fingernail if your finger is at the wrong angle."

    "It''s an important priority. Mr. Trent, I will not lie to you. I have harbored¡­ resentment at your rise." Strucker seemed almost genuinely remorseful. "But your work today has secured our world against another alien foe and one cannot doubt that it has made Hydra much more successful. And they are magnificent constructions, perfect in form."

    I was surprised that Strucker had come around so easily on this. His resentment of me was not new. But I guess there was nothing succeeds like success. "Thank you."

    "If only I had my confidence that you would not continue the imprudent strategies that created our problems in Sokovia, I would be prepared to back you for the Headship, as Pierce has long been debating."

    My mind went reeling. Pierce was considering me for the chief head? Why? I guess he was getting on in years. But canonically, Project Insight would surely be going up soon. Had it been his crowning achievement? Had he intended to spend some time as the world ruler before a retirement he could supervise? Had it been impelled because he didn''t have any attractive subordinates to trust with world domination?

    I had a lot of questions. But the next most important question was the clear quid pro quo that Strucker was promising. I dealt with the twins and he would put his weight behind me for the status of the first head. I could direct the resources of Hydra, a world-spanning, expanding empire to which I had contributed. And if I was head, I could make sure that Hydra didn''t do anything ridiculous or stupid between here and Thanos'' assault on our world. I could protect my baby and my¡­ seed¡­ from further investigation.

    All it would take is a couple of bodies. Why hesitate? Because I knew their names? Because one had given me a hug? It wasn''t because they were good people. I had (willfully) killed people who were at least probably good and I had been handmaiden to more than a few by providing Hydra with my technology. Unless I invented a truly ingenious way of clearing out Hydra, I was probably doomed to be party to many, many murders. Why should these two stop me?

    But still I did hesitate, "I will do my best, Baron Strucker," I said. There had to be some way to handle this peacefully. That wasn''t actually true. There didn''t have to be. But I had to try, damn it. "But in the meantime, I have a spaceship to catch. My laurels are owed to me on this one."

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    We shook hands and I stepped aboard.

    ¡ª

    I will spare you the screaming, the awkwardness of staring at my wife giving birth with near perfect strangers. But when the baby was born, healthy and screaming, I was the one to catch her. By rights, I should have been attending a big award ceremony with the other heroes of the 15th, but my wife had started having contractions and I had hopped on a spaceship and circumnavigated the globe to be with her when she gave birth instead.

    I felt in my stomach a raw terror I had never before known as I held my little girl. Some day she would be full grown and the world needed to still be there for her. I felt deeply, personally responsible for that now. Babies all look pretty similar, but I had already started to see Andromeda and my features appearing in her face, in the shock gray of her eyes. She was still too fresh and wet to have much appearance to her yet. But she was going to be beautiful.

    After the baby had gotten her cries out, I brought her over to Andromeda, who smiled with much less exhaustion than I think an ordinary birth would have induced without an epidural. We did try an epidural, but like most drugs it wasn''t very effective on Andromeda. "She''s amazing," I said gently. "You did a great job."

    "It should be your turn next time," Andromeda groused politely and held out her arms for the baby. I handed her over and she held her in her arms. "She is amazing though."

    I put my arm around her and said, "I think your idea for a name should be great," I said, at last giving up the battle for a short, efficient name.

    "I''m glad you''ve come to see sense. Your daddy''s very smart, Persephone. He even listens to his wife when he needs to, aren''t I the luckiest girl? No¡­ That''s you now. This sweet man is going to give you the world."

    I felt the weight of that statement on me like a stone. There would be many sacrifices that had to be made to get from here to there, I was going to have to do a lot to make sure that terrible purple monster wasn''t able to lay a hand on the stones that could end my daughter''s life. Or to overpower our armies and establish a more traditional army based xenocide.

    I wasn''t going to trust my daughter''s life to fate. Or to the Avengers being fortuitously present. I wasn''t going to miss five years of her life. I didn''t want to miss five minutes. I leaned over to my wife and kissed her on the forehead. I was going to do whatever it took to take care of Persephone, I was going to bury whoever I had to bury to see her grow tall and whole and to be buried by my daughter in peace and old age. "This whole world and so much more. I promise."

 Wanda: Christmas Protest

    <div>

    But Wanda and Pietro had been learning of the fickle attention of the western media in the aftermath of the Attack on Greenwich. They had been a top news story in early November, but almost two months later attention had not returned to Sokovia. All eyes and mouths were talking SWORD and interstellar defense and nobody was thinking about insuring liberty for the people of Sokovia.

    "The repression has been getting worse," Pietro said as he warmed his hands next to Wanda, rubbing them in the cold. They were to meet up with the other protestors and make a march for old cathedral of Novi Grad and occupy it and sing hymns about the theotokos, but they had been careful to make sure they began somewhere relatively unexpected. Word had been passed around by hand.

    "They''re certainly smarter than they were a few months ago," Wanda agreed. The attacks had been more focused. Leaders were vanished or moved to prisons in distant lands through SHIELD. A fifty year old mentor had turned up dead, according to the mortician of a heart attack - In spite of the bullet in her chest. A deliberate snub, but not one they could do anything about.

    "Do you believe the rumors about Trent?" Pietro asked.

    "No." Wanda said firmly. Trent had helped them, he had brought them the charisma they needed. Sokovia was listening to them. They might had to bounce from house to house, but everywhere they were ''the Twins of Sokovia.'' It was helping them hold together in the face of a much more intelligent regime strategy. "He wouldn''t. He helped us when he had no reason. And we''ve kept our end of the bargain, even when a more nationalist tone might have helped. Sokovia for Peace is a promise kept. Trent''s promise."

    "I worry," Pietro said, sighing. "I worry a lot. Are we losing? Is that what is happening? Is it him?"

    Wanda shook her head, "We had more attendance at our last rally than we had two months ago, Pietro. They have gotten cleverer, but so have we. For every Sokovian they have beaten, for every Sokovian they have jailed, we have found a brother, wife, daughter, or father to take up their banner. It''s wise to be cautious, Pietro, but we must keep up hope. We will win this, if we just stick together."

    "This is why you give the speeches," Pietro said as they started toward their rendezvous point. He had the banner rolled up and tucked beneath one arm. He was wearing a dark blue suit that was at odds with his dyed hair.

    They met some of the early organizers and she did her best to remember their names. There were so many names, so many homes she had stayed at, she had trouble. She liked them, they were brave and they were her people, but she couldn''t always keep the names straight. So she was forced to mostly say, "Today is an important day for Sokovia," and "It is good to see you again" whenever she recognized a face. If that got suspicious in lack of familiarity, Wanda gave them a hug. Nobody doubted her sincerity after a hug.

    Some faces were new, friends or family of attendees who had gotten the word. Wanda did her best not to act too paranoid whenever she met a new person, a bright smile and a, "We''re so grateful to have you here, what we''re doing here matters" as she took account of their clothes and demeanor, wondering if they were a snitch for the secret police.

    They started walking, chanting a hymn based on the Magnificat and carrying icons. Wanda was not very religious, but the symbology was useful and it wasn''t that she didn''t believe in God. She had been baptized into the Orthodox Church but after her parents death, she hadn''t had the heart to make it back. Then during her early activism, she had discovered that the priests were often regime apologists - Claiming there would be a return to Soviet anticlericalism if democracy came to Sokovia - and she hadn''t been interested in that. She had learned more about Orthodoxy preparing for these protests than she had learned in her adult life. But the Magnificat and its chant were lovely and Wanda joined in heartily when they reached the verse that spoke of God putting down the mighty from their throne and sending the rich away empty. Wanda liked that part, at least, and she was grateful for the little grandmother who had suggested it as a song for tonight.

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    They managed a procession as they continued to converge towards the cathedral in the city square. The procession grew larger and larger, larger than she had ever hoped it would be. It felt like all of Novi Grad was coming out, though Wanda did a quick enough head count while carrying the banner to know that this wasn''t right. It was large though, larger than previous demonstrations. It felt like the dam was breaking.

    No police presence obstructed the marchers as they removed the metal gate and streamed into the old building. That was suspicious, but there was nothing to do about it. The press of bodies around Wanda was warm and reassuring. They assembled around the central altar of the round cathedral. The arch of the dome, an old wooden throne upon a dais, it was all romantic in Wanda''s eyes, especially against the light of all the candles that the protestors had brought.

    Wanda stepped out of the press of the bodies and onto the dais, feeling the chill of the early January air for the first time. She waited for the last hymn to stop and then she started to speak.

    "We are in the exact center of Novi Grad. We want what all people everywhere want, the desire of their heart that they have been given by God. We want peace! We want justice! And we want a say in our own destinies! Sokovia has been used, over and over, as a pit stop for empires. Today, we are gathered to fly a flag for peace! We are not the enemies of human unity, as our opponents have alleged. They are the ones who would rip a mother from their child''s arms, the ones who murder and lie, who pour out the blood that today cries out against them from the earth. Today, we are here to say what has to be said: Sokovia must be free, today and forever, and those forces that have served to prop up this treacherous, greedy cabal must be removed. We have no beef with anyone, our goal is not to punish, what we want - What we all want - is to stop being the casualties in someone else''s wars. To bind our wounds, to heal our hurts, and to forgive our trespasses in peace and not at the end of a gun!"

    The crowd was cheering, but Wanda saw headlights in the distance.

    "Everyone, remember, we must stay calm. If you have a camera, keep it rolling. We will not be defeated. Make them drive you out of here! Don''t give them an excuse! Make them prove it is they who want violence. No matter how painful it is, Peace for Sokovia, Freedom for our children!"

    "Peace for Sokovia, Freedom for Our Children!"

    The chant was regular like a drum beat and Wanda was the drum major. There was no hope in having a long, discursive speech now. The message was in the chanting. Wanda felt sure that a violent dispersal would deliver even more people to the movement. What sort of people attacked a church on Christmas Day? Even if it wasn''t hallowed ground anymore, it was disgraceful conduct.

    The police began to move in but Wanda wasn''t afraid. Whatever happened now, she would face it with her people. They had a perimeter and police masks but the people were chanting and Wanda''s heart was full. What came would come.

    Gas canisters burst into the room. Some women threw shawls over them, but there were too many. It was a surprisingly thin gas but Wanda kept up the shouting.

    "Bring out Wanda and Pietro alive and intact, and surrender to the police" a voice said over the radio. She didn''t recognize the voice. But all of a sudden, the crowd started closing in on her and Pietro with some menace. She lurched back, bumping into others who had stepped up on the dais. "No! What are you doing!" Wanda shouted, as Pietro looked at her with fear in his eyes. Some of these people were new, of course they were, but the whole crowd was closing in. She and Pietro exchanged glances.

    "The gas!" Pietro said and Wanda knew it was true.

    "We have to get out of here!" Ordinary humans were not much of an individual threat, but once it had become clear to them that Wanda and Pietro were going to resist, they put up a real fight. Clawing and hitting and shoves. Wanda had shoved the grandmother who had picked out the hymns and hoped that she didn''t get too hurt.

    She and Pietro made it to the police, who were carrying guns and leveled them at them. "Freeze" they shouted behind gas masks. But Wanda and Pietro were super soldiers, they grabbed the guns, used the bodies of the police officers as temporary shields, and moved through the police line, jumping onto cars and then onto rooftops and then down the tight streets of Novi Grad.

    It was only once they had reached beyond the edge of the city that Wanda allowed herself to cry.

 66: Finishing the Job

    <div>

    "You need to tell me," I said as I rocked Persephone in my arms. It was impossible to get this baby to sleep for stretches at a time. She could probably hear a pin drop across a football field. Something was always going to wake her up. "If you want me to deal with your Maximoff problem or your regime problem, because I don''t think there''s a way for me to do both."

    "If you remove the Maximoffs, there will be no regime problem."

    One of Hydra''s ideological weaknesses, that it was impossible to say aloud lest you be seen as a brainwashed lamb of the oppressing society, was that Hydra did not believe that common people existed in any meaningful sense. They saw the whole world as populated by, in effect, non-player characters. So to Strucker, his regime problems were his Maximoff problem, singular. The unpopularity, the primarily international defense problems, the fact that they hadn''t really disciplined a proven pedophile, all those things were not problems unless some Heroic Character appeared to make them problems. This was a stupid point of view, even in a universe where people like Tony existed. "Look, I just don''t want to deliver you the Maximoffs'' bodies and then you complain to me when your own mistakes topple this little colony of yours."

    "If the Maximoffs bodies are delivered to me," he said, "You will have my support on the council."

    "Great," I said. It wasn''t great, but we''d tried apprehending them alive and that had not worked. I probably would''ve taken the crowd captive and used them to get the Maximoffs to surrender, but the political damage this method had done was fine. So far the official account was all I had access to, that the mob panicked and the Maximoff escaped using human shields, but no doubt there were muttered rumors in the street by this point. The body control had helped identify leaders and organizers, but there were simply too many people to put in jail and too many with connections to the security forces. Sooner or later, the mind control story would get out and even if it would be dismissed as, ''panicked superstition'' in the west, people in Sokovia might come around to believing it. Especially if the bodies of the twins turned up later in shallow graves.

    "Do you need anything to make that happen?"

    "I''m going to need the Winter Soldier."

    ¡ª

    Wizard software phones were cheaper than iPhones and they were harder for outsiders to crack, so they made sense in terms of what sort of phone a Sokovian might pick up. They were cheap, they were energy efficient, and they were secretly bugged by the most powerful intelligence organization in the world.

    Me.

    I''m sorry, I have to brag internally because I basically never mention this to anyone. If the ability were used regularly, people would''ve figured it out. And if the other Hydra heads knew about it, they would use it regularly. Nobody respects my process.

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    Wanda and Pietro didn''t carry phones anymore, they''d resorted to passing messages in person. Analog, the great equalizer. But Sokovia had not had amicable relationship with its neighbors and the borders were secure and, right at this moment, they believed that the twins were dangerous, enhanced terrorists. That meant that they would need to return to society within Sokovia.

    And when they did that, as they had to, it was the Wizard phone of the young man hosting them that caught enough of their voices to find where they were hiding. They''d gone from Novi Grad to one of the smaller towns which fed into it.

    So we sent a Nemo by, being "driven" by a Ken Life Model Decoy, and it drove by the house where they were at and found a suitable tree to wrap itself around.

    I stared through the Nemo cameras as Wanda and Pietro came outside. They looked almost the same as I had left them. Pietro darted toward the car and ripped the hinge off and that was when we set off the bomb to the driver''s seat.

    It wasn''t the largest possible bomb, but as I toggled over to the Winter Soldier''s monitoring location on a nearby roof, I could see that Pietro was shredded. His body might have been recognizable, but only in the most generous of senses. Wanda rushed over immediately.

    "Take the shot," I said.

    The Winter Soldier fired, hitting her in the leg, and she started limping toward her brother. She was crying and furious, looking for whoever had shot her as she moved to get Pietro clear.

    "Don''t stop till she goes down."

    The Winter Soldier fired again and again and again. What you have to understand is almost no one in this universe has good aim. Maybe it was overconfidence from my previous life, but it seemed like he should have hit more by now.

    "Close the gap and finish her."

    Wanda made it to Pietro and picked him up as the Winter Soldier leapt down from the roof to pursue her, she tucked him onto her shoulder and started moving as fast as she could, grabbing the door to the car for a shield.

    The Winter Soldier ran her down and she lowered Pietro to the ground, apparently realizing that outrunning the Winter Soldier wasn''t feasible. She charged like a football player straight into the Winter Soldier and knocked him down, hitting him with the door of the car, doing her best to bludgeon him unconscious or dead. For a moment, I thought she might succeed and that I might have to once again bless and damn the power of a being a main character in this universe.

    But the Winter Soldier managed to wrench the door away from her and land a hit with his metal arm to her chest. The wind knocked out of her, she reeled for a moment and that was all he needed. He twisted, wound up on top of her, yanked his side arm out and blew her brains out.

    I felt tears roll down my face. I hated them. I hadn''t wanted it to come to this. But it had and the regret was pointless. I had made my choice, I had driven this long road and it was more than a few left turns out of here. If I was on the road to hell, this was me setting up a home in the sunny downtown area. If I was saving the world, this was a necessary sacrifice and not even a large one. It felt to me like both.

    "Put a bullet in the other one and return to base," I said, my voice choking up.

    The Winter Soldier returned to where Pietro was bleeding and unconscious and emptied his clip into Pietro''s face.

    It was over.

 67: Hail Hydra!

    <div>

    It had been a disaster for him, of course. The bodies of the twins were found immediately, we had risked no agents in their disposal. Video tape from the Wizard phone I had monitored had released to the internet, the masked Winter Soldier still unrecognizable as Bucky Barnes, the riots had returned to Sokovia, the military - many of whom had children at the Christmas Protest - refused to march on Novi Grad. That taught me an important lesson about using the body control gas on anyone I left alive. The local police force let them into the halls of government. It was over for that quaint little oligarchy and a new election would be held. Pietro and Wanda were national martyrs, murdered by a repressive state. They had, in death, gotten what they wanted.

    I had warned Strucker he had to choose between the regime or the twins.

    "Congratulations as your new station, sir." Strucker said, raising both fists to me in salute. "Hail Hydra!"

    "Hail Hydra!" I said in reply. It was a relief.

    The rest of the group came in slowly, sitting down around the table. Stern had been promoted to a new head and he was sitting just as smarmy as ever. How that man had ever been elected to public office was beyond me. Besides, the electoral successes that had won him a seat were mostly my work anyway. Strucker took his seat. after the Seikh. Pierce stood up next to me as Whitehall took his seat.

    "I believe in you, Michael," Pierce said. "With you at the helm, Hydra will achieve its destiny. I can feel it in my bones."

    "Thank you, Alexander," I said. I couldn''t call him sir now.

    The bankers came and took their seats, the Swiss one and the American one, the Baroness got there fashionably late, and Gideon Malick filled out the last chair. I took a drink of the grape juice I had for this meeting. It wouldn''t due to be drinking a Dr. Pepper. I was getting anxious about what was coming next. I had done so much to reach this moment and now it was here and I had to make sure that all that work, all that blood, wasn''t for nothing.

    "Brothers and sister," I said, motioning to my audience. Only one woman, a sign of how meritocracy often worked in practice here. And almost all white, excepting the Seikh. Talent that we could be using was missing, I was going to have to fix that. "Today, Hydra enters the 21st not as strangers but as citizens. Our cause, which is the cause of mankind, has never been stronger. SWORD is the most popular organization on the globe and even now, Hydra agents are recruiting from the best and brightest of a hundred countries. Our environment is healing from years of short sighted rapacity. Human illness is being routed from the embattled position it took up in the aftermath of penicillin. Our research has wounded death and the labor from within the tomb makes us daily richer. Our soldiers are stronger and braver and more prepared for any difficulty. International warfare is at an all time low as nations put aside their differences and work together against their common foes. Resources are being deliver, by Hydra, and the wealth of space is now ours to command.

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    But I do not want you to believe that I intend to rest on my laurels. My intentions with Hydra for the next five years are straightforward. We must ensure, above all else, that the earth is secure. Even above the necessary reputation maintenance of our most important organization, nothing we possess will be of any value if Thanos destroys half the human race. I intend to continue to advance this interest.

    Next, Hydra has long intended to achieve world domination. It has sought to do so by seizing the centers of administrative, enforcement, and financial power in the West. This strategy has been successful in many respects, but it leads broad vulnerabilities. My SWORD Academies have begun to recruit many talented and ambitious figures from the developing world. We must facilitate their growth and ambition, even as we contribute to the development and industrialization of their countries. Once we have united these new elites together in our service, it will become easier for us to replaced failed regimes with sympathetic ones, forming a long term base of political power in the developing world.

    Finally, I know that we have all made various sacrifices. The body of Remus is on the floor. Much death, much chaos, has been paid to consecrate our founding stones. These sacrifices have not availed us yet of the everlasting dominion of peace and security that we all envision. I want you to know that your vision, your sacrifice, has not gone unnoticed. We have begun to establish an everlasting order which will enwrap the globe. That order shall be Hydra and all our works. Hail Hydra!" I said, holding aloft my glass.

    "Hail Hydra!"

    ¡ª¡ª

    Natasha and Bruce had been working this angle for ages and when the rumors of Sokovia using illicit mind control had leaked, she knew it couldn''t be kept to herself any longer. She had to tell Fury, try to get a new perspective, and a way to actually find hard proof.

    "The disappearance of Hank Pym as his own shrink particles were taking off, the mind control gas in Sokovia after he departed from there to his wife''s pregnancy, the twins ability and his spontaneous ownership of the Super Soldier Serum?" Natasha said, sliding the files over to Fury, "It all points in one direction. Michael Gideon Trent, the world''s golden boy."

    "Pointing isn''t proving," Fury said, opening the file and thumbing through the pages. It was a thin stack of papers. Trent was a paranoid bastard. "But it''s a start."

 68: Life on Top

    <div>

    There was also a chance to deal with the¡­ poorly considered¡­ plans of my underlings. I walked into the post-operation hospital room where one of them was sleeping.

    "Hello Ruby," I said, doing my best to not sound too condescending to the potential future leader of Hydra. Good lord, picking them before insemination. She was thirteen! They need to think about things before they did them.

    "Sir," she said. She didn''t appear to like me very much. That was understandable. Giving it away, not as much. Her temper wasn''t in control. The reports were right about that.

    "Ruby, why were you born?"

    "I was born to become the perfect weapon of Hydra."

    "And that," I said calmly. "Was the first mistake."

    Ruby glared at me. "I''m twice as good as anyone in my class."

    "I''ve seen that. I don''t think that Hydra should choose people for destinies and duties before they''re even born. What I haven''t seen are the true qualities of a Hydra leader. Calm. Cunning. Conviction. I''ve seen ambition. I have no problem with ambition. But I have a problem with a failure of our forces to fully consider their place in our organization." In many ways, as an ambitious Hydra agent without conviction myself, I knew the danger that Ruby Hale posed to me and my organization.

    "Are you going to kill me?"

    "No, your mother is a respected Air Force general. I just wanted you to know that we implanted a small bomb inside your chest. If you try to kill me, if I die, if you betray Hydra, if any member of Hydra is killed by you, if I decide you have become a liability for us, that bomb will be detonated. Your ambition won''t save you from that."

    She looked offended. "How dare you?"

    "See? That''s what I''m talking about. They created you to be a perfect weapon, Ms. Hale. A weapon that can''t be safely used is no weapon at all. I hope that you rise and have all the success that you deserve. You may yet be a fine agent."

    ¡ª¡ª

    The Particle Infusion Chamber would''ve been substantially more interesting if we had an abundant supply of Vibranium. As it was, we would be compelled to use the Gravitonium supply and I just have to say explicitly, absolutely not. Gravitonium with near contact to human cells messed them up something bad. Maybe using it to make and then deliver a human bomb of some sort, but probably not. I had ordered it boxed and buried far, far from anywhere people might find it.

    As it was, we had a total supply of about twenty five kgs of Vibranium. We''d had to return the majority of it to Wakanda, Cap had a vague sense of the weight class and wasn''t liable to lie in a sworn affidavit, but we were able to fudge it with some cooperation by Klaue. That was enough for a few Vibranium spiked super soldiers, but it wasn''t enough for a Vibranium Army and it wasn''t enough to see if it could be safely added to one of our super-soldiers without undertaking a substantial loss.

    So that was also off the table.

    Since Extremis was probably more valuable than any of the more mundane elements and those same elements prevented us from injecting it, that was all of the table. We could still use the chamber for other agents of course, but as a top level choice it didn''t have much to offer.

    ¡ª¡ª

    "Leave Stark alone," I said as I sat across from Stern.

    You could be reading stolen content. Head to the original site for the genuine story.

    "But sir, he''s undermining the U.S. international position with his reckless actions¡­"

    "Stark protects civilian targets," I said, taking a drink of water from a cup. "He''s cut down on what remained of international conflict to nearly zero. The U.S. should learn to take the W."

    "Other countries will be substantially less happy with that," Stern pointed out.

    He wasn''t wrong. Tony''s international shenanigans weren''t the most popular part of the U.S. present internationalist strategy. But people were able to put up with them and Stark was bringing down international conflict numbers, thus shoring up the majority of humanity''s safety. It did cut into military funding, which was a slight frustration for us. What good was it if someone didn''t die in a border skirmish, compared to if we were underprepared for Thanos'' invasion. Nonetheless. "Well, you can make some slight pushes and things that look good in the press, but don''t do anything too much to piss him off. His work is important - Other countries who want to compete with him will look to us."

    ¡ª¡ª

    "To immortality," I said, raising a glass to the other PRIDE members. It was good to be back in the United States among my friends.

    We were celebrating Osiris'' one year anniversary. Osiris was buzzing with internal activity. We had nearly ten thousand citizens in our little simulated reality. We made money hand over fist that way, the only maintenance costs were the same as for any other set of servers, and in light of the extraordinarily cheap cost of power, that was practically free.

    "To immortality!" They agreed and everyone took a drink.

    "How''s the baby?" Victor asked. He was the last of the PRIDE men not to have taken the Super Soldier Serum. Understandable, given the relative strength enhancements and his temper issues. Janet had taken it, but she still flinched when he got angry.

    "She''s wonderful," I said happily. Persephone had been growing so fast and I''d been so busy jumping from place to place that I hadn''t gotten to spend as much time as I would''ve liked with her. I know, I know, ''Alexa Play Cats in the cradle.'' I would''ve liked to be more present in her early years, but it was better to be more present when she could remember me. If Thanos came in 2018, that would mean she was four and a half years old. Better to be here for the years after it.

    "You having another one any time soon?" Stacey asked, taking a bite of salad.

    "Oh my gosh!" I said, rolling my eyes. "I''ll let you know. We are using¡­ various non-chemical interventions at this point."

    "So glad I got my tubes tied, not ready for another one at my age."

    "We could handle it," Dale said before scurrying to add, "But it''s good that we''re not."

    "Gert and Molly have been a big help," I said. Honestly, they knew Persephone nearly as well as I did. But I had catching up to do on other members successes. "How''s market penetration doing on Wizard phones, Tina?"

    "The new design is about 45% of new phones," Tina said. "We think we can get it up above that in the next few years."

    "Good to hear," I said. That would expand my market penetration still further. "How''s the judge race going Catherine?"

    "With your support," Catherine said, putting down a glass of wine, "It''s all over but the counting."

    "Congratulations," I said sincerely. "I''ve always said we need more defense lawyers in the judiciary."

    The dinner wound down and we finished eating. It was a good night, things were going well for us. I was on top of the world.

 Skye: Recruitment

    <div>

    "Hey, what''s up?" Skye said to the red haired amazon and her dweeby but fit friend. Good job Skye. Solid gold. The Amazon looked like she might be a super-soldier from the Defense Team, but the membership rolls of that were classified, like a lot else with SWORD, and she hadn''t yet found a way to hack their computers. They were surprisingly old-school for a global organization on the forefront of bioengineering and space travel.

    "You sure this is the place?" Amazon Woman said to Dweeb. The inside of Skye''s van was a little busy, especially with the sleeping bag rolled up under her desk. But that wasn''t any reason to act like it wasn''t acceptable.

    "I mean, unless it''s the cooks in the diner."

    "If their hacking is comparable to their food? I don''t think so."

    "Don''t talk about the cooks like that," Skye said. She paused when they gave her disbelieving looks. They gave her leftovers at the end of the night. "They''re nice."

    Dweeb and Amazon exchanged a long and then Amazon climbed into the back of Skye''s van without asking permission and the dweeby guy followed her.

    "Hey!" Skye said. "You can''t just storm in here, this is-" my home "-my office!"

    "Kinda small for an office," the Amazon said.

    "Don''t criticize Natasha, we''re guests." Natasha. The Amazon''s name was Natasha. Not a normal name for an American, so maybe not a member of the Defense Team after all. Or maybe a Russian member. But they didn''t sound Russian.

    "You''re not guests, okay, you broke into my van and now you''re just throwing your weight around."

    "Sorry about that," the dweeb said, rubbing his hands together nervously. "We, uh, didn''t want to talk outside. You never know who''s listening."

    "That''s¡­ true," Skye said. "So what brings you to my office?" No point fighting it. The woman could probably bench press her with one arm.

    "You''re part of the Rising Tide," Natasha said.

    And there it was. "You don''t have any proof of that."

    Natasha raised and eyebrow and fished an audio player from her pocket. It was thin, but not one of the newer wizard ones that were always linked to the cloud. That was smart. Skye did not trust anything produced by the Pride and neither should anybody else. They practically screamed, ''cyberpunk cartel'' with that name if nothing else. At least Stark thought about branding.

    "Everybody knows, right?" Skye''s voice said, "Everybody knows that this guy is conducting human experimentation without proper licensing. They know that he lies to them whenever he does an interview. They know he''s got all sorts of government contracts. But they keep having him back on? I mean, I thought he was cool when he was breaking the law and the light speed barrier too, but this man is the definition of a corporate stooge. Everybody knows but nobody does anything!"

    Skye scratched the back of her ear nervously. "I got a voice acting contract."

    Dweeb shook his head, "I don''t think so. You''re very good, but it was definitely you uploading here."

    The author''s content has been appropriated; report any instances of this story on Amazon.

    "The diner has free wifi," Skye said, "anybody could''ve come in and uploaded it."

    "Right where you''re living?" Dweeb asked.

    "I don''t live here¡­"

    "Come on, you don''t have to lie to us. We''re friends."

    "Lots of my friends break into my office," Skye said sarcastically.

    "We''re looking into Trent."

    "Well, that''s tough luck for you then," Skye said. That guy was paranoid like a mouse post-trap. "Because I don''t know anything."

    "Look," Dweeb said, "do you know who I am?"

    "I have no clue who either of you are."

    "This is Natasha Romanov, she''s an operative with the Global Defense Team - American Division, and I''m Bruce Banner, you know be better when I''m big and green. And you are an expert hacker and a publicist for the hacktivist group the Rising Tide."

    "I thought Bruce Banner was¡­ skinnier." He did look like Banner, she realized now, but he was definitely less skinny than he used to

    "I''ve filled out," he said. "Lots of rice and beans. I think you know something about that," he nodded toward her induction plate.

    Skye reached over and did her best to calmly unplug her induction plate and stow it away. "It''s a very calorically efficient meal. Cheap and healthy."

    "I''m not here to criticize your life. Its yours, I''m glad you''re living it how you want."

    "He''s being a nice guy," Romanov said. "It''s sweet, but it''s also a little off topic. We''re here because we want to recruit you for a team we''re organizing."

    "A team?"

    "Yeah, and it pays. We''ve swept some money off the books from SHIELD and we''re going to use it to start looking into Trent and his allies."

    "You mean half the Forbes Top Ten''s list and the Times Man of the year for both ''09 and ''12?" And at this rate, Stark would win again with his recent Iron Man shenanigans.

    Bruce nodded, "Yeah. That''s who we mean. Are you interested?"

    Skye considered herself an Enemy of the Man, a Freedom Fighter, someone Independent of the System. Taking money from SHIELD was almost the ultimate betrayal - At least SWORD was out in the open, SHIELD barely officially existed. A line item in the Congressional budget and an obviously fake code name. She wanted to say no, just on principle.

    But there were a couple of reasons to go for it. One, money, which would be nice. Two, she''d be getting closer to SHIELD and the SHIELD database. Three, she''d get to finally look into Trent with something other than her own personal laptop and whatever she scrounge up from his local office besides rumors of doomsday weapons unactivated.

    "Alright, say I''m interested, what does that look like?"

    "You come work with us," Natasha said, "And we start going down the list of everyone Michael Trent has ever talked to, shaken hands with, or given money to and we start shaking till something comes loose."

    "What she means is, there will be a lot of traveling and staying in nice hotels while sticking your nose where it doesn''t belong and sticking it to the man. Are you interested?"

    "I guess Agent Skye has a nice ring to it."

 69: The Seikh

    <div>

    Tony''s new element was more stable, but it still worked from a palladium base. Vanko didn''t bother with trying to replicate (and I wish this was named something else) Badassitium, since the toxicity levels of even melting palladium are not super high.

    Eventually, the hope was that Plutonian Fleet would replace all terrestrial mining efforts. With Pym Particle extraction down to a fourth of its initial production costs, we were drawing ever closer to a world of nearly free transport of goods. The fleet would be able to conduct extraction and delivery What that meant, in effect, was that I was preparing to nuke yet another form of extraction industry here on earth. I still needed to deal with the domestic fallout of the last one.

    Particularly, I needed to deal with the Sheikh, who had gotten the raw end of our energy transformation. Boo-hoo for the terrorist funding high official, but so it goes when you''re leading a global syndicalist conspiracy.

    The Office for International Research and Development provided a useful meeting locale, an air-conditioned base in Saudi Arabia where I was in theory supposed to be and where the Sheikh held substantial influence. It made sense for me to meet with him here, in the sleek new office we''d built with "local labor" that was almost certainly coerced in one fashion or another.

    "Mr. Trent," he said, shaking my hand and sitting across from me. He was a middle-aged man with a goatee and an average Mediterranean complexion and he had enough blood on his hands to fill a swimming pool. "Are we going to be able to sort out these mass movements?"

    The petro-states in the Middle East were having a rough time right now. Funding had gone down, authoritarianism had gone up, and the populace was still angry as hell. The Sheikh had prepared for the energy demand plummet to some degree - The American and Swiss banks had helped him move a remarkable amount of oil wealth around into a profitable financial portfolio. But while the returns on the portfolio were propping him up, they weren''t doing anything useful in terms of protecting the regimes of which he was a benefactor and associate. The world here had experienced a first Arab Spring and it was really getting to a second one, because the first one had mostly produced violent repression.

    In order to have a long term solution, you had to shore up the fundamental problem - The governments in the Middle East sucked and most of their promise to their populace was security, threats, and artificially low tax rates through the exploitation of oil wealth. That wasn''t a viable formula at this point in the game.

    "No," I said bluntly, pouring him a cup of coffee. "Ultimately, the existing regimes are going to fall. There''s nothing for that at this point - There''s no cure. Energy demand is being replaced at about a 3% per annum internationally, and that number is growing. The United States is already energy self-sufficient, Europe is divorcing itself from Russia, India, China, and the East Asian sphere are either buying from me or Australia. I cannot lay my hands upon the global market and cohere it to my will."

    Stolen content alert: this content belongs on Royal Road. Report any occurrences.

    "Mr. Trent, I hope you understand that it was for your plan''s sake that I undertook these risks. I expect to be rewarded."

    A promise that Pierce had made on my behalf and now I had to find some way to keep. It was not a wonderful situation by my lights. The Sheikh doesn''t have anything left to offer Hydra - If it were up to me, I would simply dispose of him and find a more compliant, secularized military office from Egypt or Pakistan to replace him on the council. But the Sheikh was a head and, however useless he was in pragmatic terms, if I wanted to maintain my position he was valuable to me.

    "We''re redirecting some funds your way, of course, but it seems unlikely that the KSA and your other allies will remain as they are. I don''t need to tell you how catastrophic Baron von Strucker''s failure to see the score on this matter were. But you can be an essential linch pin in our plans for the beginning of the transitionary system."

    "Transitionary system?"

    In full honesty, this was just a polite way to sideline him. The Sheikh himself lacked the sort of professionalism I needed in a new crop of Hydra heads. "Since the failure of Project Insight," since I aborted the slower but still coming program and stowed its revolutionary potential analysis for further study, "We''ve had to settle on a slower moving unification. What we need now is a voice inside of the existing authority system to call for help from your local Defense Team."

    "What good will the GDT do?"

    "Nothing, initially, but they will help provide a new locus for the discontented forces - We''ve already seen a conservative coalition in Sokovia, supported by old-school oligarchs," with their most egregious members purged, of course, "and the implicit recommendation of defense team members." SWORD had successfully redirected much nationalist and militarist support by providing the teams that are the basis of Earth''s actual security and the support staff that carries them on its back. I wasn''t one hundred percent confident that the teams could handle a Thanos style invasion, but we were in a vastly superior position to pre-2012 status - We could deploy almost two thousand super soldiers into any field, anywhere, in a few minutes. "But they''re not winning. We can do better for candidates you support, using our government contacts to erase competitive dissent while providing an apparently independent conservative force space to agitate. You would then be at the head of a new movement in the Middle East, the humanist, internationalist leader for the Western press to fawn over." More like ''a voice of'' a movement, but something that could at least resemble the prominence he had obtained through wheeling and dealing among the Sunni nations of the Middle East. "If it succeeds, it will be a blueprint for all our actions in the larger world."

    The Sheikh nodded his head, "That''s acceptable."

 Captain America: Defends Democracy

    <div>

    "A bright future, with a town''s worth of people going off to see the stars?" Ward said, taking a drink of beer and blocking the pawn. The beer was cheap and it didn''t work anymore, but Ward still drank it. Steve thought that was weird.

    "They have laid our lives out for us to the utter end of time, shall we stagger on beneath their heavy load?" Steve sang. He put his knight out to guard his pawn.

    "We gotta get you some references that aren''t from your barber shop quartet," Ward said before taking his bishop out. "They''ve got free housing, free food, eternal life. What''s not to like?"

    "Osiris is a company town," Steve said, "People might not remember what that means, but I do." Some corporate busybody, breathing down your neck. Company script that only paid the bill at the company store. No home you could ever own, nothing that could ever be yours. And the bosses calling it benevolence and concern. He took another move. "The Plutonian is literally a company ghost town-ship. It''s creepy, is what I''m saying."

    Ward shrugged before taking his move. "Creepy, but it''s going to mean a big improvement on quality of life here on earth. And again, immortality."

    Steve shook his head. Ward didn''t get it. Ms. Wizard had publicized the presence of a soul in the body and in the upload, so it wasn''t like there was ambiguity - There was an afterlife, that was just a fact. Maybe Ward didn''t believe it would be good - But Steve did. He believed in the power of a providence that was concerned for mankind. That his mother, his father, and Bucky were all receiving a reward fitting for their sacrifice. People didn''t shuffle off the mortal coil to nothingness or darkness. They went somewhere and that somewhere was a more just and decent place. That was what the scriptures said, that was what Steve believed.

    Instead of arguing about it, Steve held up his hand and heated it up again to see the glove peel off, the components scrambling down onto his arm in a tiny wave before emerging back up again as he let it cool down. They were both outfitted in case of an emergency call. "Trent really is a genius." He took another move.

    "See! You can say something nice about him," Ward took a pawn.

    "Zola was a genius too." There didn''t need to be more of an argument than that, as far as Steve was concerned. Steve pinned his bishop in with a pawn.

    Ward frowned and then decided to yield on the topic. "Well, did you hear about the new revolutions going on in the Middle East?" He took a knight.

    "I did," Steve said, taking the bishop with a pawn. "And look, like Twain said, ''I am always on the side of the revolutionists,'' but this new guy, I don''t know - He seems like he''s the same as the old guy. And Global Defense Team members have got to stop leaking their support to the press, we''re not supposed to take sides in domestic political conflicts. Especially not in democratic elections."

    "Ouch," Ward said. Ward had leaked to the public that he didn''t like his brother much, which had served to torpedo Christian''s chances in Massachusetts. "Going straight at me like that."

    "Look, when I signed up, military officers were bragging about never voting. I don''t believe in that, We shouldn''t be fighting for freedom abroad and then ignoring it at home, but soldiers should watch what they say. I get what happened with your brother, please don''t think I don''t understand, I read your file," that was all they ever said about Christian or Ward''s mother. I read your file. But it made a big difference in how Steve approached this with Ward. "Christian not being in government, that''s good. The ends, I agree with. But if it looks like we''re leaning on civilians, if it looks like our loyalties are with or against this or that person and not with the people who we''re supposed to protect, we''ve lost sight of the job."

    "If our loyalties are with the people, why would we let them get led around by conmen and gangsters?"

    If Steve hadn''t known Ward''s personal stake in it, he might get annoyed. But for a guy whose abusive brother had literally sat in the Senate, Steve could understand the skepticism. "Who says we''re not the ones being led around by the conmen and gangsters?"

    "Uh." Ward said, almost dumbfounded at the question. "Us?"

    Steve rolled his eyes. "Not the most reliable source. And who says we''re not the conmen and gangsters?"

    Ward shook his head at that, "You? Literally Captain America, a gangster or a conman?"

    The story has been illicitly taken; should you find it on Amazon, report the infringement.

    "Well, I certainly don''t think I am and neither do most people who''ve met me." Steve said, staring at the chess board while he gathered his thoughts. "But does anybody think they are? People in Hydra believed Red Skull was such a hero, they''d take cyanide pills. Maybe what I think is best for everybody isn''t. Maybe how I think the world should work isn''t how it does or isn''t how it could or isn''t how it should. What makes me, or anybody, more qualified to make that judgment than anybody else?"

    "You are very idealistic," Ward said as a matter of concession. "Me, I''d be great if I were in charge. The perfect mix of realism and morality, President for Life Grant Ward."

    "You''re not perfect either, blockhead," Steve said, letting out a short laugh. It was good Ward was joking around. "Anyway, if the people are going to get what they need, they need to be the ones telling their government what does and doesn''t work for them."

    "What if they''re wrong?"

    "People are wrong about what does and doesn''t work for them all the time. But most people, you know, they grow up. They become more mature. They discover some things don''t work - They discover some things do. Back in ''45, we were still trying out social security - Today, people live to be eighty years old and almost none of them have to live in this country in poverty. People figured it out. We figured out that people shouldn''t be judged by, what was it that preacher said, ''by the color of their skin but the content of their character.'' It took some doing. It took some fighting. But even if people aren''t doing it now, they''ve figured out they should be doing it now, and that''s a long way from where we were back then."

    "His name is Martin Luther King," Ward said, smirking like Steve had walked into a trap. "We killed him. And he was insanely unpopular when he died. The people can afford only dead heroes."

    "I''m not saying it was a big group hug, I watched dogs tear into those men in Selma. I''m just saying¡­ people learn, not just individually but collectively. If people have the right to speak, to get together, to deliberate, they learn. The world today is different - I think it''s forgotten some things that it could stand to remember. That life is about giving to something bigger than yourself, that we have to demand liberty and justice for ourselves, to be proud of your country and where you come from, and that the guy standing next to you on the line in the factory or the trench needs you and you need him. Ok, I''m starting to sound like a grumpy old man. But when I was in the army, Peggy barely got a spot in the SSR. Most people couldn''t imagine a beautiful woman in the army, heck, I couldn''t. I learned better, but it wasn''t just me - When she retired, she was the head of SHIELD. She deserved it and now all sorts of women work for SHIELD. It didn''t come easy. Freedom never does. But people taught and fought and proved and, eventually, people listened."

    "Seems unfair to make people wait. Shouldn''t we make it happen today, if we can? Cut through all that struggle and argument and give people what''s best for them?"

    "When I was a kid, they said that about the eugenic programs. I was a sickly kid with a lot wrong with me, so I always knew they were talking about me and people like me. I didn''t like it. But a lot of people did. We learned the hard way how it played out in Europe. Now people don''t talk about culling the unfit any more. Lots of people, smart, well meaning people believed in eugenics. But they were wrong. How do we know we''re right?"

    "So, if the Red Skull was elected president today you''d just be okay with that?"

    "Look, we all have our limits," Steve said, staring at the now mostly cleared chess board and moving a piece. "Check. There are some things you have to stand up against, no matter what. You have to look back at the world and say, ''No, you move.'' But I''ll admit that I''m not qualified to make that decision for anybody else. I can only do what I think is right and ask others to do the same."

    Ward moved his king back into a corner, his only real option at this point. "So, what, everybody just has to decide for themselves? Isn''t that a little risky?"

    "That''s freedom, it isn''t easy, never is." Steve said, advancing his bishop forward. "My point is, overturning elections, as a general rule, is a bad idea. So''s sticking a knife in a guy''s heart. Sometimes, there needs to be open heart surgery - But that''s for desperate cases. Not for every time the guy you don''t like, don''t agree with, or think is wrong wins an election. Checkmate."

    Steve extended his hand over the board and Ward shook it, a thoughtful look on his face.

 70: A Visit From Asgards King

    <div>

    So my political boogeyman might win re-election¡­ on my policies. From a political perspective, that''s what you call a win. From a personal perspective it was very annoying. I didn''t like Ellis. He was an idiot. He had hired a VP who would''ve tried to have him killed. Literally the most important job of the Presidency and he had managed to field someone somehow worse than Andrew Johnson. He had held a bunch of stupid positions and only the iron will of congress had overrode him. Now he was getting credit for the general economic recovery and for the cheap energy, neither of which were his idea, while getting none of the blame for the collapse of the oil and gas industries.

    I was on my way out the door to another political meeting for the evening, when I saw Odin Borsson walking up my lawn. He was wearing a dark business suit that reminded me of the secret service uniform, but the grey hair, the single eye and the eye patch, the big stick. It was almost certainly Odin. There are only so many things that can be done in moments like this.

    "Demeter!" I shouted back into the house. Demeter was the codeword for, ''get the fuck out of here with Persephone and leave me to deal with this.''

    Andromeda, steady as she is, didn''t hesitate, and at the speed she was running had probably made it out the back window by the time Odin had made it to my doorstep.

    "Odin," I said, bowing low.

    "Mr. Trent," he said, apparently unsurprised that I knew who he was. Of course he wasn''t surprised. He was Odin, All Father, who sat upon his throne and looked over the nine worlds.

    "Come inside,:" I said, waving him inside. He walked inside and I led him into the kitchen.

    "I''m not, uh, well prepared for a visit of your majesty," I said, scurrying to grab the ingredients to a Scandinavian dish that would work. "But I can make whatever you want. It just depends on how much time you have."

    "That won''t be necessary, though your hospitality is noted." Odin said. "Please, don''t trouble yourself."

    I nodded slowly, "Would you like anything to drink?"

    "Mead, if you have it," he said politely.

    I did. I had a whole stock of alcoholic beverages just for guests at this point, which was the sort of insane luxury I couldn''t have imagined back in my old world. "It''s just down in the cellar, give me a second." I wanted to run, but offending Odin and by extension Asgard would be a major mistake. I sent a phone message to Andromeda not to send in any forces unless my life sign monitors went null before I came back up with a relatively good honey mead and poured him a glass and set it in front of him.

    Odin was sitting, looking over my painting of the Pyramids. "This was so long ago," he said at last. "I am surprised your people can still remember it."

    "It was a magnificent feat," I said, sitting down across from Odin. "I try to live up to its standards, to build something that can stand the course of history."

    "Is that why you joined Hydra?"

    I choked a little on my Dr. Pepper, but I managed to scurry back to a straight face. I hadn''t consented to internal monitoring of my house for precisely this sort of purpose, but it was still¡­ very direct. "I am trying to unite humanity, yes."

    "There is no need for pretense," Odin said, flicking his hand toward the table. A scattering of rainbow colored dust flowed from his hand and them formed a smaller me. I looked a little younger, my face looked less lined and severe than it did these days, but not much. "In the service of that new organism, I will wear Romulus'' moniker and shed what blood I must. I am asking that those who join me at SWORD be similarly clear eyed - We will unite humanity against its natural enemies of ignorance, waste, and war and we will do what we must to do so."

    This story is posted elsewhere by the author. Help them out by reading the authentic version.

    "Okay, yes, I can see that you know," I said, shaking my head. "What do you want, Odin Borsson."

    "My son told me that you knew the cause of his death," Odin said.

    "Well, I used to know - Things have changed the future since then. But the theory should still be sound - And you might as well know it. After Hela returns, Thor destroys Asgard with the help of a fire giant - Surtr, I think - and then your people are migrating through space when they''re attacked by Thanos. Loki is killed trying to protect the Tesseract."

    "Hela?" Odin asked, puzzled.

    "Your daughter," I said. "You are not the only one who knows secrets, Odin."

    Something flashed in Odin''s eye and he stamped his big walking stick onto the ground. A pulse of energy went up around us. "There, now even Heimdall cannot hear us," Odin said, his voice firm. "How have you learned of this? How have you learned Hela?"

    Wow, which lie to tell? Oh goodness, this was getting ridiculous. If anybody would believe my actual, ridiculous story, it would be Odin, and lying to Odin seemed like a catastrophically bad idea. Who knew what he saw? What his witches could yet see? "Odin, son of Bor, I wish to tell you the truth. But we must speak quickly because very soon a group of Earth''s most dangerous champions is going to bust that door down if you cut my signal. Swear to me upon your staff and the throne of Asgard that you will do me no harm and I shall swear to tell you the truth and we shall be done with it before the five minutes we have are spent."

    Odin paused to think for a moment and cast off the illusion of a suit which he had been wearing. Now he was robed in gold and his stick was a golden staff, "Odin swears upon his staff and throne, that he shall bring no harm to the head of Michael Trent this day, nor put him into the hand of his enemies, nor to reveal his secrets, so long as he speaks truth."

    Alright, the using of his name in the third person was.. weird. I didn''t know why he was doing that. I laid my hand around the staff, and said, "Michael Trent swears upon the staff and Throne of Odin, that his words as follows shall be true and faithful to his own knowledge and understanding and as full of information as is possible, for the next five minutes."

    I felt a course of energy surge through me from the staff. I didn''t know if it was just theatrics or if the staff really would bring me to harm if I broke my word. Oh well, I didn''t intend to lie anyway. Odin could destroy me with a well-placed visit to any local head of state and he had to know that. "I am not from this world, this realm, this earth. I come from another world or, perhaps, I simply have memories of another world. I wonder at times if my memories are like my power, synthetic." I had sworn to be totally honest and this was the truth. It made more sense to me at this point that my memories had been either wholly constructed or altered to contain the movies, to nudge me in the right directions. "I was transformed upon my arrival in this world into the man you see before you - Handsome, rich, and with a mind that seems to rival any it faces. But within the memories from before that time, in those memories there are movies. In those movies are the true facts of what was once this world''s future. Your son''s attack on earth was foreseen in them, Thanos and all my knowledge of him comes from there, the Infinity Stones which you now safeguard, the secrets of AIM, the existence of Hydra, all were in those movies. They were pure fiction in my world as far as I could tell, but here it seems they are reflections of an unwritten future, one without me in it."

    Odin began to laugh, a deep, booming laugh. "You are mad!" He said, "You are completely insane. This foreknowledge that I thought you possessed, perhaps you have it. But it has driven you utterly, utterly mad. Odin has no daughter. Thor will never destroy Asgard. Your visions are worthless, little Romulus."

    Wait. Odin has no daughter.

    Oh.

    God.

    Fucking.

    Damnit.

    Loki.

 71: Asgards King Takes His Leave

    <div>

    It could really be Odin. Maybe he just referred to himself in the third person sometimes.

    Yeah, maybe I hadn''t accidentally run afoul of a Main Character again and gotten screwed over again by their weirdly high levels of competence. That seemed plausible. It did not seem plausible. I know I do that to other people all the time, but I don''t like it when it happens to me.

    Here''s what you need to understand about my opinion of Loki:

    I authentically want nothing more than to bash his skull in with the blunt end of a pistol, to feel his head cave in and the blood spill over my hands and chest. I''ve killed a few people and it''s never felt great, but I was confident that killing Loki would be a very different experience.

    However, I am also not an idiot. Loki is a powerful, Asgardian/Jotun sorcerer, and while I have a dozen drones on voice command that will put up shields and fire lasers, it is highly unlikely that I could kill him. If I fail to kill him, he could release its information on my affiliation with Hydra. It didn''t seem like Loki cared about my affiliation with Hydra, except insofar as it gave him leverage over me, but it certainly wouldn''t be a good time to knock over all my cards with a desperate attempt to kill the son of their king.

    "Your majesty," I said, gathering my thoughts. I had no idea if Loki was keyed into the fact that he had tipped me off. One of the side effects of lying all the time was you realized how little anybody ever looked into it and how the minor slip ups fundamentally weren''t that big of a deal. I needed to keep Loki talking for at least three and a half minutes and then I needed to get him out of my house and my life forever, in as efficient a way as possible. "Have I seen falsely? Are there not frescos beneath the frescos on the roof of your ceiling?"

    "No," the Odin facsimile who was likely my worst enemy said slowly. "There are not."

    "I apologize, your majesty," I said. I wanted to obfuscate a bit more but I was bound by a non-symmetrical oath of transparency. "I had seen it in one of the movies."

    Loki-As-Odin gave another, "You''re still clinging to those worthless lies. I cannot believe you really think that you are from some kind of universe where this is all fictional."

    "You be honest with some people and they just make fun of you," I said. I shouldn''t have said that. I was not a Quippy Main Character, there were consequences if I pissed this guy off in the next two minutes at least, possibly more, but I was also really annoyed and doing my best to mask my fear and hatred of Loki from leaking out onto the field.

    "Ah," Loki-as-Odin said. "Have I offended you? Has your small, mortal mind been wounded at your little secret''s escape?" Wow, he has just given up on the Odin voice hasn''t he? Not even trying at all.

    "Your majesty," I said. "I confess that I find your theory of the case less plausible." Which wasn''t to say it wasn''t true - Who knows? That''s the sort of crazy nonsense that might be canon in a comic book. This guy thinks he''s in a comic book but he''s actually crazy and was raised there? It could be right.

    "Oh, well, I will take your feedback into consideration then¡­" Loki replied. He was enjoying gloating. A real weakness of Loki''s. He liked to preen too much. Kill people, don''t lecture. Listen, don''t mock. Basic super villain rules in my opinion and I was becoming something of an expert.

    Whatever. It meant that time was closing in on our situation being wrapped up with firefly super soldiers appearing and trying to extricate me. "Thank you, your majesty."

    This story originates from a different website. Ensure the author gets the support they deserve by reading it there.

    "You are so polite, so deferential. Has your encounter with my brilliant son imposed upon you the importance of recognizing your betters?"

    I wanted to hit him really hard. I had spent the last five years crawling and scraping on my knees and belly, begging for power. Now, I was the chief Head of Hydra, probably the most powerful non-governmental organization in the world. And I couldn''t even keep myself safe from the same dumb son of a bitch who''d got me last time. "Yes, your majesty." Back to the groveling and the lying both tonight I see.

    "That is good. You know, I have been thinking, Asgard has for too long been in the shadows. Perhaps the time has come for it to obtain real power over the Nine Realms once more."

    Letting Asgard conquer Earth had a fair number of pros, I have to admit it. Loki had managed to become chaotic neutral by the time of the Snap and that was an acceptable result for the massive uplift benefits that might come from free access to Asgardian tech. But here''s the thing, I cannot emphasize this enough, if given the chance I would run Loki down like a dog and tear out his throat with my teeth. I would enjoy it. And we were about thirty seconds away from the arrival of the Fireflies. If Loki was here impersonating Odin, if he had hidden us from Heimdall''s eyes, then it seemed likely he was on top in Asgard in some way - He was a tough problem in this situation. "I wouldn''t do that, Loki, son of Odin."

    "What did you call me?"

    "I know who you are," I said, as the seconds ticked down, "We know each other''s secrets. We could destroy each other. But why? Go back to Asgard and trouble Earth no more till my words prove true and you meet your sister." I wanted to stall and have him murdered by the Defense Team, but the fact of the matter was he could probably kill me before they killed him - And even if I succeeded, if anyone else was part of this little visit, than Thor would replace Loki!Odin and they would tell Thor that I was a Hydra member and that Hydra infested large parts of Earth''s security apparatus. Loki I had leverage over, Thor, Odin, not so much.

    An orb appeared at our feet and then vanished. That was the buoy check.

    "You dare command me? The King of Asgard?" Loki said, standing up and approaching me in fury.

    "This isn''t an order," I said blandly, "It''s a suggestion that we both keep our problems to ourselves."

    Then the air around me began to warp and tiny men the size of my thumb began to appear around me.

    "Anyway, I''d really recommend you go. I don''t want to start a diplomatic incident, but these men are trained not to follow my orders or respond to my verbal assurances at this point. A thing your son taught us to be weary of, Odin All-Father."

    Loki closed his grip around his spear-staff and then straightened up, appropriately grave. "Yes," he said, rising from his chair. "It does seem you possess more insight than I credited you. The matter of Earth and Asgard will need to wait for another time."

    I didn''t like that at all, but I had to play along for now, "Yes, your majesty," I said, giving him a small courtesy bow as he walked outside.

    Once Loki had left, the Fireflies clicked to full size and Rumlow took off his helmet, "What was that about?" he said, leaning in close. This was a mostly Hydra unit, but some of its members were just affiliates.

    "Odin was revealing to me that I am still not prepared for the trouble I am going to face. We must redouble our preparations. Earth must be ready to defend itself... from Asgard, if necessary."

    I let the fury leak into my voice at this point. There was no point hiding it from Rumlow or even from Heimdall. I was sick and tired of getting pushed around and if I wanted to be safe from having to grovel and beg from fucking Loki, that meant we were going to need to get even stronger.

 Bruce: A Talk With Trent

    <div>

    Bruce had a big, green problem that was threatening to burst out of him at any minute but he also didn''t want to disappoint her, so he was going to try.

    Good luck with that.

    "Dr. Banner," Trent said, opening a door to his office in the SWORD facility in California. Trent was a tall man, always impeccably dressed and with his hair carefully cared for. He had a five o''clock shadow that made him look roguish today, but tomorrow he could have a clean shave and a jawline to envy or next week a full, reddish beard. He was always a good looking guy. "Please, come inside."

    Bruce followed him into the office, a space with dark wood, comfortable chairs, and surprisingly warm paint colors. Bruce had expected more books and bookshelves, but the only books were on his desk, a neat little stack of paperback action novels, pulpy, popular stuff that followed action heroes from the government thwarting terrorists. Was that a display for his benefit? Was it how he unwound? Who knew. There was a picture of his family on a wall, a professional looking photograph, and a picture from his wedding, which Bruce had attended, on his desk. The pictures made Bruce feel a little guilty. The feeling didn''t make sense - Having a family didn''t make you a good guy, Stalin had a family, Mussolini had a family.

    "Mr. Trent," Bruce said, extending his hand. "I''m always amazed that you don''t have a few PhDs before that name." It was a common enough form of flattery, there wasn''t any harm in it. It was also true - The man who had defined the last five years of human civilization with his work and collaborations didn''t even have a bachelor''s degree.

    Trent shook Bruce''s hand before laughing with seemingly genuine humility, "I had enough school in a previous life," he said. "I don''t think I''d have the attention span for the sort of doctoral work you did."

    "It was interesting work," Bruce said honestly. Those had been heady days, his nose deep in a book, his brain running a mile a minute, surrounded by colleagues, arguing about theory. God, Bruce did miss having colleagues. His own folly had taken that from him. He''d been so sure¡­ But that was a long time ago. He had the green guy now for company. "Nothing''s boring if you look close enough at it." Did that come out sounding like a threat? Bruce hadn''t meant it as a threat. Was he giving himself away right now?

    "I guess you''re right," Trent said with a smile, "But I confess to an ambition for writing on the wall, mene, mene, tekel parsan, kind of subjects."

    "I don''t get the reference," Bruce said, looking at Trent as he sat down behind his desk. It was hard to imagine him as being a nefarious figure who''d tried to put down rebels in Sokovia. But the evidence pointed that way, for sure.

    "It''s biblical, it was a prophecy of the fall of Babylon and the judgment of God, interpreted by the prophet Daniel."

    "And you''re Daniel?" Bruce asked. This guy had an ego at least.

    Trent pinched his nose and said, "Well, I''m just trying not to be Belshazzar. The guy getting judged."

    "That''s understandable," Bruce said. It was. Earth had come to the brink too many times in the last few years. "So, why''d you call me in today?"

    "I was thinking that I was the world''s second most qualified expert on your condition," Trent said, "And I wanted to offer you my expertise."

    "Why do you say you''re an expert?"

    "Well, I made the Monstrosity with a fairly similar program to the one that created the Hulk. Used Tesseract gamma radiation instead of standard, but the principles should have at least some overlap. And the Monstrosity retained his mind."

    "The Monstrosity is his big blue self all the time though."

    "It''s more of an issue for him at fifteen feat then it would be for you at eight."

    Bruce knew his face had not shown a ton of interest at that. The idea of being the Hulk full time was not at all appealing. And if history was any guide, a government agent like Trent wouldn''t be able to resist taking a shot at his blood. Especially a government agent who was as famous for breaking rules and cutting corners as Trent had become in his rise to super stardom.

    Trent spoke before Bruce could contemplate an appropriate response, "I can see you don''t like the idea of being green."

    If you encounter this narrative on Amazon, note that it''s taken without the author''s consent. Report it."It''s, uh, I mean, no offense, but I have my issues with the green guy."

    "He saved the world. A lot of great people in the world."

    Natasha. The green guy had saved Natasha. Trent had the decency not to say it, since he had been the one who had designed the poison gas. "I''m not saying he doesn''t have his virtues," Bruce said after a moment. "But I''ve got him under management. I''m not saying he''s never helpful but¡­ I don''t want to be the Hulk full time."

    "Dr. Banner, can I have permission to say something blunt?"

    "Do you need it?" Bruce hated that kind of question. It was always so presumptuous. It always implied that you couldn''t or shouldn''t say no.

    Trent looked a little offended but after a moment, he tilted his head in internal concession and said, "Yeah, of course I need permission - We barely know each other, even if you did come to my wedding. You''re welcome to say no, take my card, and come back when you want to. Or don''t. I''m not going to tell you how to live your life." Trent held out a business card to Bruce across the desk and Bruce reached out and grabbed it.

    It was a nice business card, clearly Trent''s government business card. SWORD, Coordinator of International Development and Education, and an office number. Bruce wanted to take it and tuck it into his pocket and walk out the door. But he''d come here to get information.

    "How about you go ahead and say your something blunt and I decide if I''m going to walk out afterward."

    "What happens if the next time you go under, he has you under management?"

    "That won''t happen," Bruce said instantly, but then the thought started gnawing at him. Bruce was smarter than the other guy, yeah, and he had more clarity of self¡­ But the green guy had a will like nothing else and a fury inside him that Bruce was always holding on a leash. "Look, it could happen. Anything could happen. But why start caring now?"

    "The Hulk was never a global threat and you never asked," Trent said. "But¡­" his eyes got distant here and he stared off, "Maybe I''m jumping at shadows. But the universe was almost destroyed last November."

    Bruce did a double take, "Jesus¡­"

    "That''s not what we put in the paper, just an alien artifact of mass destruction, but they tried to destroy all life. We got lucky. Lucky Thor was there. We''re a protectorate of Asgard and if ever they should decide that we''re too much of a risk¡­"

    They could abandon us. "And you think the other guy could replace him?" It was only Bruce asked this that he realized that something that happened eight months ago wasn''t going to cut it as a reason for doing it right now.

    "It would be a start," Trent said.

    "And you want to replicate him. To turn all of the Defense Team into big green humanoid dragons."

    "I¡­ Yes. Obviously I want that."

    "I won''t do it." There was no way he was going to put that much power in the hands of SWORD. Armies upon armies of green men, stronger than tanks, immune to injury, burning through the land like living bombs. Even one Blonsky would kill hundreds and ruin thousands of lives.

    "What if I promised you that I wouldn''t use the research. It''s use would be your sole discretion."

    Trent''s word wasn''t worth anything and everyone knew it. Even a binding government contract would only last until an emergency justified it, just like Loki''s invasion. Bruce wasn''t going to agree to the deal. Even if Trent could deliver on a full time Green Bruce, he didn''t want that. "That''s a big promise. Why now? Why not seven months ago?"

    Trent pursed his lips together in thought and then said, "I had a recent visit from Odin. The topic wasn''t cheerful."

    That had been an honest answer, "What, are you afraid Asgard is going to attack us?"

    "I don''t think it was Odin''s intention to convey that message to me," Trent said. It was very precise language. think, intention, convey. But what It amounted to was that Trent had been spooked by a conversation with one of the very few people more powerful than him. The father of a man who had broken Trent to his will. Bruce didn''t blame him for the anxiety, but he didn''t feel it was well placed. Powerful people, they usually didn''t do well being made to feel small.

    "I''ll think about it," Bruce lied, doing his best not to massage his palms like he usually did. Natasha pointed it out whenever he got nervous. She didn''t mean anything by it - It was just her training working itself out in her observations.

    He wondered if Trent had caught his hesitation. "Alright," Trent said heavily. "I guess I can''t ask you to rush this kind of decision. It''s important, I understand that."

 72: What To Do About Skye?

    <div>

    "Dr. Whitehall," I said as we sat down inside of a nice restaurant that we had reserved for the three of us. "I am told you have important information for me."

    The local staff worked for a Hydra member of some sort, I wasn''t clear on the exact details and they weren''t important. What mattered was that we would be allowed to discuss our interests in peace, the staff wore noise cancelling earbuds, and I wouldn''t have to cook. Andromeda had come as well, the Yorkes were watching Persephone, her eyes peeled for threats. Loki''s visit, still Odin''s visit to her since who knew if Heimdall was watching, had left her rattled.

    I twitched the heavy watch on my hand, a concealed container for a horde of vibranium nano assembler that would form a protective suit around me in an emergency. It was lighter than my previous bulletproof suits had been, but it was also heavy because it was on my wrist. Andromeda was wearing two matching bracelets that served the same purpose.

    "Yes," he said in his usual, detached accent. He took out a file, "We have received new information on the couple''s computer accomplice."

    Whitehall produced a file from his briefcase and handed it to me as our food started to come out. I opened it and found the woman from Agents of Shield staring back at me. Her name was, apparently, Skye. I shouldn''t have needed to read the introduction to her files, but whoever had put her into an orphanage had done the work to keep it all basically anonymous. A hacker who had joined the Rising Tide, a hacktivist organization that was growing to something of a thorn in SWORD''s side, she had been an orphan. Apparently, for her entire childhood - That was somewhat bewildering. She had been an orphan as a little girl - And she clearly didn''t have any major health issues. A baby like that, even one of mixed race origins, should''ve found a home easily enough. I kept reading, the foster system had received some kind of order to keep her shuffling.

    Someone had been really paranoid that somebody would find Skye.

    Well, I had found her now. But Skye presented the same problem that Bruce and Natasha did - She was a Main Character and Main Characters could be vital to the success of the planet''s security. I had already scrubbed out Wanda, I didn''t know how many such pillars I could spare before we got killed by some later problem. Vision was also probably never going to happen. These were two powerful heroes and we likely couldn''t spare too many more before we all got jumped by some lateral power.

    "Dr. Whitehall," I said, folding the file shut and handing it to Andromeda to read, which she began to do at a much slower pace. "What do you remember of the woman you dissected to get your eternal youth?''

    Whitehall took a bite of the exquisite steak and said, "Jiaying was married, I believe," he said mildly. "Do you think the two are connected?"

    "This," I said, "is her daughter."

    Whitehall nodded as he chewed. "That''s an interesting theory, do you mind providing evidence?"

    Andromeda looked at me sympathetically and squeezed my hand. Yes, I very much minded. I had already spilt my true secret to Loki, so that was a disaster in itself. "My abilities are sensitive to that sort of connection. She turned up in the foster system shortly after Jiaying''s death, didn''t she?"

    "Yes. A few months. There''s no reason to expect the correlation to be significant. We captured Jiaying in a Chinese province."

    "Mmm," I said, taking a bite to eat. "You''ll find I''m shockingly good at this."

    "Jiaying is dead. Perhaps the daughter has value to contribute to our study? Or will you insist on not touching her, just as you did with the Inhumans and the couple as well? I confess, your deference to your own nominal opponents continues to astonish me."

    "Doctor," I said, as Andromeda tensed beside me. I reached over and squeezed her leg. There was no reason to attack the old man. Well, there were lots of reasons to attack the old man. But there was no use in attacking the old man. "I am going to demonstrate to you how we use disadvantages to our advantage. I want more information on the Inhumans, you want more information on the Inhumane. The best source of that information is the Inhumans themselves."

    I watched the wheels turn in Whitehall''s mind and then he nodded slowly, "You think that you can redirect the investigation towards the Inhumans using the girl."

    "We simply put out feelers again, with a little less discretion. We leak that the girl is Jiaying''s daughter, she looks into it and they take her in. When we feel she and our little couple have learned all that is useful to us, we can take it from Fury and SHIELD when we bring down SHIELD."

    Stolen from its rightful place, this narrative is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.

    "Will that happen soon?"

    "It will happen eventually," I said confidently. It would. Sooner or later, SHIELD would have to go down. Already I had Strucker ready to go as a fall guy - Not that Strucker knew that - and I had spun up a perfected Thoth engine for any necessary false accusations. Paper trails leading to Nick fury could be floated at any moment. But I wasn''t interested in rushing the process - If we could hold off for another four years, we would. I would defeat Thanos and then wipe the board clean and become an international dictator, if at all possible. "But if we have an urgent need of the files, it is likely we can get them." Perhaps through Agent Ward. He and Steve would be admirable co-conspirators in the matter. And who would suspect Captain America''s best friend of being an informant to me? But I probably didn''t want to stick Ward and Skye in the same room for too long lest he catch Feelings.

    "Yes sir," Whitehall said as he finished a dish. "Do you have anything else for me?"

    "The essence of the theory here is not to involve you in any way if possible. If Jiaying is one of the Inhumans¡­"

    "Then they would hate me. Yes. I am accustomed to their resentments. You are correct."

    The meal passed uneventfully after that, some chats and idle information, and then he got up and left and I was left sitting with Andromeda.

    "The election''s winding down," she said, "How''re you feeling about that?"

    "I cannot believe that they''re punishing the Democrats when they''re doing such a good job," I said in frustration. The Democrats had basically completely transfigured the United States energy grid through putting it on a war footing and now every American household was powered by energy so cheap that a gallon of gas cost more than your monthly electric bill. Infrastructure was being renewed for the first time, industrial production was up. And they were crediting all the good parts to the imbecile in charge, Matthew Ellis, and all the bad parts to the Democrats who did the actual work. To be fair, many Republicans, reverting to their more traditional hawkish stances, had managed to fall in line behind the SWORD political project and continued to funnel ever increasing revenue into the coordination of its projects. And Ellis'' new VP was a more moderate, sensible person than Rodriguez were because he had to make it through the Senate.

    Ellis could brand himself as "working across the aisle" without "embracing radicalism and every violent whim of the majority." God I hated Ellis so much.

    "Didn''t you learn from your own election it''s not about being right, these idiots will vote for whoever their tummy tells them to, whoever they feel like they can have a beer with. And, look on the bright side, our Republican candidates look on track to win."

    That was true. With members in both Senate caucuses, we''d have firmer footing to push our own agenda in the Senate. "You''re right dear," I said, though it was harder to admit it. The Democrats were probably going to get shellacked in the House, but the Senate would stay Democratic (not blue in this timeline) and I''d have to deal with that. "I''ll try to keep my eyes on the prize."

    "That''s right, don''t get too distracted by one country. We need you charting a course for our global movement."

    "I am. The rising power of our new developing world members will only be enhanced if we can get this machine learning technology online." I had rejected the move as too aggressive when it had been brought to me. But a combination of Radcliffe''s badgering and Loki''s visit had convinced me to give this expansion a chance - If we could give people years of extra education with a few hours or weeks in Osiris, than we''d be at the perfect point to deal with our global problems. The comparative advantage of our wages in the third world would still function, but the comparative advantage of first world educational attainment would collapse.

    Of course, it could also spiral into some kind of synthetic intelligence that tried to overthrow everything I had built. Or our new and improved Hydra Agents might get bright ideas about how they, and not some talented-through-modification white guy, should rule the world. Or it could just cause chronic personality collapses and set back our budget for years.

    There were risks. I was monitoring the situation closely. But I had hopes.

 73: Election Party

    <div>

    "Massachusetts Third," Tony said, beginning to list his choices, "Texas Fifth, Florida 12th, California 8th, that''s a freebie, and" he wrinkled his fingers together, "Montana at Large."

    I started laying down checks on a long betting table, "D+21, R+8, R+3, D+4, and R+6." I said. The checks were worth millions of dollars, Tony and I were comically wealthy. "Two points of margin of error."

    "That is a crazy parlor trick," Tony said. "You should be a political consultant."

    "I''m just very good at this," I lied. No, I absolutely had a power boost for this sort of thing. "Besides, you don''t even know if I''ve gotten the bet."

    "You got the bet, nobody bets five million a pop like that without knowing that they''re going to win."

    "You might." I pointed out.

    "That''s because he''s recklessly overconfident," Pepper said, leaning up against Tony''s shoulder. "Are you trying to lose money?"

    "He gave me five to one odds, I only need him to lose one to make it back."

    I was not going to lose one. Pepper also seemed skeptical, "Tony, this man ran for office."

    "He can''t be this good at everything, that magic book of his doesn''t contain this stuff."

    "How''d you like it?" I asked, hoping to goodness that it would boost Tony''s Iron Man suit performance.

    "It''s really interesting. Insane, but interesting. I found a lot of tips on assembling the Iron Man suits. And thanks for the recommendations on the nanites. Harder to do with metal objects of course," this was true, the vibranium armor was such a pain in the ass to make and vibranium was pretty easy to ''treat'' into whatever attribute were most useful, "but I''m working on it. You sure the government doesn''t mind you breaking the seal on their quantum tunneling movement system?"

    "Don''t move it to commercial purposes or attacking nuclear powers and I should be fine." The government lived in fear of Tony, me, and the Pride, it would do absolutely nothing to bother us in any way if it could avoid it. "You''re a paying customer, if you want to teleport around in an iron prosthesis, more money to me."

    "Twenty five dollars a pound, can''t you get it any lower, it''s killing my budget."

    "I mean," I shook my head back and forth, "Maybe. But the monopoly rents are a big part of how I make money."

    "They should do something about that," Tony said, pointing his finger at me. "You agree they should do something about that, right Victor?"

    "I think Mike''s the best person to handle Mike''s money," Victor said, staring at the table as he took a drink. "You know you''re going to lose all these bets right?"

    "Nobody knows the future, not even the illustrious Michael Trent."

    "I''m just warning you," Victor said, "Sometimes he does." He looked at me with a questioning face and I felt bad. He was probably worrying that we hadn''t changed the future.

    "Nah, this isn''t a prophetic bet," I said mildly, "Old fashioned brain power and some modeling, that''s all." I saw Victor''s body visibly relax and I took that as a positive sign. "How''s Iron Manning going?"

    Pepper scowled. Pepper hated that Tony was Iron Man. "It''s good, I''m doing good," Tony said, sensing his long-time girlfriend''s mood. "Nothing interesting going on there."

    "You know Tony, if you shared, it would make your life easier, give you more time at home."

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    "That''s a low blow," Tony said, "I have a beautiful woman at home."

    "That you do," Pepper said, "Maybe you should think about sharing with the Defense Team."

    "They''re already fire breathing, shrinking super soldiers with regeneration and teleportation abilities, they''re big boys, I think they''ll be fine."

    "Well, let me know," I said, trying to stay calm. It would be genuinely great if Tony shared the Iron Man suit and it would be a coup for me with the Hydra council, but it wasn''t strictly necessary at this point. "You haven''t created a super-advanced AI to manage your drones?"

    "No," Pepper said as Tony looked ready to argue. "He has not."

    Oh thank God. It would''ve been terrible if we''d been interrupted by Ultron on such a nice evening. "Thank you, Pepper. Victor, how''re the kids doing?"

    "They''re enjoying little Persephone as always," Victor said. "She''s a very smart kid. Almost spooky."

    At this point, I was pretty sure that Persephone knew every word in the English language, but she couldn''t use it form sentences still. But if she wanted the remote control, she could refer to it, or to dance or play or any of her various toys. It was fun. It was weird watching my powers come in piecemeal and watching her eyes dart up in the remembering motion I had only ever seen from the outside in a van in an alternate time. I wondered how the other me was doing, but I didn''t really care. I had left behind the regrets that had driven his creation a long time ago - This was my home now. If he hadn''t chosen Hydra and Andromeda, and I couldn''t imagine he did, he had missed out on this, on Persephone, on everything I had wanted.

    Still, it would be a nice universe to run to with the family gold as necessary.

    "Yeah, I''m glad they''ve taken a shine to her."

    "She''s like a baby cousin," Victor observed, "And Molly appreciates not being the little one any more." The Pride had raised good kids for Victor to be able to dismiss it like that - Lots of kids would not be ecstatic to have a baby around. It was hard to remember this, but the Pride''s kids were going to grow up to be honest-to-goodness, genuine hero characters. People who picked doing the right thing over their own families. Maybe I should''ve been worried about that, but they were all fourteen or twelve right now, or sixteen in the case of Nico''s older sister, and none of them felt like a threat to me. Not right now anyway.

    "Success!" I said happily. I looked over to Tony and Pepper and smiled. Tony looked a little nervously at Pepper who was suddenly wearing her ''friendly business'' face. I don''t remember this dynamic from the movies, where Tony was obviously besotted and Pepper was stuck saying, ''Yeah, okay,'' but Tony had a ring since they got together and Pepper had turned him down once in the movies. So it made sense that when you saw them together, they were like this. "Kids growing up, they make you think about global safety."

    "Ah, see, no kids, so we''re fine," Tony said, waving off the moment. "Besides, I think we''ve done a lot for global security. If those Chitauri make a second pass at us, they''ll discover that we are much more prepared than last time."

    "Fair enough," I said. There was no pressing too hard with Tony. He could be a prickly guy. "Come on, we''ll get back to this topic eventually. Let''s go around on pinball before the results come in."

    "Finally, something I can beat you in."

    Tony could, indeed, beat me at pinball, which relied more on the sort of reflexes he was used to and less on my obscenely large mental capacity.

    The election was a tight race, but Ellis pulled it out in the end, absolutely devastating the house Democratic ranks and taking away the supermajority from the Democrats in the Senate. I tried to stay in good spirits, I had won all five bets after all.

 Natasha: Sending the Apprentice Off

    <div>

    "This is," Skye said balancing on one set of toes in the chill of the evening air, "surprisingly exhausting."

    "Good awareness," Natasha said, smirking. She would''ve been scolded for a comment like that, but she didn''t feel like that was right. You had to understand your own experience in order to be able to act. "Remember that your body is always informing to you and on you, you have to listen to it but not obey it."

    "So, uh, you and Bruce, you getting it on tonight?"

    That''s not an appropriate question for an instructor, Natasha wanted to spit. It hadn''t been that long ago that she''d been training in the Red Room. "We''re together." The patio''s position gave her a view out into the Nepalese city, where life thrummed with activity. The air was cleaner here than it had been the last time she had come - Electric vehicles were coming to predominate and coal, oil, and gas were on the decline.

    "You uh, ever do-ugh-ne it with the big guy?"

    "What?" Natasha said, caught off guard. "Eww. No."

    "I think it might be int-"

    "That''s not funny," Natasha said, annoyed. "The big guy has the emotional maturity of a five year old at best. Bruce¡­ is secretly eighty."

    "Sorry." Skye was starting to look really strained now by the exercise. "You''re right, that would be messed up."

    "It would be," Natasha said, by way of forgiveness. Most people just hadn''t thought about the implications at all. "Put your foot down." Skye sank onto one foot with a visible relief in her face, "Now the other one." And Skye was back to standing on both her feet. "Good."

    Skye smiled at the meager praise, "Praise, am I defrosting the ice queen?"

    Natasha was working really hard at this and Skye didn''t seem to be taking it seriously at all. "You know this is important."

    "It is?" Skye asked, wiping the sweat from her brow and grabbing a water bottle.

    Natasha was finding that her pupil was not very serious as a person. There wasn''t anything wrong with that. It was good to have a sense of humor. It clearly helped Skye cope with her childhood issues. If Natasha told herself that enough, she might start to feel it and not just think it. "You''re taking the exercise regime I prescribed seriously."

    "And it kicks my butt every evening," Skye said. She walked out to the edge of the patio and looked out over the city. "It''s really beautiful, you know."

    "You excited to leave it and go camping?" Natasha asked, keeping a smirk off her face.

    "Was that a joke? From the Black Widow?" Skye said, leaning over and giving her a shoulder tap. "We''re besties now."

    "Don''t let Clint hear you say that." Natasha knew that Skye was kidding.

    "Oh no," Skye said, laughing. "What''s he going to do? Shoot me with an arrow? He knows it''s the twenty first century right, we have guns now."

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    "Well, he''ll look sad for a few days."

    "Kinda prefer the arrow to be honest."

    "Oh boy does he ever know. A man in touch with his feelings, its own special super power." It had saved Natasha, after all.

    "You guys are really tight," Skye said after a pause. "I wish I had that with somebody."

    Natasha looked out over the city and thought about it. It was strange. Skye was smart, friendly enough, and she was certainly pretty. She could''ve been anybody''s arm candy. There had to be some nerd boy out there who''d lose it to be with her. Natasha liked her, so did Bruce, so did Clint when he managed to come around for extracurriculars. Natasha had been a lot less than Skye was now when Clint had found her, barely more than a teenager, already a murderer. But Clint had found her and made her part of his family in spite of it. "You''ll find it," she said. "Trust me, if I can find a friend like Clint and a man like Bruce, you can too." After a moment, Natasha realized this was not quite what she was supposed to say. It was also not everything she wanted to say. "And you''ve got me and Bruce."

    "Aww," Skye said. "Like a cool older stepsister and a stepdad!"

    Natasha rolled her eyes at the joke about her age gap with Bruce. "We''ll get you one of those little propeller hats you kids like," she said after a moment. Skye froze up for a second and Natasha worried she had hurt her feelings with the jab.

    But then Skye started pointing a finger at her and Natasha knew everything was alright, "That was definitely a joke! A quip! I got you!"

    A door opened onto the patio and Natasha spun so fast she knocked Skye into the railing, but Skye grabbed the railing gamely. Her guns halfway out of their holsters.

    It was Bruce. The dork was not displaying proper entrance protocol while visiting an undercover site. He knew it. She had explained it to him. He had multiple PhDs. But he wasn''t a spy. Natasha took a breath and lowered the pistols back into their holsters.

    "Don''t worry, doc, she''s happy to see you," Skye said, as Bruce looked momentarily worried.

    "You''re supposed to knock."

    "You''re right, I''m sorry. I should''ve remembered." God Natasha loved that man. "I''m basically ready to go on this little grail quest. Are you sure you don''t want to come Nat?"

    "A big hulking SHIELD super soldier doesn''t match what that intercepted data we got suggests is their response to outsiders."

    "So you''re sending me instead?"

    "If anybody can understand being feared for their powers, it''s you."

    "People are afraid of me for good reason."

    Natasha smiled and walked up to him and kissed him, "No. They''re afraid of you for understandable reasons. Not the same thing."

    Skye walked past them, saying, "Well, I''m going to go get freshened up and enjoy as much time as possible in a real bed."

    But she held up two thumbs and mouthed, ''go for it,'' once Bruce had turned around.

    Dork.

 74: Pierces Retirement Plan

    <div>

    We were still going to make money absolutely hand over fist. We had found a platinum group rich metal asteroid and we were now delivering a share of its component parts, including nearly enough palladium to match the extant world supply. A few more ships like this (we were expanding Osiris into all corners of the world) and I wasn''t just going to be richer than Midas, I was going to make Midas into a pauper. Gold? I''m sorry, strawberries cost more. The only disappointment was we still hadn''t located any vibranium-rich asteroids or meteors.

    Ah, I know, I know, I shouldn''t celebrate all this extra instability but let me have this. For the few hours before the markets re-opened, I was going to have an estimated net worth in the trillions. Rest in peace to the gold standard.

    "You''re really going to destroy another major extraction market," Pierce said as we watched the ship come in from the reclining patio beds we''d set up to watch this. I grabbed a strawberry from the bowl of fruit between us, enjoying the morning air and the taste of victory at the private base where we''d held our year end Hydra bash at.

    "With Osiris'' Educational Program expanding, we won''t want to waste the equivalent of a PhD toiling on an oil rig or diamond mine," I said. In the short term, a lot of those workers had been malnourished and wouldn''t be able to perform at that level. There were still developmental issues that couldn''t be fixed with Extremis, but even so, we could find people better jobs than toiling on dangerous extraction missions. "And with that incident in Missouri in October," I really shouldn''t have expected the timeline to match when the movies came out, but Ego in 2014? It hadn''t been nearly that far off from any of the other movies. Had I caused a major timeline divergence? Was I responsible for this? I guess it didn''t really matter - The expansion had stopped and Star Lord, whatever his earth name, was probably fine. "The United States is happy to take this opportunity to bring the rest of Earth closer to snuff."

    One of the really transfiguring things of this universe was that I had come from an America that saw itself as top dog, even if it had internal conflicts about how useful or important that was. In this world, America saw itself as under imminent, catastrophic threat and as a minnow in an ocean. It leapt at chances to tie itself and its allies closer together and defend itself from extraterrestrial threats.

    "It wasn''t a criticism," Pierce said, taking a drink of water off the table between us. "I''m just in awe of what you have accomplished so far. What you''re going to accomplish."

    "I''m flattered, sir," I said. Old deference was hard to break, Pierce had led Hydra to an amazing amount of success. He had given them me.

    "Palladium supplies to power every Arc Reactor in America and Europe. Maybe even an orbital facility that can match the global power supply." It was a matter of frank realism at this point that power would be completely clean by 2020, especially since we were rendering the later generation Arc reactors essentially free.

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    "Is Konstantin ready for our palace coup?" I asked, taking a drink as Plutonian''s cargo door opened. It was a large, remarkably plane like spaceship. Konstantin Dubinin, the Old Bear, had been our spy in the KGB during the Cold War and he and his sons were now our highest placed Russian contacts. They had somehow failed in grasping power through the KGB and FSB, as Putin had, which was embarrassing for our whole organizational theory. But Putin''s cunning had run up against its limit. Even Rumplestiltskin couldn''t spin gold from air.

    "He is. He says that he''s ready whenever you need him."

    "Tell him the signal will be the collapse of rare earth futures," I said. When the coup happened, Osiris would be happily providing educational uploads to the public in Russia at marginal costs. We needed more scientists and engineers, after all. Or guinea pigs, as the case might be. It would also be our first real attempt to transfigure a society through the upload process. Pakistan and India were viable future markets and their agents had taken to the program well enough, but they lacked the infrastructure that Russia possessed. There were other middle income countries that lacked the population base. There was also Brazil, but their socialist government was suspicious of us and most of our old contacts from the Cold War were connected to the dictatorship.

    "I''m proud of you and your work," Pierce said as the palladium began to be wheeled off the ship. "I want you to know, whatever your decisions, you have my support. But if they involve me as Secretary of SWORD, you''ll want to start on them quickly. My health is starting to decline and I can''t stay on top forever. I have maybe a year or two left and then I need to retire."

    I took that in. It made sense. Project Insight had always been something of a reach, but SHIELD must have been at the height of its power in the original timeline that the MCU was based off of. If Pierce was in decline, the replacement would''ve been Fury. Probably not acceptable to them.

    It wasn''t what I would''ve hoped would be Pierce''s choice. I looked at him and he seemed to be doing fine, health wise, it wasn''t as if there weren''t treatments available for most things. I didn''t know what he meant by decline, but unless it was catastrophic cancer, we could''ve helped. Maybe he was opposed to trans humanism on a personal level. Maybe he just wanted to retire. But I took this conversation to mean that he wanted to retire and he was asking me to grant that wish. That could''ve been useful to me, but it was also inconvenient. I hadn''t provoked a confrontation with SHIELD. Banner and Skye had vanished into the Nepalese wilderness in December and we hadn''t seen them since - Though Black Widow had not freaked out, so presumably they hadn''t sent out a distress signal or died.

    If things didn''t change, it might end up being my word versus Nick Fury''s and I was pretty sure the governments of the world would pick Fury.

    Who could blame them?

    "Well," I said after a moment. There was no good way to refuse him. It had been him who had convinced the council I was a worthy successor and I needed to repay the favor. Besides, he had given me two years. I could work with two years. "I''ll do what I can. Thank you for your long service Alexander."

    So much for waiting for Thanos before I ran the tables.

 75: Heartfelt Pizza with Tony

    <div>

    If you consider the fate of other empires, a tiny voice said in my head, you know how this too will end.

    I pushed against the thought. I didn''t need to win forever. Winning forever is an illusion. I only needed a victory that united humanity and didn''t end with my wife and daughter and me dead.

    The ongoing chaos that we had caused in the economics situation was being met with remarkable vigor by the governments of the world. The United States was extending educational funding to other countries, the world was turning and turning and turning. And always turning up Hydra.

    It was a weird sensation. For so long I had fought and scraped and begged to get my hands on the reins of destiny and now the horse merrily trotting to my tune. We had distributed Falcon-style flier units to the Fireflies, bringing them up to a new level of combat versatility. Wakanda was expanding its influence in Africa, Europe, uninhibited by Russia, was enthusiastic for our internationalist program. Asia wasn''t falling under our influence, exactly, but the seeds of future rule were germinating, especially in India and Pakistan - If we could get them away from each other''s throats for a few years. Central and South America were becoming reconciled to the world order.

    War was at a nadir. Coups were the only form of violence, usually prompted along by the helpful hand of Hydra, and they generally found themselves suddenly supported by friendly regimes.

    So why didn''t I feel like I was making any progress.

    "None of it fucking matters," I said to Tony as I slouched against his couch. "None of it fucking matters if Thanos comes back."

    "Don''t be ridiculous," Tony said, pouring me a glass of water to match his alcohol. "If half of us vanish tomorrow, our heirs will definitely benefit from, let''s see, an instant education machine and a nearly unlimited supply of energy."

    I leaned forward and grabbed the glass, the coolness of it soaking into my hand. It wasn''t really welcome - The sun had gone down hours ago. "Didn''t you say the education thing was cyberpunk?"

    "It is cyberpunk, you should shut that off," Tony said, plopping down in a chair across from me. "Obviously, if there were an emergency need, that would be different."

    "Poverty is an urgent need, Tony."

    "Poverty is a useful threat, Mike."

    Tony talks a lot and doesn''t think about his words. But he''s very, very quick-witted and he wasn''t wrong. I took a drink of water and thought about it, "How''s Iron Manning going?" This was our bond of friendship - Never having been a member of the Avengers, I was Tony''s Iron Man support system. Pepper didn''t like me much by extension.

    "Amazing," he said and tapped his chest module. "20 gigaojoules per second. And I''ve started using shrunken shield projector drones that can shield civilians."

    That was¡­ absolutely amazing. The sheer amount of gigaojoules that thing in Tony''s chest could put out would have crippled the U.S. economy before Tony had built out the Arc Reactors. We lived in the future. "Tony, that is bonkers," I said honestly. Maybe you could share those outdated 2012 models now¡­"

    "Mm, nice try but no. I put one of those in your hands and next week, I hear about seven thousand of them."

    "Had to do it." It was a running joke.

    "Always coming for my arc reactors," he said. "I might think you''re only using me for my things."

    "Tony," I said, sitting up and looking at him as he lazed in his chair. I was managing to hold in my frustration on this front fairly well. "How can I be using you for things you never share?" I tried to look at the bright side of my own going failure on obtaining the most useful technology for world defense. Honestly, it was good to have Tony as a friend. A good person, who did good things, for free and didn''t have any manners at all. It was nice. It was a relief from the constant pleasing and supplication I had to engage in with my coterie of mad scientists, crooks, and cultists.

    Tony let out a bark laugh at that and took a drink. "You know, I saved a sinking ship last night and got back home in time for dinner."

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    "Good job," I said honestly. Tony Stark was quickly becoming a hero we could all envy. You can''t resist talent like that.

    "She''s still mad about it," Tony said, looking frustrated. "I don''t know what to do. You were right, you know, that night we had that argument. Cut me to the heart. She''s still barely able to even deal with the fact that I''m Iron Man. She wishes I''d give it up and hand it over. Go back to being¡­ Tony Stark, billionaire playboy philanthropist." He slammed his glass back and chugged the whole thing and I wondered if that was wise. "Yinsen didn''t die for me to go back to arms manufacturing."

    I wasn''t going to argue with Tony about this in the context of Yinsen. It would alienate him. "Pepper only worries about you, Tony. That''s a reasonable thing for a woman to do."

    "Maybe so," Tony said after a moment. "You know, she really liked the cards you suggested."

    I had suggested to Tony that instead of buying her something large and ostentatious, that he write a month''s worth of short compliments and have a calligraphist write them up and send them to her. Tony liked grand gestures but he hated work, so he had a tendency to get Pepper gifts she didn''t really like. "This is because a gift is a material symbol of affection, it needs to be a product of thought and effort in order to have effect. You can''t simply buy bigger and more expensive things."

    "Am I supposed to remember that forever?"

    "Yes, Tony, this is pointless too isn''t it? You''re not going to learn how to be romantic unless Thanos comes."

    "Oh yeah? Is he going to force me to go to etiquette lessons? Honestly, I think a man who wants to wipe out half the universe is at least marginally ruder than me."

    I laughed at that. It was more that a major crisis had served to unite Pepper and Tony and actually get them married and him settled down. "You''re a smart guy Tony, you can learn this without a deranged purple demigod putting your face into romance novels."

    "You know, you''re supposed to be here to shore up my morale. I''m the hero, after all."

    "Tony," I said as the doorbell rang, "You know what helps morale? Pizza."

    "Pizza!" Tony said in agreement as I got up to go get it. The delivery guy handed me two boxes of pizza and I handed him a thousand dollars in hundreds and said, "Keep the change." Being rich is, and I cannot stress this enough, extremely fun when you do it right. I closed the door on him and walked back to Tony with the pizzas and put them on the table.

    "How much was it?"

    "Tony, we are not check balancing on pizza, we are the two richest men in the world."

    "No, come on, you cook for me, at least let me pay for the pizza."

    "You don''t have to do that," I said sincerely. "I got to tip the guy, always boosts my morale."

    "Morale boost! I can do that instead. You were being down on yourself for no reason earlier, let''s go back to how you''ve saved the world from poverty. Your wireless energy transmission has revolutionized power delivery everywhere in the world. You''ve cleaned up the air. Well, I did. But you helped."

    "You made it two sentences."

    "Three, actually, I''m clearly smarter because I can count," he took a bite of the pizza and savored it. "These guys are so good. How had I never heard of them before you?"

    I know the best restaurants of every sort in every city in the world, but Tony, having grown up rich, had too many friends who didn''t understand the virtue of grease in pizza. I took a bite of my cheese pizza and savored it. "Rich people have too refined palettes."

    "Mm," Tony said, taking another bite. "You''re right. We do. See, I can say nice things."

    "It''s a start."

    He put the pizza down on the box and looked at me. "Michael Gideon Trent," he said honestly. "You''re the guy who put me back on path to my calling," that was true but it was also my fault he had left it, "You''ve increased global security tenfold all by yourself. You''ve helped rid the world of energy poverty. You''ve helped move along Extremis, which cures nearly everything as far as we can tell. You''ve helped design Osiris, a literal, actual afterlife. You''re doing a good job. You''re not just a good man, you''re basically a demigod."

    Well, I wasn''t a good man. But I didn''t argue with him, it was good to have some outside affirmation by a non sycophant. "Thank you, Tony."

    Then he ruined the moment a little with a, "Still not as smart as me though." He was still Tony, after all.

 Captain America: Confronting Fury

    <div>

    "I don''t know," Fury said, grabbing it and flipping it open. The large window of the corner office looked out over the D.C. landscape. The Triskellion had finally been repaired and had only become more secure and militarized as SWORD had grown in power, but it represented the central nervous system of the global intelligence and security system that had grown up in the past two years. "Where did you get this?"

    "Found it on my doorstep," Steve said. He wasn''t going to tell Fury that Ward had gotten it from a buddy who''d gotten it from a buddy who thought he needed to see it. Ward had trusted him to do something about it, not get everyone who was concerned in trouble.

    "These specs are supposed to be eyes only," Fury said. "And you found them on your doorstep?"

    "Yes sir. But you haven''t said what they are."

    "Helicarrier plans," Fury said finally. He looked annoyed, but he didn''t look too furious. "We''re flush with cash. They''re under construction. I don''t see a problem."

    Steve shook his head, "They say that they''ll be able to put a bullet through someone''s back from hundreds of miles away."

    "Better than one of our guys taking a bullet to their face," Fury said,

    "They also say," Steve said, trying to get the point across, "That they use threat assessment programs to pick their targets. Project Insight?"

    "Well, you can rest easy," Fury said, leaning back in his chair. "Project Insight has been mothballed."

    Fury sounded like that solved everything. "It''s got your signature on it," Steve said, pointing at the file.

    "It had my signature on it," Fury replied, taking the file off his desk and putting it into paper shredder. The machine devoured the paper with the sound of a hundred grinding teeth. Steve didn''t flinch. He had obviously made copies. Hard copies - That was standard procedure for secure documents, even in this age of marvels. "Your paperwork is old, probably how it wound up on your doorstep."

    Steve did have to admit the dates were a little old - All late 2014 "So you''re saying there will be no Project Insight," Steve said.

    "Don''t put promises into my mouth," Fury said as he leaned down into the shredder and pulled out the base with the paper. "But it''s off the table for now. The Helicarriers are being brought up to snuff, especially as we start to use more high energy weapons and anti-gravity technology. No Insight." He drew a lighter out of his pocket and set fire to the bin.

    "How many helicarriers?" Steve asked

    "Thirty, now that the Russians are kicking in their share of the pot."

    Steve blinked and did the math, "Enough firepower to kill ten thousand men a minute."

    "Aliens too," Fury said, standing up and walking to the other side of the desk. He leaned back against the desk so that his good eye was on level with Steve''s own, getting uncomfortably close. "That''s so much less than the bombs they dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki."

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    "I wasn''t there for that," Steve said.

    "Dresden then," Fury said leaning in, his face so close to Steve''s that Steve could smell his breath.

    "Sometimes you have to kill people in a war," Steve said. But they weren''t in a war right now, not with anybody on the ground at least.

    "Isn''t it better that it''s a clean bullet than a bomb that hits women? Children? The targeting satellites can scan DNA from space, the ships give permission to fire, and then its over."

    "You''ve designed these things so they can shoot anyone, anywhere, anytime. Who gets to decide, who pulls the trigger?"

    "Me," Fury said, leaning back and thus away from Steve''s face.

    "Why do you have that power?"

    "Because it was given to me by the governments of the world."

    "So you''re the judge, the jury, and executioner?" Steve kept hoping that Fury would clarify that it would only be used on alien invaders.

    "Somebody has to be."

    Steve took that to mean that it would definitely also be used on humans. He leaned in now, mirroring Fury''s earlier move. "No. They don''t."

    Fury got off the desk and walked over to the window, "See that out there? That''s America. The country whose flag you wear. Three years ago it came under deadly assault. I wish to God we had these helicarriers up and running then."

    Steve walked over and looked for where the Washington Monument had gone down. It had been rebuilt a new monument, but it was still a symbol of something. He had to acknowledge that it was a difficult problem. "So we got a bloody nose and now we''re going to hold a gun to every man, woman, and child on the planet to make them behave?"

    "Cap," Fury said looking out over city, "That''s what we need to do. Humanity cannot afford any more distractions"

    "Maybe what humanity can''t afford is all these nooses you''ve fitted for them."

    "Language like that is a beautiful thing," Fury said, "But it can''t put breath back into some momma''s baby''s nostrils because we got squeamish."

    "You can''t wave that bloody shirt forever, Fury," Steve said, giving him a glare.

    "You can''t be that righteously indignant forever," Fury said without bothering to glance back at him.

    "I think you''ll be surprised."

    "Maybe so," Fury said. "It''s not my problem. The helicarriers are going up, it''s not up to you. Hell, it''s not even up to me. The World Security Council approved it."

    Steve shook his head and left the room without saying anything else. Fury was right. It wasn''t his call. France, Britain, the United States - They had all approved the project apparently and they spoke for their people as well as any governments on Earth. People were afraid and they were reaching for security wherever they could find it. But he didn''t have to like it and he didn''t like it, he didn''t like it one bit.

 76: Wakandas Concerns

    <div>

    The Panopticon ain''t got nothing on the Helicarrier Fleet. Gene-reading from space, bullets if you walk outside or even stand in a window for more than two minutes. All in the hand of one unelected dude in an office somewhere. I was salivating at the prospect of that dude being, well - Probably not me, the governments of the world aren''t that stupid. But my subordinate. I was going to have more precautions in place than a stern glare and the possibility of relief from station, that was for sure.

    Nakia of the River Tribe was substantially less impressed. Wakanda had already tried lobbying the council against it, but they''d been shut out or ignored - So they were now working their backroom contacts which, I was surprised to learn, included me. They had apparently decided that since I did not rat Nakia out to U.S. intelligence, I must be fond of her.

    "Look, I''m a mid-level functionary," I lied through my teeth, as we sat down in my office "I don''t know what you want me to do."

    "You were required to submit a report on the safety of¡­ this and you approved it?" Nakia was trying not to be accusatory, but she was a passionate woman. She was dressed in very formal, Western pantsuit. This was a sign of how strong Wakanda wanted the helicarriers taken down or put under restriction. They did not like dressing ''colonizer'' style, although even their current fashions followed American hegemony to some degree.

    "Sure?" I said, "It is an excellent weapon against enemy ground forces. There''s no reason from our prior experiences to expect air based superiority."

    Nakia waved a hand in dismissal, "A weapon is a weapon, the firing power of the helicarriers is not our concern. We are worried about the scope of their mission parameters."

    "I wasn''t consulted on the mission parameters of the system," I lied. It was true that I hadn''t been formally required to submit notes on the specs for that purpose, but obviously I had been consulted informally by Pierce, SWORD Director John Garrett, United States Council Member Gideon Malick, and "Emergency" Russian President Konstantin Dubinin. Maybe consulted was the wrong word - I had issued the order to make it happen.

    Nakia slapped one of her hands with the back of her other one. She wasn''t here for my bullshit, "If you told them to stop, they would stop."

    "Why would I do that? I need a high end munitions and rapid response capability and they have that."

    "Surely you can see the folly of handing the sole power over to one man. Simply have them restrict usage to the consensus of the Security Council nations."

    "All of them?" In full honesty, if I were making the rules to protect me and I were formally in charge of a security council, I would do exactly that. Then nobody could murder my puppets or allies but if aliens really showed up, we could cut them right out of the sky. "When there is a threat, we need to act decisively." Amazingly, I did not think that in a world when the WSC tried to nuke a major city after fifteen minutes that they were going to waste much time.

    "They are putting a snake on every doorstep, a scorpion on every windowsill, and a jaguar in every shadow cast by the sun," Nakia said. "Everyone on the globe will live the rest of their lives in terror, their life at the mercy of some spy master''s pen. How does that make anyone safer from alien life?"

    It didn''t. The police function of the new Helicarrier fleet was an unnecessary addition to an otherwise quite functional plan for global defense spending. It could serve just as easily without a kill switch in Fury''s palm and unlimited discretion. I would say that it was trust in Fury as a Main Character, thus reassuring me that the leaders of the world were not insanely stupid - But I was the only reason why Project Insight had been mothballed and that had been a nearly black box computer algorithm that most of the World Security Council could not even understand the basic principles of, much less its true function.

    Help support creative writers by finding and reading their stories on the original site.

    "It could''ve killed me," which was theoretically true but practically false. It could''ve killed me if I didn''t know it existed. Obviously, if Selvig, Hawkeye, and I, all people with ready access to privileged information, had intended to escape military reprisal, we could''ve worn heavy enough clothes and left no exposed skin to stay concealed from the DNA scanner and made our base in a region where heavy clothes were the norm rather than the exception or in a cave. If that hadn''t been an option, the Tesseract was a teleportation device. Today, I would use the Quantum Tunneler, which any would be terrorist could steal assuming they could face down a GDT Firefly and then crack one of the security codes.

    "You are smart enough to know that is not true," Nakia said, "You were under for two days, at most. What the helicarriers make impossible is living any life free from the terror that at any moment, you might discover your name has been written down in a little book and passed to a man at a console because several sniper rifle rounds have gone through your heart. A mind-controlled slave does not have these concerns and would wear plate armor in the Sahara or tunneling underground. Human beings do."

    "I believe I also warned of super-soldiers. Today, we have over two thousand Super-Soldier Serum enhanced individuals. We have the two Iron Man pilots, each of whom is substantially more dangerous than a middle income conventional army. The governments of the world have been made weak and this they cannot abide."

    "So they put an eye on every cross street and a gun to every head? Peace through terror unceasing and everlasting? How would that stop the Iron Man?"

    "If it works, we get world peace. If it doesn''t, well," I shrugged, "it''s less collateral than the pre-Iron Man regime."

    "Earth is the most peaceful it has ever been," Nakia said, her voice coming out in even, measured clips now, her face was too neutral. She was starting to lose her temper. "The governments of Earth are laying down their arms, America''s hand of friendship is widely received all over the world, and you want to go back to the failed bombing strategies of the Aughts? To fill the air with an occupying army"

    "It''s not about what I want," I said, giving a heavy sigh and standing up. What Nakia''s fair and reasonable arguments failed to understand is that the motive here was to re-even the score. Nearly every government in the world had been neutered. Made perceptibly, sensibly weak because it had no power to address the real fear of people''s lives. We were offering them the chance to prove their strength through cruelty and they were taking it because they were fool enough to think it would always be their man on the trigger and a guy with an eyepatch and a growl told them to. "Look, Nakia, I''ll pass your concerns up the ladder. But there''s not much I can do at this point without lying to my superiors."

    I rose and offered her my hand and she shook it. Nakia was unhappy, but I wasn''t Wakanda''s asset. They could deal with it.

    Ultimately, the only way this would backfire on me was if Nick Fury figured out that we intended to replace him and used the hellicarriers to shoot us. But if he went down, they might balk. We were going to have to thread the needle here.

 77: Vote on Strucker

    <div>

    The room more closely resembled a casino, with card and craps tables, no windows, and music blaring outside its doors, than it resembled a board room. But it was understandably understated and it would be good to have a counter-scandal if our meeting was discovered. High stakes gambling, a charmingly quaint conspiracy by comparison. If the briefcase next to my feet had only contained stacks of hundreds or gold coins, it would have been so much more innocent.

    Pierce, Konstantin, and Haidar Jalal, the Sheikh, were all with me. Two of them owed me their position and one of them needed this to go off without a hitch. The Baroness would certainly side with Strucker - Their powers were too tightly intertwined. Stern was probably leaning my way, Malick was a wild card, and Whitehall was favorable to me generally but might be concerned at the loss of one of our leading minds. The Bankers were likely opposed on principle, always too busy counting coins to contribute to the cause through sacrifice, they weren''t about to ask it of anyone else. Strucker''s vote was in his own defense in absentia.

    Four to me, four against, three in the air. I wanted to spend more time pounding out the votes, but we were on a schedule, so risks had to be taken. I could always try a more elaborate plan if this one failed.

    "Brothers, Sister," I said, standing in the dealer''s position at a card table. "Baron Von Strucker was once a vital contributor to this organization. His work has, of late, been shoddy. Belarus has acquired an uncontrolled long-tail inventor in Ivan Vanko. Sokovia is now a fiercely independent democracy. Had he accepted my counsel, he could''ve salvaged at least one such occasion. He has also deployed weapons which he was forewarned could be traced back towards me to no effect, as he was warned was a possibility. Now they are being traced back towards me, by no less than the global head of SHIELD and one of his best agents. Someone must be fed to the problem."

    "Why are you targeting Strucker?" The Baroness asked, her dark blue dress and pearls and upper class wife look undermining the fact that she would be a problem for me. "Sokovia is as much your fault as Strucker''s, if not more. It was your weapon which failed, your soldiers who went rogue."

    "Understand, it brings me no pleasure to sacrifice Strucker. His vote assured me my position, and we collaborated closely for months in Sokovia," I was actually kind of happy to kill the guy. He''d made me kill the twins and I didn''t like that at all. But it was good to sound appropriately somber in moments like this. "But if it had been me using the mind control gas, I would have baited the twins back into town by threatening to kill the mind controlled victims, by claiming they were holding the protest in an unsafe space and refusing to leave. Then I would''ve caved in the church upon the protestors to leave no evidence."

    That got a wince or two even from this table, but the Baronness put her hand down. Displaying brutality was an easy way to cow and shore up support among this group. Her vote wasn''t changing, but I also wasn''t about to not be the Head of Hydra either. If Malick, Stern, and Whitehall all voted against me - which they weren''t all going to do - they still had my back for Hydra Head. It was stupid to give too much back talk.

    "Why should we dispose of Strucker at all? Why not let them chase their tails or¡­ We know they are looking for you, a few bullets in the night would suffice."

    Unauthorized duplication: this tale has been taken without consent. Report sightings.

    Octavian Bloom, the American Banker, had more receding hairline than hair but he made an admirable figure. "Octavian," I said, calmly, "Bodies provoke investigations. Bodies provoked this investigation. If we pile up more and more bodies, well, there will be more and more investigations."

    "How much is this going to cost us," the Swiss banker asked, his bald head and acerbic attitude radiating. "You could just admit to the American government that you handed your research on mind control to Sokovia. They will not arrest you, you are too valuable. You will face a demotion, some political opprobrium, but all Hydra will know that you are a leader who makes sacrifices."

    "Your designs on my office are as transparent as they are pathetic," I said bluntly. Sometimes harshness was necessary. "You seek to weaken my position. That''s a mistake. It was my wealth and influence and technology that put Hydra where it is today, on the verge of seizing total control of global security."

    "But Fury is still in the way," observed Malick, his hair was short and gray and his professional clothes were business like.

    "I intend to kill many birds with just one stone," I said mildly and I extracted from a set of files and put them in front of my esteemed colleagues.

    "They''re looking for me," Whitehall said as he read, his rounded glasses and gray hair rounding out his professorial clothing. The files showed what Banner, Widow, and Skye had been working on since Skye had re-emerged with her apparently vibration based power. She was a hacker and damn fine one, but if you put a machine mind to it, you could put a machine mind against it, and so I''d tracked and followed everything she learned. "That''s what you think?"

    "Jiaying may be dead," I said, though of course I knew she wasn''t. "But they are quite suspicious and knocking around the inside of SHIELD, looking for who ordered the dissection."

    "Do you have a solution to this problem?"

    "You''ve never been an official employee of SHIELD. So we''re just going to kill you again," I said confidently. "The surgeon from Jiaying''s surgery will be shown to be a dead asset of one Nicholas J. Fury."

    "And so will Strucker," Stern said, his voice faintly impressed. He was such an slimy looking guy, with this just-rounded enough face and thinning hair, it was a little bewildering that he had managed to be elected to the Senate in our image conscious age.

    "That is the plan," I said pointedly.

    "How are you going to make them believe all that?" Stern asked, "Romanoff, Banner, even this Skye girl - None of them are stupid."

    I had this ace up my sleeve for five years, but the time to play it had finally come. I had to make this work and I had to make it work just this once.

    "We''ve seeded plenty of paper work in various files that might be tempting to break into and we''ve duplicated the dummy accounts Fury used to fund their own mission. That will set them on the track. Strucker''s death will be a mysterious kill while Fury is on an away mission. They''ll follow the evidence back to ''Strucker''s'' blackbox, which will include the orders from Fury, my notes with strong recommendations not to use it - Written to Fury, of course. And, with my newly perfected Thoth Engine, a video taped conversation with Fury, where he discusses how he''s sent them on a goose chase. When that happens, we''ll kill him."

    "We only have to murder the most competent spy since Peggy Carter," Malick said.

    "I have a plan for that."

    When I had finished explaining, the vote was seven to four to sacrifice Strucker.

 78: The Plan Goes Off

    <div>

    "The numbers are right there," Daisy said, pointing at the document. It was an older hard copy of a permission order, the numbers were a classified code system, but they amounted to a green light order on one of the most horrific experiments that had occurred since the Allies put a stop to Hydra and Unit 731. But the numbers meant the order had come from Nick Fury, back in desk job days. An attempt to discover human revitalization, the Extremis Serum without the pain, thirty years early. It was the sort of thing you justify to yourself. "Fury ordered that and then SHIELD ordered me to shuffled around from home to home so that my family could never find me, so that no family could ever find me or want me or allow me to stay. Everything that has ever happened to me is his fault. Can''t you see that?"

    Daisy had become much more hostile to SHIELD since she had gotten back from her mother and learned her real name was Daisy Johnson and not Skye or (as these documents amusingly showed) Mary Sue Poots, not that Natasha could blame her. If someone had cut her mother open and torn out her organs while she was alive, Natasha would''ve had strong feelings about that person''s place of employment as well.

    God, had she gone from the Red Room to SHIELD to end up in the same place? A new orphan-factory, a new doctor without scruples, a new set of assassins and thieves who she could convince herself were doing something that she could pretend was right. This paperwork had to be wrong, it had to be. But they''d stolen it out of a SHIELD base.

    "And," Daisy said, plopping down another file. "The signs indicate the same permission was given three days before the gassing of the Twins in Sokovia to Strucker."

    "We need to talk to Strucker before we jump to any conclusions," Natasha said. "Maybe someone''s been forging Fury''s permissions. Maybe this is all a scheme to throw us off Trent''s scent."

    Daisy shrugged her shoulders, "Trent was seven years old. But whatever, I don''t care what order we do this in."

    To Daisy, it didn''t matter because she was certain there would be no exculpatory evidence that explained what Fury had done. But to Natasha, it mattered a lot. Fury was her friend, her superior officer. Maybe it would turn out that he had signed off on Daisy''s mom. That would be monstrous, but Natasha had been monstrous once, she could understand trying to put that behind you. To serve something greater than yourself.

    But if the twins were also Fury''s work¡­

    ¡ª

    John Garret was wearing a white turtleneck sweater under his heavy black leather jacket which matched the colors of SWORD but I felt like had to be hot. Maybe the Extremis meant it didn''t matter, "Come on, you gotta give me Ward. He''s my guy." He was a big guy after the Firefly treatment regimen, though he still showed a bit of his age in his dark hair. But I had given him back his health and, thus, had his loyalty.

    "Right, which is why you should tell him absolutely nothing," I said bluntly. "He has an important duty with Captain America and they need to be a long way from Fury when it all goes down. Ward should know nothing, it will be more authentic that way." Plus I needed people to arrest Madam Gao anyway - I''d left that one festering since the invasion and it was past time to make up for it.

    ¡ª

    "Strucker?" Natasha said as she knocked at his office. There was no reason for him to be suspicious her, she reminded herself. He was a colleague, even if officially he worked on the other side of the world. They had kept her out of Eastern Europe for most of her career in SHIELD. Too many operatives who''d she''d exchanged fire with before Clint.

    His secretary was missing too. The office was abnormally quiet, although of course it still occupied a SHIELD office building.

    "Is he not answering?" Daisy said over the comm in her ear.

    "No," she said. Turning around and walking down the hall, she found a SHIELD employee. "Why isn''t Strucker in?"

    "He got an emergency meet request," the desk jockey said, a guy with a belly and a bald spot, "His secretary hasn''t been in since - I wouldn''t either, extra time off."

    "Do you know where he went?" Natasha asked. This was ridiculous.

    "No idea, he said it came from on high and he couldn''t explain."

    "Thanks," Natasha said, flashing the guy her best smile and making her way back to the office foyer. It was fairly non descript, but she walked up to the door and popped out a set of hand tools to get to work on the electric lock on the door. She would critique the relatively low quality of the lock, but it honestly didn''t matter what sort of hard barrier they put on a door like this, she would be able to open it. Plus they were already inside a SHIELD building, so it was too late really.

    The door popped open and the door came open. The computer was still alive, so nobody had willfully killed it. Natasha stuck in a jack, "Daisy, can you break this?"

    "Consider it broken," Daisy said. Natasha stared at the blue glow of the screen, looking at the SHIELD emblem that she still hoped would represent peace for the whole world. The eery silence of the office settled in around her but eventually Daisy said, "It''s open, copying the hard drive now."

    But Natasha couldn''t resist and she opened the computer and started scrolling herself. Daisy was good, but Natasha was the full-time Spy, so she was quick to start going through the obvious stowing places. It wasn''t in any of those places, so she moved on to the more obscure places.

    "Natasha, what are you doing?"

    "I''m looking for something."

    "Why, we can just find it later, get out of there."

    Daisy was right, she was definitely right. She had been in here nearly twenty minutes, but nobody had come and nobody was looking, so she kept looking at the computer, parsing it out in her mind, trying to find something on it that would lead her to where she needed to go.

    Then she found it, buried deep under too many layers of files, a blank file that was labeled a string of numbers that Natasha''s mind automatically converted into GPS coordinates and then dropped onto a map in her head. She had been doing this too long. But it was clear where it was, an old base in Sokovia.

    She got up and walked out, "I found it."

    ¡ª¡ª

    "Baron Strucker," I said, sitting down in the somewhat rundown motel that was to be our spy meet up. I felt the weight of my vibranium watch and again wished I had two bracelets instead, but it would''ve looked too suspicious, especially in addition to my emergency charm bracelet.

    "Why the covert location, sir?" Strucker asked, clearly nervous. His monocle was attached to his face and his short stubs of hair stretched both over his head and around his face. The long cloak was there.

    "I have a¡­ very violent assignment for you," I said in something that resembled the truth. I took a moment to close the blinds. "I want you to know that this mission is absolutely vital to Hydra and I must insist you perform it well." I had him looking at me and a shrunken woman was creeping out of the corner.

    "Of course, sir," he said. "I assume it is with regard to Fury?"

    "Yes," I said, "Watch how this works." I twisted my watch and the vibranium nanites covered me, "It''s a vital trick. It will be important for you in the future," Andromeda unshrunk behind him. Credit where it is due, he spun fast enough to look her in the eye as she shot him in the head. Blood spattered everywhere, including all over the faceplate of my nanovibranium suit. We unshrunk our disposal equipment and got to work cleaning the room.

    "This is not how I was hoping spend our engagement anniversary," Andromeda said as we scraped fresh blood and brains of the wall. It smelled hideous, and Strucker had shat himself as he died too. "I wish we hadn''t had to kill Strucker."

    "I don''t like it either, but he exposed me to personal risk. One of us was going down for this and Strucker was too much of a coward to go down for it himself."

    That was enough for Andromeda, but she was my wife, "I know. I just don''t like it." Keeping the number of Hydra agents aware that wehad killed Strucker to a minimum was vital for precisely this reason. Hydra did a good job of instilling mutual loyalty into its members. The cracks that even the vote had caused would cost me months or even years to fully repair. That was simply how things were, however. Strucker had to die. He was a liability, and someone was going to have to dispose of him.

    After we had finally cleaned everything, what felt like a few months later but had to have been an hour at most, we shrunk his body in the now standard spy disposal method, packed up our bags, she hoped into my suit pocket, and we left, me pretending to avoid the CCTV camera as a competent spy would. The nanomachive on the camera that had been replacing my image with Nick Fury''s on the CCTV camera in the parking lot crawled its way off and sent me the footage copy after I sent the order from my burner phone. It was good so I order it to detonate itself.

    ¡ª¡ª

    They broke into the old warehouse and they weren''t subtle about it. Strucker had apparently picked up the new policy of paper files, because there were plenty. Old mission reports and, sure enough, a twin to the one they''d gotten from inside a SHIELD base about Daisy''s mom, Fury''s number on it and everything.

    The tale has been illicitly lifted; should you spot it on Amazon, report the violation.

    "I''ve got his version of the doctor report. Let me know if you see anything," Natasha said as she started filing through the materials. It was obvious now that Strucker had been doing things that he knew were very, very illegal. All sorts of notes from the past decade, lots of rotten, awful experiments. Most of them, interestingly enough, did not have Fury''s name or number on them. That was a relief to Natasha. It seemed like they weren''t hitting anything.

    "I found something!" Daisy announced and scrambled to the ''safety'' computer they''d set up in case there were bugs or booby traps on any of their drives. It was a thin little stick of data and she inserted it into the computer.

    It was clearly something from a pin camera. A conversation between Fury and Strucker.

    "We have to take the chance to resolve this peacefully," Fury said.

    "Sir, this is¡­ This is a chemical agent. A weapon of biological warfare."

    "So''s tear gas," Fury said, waving his hand in dismissal.

    "I just want to know I won''t be going down for this."

    "Don''t tell me you''re getting skittish, not after all this time."

    "Of course not. But you''ll give the order this time?"

    "I''ll give the order this time."

    "We''re going after him, right?" Daisy said, her voice somewhere between fear and fury.

    Natasha reached out and squeezed her shoulder, "We''re going after him." This was illegal. It was immoral. She only hoped that it was all Fury had done. She only hoped he would go quietly.

    They would later go on to find the paperwork of Trent transferring the drugs to Fury, with harsh recommendations to never employ the gas, and a variety of other evidence that pointed toward Fury.

    Little did she know someone else was already keeping her promise for her.

    ¡ª

    John Garret strode into Fury''s office. He looked good. The Extremis and the Super-Soldier serum had done their work on the man. It wasn''t as good as Fury had felt when he''d taken the Super-Soldier serum, but it was a good look. The corner office suited them both, the bright light shining from his windows, the desk between them, and the screen on the opposite wall that gave Nick his bird''s eyeview of the world.

    "John," Fury said, extending a hand and welcoming him into his office. "How''re you?"

    "I''m not good Nick," John said.

    "Is there something wrong with the Extremis serum?"

    "No, no, it worked like a charm - You know they had to yank the extra organs out by hand, I was awake the whole damn time, failure of anesthetics, you know how it is but it''s been fine ever since."

    Fury smiled, he did know. John had told that story more than a few times before. He told his stories a lot, practically lived in them. "Then what''s the matter?"

    "Nick, we found video of you disappearing Strucker."

    "That''s ridiculous," Nick said. It was ridiculous. He hadn''t done it.

    "Come on, Nick, don''t bullshit me" John said, rubbing the transponder high ranking SWORD and SHIELD members all wore on their wrists to signal emergency bail outs. It could also release the Quantum Tunneling suit if they needed it. Trent was an asshole in many ways, but his work for SHIELD and SWORD was top of the line. "I think we can clear you, if you''ve got a good reason."

    "I didn''t do it. Tell me how you have a video of a thing I didn''t do."

    "I don''t know, Nick," John said, pulling a flash drive out of his pocket and tossing it to Nick. "You tell me."

    Nick started watching the video, some grainy CCTV footage. He checked it for Thoth fingerprints, but nothing showed under machine analysis. It did look like him - It could be him. The man kept his face away from the camera and entered a room. The timestamp on the footage jumped half an hour, a bit of convenient editing, and then the man walked out again. He did a good job of hiding his face, nearly as good of a job as Nick himself would''ve done, until he turned just wrong enough to give an image of Nick''s distinctive scars he had gotten from that damn cat.

    "You can''t really believe this is me," Nick said. "John, how long have we known each other?"

    "Long enough I want to give the chance to turn yourself in. Nobody''s heard from Strucker since."

    "Strucker goes missing for a few days every month, that doesn''t mean he''s dead," though if someone had gone to this length to frame him, it probably did mean he was dead. "What''s your plan here, John?"

    "You turn yourself in to me, we explain why you did it, you get two-to-five max."

    "I didn''t do this. But if I did, how do you know I don''t have permission higher up?" This whole thing smelled like a fish straight from the lake of fire and second death.

    "Nick, when I said ''we found it'' I meant Secretary Pierce found it and gave it to me. We want you to come quietly, Nick, it''ll make everything easier."

    Nick shook his head, "My own friends believe I murdered one of my own agents. Why would I do something so stupid?"

    "We don''t know," John said, "If it was a really good reason, maybe we can get you off, an honorable pension."

    "I didn''t do it." Nick said

    "Then you''ll have to come in and we''ll have to figure it out ourselves. Trust me Nick, please," John held up a pair of handcuffs and tossed them onto the desk between them.

    For a long moment Nick really considered handing himself over. This was fake. Whoever had done this wanted him gone. Trent, maybe - He could''ve given it to Pierce, convinced him it was real. Maybe one of the hundred other enemies Nick had accumulated over the years. Or maybe those growing cracks he was seeing in people like Strucker had finally come to fruition.

    No, he was going to have to escape. There was no way to guarantee that he made it to trial, that he got a chance to prove himself innocent. If he were on the other end of this, he''d have a few toughs with shivs waiting for him in the jail cell. That was assuming that John wasn''t in on it himself, in which case a pair of burning hands could kill him before he made it to the cell. ''So sorry you resisted, Nick'' and a funeral.

    How to escape. He could jump out the window - The Super Soldier Serum made that a possibility. But a falling object is a falling object - Even if John thought he might be innocent right now, a leap through the window would be a potential death sentence. Nick''s coat was old-school bullet proof, but the fall and new side arm fire would definitely be a problem, especially since Nick would barely be able to dodge as he twisted in the air. That was all assume that the helmet fold out that he had behind his ear even worked against a small arm.

    He could try to go through John. The idea of fighting his old friend wasn''t appealing, but it was a major problem for him. He had to admit that John might be responsible for all of this. It could be him, specifically, trying to drive Nick into the ground. That would''ve made it easier - But John was a decent hand to hand combatant and he had Extremis, whereas Fury did not. No telling how much difficult that would be.

    He could try to go around John. Just make a mad dash for the door, try to convince a few agents to cover him. That would make him look guilty, but it would also mean he had a chance to clear things without it. But if Nick had been the one planning this, he''d have guys waiting for him outside the door.

    He could turn on his Quantum Tunneler, go through it to his emergency bug-out spot. But these were Trent''s tunnelers. He had programmed them. He had even programmed this one. It was possible that he had slipped something past Fitz, assuming he wasn''t in on all this. It also took about fifteen seconds to get started and Nick could see John tense up.

    Alright, simple plan - Make it out the window, turn on the Quantum Tunneler, and program a new destination before he hit the ground. Preferably over something softer than concrete, though it wasn''t likely at the speed he''d be falling.

    He charted out on his head where was a deep enough part of the water and then he made his move. He lunged toward the window, moving as quickly as he could to turn on his teleporter. But then, the window over him burst and something hard and fast hit him in the leg. Another shrunken person? Damn it, John had thought of everything.

    Nick reached up to his teleporter and felt the presence on his leg just let go. For a moment, Nick thought that meant he had escaped, it was all over but the suit closing over him and taking him out of there.

    But then he felt a massive explosive go off on his leg, tearing through his body.

    --

    "Yeah, he''s pretty fucking dead," Garret said

    I had spent so long on the goddamn plan, every single inch was ready, his tunneler had been compromised both in that I should''ve gotten its location and in that the standard ports were full of waiting Fireflies, I''d planted a Firefly above and below his window, I''d had super soldiers outside his door. I''d done so much to make sure that Nick Fury went down. I was lucky we weren''t having to use. I''d made sure to train Garret to disarm a tunneler in less time than it took to arm one, even across the pit against a difficult opponent. We''d had Rumlowe serve as the dummy.

    I breathed a sigh of relief. Nick Fury was dead and the last major obstacle to my control of the global defense systems had hopefully gone with him.

 Captain America: Quitting the Job

    <div>

    Steve considered himself to be in all three categories.

    "Yeah," Natasha said as the balls ricochetted offer the walls. "I don''t think I can stay either."

    "Would''ve thought you''d have more stomach for this sort of thing," Steve said once the balls finished rolling. "Solids."

    "I did, once," Natasha''s eyes shot over to where Daisy was sitting with Bruce at table in the bar. The things that SHIELD had done to Daisy''s mother¡­ And all for some drug that disintegrated the subject after six months. "Things change. Plus since my investigation was funded like Strucker''s experiments¡­ Not sure I''d be welcome."

    "What''re you going to do now?" He sunk a few balls into pockets.

    "I''ve never done anything else," Natasha said. "My best reference is in a freezer bag in the Triskelion Morgue. Probably work in the corporate world as a translator, double duty as a bodyguard. Boring, but the pay would be good. You?"

    "Thinking about going to college," Steve said honestly. A chance to learn about anything he wanted to learn about, to practice his art full time. He''d had to drop out of Auburndale when his mom died. "My GI bill should more than cover it."

    "You could just get married, be a trophy husband."

    Steve shook his head and pointed, "Right top corner pocket," he said.

    "You''re not even going to let me take a shot are you?"

    "Why would I?" Steve said, sinking the eight ball into a pocket.

    "Chivalry is dead," Natasha complained. "Come on, you could ask out the nurse on your hall? Bet she''d love a big, strapping husband like yourself."

    "You mean the spy on my hall?" Steve said. Ward had told him about Sharon.

    "Oh damnit, he told you didn''t he?"

    "Maybe I just figured it out myself."

    "I have my doubts," Natasha said, racking the balls and getting in line to do her own round. "Sharon''s good, she''d be good for you. She''s quitting too, applying to work with the CIA."

    "Out of the shark''s pool and into the lion''s den," Steve said.

    "Oh Lord," Natasha said, rolling her eyes as she took a shot. "Daisy then. Join the Rising Tide and stick it to the man."

    "Pretty sure I am the man, in this instance," Steve said.

    "Stripes. All about the branding, you''re not the man, you''re," Natasha seemed to be groping for a word and then snapped, "Antifa!" Steve had no idea what that was and he was afraid to ask. "Everybody likes you, you beat up the Nazis. Even Russians like you."

    "You can''t set me up with every woman you like," Steve said.

    "I''ll settle for one," Natasha said as she took another shot. "Look, you could get a book deal. I bet people would love to hear what Captain America thinks of America today."

    Steve didn''t really want to tell America what he thought of it today, especially not after Fury. "I wouldn''t want that kind of attention. I''m starting to see a flaw in our choice of games," Steve said as Natasha lined up with the eight ball.

    "It does seem suspect," Natasha said. "Left mid." And in the eight ball went. "Let''s go back to why you should ask out Daisy."

    "I''m not doing that," Steve said.

    "Would you say yes if she asked?"

    If you encounter this narrative on Amazon, note that it''s taken without the author''s consent. Report it.

    Steve looked at her for a moment and then snorted.

    "Alright, let''s-" Natasha fell suddenly silent.

    Steve followed Natasha''s gaze to the door of the bar. Phil Coulson had just walked in. Like most of the GDT Fireflies, Coulson had taken to his new form with a great deal of aptitude. He was a big guy with a head of professional cut hair. He still had a somewhat dorky, endearing face much of the time, but today he looked mad. He looked really mad and he looked like he was looking for somebody.

    Natasha sighed, "Damn it."

    "Why''s Phil so upset?"

    "Phil was Fury''s best friend, as far as such things go, they''d been working together for decades."

    "He can''t be angry at you for that," Steve said. "You just delivered your findings."

    "You''d be surprised," Natasha said, her body stiff and ready for combat.

    Phil had spotted them and was marching over. Steve was surprised. "Captain," he said politely before turning to Natasha. "Ms. Romanoff, could I speak to you alone for a moment?"

    "Anything you''ve got to say, you can say in front of Steve."

    "Fine," Phil said, "I just wanted to give you a chance to come clean on that bullshit with Fury. I''m going to figure it out."

    Natasha sighed and pinched her nose, "There''s no bullshit, Phil, he really did those things."

    "I can''t believe you did this," Coulson said, "Nick Fury would never authorize human experimentation, much less the brutal dissection of a living woman."

    "Look, Phil," Natasha said, "I don''t like it either. Sometimes people aren''t who we think they are. Especially in this mirrors game we''re all doomed to play."

    "He gave you a chance and you flipped on him, destroyed his whole life''s work," he held up his fingers and snapped them.

    Daisy had come over to stand next to them, "This guy bothering you Nat?" Daisy asked, in what she clearly hoped would be an intimidating manner. But since Daisy was a head shorter than everyone else in the conversation, it didn''t really work. Steve knew she had powers and it still didn''t work.

    "Phil''s just upset, Daisy," Natasha said, her voice steady. "He''s not going to hurt me."

    "Natasha, I don''t want to do this. If they''ve got something on you, I get it. But I''m going to figure it out, with or without your help. And if you don''t help me, you''re going to end up going down with them."

    "I wish they did have something on me," Natasha said. "But there''s no they, the stuff anybody could have on me is in SHIELD''s files, and if you clear Fury''s name, I''ll be glad to hear it."

    Phil looked very angry at that and pointed at Natasha, "He should''ve never taken a chance on you."

    "That''s enough," Steve said, seeing Daisy tensing her hands for a shot of her powers. "Phil, you''ve said your piece. We all hope you''re right, but we don''t think you are. I think you should go."

    Phil hesitated and then nodded his head, "You''re right Captain. The truth will come out, sooner or later." He walked away.

    "Wow, what a dick," Daisy said after he left the bar.

    "Phil just lost his best friend, Daisy," Natasha said. Her voice was surprisingly gentle for a super spy. "And he lost the idea of him too. Try not to be too angry at him."

    "Well," Daisy said, "Good job defusing the situation, Cap. Score another one for" Daisy put her fists on her hips, "truth, justice, and the American Way."

    "I don''t sound like that," Steve said.

    Natasha raised her right hand and made a space between her finger and thumb, "Little bit, yeah."

 79: Of the World and the Children

    <div>

    All it took was a few bodies. Fury''s had been in several pieces when I checked in on it, but it was his and he was dead. We deleted both his retinal scans. We''d killed a lot of people to be where we were to today - We had ears in half the pockets in the world, eyes everywhere the sun shone, and the major share of the industries of the world counting on us for the supply chain.

    Between PRIDE and Hydra, I had influence over almost all high technology and finance, as well as genuinely expansive access to education - Osiris allowed me to offer almost any level of training in penetrated markets - Those students with Osiris PhD-Equivalents could tutor Americans in any subject that interested them. Blessed be the power of me. Of course, the increasing ease of acquiring skill was lowering the demand value of skilled labor. The lowering of the value of skilled labor meant that wages were going down in high-skill countries as we just uploaded the equivalent of years of machinist experience into whoever we wanted. We had managed to get licensed in Poland, which meant that we could deliver the power of instant learning to people all over the European Union if they wanted to stop by. The Osiris Mining expeditions were simultaneously collapsing the extraction companies on Earth. And Osiris'' entertainment division was picking up all over the world, inserting people into a video game environment.

    In terms of global security, I had ten thousand round a minute machine gun sniper rifles, a fleet of cutting edge planes with energy shields, over two thousand GDT Fireflies. Tony Stark still around, still among the most powerful potential individuals. We had structured a complex set of heavy explosives to be able to Quantum Tunnel them precisely into any position in Earth orbit or atmosphere and blow them up, so Thanos'' ships would explode. We had ten times as many Helicarriers as canon.

    Victory should''ve tasted sweet. I wasn''t enjoying it as much as I thought I would. It was just running through me like water. Not bitter, but as if it were incidental.

    "You going to stare into the distance forever?" Andromeda asked, holding a sleeping Persephone in her arm.

    "I''m just thinking," I said, taking a drink. With an office here, we had good reason to move back to D.C., but I didn''t want to do that - Our support network was almost entirely in Los Angeles and what wasn''t was in Louisiana which, absolutely not, no offense to Louisiana. But Andromeda and Persephone had come along for this trip to give it a test.

    "What''re you thinking about," Andromeda asked.

    "How far we''ve come." I said honestly.

    Unauthorized usage: this narrative is on Amazon without the author''s consent. Report any sightings."You mean the fact that we are on the verge of the dreams of Hydra for the past thousand years," Andromeda said, "Or that your daughter is two?"

    "It''s both," I said, even though it hadn''t been till that moment. Persephone was two years old now and the most precious thing in my whole world. Her vocabulary was, of course, impossibly large - We had to keep her out of the presence of strangers for too long, and the PRIDE and their kids were sworn to absolute secrecy. She had a carefully maintained brown hair and a soft voice and she was very happy that her momma would be able to carry her until she was thirty.

    "Soon," Andromeda said. "South America''s pink tide will ebb and our old contacts are in excellent positions to pick up the pieces, Pakistan, India, and Malaysia will move firmly into orbit. With that much political firepower at your command, we''ll be able to seize control once SWORD handles Thanos. Thanos is coming, right? And SWORD can handle him?"

    "I have no reason to think he''s not," I said. "And I''m optimistic it can." Truthfully, I may have gone overboard. I do not think that the canonical army could''ve held against two thousand burning, flying-teleporting super troops with singularity bombs and targeted machine gun fire support. But I was still hoping we would succeed at finding vibranium in the asteroid belt somewhere and I''d be able to use it with the particle infuser.

    "And Persephone," Andromeda said, "is going to grow up the daughter of the most powerful man in the world. Everybody will know her name and everybody will love her, as precious as she is. The only thing she''s missing is a sibling."

    "It does seem like it''s time," I said, without either much dread or enthusiasm. I would love the baby when it came, of course, I had loved Persephone and she had been a shocking gift. A strange grace, perhaps, from God or fate that I no longer paid much homage to. I hadn''t been to church since I''d beaten Nicole Arden to death with Andromeda''s pistol half a decade ago. Maybe I should go.

    Something old and forgotten inside me cursed me and I knew that I should not.

    "Have some more enthusiasm," Andromeda said.

    "I will be absolutely ecstatic about every step of this process," I swore, "Except the planning part. The making part, the waiting part, the waking in the middle of the night part, I''m sure I''ll love it. The deciding to do it part, it''s like going to the gym. You know it''ll feel good but you don''t want to go."

    Andromeda laughed at that and Persephone rubbed her eyes and started to wake up.

    "If we''re going to have a second kid, we have to stay in Los Angeles," I said definitively. The PRIDE kids were normal, which was something that Persephone badly needed. "Can we name the baby something short next time?"

    Andromeda pursed her lips, "I was thinking Pericles or Psyche."

    I was going to be god emperor of the planet and my children were going to have the dumbest names on it.

 Stephen Strange: Discussing His Future

    Stephen Strange was beginning to get frustrated, placing a flat knife on the table. "I mean how can you bear it? Aren''t you bored?"

    "Why would I be bored?" Christine said, taking a bite of her spaghetti in this lowbrow Italian restaurant she liked so much. It was a hole in the wall, it smelled like grease, and the booth they were sitting in had stained plaid patterns that were absolutely horrendous. But the food did taste good, Stephen couldn''t ignore that, and Christine was a redeeming light in the little den in her shapely blue dress and red hair.

    "We just stick people with that miracle drug and they''re all better, except an occasional tumor that it doesn''t wipe out or a bullet that needs to be extracted first," he said. "It''s the least interesting this has ever been."

    "Stephen," Christine said, "Emergency work is important."

    "They do more interesting work in the morgue," Stephen said, hating himself even for saying it. But it was true, autopsies were more complicated than, ''inject the extremis and then the antidote twenty minutes later''. There was probably more interesting information in the meatballs Christine was eating. "We''re glorified paramedics."

    "You should be more grateful for the health of your patients," Christine said, putting down her fork. Why did she always have to lecture? "But if you''re not enjoying it, you could go into full time research. Everybody''s looking for the next Extremis."

    "They don''t need to," Stephen said, enjoying another bite of his rather good ravioli. "Extremis and the Super Soldier Serum cover everything except death and Osiris has cured that too. Except a swift, hard blow to the back of the head, humanity is truly immortal now." The implications were fascinating in the long-term, but many people - foolish people, in Stephen''s opinion - were still unwilling to sign up for the program. He had been one of the first in line and it was clearly stated as his preference in his living will. Whatever power had made this universe had made some questionable choices and there was no reason to expect the next to be any better.

    Christine frowned and looked down at her bowl. She had not done this, in spite of his urging. It made no sense. "Well, take one of those Osiris courses, be whatever you want, you''re more than smart enough."

    "Have you seen the waiver?" Stephen said, balking at such a reckless idea. "Suicide rates over ten times higher; plus the costs of therapy and other treatments if I have a less severe break. With a memory like mine it could be even worse. No thank you."

    "Look, if you''re not going to try anything else," Christine said, her voice annoyed. "You could at least be grateful that you get paid like a king to be a glorified paramedic."

    "Oh, I''m grateful, gratefully bored. So thankful." He folded his hands in prayer, "Oh, great universe, please, render me ever more obsolescent."

    "Would that be so bad?" Christine asked, as if he hadn''t worked his whole life to get where he was in the medical field. "You could settle down a bit, spend some time on¡­" she smiled playfully. "Us."

    Stephen snorted.

    This was, it swiftly became obvious, not the right move because it got a big scowl and Christine was gripping her fork more like a murder weapon than an eating utensil.

    "You would get bored of me in fifteen minutes," Stephen said, scurrying to correct himself. "Sitting in the living room, drinking a cup of coffee and playing jeopardy along with the TV like some senescent seventy year old."

    Unauthorized tale usage: if you spot this story on Amazon, report the violation.

    "You mean, you would get bored and give up on your obsessively tailored appearance and unquenchable drive to be the center of attention? I don''t know, sounds good to me." Christine shook her head, but her grip on her fork relaxed a little. Yeah, that was good enough.

    "No, no, I would still insist on being the center of attention," he said, continuing to paint his best horror story for her. "I would constantly yell into the kitchen, ''Honey, it''s a ''Who was the last emperor of China in World History for five hundred!'' And then I would insist you came in and see that I had been right and I always would be and it could substitute for my much more interesting award parties that I had taken from me to make time for this curse of dull, boring bourgeoise domesticity."

    "Dull, boring bourgeoise domesticity? That''s what you think of spending time with your girlfriend?"

    "I mean it''s fine for ordinary people, -" He was going to say that they deserved better, he really was, but alas.

    That had not been the right thing to say. The murder fork had been snapped back into her hand and she had raised her hand to their waiter and said, "Check please." The waiter scurried off before he got a full view of Stephen''s glare.

    "Don''t bring the waiters into this," Stephen said. It was embarrassing, if nothing else, a total breach of decorum.

    "Stephen, I just want to go home to my boring, bourgeoise domesticity."

    "What because I said we deserve something more than ordinary people?"

    "No!" Christine said, "Yes!"

    "Well, which is it Christine, it was a yes or no question and I think the answer will effect the diagnosis."

    "The diagnosis is that you''re an asshole," Christine said, putting down her fork and gripping her purse. "And you think you''re better than everyone else."

    "I am better than anyone else," Stephen said. Well, "I mean, maybe not Trent and Hansen and sundry, but I''m better than this middle class retirement."

    "God, you just think that things belong to you because you''re smart. You know what, if you''re bored, you can figure it out by yourself since you''re clearly bored with me."

    Christine stood up and was going to head for the door, so Stephen reached out and grabbed her wrist. "I''m not bored with you."

    "Yeah, well, Stephen, sometimes it feels like we''re only together because you think I''m the only person who''s smart enough to understand how smart you are."

    "Well, you are."

    Christine wrenched free of his grip and dropped a twenty for her half of the meal. "God, Stephen."

    "The world''s a boring place without you," Stephen said as she turned to walk away. And she stopped and turned around and looked him dead in the eye.

    It had been a good line before. But Stephen knew from her face. "You know, Stephen, if you want a puzzle to crack or a challenge, you should try to figure out how Ms. Wizard does whatever it is she does. But even magic probably can''t make your world not revolve around you."

    Stephen pursed his lips, his mind considering the possibility. Magic would be an interesting area of study. Ms. Wizard was notoriously closed mouth, of course, which indicated it might just be parlor tricks with advanced technology, but she could also be the real deal. Magic.

    By the time he got out a, "Good idea" Christine had left and the waiter was coming with the check.

    He would find out the next day that she had died from one of those "hard blows to the back of the head" in a car accident with some jackass who''d turned off his autopilot.

 Garret: Getting Ward on Mission

    <div>

    <div>

    "I''m not pussying out," Ward said, rubbing his temple in his chair. "I just think that we need a man on Captain America. I''m the best one for the job."

    "You don''t gotta marry the guy to keep tabs on him," John said, taking a sip of whiskey. The privileges of rank were warm the whole way down. "I''m not saying you can''t have a few beers with the guy. Probably best if you do. But I need you here, at my side, for what we''re doing. Pierce is retiring soon. The Chief Head says he expects Thanos in the next three years." Learning that the chief head was younger than he was had been a trip, even technically his subordinate. But Trent was a genius, it made sense. Couldn''t complain, especially not in light of all the work he had put in on fixing Garret''s problems.

    "You''ve got a three dozen other super soldiers, you can spare me."

    "God, has he gotten to you? You starting to believe that flag out there gives a shit about you?"

    Ward scowled and shook his head, "No, of course not."

    "Because you''re talking like somebody who''s lost sight of the mission."

    "What mission? Sitting in an office? Collecting trinkets? Dealing with five old ninjas while you did the important work here? You''d told me this would be the hardest thing I''ve ever done. I don''t know what we''re talking about at this point, it seems more like I''m a piece of the scenery."

    "Damn, if I knew a little boredom would send you running off to find young co-eds, I''d have left you to rot."

    Ward got agitated at that, standing up. "You taught me to go where I needed to go, do what I needed to do. Now you''re trying to tell me the best use of my talents is to sell propaganda posters."

    He was a pretty boy, so it certainly helped. "Even Captain America did his time on the propaganda mill. The Fireflies are the face of our New World Order. Unless you think you''ve got something better to do than forward Hydra''s cause?" Frankly, Garrett didn''t give a shit about Hydra''s cause. But Trent was taking them on the upswing and had fixed his health issues, so he was good in Garrett''s book. Besides it was way too late to sign on with some other horse.

    "No, of course not," Ward said, gritting his teeth in a way that suggested he did indeed have better things to do.

    "I''m not going to let your desire to fight your own personal Vietnam with chlamydia get in the way of Hydra''s greater cause. The answer''s no, you stick it out with SWORD." Could super soldiers get Chlamydia? Garrett had no idea. Didn''t matter, it was a funny bit.

    If you stumble upon this narrative on Amazon, it''s taken without the author''s consent. Report it.

    "That''ll damage Cap''s trust in me," Ward said.

    "Make up a good lie or don''t, I don''t give a shit. It''s nice if we have someone looking over his shoulder and that file you slid him seems to have done its work beautifully, but I don''t give a shit what happens to some civilian celebrity. We''ve got hundreds just as good as him." Garrett took another drink of whiskey and savored it.

    "Sir, have you even read my reports?"

    Garrett had gotten them out of the dusty old file where they''d been laying just for this meeting. He pulled open a drawer in his desk and slapped a thick file on top of the desk. "Steve Rogers is one of the most adept, capable members of our team." Garrett said, holding up one sheet of paper. "His dedication and clarity of purpose enable him to spend extended periods in the pursuit of personal excellence." He held up another one. "His real talents are most on display when he engages in strategic and tactical planning, where the only fault is that he sometimes gives more respect to his enemies than they deserve." He held up another one, "Although Steve Rogers has all the qualities that would make him an ideal candidate for Hydra, including a surprising lack of nationalism, his core beliefs are at odds with us and with our interests. Above all else, Steve Rogers believes in the good of other people and in the importance of human liberty to the individual and common good." Garrett mimed gagging at the sheer sentimentality of Rogers'' world view. People were all out for themselves and they might wear this or that color, but it didn''t matter - Deep down, they were all selfish animals, "I''m sorry, I just threw up a little in my mouth. Look, you wanna keep an eye on the guy, fine, I think that''s helpful. But I''m not giving you permission to run off and abandon your post here. We need you."

    Ward tightened his fists and Garrett thought for a moment he might have to re-teach the pup a few lessons about who was the master and who was the apprentice. But the moment passed and he relaxed his hands, "Of course, sir. I''ll do whatever Hydra needs me to do."

    "That''s our world out there," Garrett said, gesturing with his shot glass hand to the window of his office and enjoyed the view for a moment. "It just doesn''t know it yet. Don''t let Rogers get between you and that."

    "Yes sir," Ward said.

    Garrett stood up, "Now that that''s settled, I have some secure information that comes straight from the top I want to share with my right hand man."

    "What''s that?"

    "Word is, Trent found a supply of vibranium in space."

    </article>

 80: Madam Gao Gets The Last Laugh

    <div>

    <div>

    "Madam Gao," I said in Chinese as I approached.

    "Are you my jailer?" Gao said, her voice even and polite. She was a small Chinese woman and she had not bothered to wipe the age from her face.

    "I am." My role as a provisioner for SWORD''s containment division wasn''t exactly public knowledge but it wasn''t a secret.

    Gao kept looking into the distance and not bothering to surveil me much. "Siddhartha Gautama would be impressed with the metaphor I suppose, a prison where our desires are always satiated. I am mostly frustrated it is not the real thing."

    She had shaped the prison to her liking, a monastery village of some sort - Dedicated to the spirit of a great dragon. Kunlun, most likely, though the village was small enough that no signage was necessary, and Gao had felt no need for books or scrolls. "You don''t expect me to believe you knew the Buddha," I said as I sat down in the grass next to her. That she had been his contemporary, sure, that she had coincidentally met him? No. The grass was so close to being right, but it ran against my fingers a little bit wrong. She had been meticulous but my senses were much, much better than hers. Still, the texture for the grass would be a useful export.

    "I do not expect anything of you," Gao said. "But you want something from me which is beyond my conjuring, I think."

    I looked at the old woman, who may well have seen as many millennia as I had seen decades. "I want to know if I should help you break into Kun Lun."

    That got her attention and she looked at me, "Is this avatar the real thing?" She held up a hand and said, "It must be. Only a fool would pretend to be the man who got half a dozen of my men killed and arrested while trying to destroy the world."

    "I don''t think you care about that." There was no way Madam Gao had lived millennia on this planet and not learned to put away a bit of bad blood or realize that mind control victims weren''t to blame. It was irritating for her to pretend.

    "You must learn some manners," Gao said with a sigh. "There is no need for such indelicacy."

    Madam Gao was so full of it, but I reached into my pocket and fished out my Ankh, summoning a traditional tea arrangement from China onto a table next to us. "Tea?"

    "Of course," she said politely, taking her cup and taking a sip. "It''s very good. Everything here is always perfect."

    "You can make something defective if you like."

    "I will take my luxuries," Gao said, "since you have deprived me of company."

    "If you would talk to the historiographers, I''m sure that they would be fascinated to hear your opinions."

    "When you have seen as many dynasties fall as I have, it begins to mix together. Every emperor''s wax paper ego cracks when he realizes that his empire and his powers will not outlive the little woman who visits him."

    I could kill her right now and solve that problem. Heaven knew Gao deserved it. She had her underlings blind themselves. I was fairly sure that from a purely personal cruelty perspective, Gao was the worst of any of my acquaintances. I expected she had heard all that before. And probably, though only probably, she had no idea she was referring to my ambitions in a non-metaphorical sense. Besides, she was right - No global empire I forged would last a millennia. "I''m not an emperor."

    Stolen from its rightful author, this tale is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.

    "My mistake," Gao said, taking a sip. "As to Kun Lun, well, I feel there would be little there for one such as yourself."

    I nodded silently and waited. Gao drank her tea, age and patience were on her side, but I wasn''t going to ask her what she meant. She would explain if she felt like it.

    "Kun Lun is a simple paradise," Gao said as she put down her cup. "When I left there, all those millennia ago, it was not on friendly terms. It still remembers to hate me, even after so long. But my¡­ experimentation¡­ It is humbled by yours. The hatred that it will have for you¡­ impressive."

    I wondered if that was true or if she was just lying to protect her old home. Either way, it contained my answer. She wasn''t going to help me capture Kun Lun for my interests. "Would you be willing to share your alchemy?"

    "Ah, we are running out of a key ingredient," Gao smirked. It was a smug look for a woman saying she might die. "I think you know that, little emperor."

    "I am not an emperor." I hadn''t known that, but I knew they were going to destroy New York for some reason, which was good enough reason to arrest them.

    "You have learned some humility, since that disaster in California. A little patience, a sign of temperance, and you might have been a Senator or a Governor. Now you are a loser. But you no longer seek such acclaim, you learned the temperance you had lacked. I have wondered why."

    "I found other ways to fulfill my desire for public service."

    "You mean power?"

    "Is your intention to spend our conversation insulting me?"

    "Should I be polite to my captor?"

    I just looked at her. I wasn''t going to play this game. I had come too far to grovel and I had come this far to actually learn and gain power, which put a problem between me and her. She knew she was being rude, she had mocked my manners earlier.

    "Little emperor," she said after a long pause. "I, your humble servant, beg your forgiveness. I was merely attempting to offer you the chance at honesty."

    She was very, very rude when she wanted to be. "If you have anything you would like to say, feel free to say it."

    "Little emperor," she said, taking a sip, "you have broken death''s gates, trespassed the celestial spheres, and delivered gold from heaven''s chamber. They will sing songs of you forever."

    I got up to leave. She was now insulting me through flattery and I didn''t need to hear it.

    "But the forest is not broken by a chorus and the people will not answer for a song. You need an ax if you want to bring them down."

    "I don''t want to bring down the forest."

    Gao laughed a little laugh, lowered her teacup onto my conjured table, and closed her eyes. I took that as the end of our conversation and logged out. I took off the helmet and looked over to the camera where we were watching Gao''s body. She had a small smile on her face and I wanted to wipe it off.

    Then I thought of her earlier remark about the wax paper ego of tyrants and I laughed too.

    </article>

 A Day in April, 2016

    <div>

    Jeannette put the coat on, stopped to check her makeup in the mirror, and picked up her purse by the stack of bills on the kitchen table. Thank God for Stark''s arc reactors and the Democrats for breaking those southern power monopolies over their knees, or she''d be in the red already, but she still had a bit of saving from her stocking days and Alex could float them a month or two.

    "Heading out for the interview?" Alex asked, putting down his phone long enough to look up. "You look good." He was still schlubby, but he had a night shift tonight, so she understood.

    "I do," Jeannette said, much more confidently than she felt.

    "Taking the car?"

    "I''ve hailed a Nemo." It was almost two, so surge pricing had probably fallen off by this point, and she might even get a Nemo to herself.

    "Just make sure they know you have a car."

    "It''s such a damn scam," Jeannette said, "You buy something affordable to get to work, they say you''re not environmentally friendly. You take a Nemo, they say your schedule is too flaky. I just want to sit in a nice car that''s not my problem and watch my damn action movies in peace."

    Alex laughed, "You''re not door knocking, Jeannette, you don''t need to get all worked up."

    "Ain''t getting there, I am all worked up," Jeannette said. "Wish me luck."

    "Knock ''em dead," Alex said, going back to his phone as she opened the door.

    She stepped out onto the path outside her apartment and walked down the steps to the gate, where she took out her phone for a moment to fiddle with it. Their data plan was about the only luxury they had these days, so she started skimming news and such. Jeannette tried to stay involved on the local level, especially since she was presently unemployed and the refining plants were closing down in town.

    The Nemo pulled up and Jeannette climbed in, thanking her lucky stars that she hadn''t wound up with any co-riders. The Nemo already knew her destination, so she buckled in and relaxed for the trip, looking up from her phone only to note how close she was getting.

    She made it early, grabbed her purse (You had to remember your purse in a Nemo, the cleaners weren''t paid shit), pressed down on her dress as she stepped out of the car, and walked up to the office. The secretary, a middle-aged white woman with brown hair, greeted her with a smile, "Jeannette Halloway?"

    "That''s me," Jeannette said with her best smile.

    The secretary gave a big grin and said, "Well, you''re a bit early, but it''s two doors to the left, if you''ll go ahead and wait in there, they''ll be with you shortly."

    Jeannette went down the hall and into the room, a bare office with a table with two chairs on one side and one chair on the other. She wasn''t sure which one to sit in and briefly considered waiting standing, but the idea was too mortifying to embrace. She took the chance and sat on the one chair side and waited.

    Stolen novel; please report.

    Two men came in, both white, one young enough to be other guy''s son. The young one was still lean and the other one looked like his wife cooked good food. The young one was probably the other guy''s son, damn nepotism. They were dressed in slacks and button ups, leaving Jeannette to curse herself for having gone with the suit jacket. Overdressed. Definitely overdressed.

    The older guy introduced himself as Greg, the younger guy introduced himself as Michael, the interview followed the normal course. Do you have a car? (Yes) What kind of attitude do you expect to bring with you? (Well, not a bad one, obviously!) How long would you see yourself working here? (Don''t got any plans to be anywhere else, at least five years) What''s your typing speed? (45 words per minute)

    "What do you know about the company?" Greg asked.

    "Clarke Essentials distribute toiletries to about fifteen different companies in town," Jeannette said, "And it keeps an on call plumber, according the Isaacsons."

    "Did you hear about the job through the Isaacsons?" Michael asked.

    "No sir, but you have to do your homework if you want to stay ahead these days." Jeannette had asked around her church and even messaged the local Black Chamber of Commerce to find out what she could about it.

    Michael and Greg exchanged impressed looks. "That''s good homework," Greg said, pursing his lips and leaning back in his chair. "Ms. Halloway, you''re clearly smart and disciplined. Can I ask why you didn''t go to college?"

    "Well, I made it a year and my mom got real sick," Jeannette said. She left out the culture shock of going to UA and the weird attitude she''d caught as a first generation student. "That took precedence. Extremis would clear it right up now, but this was a few years back. She didn''t make it and then it was easier to go back to work than to start a whole new life in college at twenty four."

    "I''m sorry for your loss," Greg said. "Well, would you be interested in pursuing a Osiris educational upload?"

    Jeannette snorted, "No sir," she said, "Sticking whole new memories and thoughts into my head? Ten times the suicide rate? No, sir, not for me."

    "The risks are overstated," Greg said.

    It was only then that Jeannette realized it was going to be a condition of the interview. It wasn''t normal, not yet, but she''d started hearing that businesses were partnering with Osiris to raise the skill level of their labor force without having to pay for college grads. It hadn''t come up in any of her interviews till now. She had to decide if she was willing to take the risk for a job. Ten times the suicide rate wasn''t all that much, but an Osiris education would need to be paid off and two meant you were a hundred times as likely to kill yourself ¨C If Jeannette was going to let some program to muck around in her brain, did she want it to be business and damn toiletries? The idea wasn''t appealing. Better to get it on her own dime, if she had to, or pick a company that might give her electrician or plumbing or teaching skills that she could put to use.

    "It''s just not for me," Jeannette said with a smile.

    The rest of the interview was polite and perfunctory, but she got the result that she expected when they sent her a polite email saying that they had decided to go with another, "ambitious" candidate.

 81: Malayshka

    <div>

    Thankfully, Providence ordained a trial for me in the midst of all this. (I was not thankful)

    "What a strange series of constructions," I said in English, wearing a long sleeve shirt and heavy rain jacket against the blasted Russian weather, raining, windy, and fifty five in freaking May. Take me back to California.

    A strange, alien landscape stretched in front of me, turrets of rubber and plastics, rows of plastic figurines and shaped glass. In the center was a grand, garbage ziggurat papered on every side with posters from old movies. The tiers had an aesthetic sense to them, red, then blue, then green dominated posters ¨C Though not every poster was the same on each level, supply constraints I supposed. An almost elegant, almost ancient city made in a few days from one of the random dumps of moscow.

    "We''ve been monitoring from a distance, as you asked," Konstantin said in Russian. As I had ordered, of course, but we couldn''t admit that in public. Konstantin was President of Russia, a broad shouldered gray giant for his people, and I was a mid-level functionary and this was my actual official function. SWORD, Chair of Research and Education.

    "An AI made this?"

    "We believe so, yes," Konstantin said. "It- she- they? I am not sure what to call the intelligence. But when the garbage men approached, the intelligence was friendly enough. Yesterday you could hear singing."

    "Singing?" An Artiste AI was not¡­ the apocalypse. It was probably fine. It could at least potentially have been fine. It would have definitely been fine

    "Very sweet tones, like lullabies" Konstantin said and I was jealous of his willful imperviousness to the rain.

    "Do we know who made it?" I asked, fairly confident thanks to canon that it was not some alien AI out to subvert our country.

    "A local machinist," Konstantin "Maxim Popov."

    "A¡­ machinist¡­ made" I gestured to the city of trash that had been constructed over the last few days.

    Konstantin gave me a look, "He is one of the Osiris subjects."

    "My apologies, Konstantin." Hydra didn''t like mess. But it looked like I had set off a Russian Tony Stark. We had set up Osiris so that the risks of a rogue AI within it were minimal and we had some basic checkups for subjects mental health, but I hadn''t expected to set off a Gadgeteer. Still, even Tony had required a hard kick for him to be set off. "What was he doing before that?"

    "Top machinist in a local factory, five kids, went home to his wife every night. I guess he just lacked motivation or education."

    Anybody smart enough to build this, even with an Osiris education, was smart enough to have really succeeded in school if he''d ever put his shoulder into it. I mentally shuffled some files around in my brain so that I could check on and- Yeah, Maxim Popov had gotten married at sixteen, had his first kid half a year later, gone to work in a local factory, had an excellent career. Focused on his family, good reputation. I toggled back into Russian fluency, "Love humbles even the greatest men, Konstantin."

    "So it would seem," Konstantin agreed. "If I had built an AI, it would not do this."

    This text was taken from Royal Road. Help the author by reading the original version there.

    "Nobody really builds an AI," I said, "They grow them. Alright, let''s spin up a probe, go talk to the thing."

    "You don''t want to speak with Popov first?"

    "Popov will still be there in a few hours. That over there could be anywhere in a few hours."

    We plugged in a Ken LMD after slipping back into a staging tent. I slid into a chair behind formal controls for the LMD, put on a headset for voice control and grabbed onto the piloting stick.

    The LMD trudged into the recycled city, coated against the rain, and almost instantly a handful of crab like drones were around.

    "Well hello there," the drones said in perfect unison in a friendly, feminine voice, "It''s so good to see you! Do you like our home?"

    "It''s very nice," I said, keeping my tone as level and calm as I was able to. I was speaking to an alien intelligence. They apparently identified as a they. "Who are you?"

    "Oh! Right, silly us, completely forgot to introduce ourself," the drones said. Wiggy hearing it talk from three directions, even through the head said. "We are named- Well, we haven''t really thought about it. Normally we would ask Dad, of course, but we haven''t seen him in a few days. He just calls us Malyshka. But we''re a distributed network intelligence and we help keep the dump safe for our uncle."

    A distributed network intelligence was, as far as things went, capital letters Not Good. Malyshka, baby, seemed fine as far as it went¡­ so far. But too many Marvel movies might be a problem. "Malyshka, have you ever left the garbage dump?"

    "Oh no!" Malyshka said through their various voices. "We wouldn''t want to tresspass! No, no, that''s almost hurting someone! Can you imagine? Hurting people? How awful would you have to be?"

    Technically, they were trespassing, but if their opinion of humanity was presently, ''can you imagine hurting people'' I was not going to disillusion them on that front. "Well, that''s very considerate of y''all."

    "We''re trying really hard to be welcoming!" Malyshka said. "Isn''t what we''ve made pretty? We think it looks so much nicer than it did when we got here. Still working on the smell of course, but we found some thrown away seeds that are very promising."

    "It''s an astounding accomplishment."

    The crab drones did, and this is the honest to goodness truth, a backflip. "That''s so amazing, thank you so much! You know, Dad says our work is good, but he''s our dad, so we wonder if that''s true. Have you seen him? His name is¡­ uh¡­"

    "I''ve spoken with your father," I lied. "He says its good that you''re staying inside the dump and he''ll come see you when he can. His name is Maxim Popov."

    The drones ran around the LMD like dogs excited to see their master. "Yay, that''s so good. It makes us very happy. We''re so glad to hear that. Dad''s name is great. You''re great. Oh, what''s your name?"

    "I''m Aleksandar Yeliseyev," I lied. Now was not the time to start telling the truth. "I just came to check in on you, I''ll be back to visit again soon, it looks lovely."

    "Okay! That''s great, can you tell Dad we love him when you see him? It''s been days and we miss him!"

    "I''ll let him know when I see him, Malyshka," I said and directed the LMD out of the dump.

    I rubbed the bridge of my nose with both hands. This was only going to get messier.

 82: Maxim Popov

    <div>

    The man in front of me represented a real threat to that new order and the first time I had felt real sympathy for the old suppression school of Hydra thought. Middle-aged looking, in decent but not excellent shape, with his graying hair cut short, Maxim Popov looked like the father of five children. He certainly didn''t have the sleek good looks of Tony Stark or me.

    "Mr. Popov," I said, sitting down across from him in the tiny Russian interrogation room. The metal chair was uncomfortable, but he was cuffed to the other end of the table. "Do you have any children?"

    "Six," he said, his voice quiet. We''d been holding him for a few days without charge or communique ¨C There was nothing particularly unusual about that in Russia under Konstantin. But the fact that he said six instead of five told me instantly that my job here was going to be harder than I had hoped. After all, he had only five human children.

    "I have one out here in the world and one inside my wife," I said, keeping my tone as conversational as possible. I slid him a picture, "This is a picture of Persephone."

    "She is a beautiful little girl," Popov said picking up the picture, "I remember when Sariya was that young. Treasure it, they grow up too soon."

    "I don''t get to spend enough time with her," I said, taking back the photo with an open hand. "I spend too much time trying to make sure that she still has a world to grow up in."

    Popov snorted, "Yes, SWORD." He said SWORD in English, which I suppose made sense ¨C You couldn''t possibly make that acronym work in every language. "Two whole alien invasions, three and a half days of active combat and already it has a bigger budget than half of the world''s militaries."

    Thank you for your kind advice Madam Gao, however much it was delivered in the most irritating way possible. I took a deep breath and said, "I can understand your skepticism, but we''ve been working hard to ensure global security on all fronts. We got a hit on the death of a garbage worker, your brother."

    I slid him a manufactured picture of his brother, with wounds that could''ve been produced by Malyshka''s drone.

    He held it in his hand for a second and threw it back in my face, "This is bullshit. If I had a computer, I''d prove it."

    Well, he wasn''t wrong that it was bullshit. I took the picture and slid it back into the file. "The AI in the dump has become rabid, Popov."

    "Malyshka is the gentlest soul I have ever met. No human could match her kindness." Popov said, "She would not tread on even a flower, much less Dmitry."

    Right, well, that might have been exciting for me in a different life, but as the head of a global conspiracy for world domination even a ''good'' AI was a major problem for me. "Mr. Popov, do you know that the creation of an AI is a crime punishable by life in prison?"

    "I know," he said, "I didn''t mean to. I isolated the program from the web, designed the intra-unit network to coordinate them. I wanted my brother to be safer, that was all. When I discovered Malyshka, it was too late ¨C To hurt my own child? I could never do such a thing."

    This tale has been unlawfully lifted without the author''s consent. Report any appearances on Amazon.

    At least she didn''t have internet access. That meant we could still turn her off. "Did you take Malyshka anywhere other than the dump?"

    Popov stared at me for a moment, the gears turning in his mind, and then he straightened himself out and got very stiff. He had figured out that I was trying to figure out how to kill Malyshka and he had gone silent. Which meant that she was still quite killable ¨C The only question was if she really confined to the dump. She had said she was and given her other temperamental traits, it seemed unlikely that she was going to exit the dump independently and it seemed unlikely given Popov''s precautions that he had taken her outside of it.

    "Thank you for your time, Mr. Popov."

    "No!" he cried, his voice begging, "Please, Mr. Trent, don''t hurt Malyshka."

    I looked at him for a moment and debated ¨C Popov''s mind was an invaluable resource, but I was about to make an enemy of him and I had little choice in the matter. I looked at him for a moment and lied, "We will do everything in our power to make sure it doesn''t come to that."

    The idea of Malyshka was promising - An AI that was intelligent and relatively beneficent. But Malyshka had several faults. First of all, I had no idea what was the upper limit of their power - Malyshka could, in theory, have a core in every computer connected to the internet in the space of time it took to download a ROM. Second, Malyshka was a person and I had met their father and spoken with Malyshka themselves - And Malyshka despised hurting people and wanted to support her family. The family could be given a comfortable place in the structures of the world, that wasn''t an unfixable problem. But despising hurting people... Well, needless to say Hydra couldn''t work with that. I couldn''t work with that, either, and Andromeda couldn''t work with it, and while I''m sure Malyshka would put Persephone in a nice foster home, that wasn''t what I wanted. Hydra was deep, deep in the shadows, but if some AI god empress started watching through our phones, we''d probably crack - My subordinates didn''t have perfect discipline even if they had a shocking amount. That was all assuming that Malyshka stayed a warm and beneficent being and didn''t lose it at the stress of human suffering and decide to put us all out of our misery.

    This added up to one thing.

    I walked out of the cell to Konstantin and we made our way down the hall for a few moments before I spoke, "SWORD will want authorization from you to strafe the park."

    "Of course, Michael," Konstantin said.

    "We''re going to use a multistep process ¨C First, we''ll a series of electromagnetic pulses over the area, then we''ll use the Helicarriers to shred all the visible ground units, at that point I want the domestic SWORD units to sweep and kill anything that looks like it might be a unit for Malyshka, and then we''ll deploy an implosion device large enough to engulf the area."

    "You will have Russia''s support," Konstantin said with agreement.

    "And then, and only then, I want you to make sure that Popov is dead in the right way that it convinces the world when we tell them we liquidated Malyshka because she killed her creator."

    It was a pity that we had to kill Popov but I didn''t want some genius tier super-rival. At the end of the week, when the news reports were running the story, ''Rogue AI kills Creator, SWORD saves Moscow!'' and we were re-calibrating our Osiris program to more clearly condemn AI production in all its potential permutations, I was left to conclude that Gao had been right - I had needed an ax.

 83: The Future of Hydra

    <div>

    The table raised their glasses with me, every head of Hydra was there. Few of them understood how close we had come to desolation with Malyshka. To them, mostly old people with old ideas, an AI was an interesting phenomena. But a world in which Malyshka was god empress, for good or ill, would''ve been a world where we and our power was no more.

    We had gathered to celebrate Pierce''s retirement. "To the man who led us to this moment, who has put into our hands the power, prestige, and the weaponry we need to achieve our desire, a toast to Alexander Pierce!"

    The table all took a drink. Garrett was here, Pierce''s new replacement as Secretary of SWORD. We hadn''t managed to get me placed as Director, as nice as that would''ve been, and I''d rejected Ward out of hand ¨C Too young. So instead, the position went to an old friend ¨C Arnold Jacobs, my very first upload. I had installed a variety of controls on his body, none of which had come up yet, but which would prove useful to me in the event that I needed to have a finger on the trigger.

    "I know we''ve all had to be patient for a long time," I said after the drink. "I know I am asking you to be patient a little longer. I know that is frustrating. But we are moving into the final phases of our plans. Within the year, I have good reason to hope that Hydra will have control, legal or practical, in Brazil, India, Argentina, Chile, and Pakistan. With that base, we''ll have a comfortable staging area for the coming general war."

    "Why not act at the end of the year?" the Baroness said, "Why are we continually fighting for a future invasion that may never come?"

    The problem with having subordinates who control your fate is that you have to actually treat them with respect. "I understand the desire," I said. "I am impatient too. But we cannot afford to reassemble the remaining militaries of the world in the amount of time we have till Thanos gets here."

    "Why are you so certain that Thanos will get here at all?"

    "I am certain," I said, "because I have a supernaturally acute brain and the will to carry out my plans, Baroness. I know what he seeks, I know he must come here, and I want us to be ready for him."

    "What if he doesn''t come in 2018, what if he comes in 2024? Won''t it be better for us to have gone ahead of him?"

    "Odin and I spoke on the matter and I am quite confident he will get here by March of 2019."

    "And if he is not?"

    "Then we''ll enact the global merger at that point and take what comes."

    ---

    "It''s just such a pity that intelligent people aren''t going to be able to get an education in computing if that''s their interest," Radcliffe said as we hooked up the Particle Infusion Chamber. "Shouldn''t we be maximizing that output? Our digital worlds are already more expansive than our physical one, whole new frontiers, completely under our control. All reward, no risk."

    "Well," I said, grabbing the containment box and shifting it into place. "It helps me direct education away from AI and believe me, I dealt with the one in Moscow. It was a mess." We''d taken to an IQ testing and if someone''s IQ reached into the ''not really testable'' range, which was substantially earlier than a Stark or me level subject, and IQ tests were variable, we''d lock them out of computer programming and engineering. Stark level intellects generally were not a problem for me, I''d have been happy to have one solving agriculture or spaceships, but I didn''t want to deal with Rogue AI 2.0. Especially because the possibility of them being worse than Malyshka was pretty strong, to be honest.

    "So, what''re we pumping into this guy?"

    "Vibranium," I said. It was actually treated vibranium. In its unaltered state, vibranium is fiercely difficult to deal with ¨C It''s basically an explosive in its untreated state. It doesn''t explode itself, of course, but it sends out force waves if you press on it too hard. Very unpleasant for my miners to discover, we''d actually lost a couple drones when we found out. But, with a few months of chemical testing and treatment as well as notes from the thirties, I had managed to resolve vibranium to roughly the state of Cap''s shield. Then I had figured out, through another few months of treatment, how to null state it so that it could be transported at high speeds and now we were testing it to see if it would still be possible to administer Extremis while also using that function.

    "How''d you get Wakanda to spit it up?" At this point, the knowledge of Wakanda''s vibranium excess was not a secret, but there wasn''t much to be done ¨C Wakanda had air and ground superiority on a man to man level, so unless people wanted to occupy it with millions of their domestic troops, they could forget about it.

    The author''s content has been appropriated; report any instances of this story on Amazon.

    "I didn''t, we''ve had the Plutonian looking for it for ages," I said. "I''m hopeful it forms the basis of a permanent improvement to the Fireflies. Near invulnerability to non-sonic attacks, hyper-regeneration and fire damage, and the perfect health state of the Super Soldier Serum, rolled into one perfected human form. The next stage of human evolution, something that will elevate us into the sphere of Asgardians." Honestly, it should put us above the Asgardians, since Thor hadn''t instantly headcapped Cap in the first Avengers movie.

    "Impressive," Radcliffe said, "When is this stuff going public?"

    I made a face, "The governments of the world live in fear that their citizens won''t be subjects of their violence." I did too, at this point, but there was no point telling Radcliffe that. Ultimately, in the medium term, I was going to have to get over it ¨C Equip police with sonic weapons like Okoyae''s staff, accept that humanity was now largely immune to violence. But I was going to take over the world first, then give people super-powers. Priorities.

    "I understand using government money to fund your own interests," Radcliffe said, checking over a screen that managed the Particle Infusion Chamber, "but why haven''t you focused more on shielding?"

    "We''ve got some of the basics up," I said, giving the casket like metal container a few more visuals checks. "Some individual ships have basics for intercept with meteors, stuff like that. But the energy supply for a full city is genuinely wild, basically an arc reactor unto itself."

    "Can''t you cut it down?"

    I grimaced and turned away from the machine, "I''m trying, obviously I''m trying, but dense energy supplies is a pretty core part of the problem."

    "You could ask Stark for his help," Radcliffe said, "All good here, looks like the system thinks it should work perfectly."

    "Tony''s good for it," I admitted, "But his company''s construction is stretched to the limit without a lot more funds. And given that the previous alien invaders have simply appeared within city limits¡­"

    "The governments of Earth don''t want to dole out billions more for no added benefits."

    "Right." I thumbed at the door, "I''ll go get Alexander."

    Alexander Mason was a low-level Hydra agent who we''d promoted from agent to new Firefly in the post-Fury exodus. It helped that I put my thumb on the scale after having embarrassed in front of his peers a few years ago. We all need to maintain positive relations with subordinates. But he had the benefit of not yet having received an administration of Extremis, which made him an ideal candidate. He was a tall guy, having received his Super Soldier Serum, with the standard adonis muscles. The same-y-ness of the serum didn''t manage to override his actual fashion sense, which many of our supersoldiers lacked. We were in a really samey place with our supersoldiers. Needed more women recruits, in my opinion.

    "Alright Alexander, this is probably going to hurt, so buck up and deal with it."

    "Yes sir," Alexander said reverently. My position as chief head was not public knowledge, but that I had navigated us to full control of SWORD and the global security apparatus was, so people had their suspicions.

    He stepped into the machine and Radcliffe and I listened to him scream as the process started going.

    "Shouldn''t we do something?" Radcliffe asked.

    "Look, I''ve done a lot of these procedures, rewriting cells hurts like nothing else apparently. If he goes quiet, I''ll turn it off." If the machine took proper effect, Alexander would absorb the qualities and attributes of the metal we were infusing him with - Vibranium, the most versatile metal on earth. I wondered if it would create a normal looking skin or if it would look like vibranium.

    He never did, it took about five minutes for the full effect to finish off and then the machine to split open. An exhausted, almost heaving Alexander - no visual difference - fell forward out of the machine, hitting the ground with a thunk and a wave of blue force burst out from him. That was promising.

    I ran forward and checked his pulse, to feel the rapid pounding of his heartbeat inside his neck. "Alexander, are you awake?"

    "All-" he winced and rolled over pushing himself off the ground and into a cross legged position. "All good, sir."

    "Alright kid, we''ll finish testing tomorrow, rest for now."

    The next day we discovered that we could null the vibranium''s protection through the application of the appropriate sound waves and the day after that we discovered he was still compatible with the Extremis serum.

    I don''t want to say that I had single-handedly outdone millennia of Terran evolution, but I had brought it together quite well.

 84: Gert Talk

    <div>

    Gert looked down and blushed in a way that interacted with her newly purple hair weirdly, "Sorry," she said. "Um, I guess ¨C Uh ¨C I wanted some relationship advice."

    "Well," I said, leaning against the counter and thinking. "I''m not sure I''m the best adviser ¨C Andromeda approached me."

    "That''s actually why," Gert said. "She said she was insecure about her looks before the serum and I was wondering why you were interested?"

    It didn''t seem appropriate to tell her that it was a failed honey pot trap to obtain access to SHIELD. Well, it had succeeded in the end. How to tell Gert something like the truth, in a way that would be helpful to say. "First of all, whatever Andromeda thought at the time, a poorly kept secret is that men are a horny bunch. Men find women attractive. So, uh, I wasn''t unaffected by Andromeda''s appearance. But, if you''re asking me why Andromeda when I could''ve had anybody I wanted, it wasn''t looks. She sparked an interest. We had a fun conversation, shared interest in foreign policy. I was intrigued by her shadowy government job."

    Gert laughed, "Okay, shared interest in foreign policy is good news for me."

    So it probably wasn''t Chase. "Oh, do I know the guy?"

    "No, no, a guy from school ¨C Well, we met up at one of the sympathy marches for Chile, but he goes to my school."

    Dominoes had started falling in South America and our old friends in Chile had managed to scrounge up the forces for a coup in Chile. General Salcedo, a long-time asset, had emerged President Salcedo and a Hydra member, so we had a foothold in South America. It had been clean enough. Salcedo''s enthusiasm for SWORD and happiness to align with the United States and Russia internationally,

    Unfortunately for us, the American people weren''t completely asleep at the wheel ¨C Partially, this was a form of political boredom, but there were people with real commitments to it who were doing a good job turning those bored college students into proper members of a mass movement. Apparently, including Gert.

    "That''s nice," I said.

    "You don''t think it''s nice," Gert observed. She was blunt in this instance. I was beginning to suspect I might have been tricked into this conversation. Deceit, it isn''t about being good at lying. It''s about trust. If I''ve said once, I''ve said it a hundred times.

    "The situation with Salcedo is complicated," I said, without bothering to lie about it. Maybe she would just let me skate out of this conversation without a confrontation.

    "Things are complicated when you arrest the sitting President on false charges, yeah, lies are complicated."

    "Salcedo''s predecessor really was corrupt," I said. Which was¡­ true enough for my purposes. Chile''s government was never exactly clean.

    "So he took a few bribes and that makes it okay for the military to oust him?"

    "It was a crime," I pointed out.

    Gert was getting mad, she was frowning and glaring. "This is all just an exercise in excuse making to you, isn''t it?"

    The story has been illicitly taken; should you find it on Amazon, report the infringement.

    "Look, Salcedo''s predecessor, my opinion on the legitimacy of his arrest isn''t relevant. I''m an American, our well-meaning interventions in Latin America don''t exactly have a great track record."  This was all obviously an exercise in excuse making. My nature as an opportunist meant I didn''t feel deeply that Salcedo should be doing. The support his government is giving to SWORD, the opening up to the Osiris Education system, all of it will help make the world to be more prepared for our interstellar problems. But it would also help me and mine, personally.

    "I don''t think any of those interventions were really well meaning," Gert said.

    Girl had a point, but also this wasn''t well meaning either. I did think an aggressive policy of uplift and improvement would massively improve the well-being of the Chilean people, especially as most of their extraction and mining programs were falling in future estimated value as the Plutonian proved to be more than able to extract sufficient shares of any metal that struck our fancy. But I wasn''t doing it for Chile, I was doing it for the future world that we would build from this one.

    "Gert, I have to work with his government, I have to work with every government on the planet." Persephone was getting a little fussy, so I turned my head toward her and kissed her. "It''s alright Persephone."

    "So, you just do what is convenient to you?"

    God, Gert was preachy. Had I been like this as an activist? I probably had been. "I just do what I have to do to protect this world and your family and my daughter, Gert. It''s not all clean and simple," I said, reining in my irritation. "I understand that there are good reasons to oppose Salcedo''s government. But I have a responsibility. It''s not convenient to take that seriously, you know how often I have to be gone."

    Gert managed to look a bit contrite at that, looking down at floor. "I shouldn''t have said it was just convenience. But, Mike, I know that there are reasons why you do these things, but there are good reasons not to do them too."

    I shrugged my shoulders. "Maybe so." I didn''t love ending an argument with a deflection, but I also had to recognize that Gert was just acting concerned with what her friends were concerned with. "You going to ask out the boy?"

    "Yeah," Gert said, "Uh, to be honest, I had kind of decided to before I talked to you. But it was a big encouragement!"

    "Gert, I am one of the smartest men on the planet. I figured that out."

    "Sorry!" Gert said, grabbing her hands nervously. "I just¡­ You''re, you know, a really big deal and people listen to you and I''m just a kid, but I felt like I had this- I was in a really special position as someone who was able to talk to you and maybe try to convince you- And so I did. Are you mad?"

    Was I mad? I was a little mad. But Gert was my daughter''s babysitter and my friends'' daughter and her opinion didn''t really matter in the long run as long as she didn''t get dead set against me, which clearly wasn''t going to be helped if I said I was mad. "No, I''m not mad."

 85: The Royalty of Attilan

    <div>

    Now I was interrogating Medusa, Queen of - apparently - the fucking moon. Not in person, obviously, but over a screen with her in a secure holding cell. "So, your brother in law is a creep and he conducted a coup against your husband."

    "Yes," Medusa said, her red hair shorn short. That had been Maximus, her brother in law.

    "Well, I''ll certainly be contacting him for his side of the story." More bluntly, I didn''t care which particular band of oligarchs ruled the moon or what their issues were. I just wanted a peaceful neighbor who kept their mouth shut.

    "Maximus does what he does because his wounded ego cannot bear that he is one of you," Medusa said.

    "Well, you''re¡­ not very good at this. I, Michael Trent, represent humanity at large." I pointed at myself and held up a finger. "You, Medusa, are a non-human sapient of extraterrestrial origin." I held up another finger next to it. "That means that SWORD, which I work for has complete discretion on your life and existence." I put down the finger that represented Medusa.

    "I''m not scared of your threats," Medusa said, stiffening her spine with the sort of pride I well knew from being a powerful, unquestioned leader. Gao was right, whenever you saw it from the outside it was visibly pathetic and stupid.

    "You should be. Especially as your exist on the moon, the ''rightful property of all mankind'' which we hold on the moon. What that means is that if I wanted to find and nuke your little space hovel, I could."

    Medusa lurched backward in her cell, staring at the screen, "You humans are all the same. There is something stronger, different, better than you and you decide that it has to be destroyed or enslaved."

    "I am only concerned with what is beneficial to humanity. You are a ruler, or the spouse of one, you should understand that. I think the Fireflies could easily put your husband back on the throne, welcome you into the family of nations, maybe even give you a few yourself."

    "And the price would be?"

    "I would want your more exotically and dangerously empowered to work with us here on Earth in the event of an invasion. We would require the release of everything you know about inhuman physiology and Terrigenesis, as well as a list of powers that you presently have and identifying markers. We would want to be able to compare and copy your tech knowledge, so that our own space capabilities could be brought fully up to snuff."

    "You''re talking about vassalage," Medusa said, her voice angry.

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    She wasn''t wrong. "Listen," I said, trying to put a positive spin on it for her benefit. "Humanity is growing. We can deliver material riches, abundant air and water to your city, help you expand Attilan and continue to terraform the moon. We can even give you eternal digital life. But you''re not going to be allowed to enter our system without sharing."

    "Well if the chains are made of gold..." Medusa said, not very impressed with my offer.

    "A few years of military service and then a lifetime on emergency call is not slavery, Queen Medusa, it is an offering to show that you''re interested in working with us."

    Medusa shook her head, "Inhumanity will not be enthralled to humanity. We broke the chains of Earth to do it, we will not return to them."

    "Very well. Good day, Queen."

    ---

    It had taken very little time to get Maximus on the line once I started broadcasting a message along the lines of, ''We''re willing to solve your problems, get in touch!'' at the moon for five minutes.

    "I would be willing to accept your proposal," King Maximus said. He was a young guy, younger than me, with black hair and a beard. "And those are the terms? Military service, our biological and technological knowledge, in exchange for abundant air and water and aid in the construction of expanded domes." The sub lightspeed communication was causing a five second lag.

    "That''s about the size of it, King Maximus" I said, grateful to be dealing with someone who could see mutual benefit when it hit him in the face.

    "I would only add¡­" King Maximus said, as if considering carefully. "That I would like to be one of the subjects of the Firefly procedures."

    "It''s down to your discretion which twelve Attilans get the position," I said, smiling. "If you want to be an invincible god king, well, I have no problem with that, at least."

    "And that''s it ¨C I sign on the dotted line, Attilan joins a mutual protection treaty with earth and shares our technological advances in space habitats and agriculture, and you render me into a nearly invulnerable demigod and give me the ability to take my people out of the mines." Maximus looked like he couldn''t believe his luck.

    "The procedure hurts a lot?" I offered, trying to convince him it wasn''t too good to be true.

    "I have suffered my entire life," he growled. I held up my hands in surrender. "I want my brother and the royal family to stay imprisoned and I want their imprisonment to be a secret."

    Man, the drama these people brought to their disputes for power. I didn''t care what we did with the existing Inhumans, except the knowledge that Black Bolt''s sonic attack would be a problem for the Fireflies. Thank goodness for that old fashioned, heroic restraint the king had or he might have been a problem. Now we had him hooked up to a Osiris cell like Gao''s. "That''s fine, we can do that."

 86: Konstantins Wages

    <div>

    "I apologize," Konstantin said, "I wish it were cleaner."

    There was still blood in the slush of Moscow''s street, even as we and an honor guard of Hydra guards walked with us. The earlier riots had been messy, disorganized, and we''d sent in agents to mess it up. They''d picked a fight with the Moscow police, who were in turn able to drive them out. "Can''t you raise wages more?"

    "The problem is deeper than one employer''s cheapness," Konstantin said, sighing as he marched along in his Russian coat. "The research boom has crested, now people who get the treatment get paid like college graduates and college graduates get paid like high school and so forth. It is all pure economic logic."

    Pure economic logic was no excuse for failure to handle their domestic affairs. If I had to deal with this forever, we were never going to conquer the world. "We don''t have this sort of problem in Pakistan or Brazil, Konstantin, and they just overthrew their own governments. It is not as if the Russian people are legendarily rebellious. Just make the numbers go up, do what it takes."

    "They are angry because other people don''t think they''re worth enough, but they are not worth enough. No one will pay them more, not for yet another Osiris graduate."

    Konstantin''s excuses were pathetic. "You have free energy, excellent educations, and a miracle cure for ninety percent of human ailments, and you couldn''t stop them from rioting in the streets for better wages." I kept my hands tucked in my pockets against the cold, the only thing keeping me from pointing my finger in the face of the President of Russia.

    "They are angry that I couped Putin, angry that I haven''t held elections, angry that their wages are declining in relative value, angry at friends they''ve lost to Osiris. But somebody still must sweep the streets and clean the toilets, another PhD in plumbing will not solve the problem."

    I smelled the blood copper on the air and wondered if the problem was in fact being solved. "Should I take the Attilan royal family out of Siberia? Are you going to lose control there too?"

    "No," Konstantin grumbled, his burly shoulders sulking at my tone. Being in charge was nice. "They''re quite safe. The sleeping beauties are sleeping quite fine, even if they wake up, they are quite isolated and there is only a two way communicator with the capital, so they could call and talk to you if they did."

    A limo pulled up and a member of our guard rushed to open the door for us.

    "Alright, good. Tell me good news. How''s suppression going?" I said, stepping into a limo. The warmth was a huge relief to me, creeping into my skin and body.

    Konstantin managed a smirk as he stepped inside, "Your false flag rallies were a wise move. Our security forces were able to sweep up thousands through Facebook groups and such."

    "Good," I said.

    "And we kept the cameras clear from the area, downed their phones signals just like you said. A few made it home, uploaded from there, but we caught it before it got too much spread. The movements are losing momentum, less people are joining them beneath the suffocating blanket."

    I leaned back in the seat and pried my hands out of my pockets, taking off the thick gloves that were gracing them. "So we''re getting to being in the clear," I said, feeling the relief unspool the wire in my stomach. If Russia failed as an experiment, we were going to have real problems. I didn''t honestly have a back up plan to the model of improvement we were doing there ¨C Education, energy, health, and a truly massive amount of subsidized entertainment were basically the only way forward for us. It was unfortunate that this wave had sprung up, but if we could practice our counter-propaganda and information disassembly, we could continue to put down movements like this and do so in better, smoother ways each time. There was still plenty of time to master the strategies we would need and, with the benefits of the all-seeing eyes of SWORD, we could keep a track on things.

    Did you know this story is from Royal Road? Read the official version for free and support the author.

    "Things are looking up, though we could use more funds to ease the economic situation."

    "We are reaching the limit of my clout in the U.S.," I said, "And Europe isn''t interested in bailing you out. We have money going to emmulate the farming techniques of Attilan, which should make food here and elsewhere cheaper."

    Konstantin scowled, "They are not starving. They still receive a wage."

    "Well, it isn''t as if we can subsidize the whole country''s wages from debt," in fact, as a coup government, Konstantin had a bit more trouble receiving it. "You could expropriate some of your oligarchs. You could simply mandate a wage increase."

    Konstantin shook his head, "The ones who opposed us, we already did that. The wages are as high as I can push them without a backlash from them."

    "You need to manage to hold onto this for two more years," I said, rubbing my hands red to warm up from the call. "Until Hydra gets control of the first world''s excess production, we''re not going to be able to subsidize whole countries, especially not ones as large as Russia. Once that happens, we''ll be clear sailing."

    "It is difficult."

    Why did I have subordinates who thought ruling the world would be easy? One of the problems with ruling through people like Konstantin is that while he was an expert in palace intrigue and not actually that great at public politics. I suppose you could say the same about me, but at least I had enough brain in my skull to know to raise wages. "I understand that, Konstantin. Even Tsar Nicholas the Second managed to beat the revolution of 1905, Konstantin. He ruled for twelve more years ¨C You only need to make it two. Ensure that the FSB is sufficiently funded, run infiltrators, keep me updated, but do not expect to float on Hydra''s ticket. You must manage to appear to be doing what the people want, at the very least, and preferably to actually do it. Do not be afraid to burn a few assets in the service of this goal. After all, if you fail, you will have nothing. Hydra will have nothing. We are counting on you."

    I looked at my phone and saw the number rolling in from the midterms. For some god-forsaken reason the Republicans had managed to take back the house - At least Ellis had managed to contribute to navigating the uplift in America. The House Republicans hadn''t had any power for six years. I sighed and looked out over the wintry, slushy Russian streets. No matter how much better people''s lives were because of you, they couldn''t learn to be thankful.

    In the next weeks, the riots in Russia would calm down and Konstantin would find his feet as a sympathetic public figure, so I was spared having to completely restructure my plan. But we were more careful in our roll out of Osiris thereafter, and the experiment in government subsidies came to an end even in Russia. Sometimes, you had to check your ambitions to achieve your ambitions.

 Steve Rogers: 2017

    <div>

    "Her name, Mother of Exiles," said a familiar woman''s voice from behind him, "from her beacon-hand glows world wide welcome."

    "Daisy," Steve said, feeling a smile form on his face as turned around to see Daisy in a business casual blouse and slacks, holding a cup of coffee in her own hand. And then he saw the press badge and the smile fell off his face. "What''re you doing here?"

    "Oh, don''t get so defensive," Daisy said, taking a sip of her coffee. "Not here for a story, just getting some coffee, checking the view."

    "Nat tell you it was good?" Steve asked.

    "Nah, the fact that I saw you as I was walking by did," Daisy said, plopping down into the empty chair across from him.

    "Please, sit down," Steve said, closing his drawing book.

    "I knew you wouldn''t mind," Daisy said, slumping back in the chair. He didn''t mind, though he still thought it was a little rude. At least Daisy treated him like a peer and not something between a holy relic and a grandpa. "How''s art school going?"

    "Good," Steve said. The kids at the art school definitely did not treat him like a peer. To be fair, he thought of them as kids, so tall talk from him on that front. "Did the Johnsons come through that way?"

    "Don''t know," Daisy said, "You know my dad''s a bit unstable, we exchange letters, haven''t thought to ask. The Rogers?"

    "No," Steve said. In a lot of ways, Daisy''s family situation was the opposite of his own ¨C By the age she''d met them, he had buried his. "The Rogers have been in New England since the Mayflower or near enough, got my middle name from my Grandpa, named for the general his dad fought under. His dad''s name was Andrew, his dad''s name was George, you get the picture. Mom''s family were German, got here in time to see the statue. She said it was the most stunning sight she''d ever seen. To be fair, she was six at the time, not a lot of competition."

    Daisy looked at Steve and her forehead creased, the sort of look people got whenever they remembered everybody he''d loved was dead or in a nursing home, made Steve feel like a wounded lion. "She must''ve been cool."

    "Yeah, she was. Would''ve liked that you remembered the line from Lazarus. Made me memorize the whole thing."

    "She wasn''t offended by the line about wretched refuse?"

    Steve laughed at that. He hadn''t even thought of that, but it did sound a little suspect when you thought about it. "Mom hated Europe, said it was, well," he took a sip of his drink rather than reference it directly. It was a low opinion, didn''t need to be repeated. "Part of why her family came. Immigrants had it real tough back then, although at least they weren''t Irish. She liked that the statue said everybody was wanted, everybody belonged. Except aristocrats. Mom didn''t like aristocrats, either."

    Daisy grinned, "Yeah, keep that storied pomp!" A comfortable silence stretched for a moment before Daisy got very serious again. "How''re you really doing?"

    "I''m doing okay," Steve said, holding up his sketchbook. "Grab a drink with Ward every week, Nat stops by when she''s in town. Visit Peggy when it''s my turn to make it to D.C. Draw mostly full time, I can always sell it, get a bit better every day. Life''s not bad."

    "You''re bored shitless huh."

    "Language."

    "Sorry," Daisy said, actually managing to blush a little bit.

    "At least you don''t treat me like a preacher all the time." Steve said, feeling badly for having embarrassed her. "I''m bored, yeah. How about you, how''s life as a muckraker treating you?"

    "Oh gosh," Daisy said, "The expectations have been so high! I mean, Rising Tide blew open SHIELD. So I got this job doing investigative stuff and I''m okay at it, whistleblowers trust me, but I just constantly feel a little bit outclassed. Like, I''m not supposed to break into buildings or round house kick people routinely any more, but those are some of my best skills."

    "I know exactly that feeling," Steve said.

    "Here''s to us," Daisy said, holding up her cup over the table. "May we find some buildings that need breaking into!"

    Steve gave her a look.

    "What? Too aggressive? Alright fine, here''s to us," and then she motioned to him to finish it out.

    Steve held up his cup and said, "May we be put to good use,"

    "May we be put to good use!" Daisy agreed, knocking her cup into his.

    ----

    "Woh, okay," Steve said holding up his hand to Ward after they reached the end up of the lap. The grass of the park was green in the early summer light. "I think that''s all the running I can do."

    "Take away the Extremis and this is what is left," Ward said, shaking his head and coming to a full stop.

    "Your feet are also made of vibranium," Steve said, sitting down, soaked in sweat. "But I don''t miss the shots."

    "Nobody misses the shots," Ward agreed, plopping down next to him. "Do you miss the service?"

    Steve shook his head, "I haven''t missed out on anything important, don''t miss fighting some random schmucks for some minor international grievance."

    "I get it," Ward nodded. "The fire''s kind of gone out of the work for me."

    Steven grunted. Ward had mentioned a few times that Garrett was being a, well, that he was being difficult. Garrett was like a father to Ward, had taken him in when he''d had nobody ¨C Steve got how important that was, even if the dynamic with Bucky had been different. "I''m sure you could find other work, but I doubt you will."

    "No," Ward agreed, looking out over the park. "I''m doing okay ¨C I''m junior team lead under Rumlowe, so it''s decent. Lot of drills. Not a lot going on really ¨C All quiet from our perspective. There are domestic political disputes, but SWORD doesn''t get involved in those."

    The story has been taken without consent; if you see it on Amazon, report the incident.

    Steve watched as people ran past them, "Been a lot of those recently."

    ---

    "Hey you guys," Daisy said, sliding into the booth next to Nat, "Sorry I''m late. Things have been crazy with India." The big Italian restaurant was Ward''s choice, a sort of elegant, upper-classish establishment that Steve could only afford because his artwork sold.

    India had been the latest government to slide into authoritarianism and Steve saw Nat sag visibly at the mention of it. They all felt a little beat down. It had been a bad couple of years for democracy. Even Ward looked uncomfortable and he mostly shrugged off that sort of thing, his disgust with politicians overriding everything else.

    "It sucks," Steve said, by way of greeting, "We get it. Need a drink?" Daisy was the only one of them who could get drunk, so they''d gone ahead and ordered her a wine when she was late. It happened, Daisy''s work was important, Steve got it. It made him increasingly frustrated, even, since he was mostly sitting around drawing and waiting for the world to end.

    "Yes," Daisy said, grabbing the wine and taking a chug of it.

    "Slow down there killer," Ward said, his voice amused.

    "Mm," Daisy held up a finger and kept drinking for a long second before she put her drink down. "Not a killer, don''t tell me what to do."

    "Alright, well, if you drink it that fast, you miss the taste."

    "Taste," Daisy said in a terrible high English accent, grabbing a napkin to dab her mouth, pinching it in a very lady-like way for Daisy, "Is an inferior substitute to insobriety, with which you super-soldiers must console yourselves."

    "Her sentences are getting so much longer and more complex," Ward said to Nat.

    "She''s got word counts," Nat said knowingly.

    "Glad to have you with us, Daisy," Steve said, elbowing Ward in the side. To his regret. He kept forgetting that Ward was basically made of the same stuff as Cap''s old shield. He snorted at Steve and shook his head.

    "It''s so frustrating," Daisy said, immediately launching into a rant. "They do all this marching and complaining and they point out corruption and they get nothing. Heartwood might bestir herself to put something through committee but the Bipartisan Blob just chokes it right out again. America is watching democracy die right outside its window and it isn''t even doing anything. One and a half billion people have lost the right to determine their own leadership in less than a year. America needs to stand up and doing something about that, not put it off in the name of expediency."

    Steve looked down at his drink. Daisy''s words were a reminder of that promise he''d made to himself when Roosevelt talked about the arsenal of democracy. He felt like he should do something ¨C But these weren''t wars, he couldn''t sign up to go fight and that might have been a war crime anyway. Plus, Steve had the weight of a responsibility now, he needed to consider how his actions might reflect on the country.

    Oh that was a lot of nonsense. He needed to stop making excuses and start standing up for what he thought was right.

    "Daisy, when''s the next march here?"

    "You''re gonna go?" Daisy said, suddenly very hyped up. "It''s Friday, the organizers are whipping it together as fast as they can."

    "I''m going," Steve said, "As myself. Not as Captain America. Just a guy."

    Daisy nodded, "That''ll work."

    ---

    The crowd was big ¨C Steve didn''t think it was big enough. He couldn''t see everyone, but he knew enough about group estimation that he thought there were thousands and thousands out for the sympathy march with India''s democracy to the United Nations building in New York. There were a bunch of people out, anti-SWORD signs, anti-IMF signs, signs with what were to Steve ominous slogans like America First, and just a ton of signs that said things like, ''how long till it happens here?''

    Like a lot of protests, it had a vaguely party atmosphere and there was a loose camaraderie that might attain to the feeling of a picket line in a good moment. But these people were all still too disparate, nobody knew anybody, and it seemed like Steve could go the whole day without talking to anyone if he looked ahead and said the chant.

    It might''ve worked too, if Daisy hadn''t appeared at his shoulder. Nat had taught her stealth too well.

    "Daisy," Steve said, looking over at her. She was in a big coat to protect her against the November air, a press badge for the far-left outlet she worked for hanging around her neck. "I hope I''m not making it into the paper."

    "Wouldn''t want to scare Captain America off with a camera or a quote recorder," Daisy said, walking in step with him as they moved through the crowd.

    "It''s nice to be at one of these again," Steve said, reassured that Daisy wasn''t going to expose him to the press. "I haven''t been to a protest since ''41."

    "I''ve been to so many in the last year," Daisy said, her eyes scanning the crowd in the way Steve would expect from an agent looking for threats. "They''re fun, big ones like this are kind of samey."

    "Well, big ones like this are the kind that can work," Steve said, the procession moving along amicably.

    Just then they heard a megaphone announcement, "They''re saying we can''t go ahead ¨C The United Nations is having an emergency session."

    Daisy was instantly pushing towards the front of the crowd, but even though she had super-powers and could probably beat most people in the fist fight, she wasn''t very big and the crowd was fairly thick. Steve grabbed her hand and pushing his way through the crowd to the front, "Don''t put this in the story," he said, as they moved forward to the front of the crowd.

    "It''s embarrassing so don''t worry," Daisy said, following closely behind him.

    Soon enough, they were making it to the police barricades, which were apparently actively swelling. Soon, Daisy had spotted a leader of the protest and walked up to the gray haired woman in a SWORD into PLOWSHARES shirt, flashing her press badge as Steve hung back. "What''s happening?"

    "Asgard just arrived in Norway."

    "You mean Thor?"

    "No," the woman said, "The whole population of Asgard."

 87: Mikes 2017

    <div>

    Andromeda was walking around in her nightrobe and Persephone was managing to toddle her way around. In moments like this, I felt a strange stirring, that this was what I wanted, that I should stay here forever. But inevitably, there was a phone call and with it there was some sort of dire news ¨C Our government in Brazil was faltering, the stitching on our coalition in India was coming apart before we even launched anything, Pakistan was dealing with religious dissent. It was exhausting.

    ---

    "Congratulations Tony," I said, shaking his hand. His wedding had been the largest, most massive and ridiculously ostentatious thing I could imagine. It was all marble and gold and the gaudiest, ugliest thing I could imagine. This is why I had my first wedding outside and my second wedding in a church ¨C The temptation to flashy was part of my nature and I hated it.

    Tony was in a nice suit, Pepper was in a beautiful, understated dress that she had clearly picked for herself. Rhodey had scouted and I had hired the wedding planners as our joint wedding gift, so at least Pepper hadn''t done most of the work of planning her wedding.

    "Congratulations, Pepper," I said sincerely, getting a polite hug in return. "The look was your decision right?"

    "Yes," Pepper replied before releasing me. "The look was our decision. We really cannot thank you enough for all of this."

    "We could thank them enough," Tony said, "Probably could afford two gold statues of the studs. I think they would like it."

    "No thanks, Tony."

    ---

    The first city-wide shield was an experiment and it was driving me up a wall. But finally, finally, on the roof of the Triskelion at three AM in the midsummer air, I turned on the beginning of the future. Energy sputtered, twisted, halted, and then the shield expanded over the city, slowly, slowly ¨C And then it cut out halfway down.

    ---

    President Salcedo and I were drinking coffee, blech but manners, in his presidential suite. Salcedo had been the first of our dominoes, but the table between us had a chess board. He sighed as I took his last piece before his king. I always won chess games against normal people, even when I imposed arbitrary rules on myself. "Brazil and Argentina have been great helps," Salcedo said. "As SWORD money continues to flow into our training academies, I think we will continue to develop Chile into the nation of the future that it deserves to be."

    "That''s good," I said, taking a sip of coffee, careful not to wince. It was so strong and bitter. "Have you had much resistance?"

    "Not yet," he said, putting down his cup. "But we learned from Konstantin''s mistakes, just as you suggested. His own secret police have been a large help with infiltration and counter-insurgency training here."

    ----

    The night wind was cold atop the Triskelion, but we were back out here for round two ¨C Stronger energy supply, more distribution, a coordinated network of support power. We turned on the primary unit and the shield began expanding, it made it halfway down. It made it two thirds of the way down.

    Then it stopped expanding.

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    I cursed.

    ----

    Andromeda came over and gave me a kiss as I listened on the phone, I grinned at her as she walked off. "And, at any rate," the voice on the end said, "You cannot expect me to work closely with the Pakistanis."

    "I don''t expect you to grab a beer with them," I said, pinching the bridge of my nose. The general we had recruited in India was not the brightest of my little coterie of puppet dictators. "I am saying that when your coup is completed, we will be able to expand the trade between your countries and make you both richer and more efficient." And safer from nuclear exchange, always an important question.

    "The Indian people may bow to a general, but I assure you, they will not shake hands with the Pakistani."

    "Fine," I said, weary of this argument we''d been going in circles on. "If you can''t make it work, you can''t make it work. Be poorer for it. I''ll let Durrani know. We''ll find some other way to shore you both up."

    If he lost, we could always go back to the drawing board.

    ---

    The opening of the shield finally happened, spreading over the city, only a few billion dollars over budget and the United States capital was proof against radiation and missile strikes, as well as durable to an orbital drop. I breathed a sigh of relief, no more late nights on the East Coast, I couldn''t stand this. Maybe I should''ve had an employee do it, but I just didn''t have the energy.

    ---

    Andromeda and I shared some hot chocolate on the early November night when we were finally sure that India''s democratic leaders had gone down in defeat. "We''re almost there," she said, wrapping her hands around her mug. "I knew you were the one. Everybody thought I was crazy, but I knew."

    Andromeda had been with me from the very start. She''d been with me when I''d put Nicole Arden into the ground. It was funny that I remembered her name, even all these years later ¨C I had killed more people, ordered the killing of better people, I had even killed Obadiah first. But I still remembered the name of a tax accountant for the IRS whose disappearance had gone unsolved all those years ago.

    I shook my head. No point dwelling on that now. "Nobody thinks you''re crazy now," I said, "To Andromeda Albertson, the greatest recruiter Hydra ever had."

    ---

    "What am I looking at," I asked, my private holographic suite displaying the recurrent surge of energy in Norway.

    "Unclear," Joanna, our SWORD agent in Norway, said on my speaker phone. "We think it''s a variation on the bifrost, but for there to be this many people¡­ There would have to be hundreds, maybe thousands of people through."

    "What''s our picture on the ground look like?"

    "Whatever''s coming through is definitely not human, but looks humanoid. We believe it''s the Asgardians."

    Why were Asgardians coming to Norway? Hadn''t Thor evacuated his people on ship? Had they made it to Norway before the infinity war?

    "Oh!" Joanna said, her voice tilting up in surprise. "It''s Thor¡­ And¡­ Loki?"

    Well, I told myself, at least he was certainly imprisoned again. I didn''t have to worry about him. I got on my plane to head to Norway when I got a diversion message ¨C We were all meeting at the United Nations building in New York, it said.

    And Loki was going to be there.

 88: Strange Meeting

    <div>

    Outside the U.N. all forty eight of the U.S. Fireflies were in a stand off with the Asgardian delegation. Thor bearing his ax and the Space Stone in a gauntlet and Loki in Asgardian handcuffs. For the first time since the invasion, I could see one of the Infinity Stones. Where was the mind stone? We couldn''t see the gamma signature that the Tesseract and Staff had given off anywhere else. Was Loki concealing it? If so, we were going to have a difficult conflict at best.

    But it could be in an inert state somewhere.

    I toggled to the overflow rooms of the building. The ambassadors who usually represented the nations of Earth were here, of course, but so were chief diplomats and even heads of state. Nakia and T''Chaka were here. Everyone who mattered was coming here. And outside was a moderately sized protest that would''ve been a glorified recruitment drive if it hadn''t managed to pick the biggest day in human history.

    So why were Thor and his brother here?

    In a word, asylum. They were offering alliance with a powerful, experienced interstellar force, their own extraordinarily dangerous skills and weaponry, the knowledge of one of the most powerful civilizations in galactic history, and, I had been informed by the SWORD Agents of Norway, not exposing me and mine. In exchange, they wanted some unoccupied land in Norway.

    It would''ve been a compelling deal if it weren''t for the fact that the United States hated Loki and Norway obviously didn''t want to part with its territory. I hated Loki too, but I could overlook it. My impression of the general public is somewhat less likely to forgive this sort of mistake. As I was standing over the monitor, staring at it, I heard a fizzling sound and spun to look at a burning ring opening in the room.

    On the one hand, about time. On the other hand, what the hell?

    Strange stepped through the ring in the air from what looked like the inside of a classy building. Probably the Sanctum, which was nice honestly.

    "Do you know who I am?" Stephen asked. He had the red cape, but he wasn''t wearing his Eye that would contain the Time Stone. His hands looked fine too, which was I guess not surprising in a world where we had Extremis.

    "Doctor Stephen Strange, Sorcerer Supreme?" I offered as the agents around me drew their guns. I made pausing gesture to them.

    "Good," Strange said, walking up to the monitor.

    "I have a lot of questions," I said as he looked over the scene.

    Strange nodded his head brusquely and conjured up a red energy element in his hand.

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    "Wow," I said, lurching backward. "I don''t like it when people work magic on me."

    Strange ignored me and proceeded forward, conjuring a shield spell as my subordinates shot at him filling my ears with ringing. I flicked on my vibranium armor and it crawled over my skin like a bunch of worms, not a pleasant sensation but better armored than dead. It didn''t matter in the end, Strange made it to me, his spell fizzled out, and he nodded his head in satisfaction.

    "What the hell was that?" I was not happy at being disrespected like this.

    "Diagnostic spell," Strange said, having gone straight back to the monitors. "Why are they here?"

    "Asgard''s been destroyed, they''re refugees."

    "Unfortunate," Strange said, continuing to stare at the monitor, flitting through their various cameras. "Debatably not our problem."

    "You know, just because I know who you are, doesn''t mean you get to do whatever you want!"

    Strange turned his big, bony head to me and shook it before going back to his work. "You won''t hurt the Sorcerer Supreme. I don''t answer to you, so I don''t have to waste time explaining myself. Yes no questions if you want while I look at this. Final offer."

    Man I remember Strange being a dick but I don''t remember him being this much of a dick. I motioned to my subordinates to put down their guns though. "Do you have the Eye?"

    "Yes." Strange said, sitting at the terminal and checking the world leaders. "Security risk. Working on a spell."

    "Do you have a spell that can locate the eye''s siblings?"

    "In principle, security threat to gather them." Strange said, standing up. He looked at me. "She was right. That brain is wasted on you."

    I rolled my eyes. Of course the former Sorcerer Supreme did not support me. Well, she was dead, wasn''t she, and I was alive. I shouldn''t let her opinion get to me. "She had the advantage on me," I said, "I only get one go at this. Do you have the ability to get the Stone from Thor? Do you know if Loki is really bound by his manacles?"

    "Probably not," Strange said, initializing the spin to summon a fire-portal. "Yes."

    "Are you going to do something?"

    "We''re going to go talk to them."

    "Oh, I don''t think that''s wise," I said, annoyed. "If I''m seen as part of this negotiation, it might be seen as suspect."

    "Right, good," Strange said, spinning his hand to create a ring portal above me. For a moment I thought he was trying to trap me with it, so I lurched out of the way, but that was not his plan as it turned out. Two heavy bodies clunked down falling through the portal, Thor and Loki, landing right in front of me. I shook my head at my subordinates. I guess Strange wasn''t going to let me do this behind the scenes this time.

    "Odinsons!" he announced as he stepped over to my side, "Let''s talk."

 89: Strange-Asgard Negotiations

    <div>

    "Thor," I said, gratefully. My guards hadn''t shot anybody since they''d tried against strange, but they looked like they were considering taking the opportunity to kill Loki. "Stand down, you two, it wouldn''t work and it would embarrass us. And don''t, under any circumstances, send the distress signal. We need good relations with the Asgardian."

    "Hold on, why did he call you Romulus?" Strange said, his eyes darting toward me.

    "Wizard!" Thor said, holding my shoulder, "This man saved Asgard. And you," he paused and looked a bit sadder, "Well, you gave us some very timely directions. Asgard is in your debt."

    "It''s a reference to a silly speech I gave once," I said, a little embarrassed. Strange raised his eyebrows at that, then shook his head like he was filing for later.

    "You said you weren''t going to come back," Strange said, looking at Thor. "And you came back with what, five thousand more Asgardians? A few weeks later?"

    "I hope to make it twenty, if I can gather them back from across the realms," Thor said, his chest full of pride. "Yes, I know, I know, we said that we weren''t coming back, but then my sister broke out of prison, my father died, and things got out of hand rather quickly ¨C But this is good for Earth."

    "I''m sorry for your loss," Strange said, his voice suddenly quite gentle. It took me by surprise and then he wiped the look of compassion off his face and got straight back to business. "Thor, I wish you hadn''t brought back Loki, manacles or not, it would make this simpler."

    "My brother also saved Asgard, I cannot abandon him. Plus, you know, I''m a little out of my depth on this politics thing."

    "Yes, I would appreciate more respect for that," Loki said, "And I''m here to help save half the universe, but I''m stuck in these accursed things."

    "Thanos," Strange said. "You know people here barely believe in him."

    Loki glanced at me, raising an eyebrow and I sighed, "No. To whichever question that eyebrow represents." To be in conspiracy with Loki, a beautifully unhappy event. To be in conspiracy with Loki, in the presence of the Sorcerer Supreme, on the short list of people I couldn''t kill with the press of a button, was enough to renew in me a fear of God, however momentary.

    "That''s very impractical," Loki said, his voice disappointed.

    "We don''t run things efficiently here," I said leaning against the desk and looking at my guards. This would be easier if I could at least talk frankly and not to a Hydra audience. "Gentlemen," I said, "I''m going to have to ask you to leave the room for confidential negotiations."

    "Sir," one of the guards, Lucas, said, his voice actively shaking. "Standard operating procedure is not to follow any orders given by someone who has made contact with unknown magics."

    Well, it was a good rule, I had made it, I can''t complain, but it was annoying in this context where I could see a straight pattern in my own internal processes. I looked back at Strange. "Do you have a sleep spell?"

    Loki raised a finger within the manacles but Strange shook his head. My guards started moving for their communicators, but Strange lashed out a wire of fire from his finger tips and sliced the comms to pieces. A moment later, he opened a portal, "Thor, push them through."

    Thor picked the two men up by their shoulders, "Terribly sorry, lovely planet, so nice to meet you," and then Thor tossed them gently through the portal and closed it.

    "Thank you," I said, de-tensing just a little bit. "Where''d you put them?"

    "Inside a nice cottage, the people who own it never visit," Stephen said.

    It was just the four of us now, Thor, the apparent King of Asgard and bearer of the Space Stone, Loki, wanted terrorist and former collaborator with omnicider Thanos of Titan and now Odinson once more, Doctor Stephen Strange, Sorcerer Supreme and World Renown Surgeon, and Michael Trent, Chief Head of Hydra and the Modern Prometheus.

    "Not the hottest steel from the forge," Loki said, pacing with his hands in the manacles.

    "If they were smart, they''d be Fireflies," I said, "Or field agents. Strange, we need the Asgardians."

    "Do we?" Strange asked, sitting in my chair, his hands folded together.

    "Asgard has the technological and materials knowledge to let Earth defend itself," I said, "Twenty thousand new citizens, with centuries or millenia of experience, able to advise us on current interstellar politics, help us form our society. And Thanos is coming."

    "You''ve never had much evidence that he wants to give it a second go," Strange said, "And he doesn''t have any stones that could get him here."

    "Romulus is a seer," Thor said, baffled, "And you doubt his word? Do even the wizards of Earth engage in such folly?"

    "You know my name is Michael Trent, right?" I said.

    "You''re a seer?" Strange asked, looking at me.

    "I have told him," Loki said.

    "Sort of. Shut up," I said. I didn''t need Loki''s help on this and he wasn''t going to ingratiate himself to me with some freaking conversational backup. "I had one vision, once, basically," I said to Strange. "It''s¡­ complicated."

    "And it showed you Thanos?" Strange asked.

    "It showed me a lot of things," I said, rubbing my forehead at the oncoming stress headache from Loki''s presence. "But yes, it showed me Thanos."

    "And it showed him the death of Asgard," Thor said, his voice heavy, "We have seen, we have proof now, that his words are true."

    "Thanks Thor," I said, trying to put real warmth in my voice in spite of my frustration at Loki''s presence..

    "I''m the one who did all the work," Loki said.

    "That''s why I''m not dropping an RV on you right now," I barked. Fuck Loki, so hard.

    "Gentlemen," Strange said, holding up his hand. "We''re here to navigate the dangers of an immensely powerful, nigh-immortal civilization moving to Earth, not to have a shouting match about Loki''s many crimes."

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    "Yes," Thor said, looking at his brother, who was seething but silent. "Although I will note that my brother committed his crimes under duress. Well, not the destruction in New Mexico, but the ones which were committed against Michael Trent and SHIELD."

    "SHIELD is gone now," I said, "There''s just me."

    Loki and Thor exchanged a look that told me they''d understood my reference. It was interesting that Thor wasn''t willfully outing me ¨C I guess, from his perspective, my theory of human history was correct and I was a friend of Asgard. So, you know, who cared if I was trying to overthrow the legitimate governments of Earth. Weird but understandable.

    Thor looked back to me, "Is that good?"

    "Am I supposed to care," Strange said. "Asgard. Why shouldn''t I ensure it doesn''t spread safe mystical knowledge?"

    "If that is the terms for our remaining, we can happily withhold it," Thor said.

    "What? No! Strange, what are you talking about? Asgard''s knowledge of the mystic arts is an essential part of the advantage of bringing them here, we''re at a crucial disadvantage against Thanos if we don''t take full advantage of everything we can get."

    "For a man who defeated climate change by taking a kilowatt hour of power to a tenth of a cent, you really have no concept of the idea of escalating risk, do you?"

    "I understand the principle, but Asgard didn''t explode," I pointed out.

    "Asgard had a small collection of magical families and a population smaller than Wyoming," Strange said. "A world full of sorcerers would mean the possibility for extinction level magical events on a daily or weekly basis. The Kamar Taj ourselves produced one such threat in January and defeating it was¡­" his eyes flashed with pain, "costly."

    I grimaced. That didn''t sound good. "It''s going to be harder to sell to the governments of the world on a pure tech basis," I said, rubbing my forehead. I hated being in a room with Loki, keeping a clear head. Hated that guy so much. "Where is the mind stone?"

    "We had Eitri form a crown for you, in honor of your bright destiny," Thor said.

    "But it''s somewhere you won''t be able to find it unless we give it to you," Loki said.

    Wait. They wanted to give me the Mind Stone? It was¡­ it was a tempting proposition. The feeling of the mind stone''s insights coursing through me once again, this time subservient to me and my will.

    "I don''t think I can allow that," Strange said.

    "You''re not the person who makes that call, Strange."

    "I''m the person who can stop it, so I am the person who makes that decision," Strange said, staring at me from my own damn chair. "You''re going to accept a gift of the very object that brought on the destruction of the White House and mind controlled you? And you think I''m going to let you do that?"

    Well, he certainly had a point on one front, but on the other hand, Vision had been great and Thor was the one offering the gift, so it seemed unlikely to me that I was going to get mind-whammied again. And the Mind Stone¡­ I could do so much with its help.

    "Thor thinks its safe," I said. I had made a stable, unified mind gamma mutate with the ability to channel to the energy of the Space Stone. We could turn the Fireflies into Professor Hulks, then we really would be absolutely unstoppable on the historical level. "We''d obviously want to run diagnostics."

    "The Kamar Taj have held the Time Stone since the first century and we still don''t understand it," Strange said, irritated. "Stop thinking in terms of what it will let you do and start thinking in terms of what you did under its influence last time."

    "Wizard," Loki said, walking up next to Strange so close that they could probably hear each other breating. "He knows what it can do. Eitri says it inspires those who touch it, fills their minds ever fuller. Influence over others. Deeper perception into motives. The serpent crown we''ve weaved for him, it will give him the power to save this world, even without magic."

    Strange matched eyes with Loki for a minute and honestly I half-hoped they''d just have it out and let me walk away with at least one incredibly powerful sorcerer dealt with. "I am the one who makes the call, I am the one whose duty it is to protect this world from people like you."

    It was interesting to be on the other end of unilateral, ''I''m the one who defends the planet'' decisions, certainly, but it wasn''t fun. "You know, I''m right here!"

    "I have a photographic memory, I can remember."

    "Fine, leave the mind stone off the table," I said, having no intention at all of leaving the mind stone off the table long term. But still, it would be good to think it out, break it down, risk vs. reward. "No magic lessons, fine, a waste, but whatever you''re the expert. Asgard still has more expertise in technology and advanced warfare than Earth. We can¡­ work with that."

    "If you can convince the world''s governments to allow them to settle a substantial share of space on Earth," Strange said as Loki backed away from him and back within arm''s reach of his brother.

    Thor laughed, "Romulus intends to unite the whole world, I have no doubt his influence will be sufficient."

    "Thanks Thor," I said, rubbing my head again. That wasn''t information I really wanted Strange to have, but also my commitment to internationalism was not a secret. I had run a senate campaign on it, after all, and I worked for the global security apparatus. "I have a lot of influence, but there''s limits. What were you planning on offering Norway for the land you want them to cede?"

    "A few tons of gold?" Thor offered.

    "That''s¡­. I mean that''s a nice thought Thor, but the value of gold has gone down a lot in the past few years." Damn my hyper-exploitation of space!

    "We could offer to supplement and replace their primitive military," Thor said. "Another protectorate is nothing even to Asgard''s decimated army."

    So they definitely had lost some troops, that was good. "Alright, that might work. But that leaves the biggest question open," I said, glancing at Loki.

    "What?" Loki said and then said, "Ah yes, of course. Well, brother, you see, even when I do not insist on making it all about me it still is."

 Steve Rogers: Getting In

    <div>

    "Can''t believe they''re banning press," Daisy complained, fiddling with her press badge.

    "Lots of important negotiations get done behind closed doors," Steve said, leaning against the wall of some office building so that Daisy was between him and the crowd. "I''ve seen the posturing Senators do today on C-Span, not impressed."

    "You watch C-Span?" Daisy said, looking at him like he was an alien.

    "You''re a reporter."

    "I only watch C-Span for work. It''s boring."

    "Well, I like to get my news straight and spin-free when I can," Steve said, glancing over at the perimeter of guards and the military hardware behind them. He didn''t like seeing that kind of militarized presence on a city street. The protestors had tried blocking them, but they''d just carried them in shrunken on helicopters and deployed them inside the barrier line ¨C A clever bit of maneuvering, though it had to be expensive. Steve kept tabs on the cost of Quantum Tunneling and the price right now was level around twenty dollars per pound.

    "Right, so shouldn''t you want to get inside?" Daisy said, her pacing slowing to a stop as she focused to win the argument. Daisy had strong opinions, especially on anything related to government trust.

    Steve hesitated, rubbing his beard. She had a point, he did want to know. He didn''t like things being kept from him ¨C Reminded him too much of his SHIELD days, reminded him of Fury, reminded him of that doctor''s table that reminded him of Auschwitz. There were upsides to discretion and private negotiations, but also Steve didn''t have the most trust in the governments of the world right now. "I''d like to," Steve said.

    "And if you deserve to know, doesn''t everybody deserve to know?"

    When you asked it like that, it made it sound bad, which credit to Daisy''s interrogative skills on that front. "Alright, maybe it would be good if the press could see in there."

    "Now we''re back on our game," Daisy said. She was shaking her hands and stretching as if limbering up. "Finally, a good place to break into. If you''d toasted me on it, we could''ve been doing this half a year ago."

    Steve laughed at that, "I don''t think we should break into a meeting of the world''s leaders."

    "Nat and I have gotten past harder lines that." Daisy said, her tone bold and a little taunting. She looked alive, the fight was in her now that he''d agreed that the press should be in there. She was sure she had him and, to be fair, she did.

    "I fought in World War II," Steve said, a little offended. "I just don''t want to break in."

    "So what should we do then? Let them cloak and dagger through the most important event in a century?"

    "I''ve only been up for seven years, but I feel like there''s been a lot of most important events of the century recently," Steve rubbed his beard, trying to figure out a good idea that wouldn''t risk the peace negotiations but would get him and Daisy in. "Somebody should be in there, know what''s being said, who''s agreeing to what. But they''re right that maybe what needs to said won''t be said in public."

    Daisy leaned up against the wall and slid up to Steve''s side, looking out at the crowd of protestors. "So how''re we going to set square that circle?"

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    "I''m going to need a razor."

    ----

    Daisy grabbed Steve''s arm as they approached, a sudden case of nerves, "Do you really think this will work?" She was still dressed business casual, but her press badge had vanished and she''d put her hair up into a formal bun. She had clip board with papers that had a hastily scrawled itinerary on the top of a short stack of old first drafts Daisy had fished out of her car. If the cops grabbed it, they were both going to jail. But if they thought to grab it, they were probably going to jail anyway.

    "I hate to say this, Daisy," Steve said, leaning down to whisper to her, "It will absolutely work." It wasn''t fair. It didn''t make sense to Steve. But it had never, ever failed him so far.

    They walked up to the military line a long way from the leaders of the protest. Steve walked up to the barrier, smiling at the police on the barrier line. "Gentlemen," he said, nodding at them. "I''m here to consult on the possibility of hostile contact."

    "Sir, I''m going to need to see some identification," one of the cops said.

    His neighbor elbowed him, "The hell is wrong with you, Jack? That''s Captain America, for God''s sake."

    "The rules say," Jack said, obstinate.

    "It''s fine," Steve said, pulling his driver''s license out of his wallet and handing it to them.

    "You had a beard in this one," Jack noted, looking at the license.

    "Oh my gosh, sir, do I need to call Michael," Daisy interjected, her voice pitch-perfect annoyed.

    "Alice," Steve said. The chance that Daisy''s name had made it down the line or onto a watch list was too long to risk it. "Jack''s just doing his job."

    "Just doing his job? He doesn''t know what Captain America looks like? Is this New York''s finest? Tall, handsome, piercing blue eyes ¨C He has to know."

    "Alice," Steve said, getting genuinely embarrassed and looking at her with what he hoped was a stern glare, "That''s no way for you to talk about a law enforcement officer. Apologize."

    Daisy managed a bit of a fake blush, or maybe a real one, and looked at Jack, "Sorry," she said, her voice quaking. "I''m sorry, I just¡­ it''s really important that we get there and it''s a lot of pressure for me because I''m new and-" she managed to sniffle a little bit.

    "No, it''s fine, it''s fine," Jack said, "I know who he is, you guys come on through."

    The wall of police officers parted and they walked right in without any further obstruction. "Piercing blue eyes?"

    "You know you''re good looking, no need to preen," Daisy said, looking around the front of the United Nations and pointing, "Let''s head for your old colleagues."

    They were hovering in the air, floating around a central point that had to be important. Steve and Daisy made it just close enough to see that they were guarding Thor and Loki.

    What was Loki doing back on Earth, Steve wondered, right before a red circle of fire appeared around their feet and then vanished them. Steve immediately scooped up Daisy and started moving toward the building to get inside as the Fireflies started to react. He made it inside just in time to watch the Fireflies start scattering across the yard.

    "What the hell just happened?" Daisy asked.

    "Language," Steve said.

    "Yeah, yeah, put me down now."

    Steve blushed, He had forgotten he was holding her, in all honesty. Security guards were looking at him and he held up his hand in a gesture of greeting, "Gentlemen," he said, "I''m here to consult on potential hostile contact. Mind letting us through?"

 90: Hatching the Mother of All Plans

    <div>

    "You have more influence than anyone else on this planet," Loki said, standing next to Thor. "I know you''re friends with Malick, he''s the one with the veto."

    Strange looked from Loki to me, "How do you know he''s the most influential man on the planet?" Strange asked. Strange had taken the news that I was the most influential man on the planet in remarkable stride, which made me wonder what he knew ¨C What the Ancient One had told him, what he had discovered for himself. More thickets and I was spending half my concentration staying calm about being unable to kill Loki.

    "Heimdall," Thor said, holding his brother''s shoulder to tell him not to speak. "He is able to see across worlds. A valiant watchman, my brother set him to watching Michael Trent."

    "At any rate," I said, cutting off the exposition before it got to be too much. "I don''t have the power to make Malick throw himself on his sword like that." In theory, I did but it wouldn''t matter ¨C The U.S. vote would''ve been in the hands of the President himself and Ellis, at least, had reason to show strength against Loki in this matter. All of the investment into SWORD and the free reign he had given to SHIELD, that had all been because of Loki.

    Loki raised an eyebrow of doubt in my direction. "If the U.S. won''t permit it, I will be kept off of Earth."

    "Why not go to any of the other nine worlds?" I asked, rubbing my temple.

    "Michael Trent, I am aware of my weaknesses," Thor said. "I need a magician beside me, a politician. Someone I can trust."

    "And you picked the god of trickery?" Strange said, saying what I was thinking before me.

    "Thank you," I said, throwing my hands in the air.

    "I know my brother''s¡­ reputation, but he acted under duress," Thor said, wrapping his arm around his brother in a defensive shield. "And he has won back his honor through danger and sacrifice and wisdom. I will not permit him to be exiled from Asgard."

    The room was silent for a minute. We brooded over each other, thinking, puzzling our way through. I was the one to break the silence with my theory, "Does your brother need to be totally free? Could you put him in a cell?"

    Loki rolled his eyes but Thor looked thoughtful, which I took to be a good sign.

    "A cell is better than walking free," I said, slowing to a stop and thinking it over. "But that''s not going to be enough ¨C Loki fought for the forces that invaded the U.S. Capital, even if they accept this under-duress story, they''re going to want some strong signs of good faith."

    Strange raised a finger in his chair, "Can Heimdall see¡­ anywhere?"

    "There are forms of magic which can block his sight," Loki said. He shrugged helplessly, "I invented half of them."

    I was mostly interested in where Strange was going with this, "Okay, but could he see Thanos?"

    "Potentially," Loki said, after his brother gave him a raised eyebrow. Yeah, Thor clearly lacked some of the necessary expertise for kingship if this was the depth of his knowledge of Heimdall''s capabilities. "It''s also possible that he knows similar cloaking techniques."

    "Pity," Strange said, folding his hands together. "I figured that offering to helping get Thanos'' head would be a good way of showing good faith."

    That silenced the rest of us for a moment. It was¡­ an interesting thought. Attacking Thanos¡­ It hadn''t occurred to me. It had never been even a possibility, the idea of killing him proactively was too much. But Thor had his ax now and the space stone, Strange still had the time stone, the mind stone was in a controllable magic item, even if I wasn''t going to be the one wearing it. "You think that we can attack Thanos?"

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    "He''s still mortal," Strange said, "And both the sling rings and the quantum tunnelers don''t have range limits. Neither does the Bifrost or, I expect, the Space Stone If we''re going to fight him, why fight him on Earth?"

    I don''t know how Strange knew the Quantum Tunnelers didn''t have a limited range, that was classified military intelligence, though I suppose it was the sort of thing that anyone who made a regular traffic through time might have learned. It wasn''t a top level secret like Hydra''s existence. But I had to count it against the possibility that Strange didn''t know that I was the head of the most powerful criminal conspiracy in world history.

    "It''s an intriguing possibility," I said finally. It was an intriguing possibility. "Does Asgard know where the other Infinity Stones are?"

    "Well, the Aether Stone is with the collector and the Power Stone is on Xandar," Loki said instantly. Thor gave him a look of suspicion, "When I found out I had died defending one, I was suddenly much more interested in the disposition of these shiny little rocks."

    "Well thought, brother," Thor said, clapping him on the back proudly.

    So Thanos presently had no Infinity Stones at all. I mean honestly, that was just kind of embarrassing for him. I had spent the past seven years of my life obsessively preparing for this man''s arrival and he hadn''t gotten one single stone? I had wrecked so much¡­ for a man who hadn''t made a serious attempt to obtain his goal in the last five? It was just frustrating, for me personally.

    "So if we find Thanos and kill him now, he''ll be down¡­ several Infinity Stones on us."

    Loki and Thor nodded their heads in unison and I looked at Strange, "Can you still do that timeline projection thing?"

    "Messing with a fundamental force of the universe is not something for the every day." Strange said, his voice annoyed.

    "Killing someone who engaged in more genocide than has ever been committed upon the Earth is not every day."

    "My predecessor made regular use of many powers that were best held in reserve," Strange said, keeping his voice even from his chair. "Many of the Masters of the Mystic Arts are struggling in the faith in light of this news. And if you knew how dangerous it is for a sorcerer to go sour, you wouldn''t take that so lightly. But¡­ if it came to it, I would be willing to check¡­ a few hour of loop. No more than that."

    I tilted my head back and forth, "That wouldn''t be the worst thing. I think we could work with it." I thought about the idea of attacking Thanos. It seemed to me that we could sell Earth on a better vengeance. It wasn''t necessarily an ideal plan, but worst come to worst we''d just get attacked in the next year most likely anyway, so as long as I could get that much of a leash we were golden. "I think I might be able to convince the United States to go along with this."

    "But all of this is irrelevant if Thanos is invisible," Strange pointed out.

    I shook my head, "No, it isn''t ¨C Because I know who his favorite daughter is and if Heimdall can find her, I think she can find him."

    "His own daughter would hand him over to us?" Loki asked, surprised.

    "It''d be her favorite thing," I said. Man, now that I was thinking about it I almost felt like I had over prepared for Thanos. But still, better to over prepare than to under prepare.

    Strange nodded his head, "So do we have your aid, Asgard?"

    Thor grinned and laughed, "We would have done it for free."

    Soon, Stephen had opened a portal back to the grass of the United Nations Headquarter and taken the two gods through it and I had called Tina to come to the HQ so she could affirm I was free of mind control.

 91: Convincing the President

    <div>

    They waved us through eventually and I looked over at Tina, who managed to look unruffled by the whole affair. She gave me a small nod of acknowledgement and we walked through the door to the room where Matthew Ellis was crowded by aides, Secretary of State Jordan, Secretary Garret, and World Security Council Member Malick. It wasn''t an ostentatious room, with a simple d¨¦cor that was tasteful but incredibly expensive. It was crowded.

    I extended my hand to the President, who shook it with a smile that wasn''t completely convincing but was quite good. He was an older man, late middle aged, and he had gray at the roots of his light brown hair and the sort of lines on his face that a job like the Presidency will give you. "Mr. President," I said, "It''s good to finally meet you."

    "Mr. Trent, let me thank you for your service to our planet and economy," Ellis said, all smiles. I wondered if he hated me like I hated him? I''d given him the most political bloody noses of any public figure in our long open jousting on every topic under the sun, but Ellis was also a man of public honor, at least, and I had avoided much personal contact with him since I had others who were able to bend his ears for me.

    Today was not the day for that, however. "It was only a small share of the contribution I hope to make," I said, grinning back at him.

    "Mr. Trent, this offer from Asgard is completely unacceptable," Ellis said, cutting straight through the bullshit. I could respect that. "Loki made a victim of the United States and now his offer is¡­ a cushy prison from which he advises his brother and the possibility of maybe paying back Thanos for doing it."

    I had to admit, I could see his perspective. Anger, judgment, the desire for vengeance seldom ran through my blood ¨C Loki was an exception. But even then, it wasn''t a governing passion for me, even how helpless he had made me feel and how much he had taken from me. There were lots of people who would feel that passion much hotter than me.

    "Mr. President, I''m going to speak frankly. Asgard is our best chance for humanity to defeat Thanos, I do not believe that we can prevail without the aid of Heimdal and Thor and Loki''s aid would be a great help. You''re leaving behind a legacy of free energy, a prosperous, growing culture. Why not leave them a gift of peace and victory, justice and forgiveness?"

    Ellis smirked, "You''re very eloquent when you bother, Mr. Trent."

    "I''m not¡­" I put my hands up and rubbed the bridge of my nose. "Mr. President, I just don''t want us to miss this opportunity. I hate Loki. He hurt me. He hurt this country. I spent half my fortune ensuring that the families of those he killed would never live in want. But we have a chance to ensure that safety, not just of the billions of lives threatens on Earth, but also the trillions of lives out in the universe. We shouldn''t throw that away because we want vengeance." I had made my money back in a few years, but nonetheless it had actually been a substantial share of my wealth at the time. The eyes in the room were on the two of us now, easily the two most politically powerful people in the world. Probably, honestly, the two most powerful individuals period. "Please¡­ Mr. President¡­ Hundreds of billions of people. A hundred and fifty million lives in the United States alike.."

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    Ellis crossed his arms and rubbed his chin. He was seriously considering it. He looked over at his advisors and I followed his eyes: Malick and Garret were giving him nods, signaling support for my proposal ¨C They had to, of course, I was their real boss. The aides looked mostly befuddled, the Secretary of State gave him a shrug.

    "I''m lucky I don''t need to be re-elected," Ellis said, after several moments. He looked like someone had struck him in the stomach with a baseball bat and squeezed his own fist. "This is going to shellack the Republican Party."

    "I''m-"

    Ellis held up a hand to stop me, "Don''t, I know you''re not sorry."

    "I don''t think it should cost you," I said instead, "If that''s any help."

    "I couldn''t care less about your opinion of me." Fair enough. Apparently his capacity for bullshit had been completely sapped by the decision, at least in this context. "Alright, we''ll do it," he wiped his face with his hand, straightening back up. He faded back into a politician in a moment. His face was set and resolute, "I need you all on this, we have to sell this to the other World Security Council nations, but Britain should be on board ¨C They''re in Thor''s debt." Technically, we were all in Thor''s debt on that one since we''d narrowly averted the destruction of life in the universe.

    "I expect Russia will as well," Malick offered. The vote counting started at that point, discussions brooding over matters. It went on for quite a few minutes when Malick grabbed my arm and walked me off into the hallway.

    "What''s the matter, Gideon?" I asked as we cleared the door and started down the hall away from the secret service, toward the Russians.

    "Are you sure this is wise," he whispered into my ear. "Our plans accounted for the popularity boost of defeating Thanos. Can we afford for that to be anonymized on another planet?"

    I almost decked him. We weren''t going to risk the death of half the universe for a marginal increase in the probability of our coup plans. I was permanently burdened with these idiots ¨C This was the sort of genius strategic thinking that had led Malick in the original timeline to try to nuke New York City. If Hydra hadn''t had Pierce it would''ve crashed decades ago.

    "Gideon," I said instead of doing anything satisfying to rectify the error. "I am the Chief Head, it is my decision. I think this is the best course forward for the world."

    We went to Russia''s office and confirmed the plan with the United Nations Ambassador from Russia, a Hydra agent who we''d placed to make our votes for us. In turn, he started sending aides out to confirm the strategy with our other puppet states.

    We walked out of the room and I caught sight of Steve Rogers and Skye- I mean, Daisy Johnson. They weren''t loitering, exactly but they were walking suspiciously slowly. I resisted the urge to sigh and walked past them.

    They definitely weren''t supposed to be here.

 92: Talking to the interlopers

    <div>

    The main downside of their presence was that if you were smart and you counted, if you had been here the whole time, then you might have noticed the change that my arrival brought in the delegations of the "authoritarian wave" nations, AKA my puppets, to the side of Asgard. Russia would maybe have the appearance of the leadership on the matter, but Daisy and Steve had just seen me walked out. The aids scurrying around didn''t duck into rooms before discussing things, so I had to assume that they would figure it out. Steve was smart and Daisy wasn''t dumb, even if her politics were the most noxious form of reflexive anti-authority whining.

    I called in to the guards with my government phone, "Hey, did you let in Steve Rogers," I asked.

    "Yes sir," the guard said, "I guess the potential hostile contact might not be necessary."

    I stifled a laugh. Steve Rogers had broken into the U.N. by walking in the front door ¨C I would''ve thought of it, but I was surprised he did. Steve Rogers was clever but he was usually fairly straight-laced, maybe it had been Daisy''s idea. "Of course," I said politely, "let your team know that I said to bring them my way. I insist they have an escort." I gave them a location out of the way where they could send the pair of them.

    Soon enough, Steve and Daisy met me in the out of the way hallway where only a few aides were flitting through. "Mr. Trent," Steve said, his voice much more icy than it had been the last time we had talked.

    "Mr. Rogers," I said, extending a hand for him to shake. He just glared at it. Still mad about that joke about Hydra half a decade later ¨C Or maybe he was getting suspicious of my role in the vote or my position within SWORD. I turned the hand to Daisy, "Ms. Johnson. I''m a fan of your work." Which was a lie ¨C Johnson was a genuinely obnoxious pundit with no understanding of politics who sometimes received a leak of something that really hurt my interests. It wasn''t talent, but trust that made her even an inconvenience to me. If she''d lived in one of our controlled countries, she''d have been fired or maybe even vanished ¨C But probably not, she had a useful power and I still didn''t have access to Afterlife to try to crack it.

    "Then I''m not doing it right," Daisy said, shaking my hand briefly. Steve smirked at the remark.

    The problem with the heroes of this world is that they were all glib and clever, not even a little bit persuasive to other people. If Daisy had said that to a normal person, it could get her in trouble ¨C But I had been working on my ego since the conversation with Gao. "Anyway," I said, moving on, "if only you''d called ahead, I wouldn''t have to fire the desk guard for letting you through."

    Steve winced, "You shouldn''t punish him for what I did."

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    "Look, I need to ask for your help, so I''ll just give him a firm lecture, but you should think before you pull that stunt again." Truthfully, he couldn''t be fired soon for fear of embarrassment to the United States and firing people for losing to long-tail Main Characters like Steve Rogers would only encourage unhealthy escalations. But there was no need to say so. "Honestly, you''re fairly untouchable, but that doesn''t mean the people you deal with are."

    Steve and Daisy had the basic human decency to look as if they felt genuinely bad for a minute. "What''s the help you need?" Steve siad.

    I looked at Daisy and made an apologetic face, "I don''t think this is the sort of thing I should release to a hostile press."

    Daisy crossed her arms and looked at me like I was something she''d scraped off her shoe. To be fair, given what I knew about her vibration power, she could probably liquidate my insides. "Do you have something to hide?"

    I have so many secrets it makes me tired to count them, let alone manage them. So many lies that the only ones that I actively focused on were the new ones. Disturbing the old ones would disturb questions like, ''Am I actually a synarchist?'' ''Did I just marry the most convenient person?'' ''What happens when Thanos is dead?'' and I''d rather just leave all those in their unresolved beds. Instead, I smiled at Daisy and rolled my eyes, "No comment, Ms. Johnson," I said.

    She looked back at me and I had the most intense eye contact I''d had with a woman who wasn''t my wife in years. Practically adultery, I know, but it did make both of us pretty uncomfortable. I wasn''t going to be pushed around by a woman seven years younger than me. Eventually it was Steve who broke the conversation, "I''ll walk with you, Mr. Trent," he said.

    Daisy looked at Steve like she had been betrayed. He put a hand on her arm, "If it''s criminal or immoral, I''ll let you know. You have my word."

    Daisy hesitated a moment and then the mighty power of Captain America''s Word broke her will and she sighed. "All of it, I want like every word if he wants you for some black-ops strike force."

    "I''ll do my best," Steve said, looking back to me. "Alright, come on."

    We walked down the hall, turned a few corners, and I looked him in the eye. "We''re hoping to make contact with an off-planet alien who associates with a human who last saw Earth in the eighties. A trustworthy face like yourself might be vital for us in that endeavor."

    Steve looked at me for a moment, "Why are you making contact with the alien?"

    "Military reconnaissance on Thanos," I said. "No dissections or anything like that, we just want word on his present whereabouts." To ambush and kill him, I didn''t say. Not because I think Steve wasn''t reliable, but because I wanted something that - if leaked to the press - wouldn''t hurt us too much. "Would you be available for that?"

    Steve nodded his head, "I''m glad to hear that SWORD is protecting Earth from actual threats as opposed to snipe hunting on Earth with their all-seeing eyes."

    Well, it could work.

 93: Treaty Signed

    <div>

    Now we were sitting around the treaty table, the United States President was cautioning Thor that he would need treaty affirmation from the Senate. "If Congress doesn''t confirm it, then this treaty won''t be worth the paper we signed it with in 2019."

    "This is madness," Thor said, leaning over the long, hastily whipped up legalese of the paper. "Must I negotiate with a new man every four years?"

    "Four to eight," Ellis said, handing him the pen. "Might be a woman next year if Heartwood wins the election."

    Thor shook his head, but since the important peace clause specified that Loki would be handed over at the end of 2018 if Thanos was not dead as, ''confirmed by a reliable, appointed party on behalf of the U.S. government.'' it didn''t really matter and wouldn''t matter for years. Worst come to worst, Thor could ship Loki somewhere else for safety. Thor leaned over and signed it and we all felt our shoulders slump in exhaustion.

    Ellis extended his hand to Thor, "Congratulations, Thor Odinson. Welcome to Earth." Thor shook it and they turned toward the crowd of ambassadors and held up their hands together into the air in a stance of victory. Applause broke out.

    Peace on Earth, between man and god. One, united front. A doubling of SWORD''s Firefly squads, the help of the Masters of the Mystic Arts to reach Thanos through portals. If this worked, then everything I worked for would be achieved, everything I feared averted and I would have to pay the devil whose hand I had shaken to get here.

    We all pay prices.

    I walked out of the main room and felt the agony on my feet, I''d been standing, pacing, moving all day. As I moved out toward the crowd, I could hear the sounds of an oncoming riot. It had been getting steadily worse all evening. The faction that had supported storming had stayed, the faction that opposed had gone, and so there weren''t nearly as many people ¨C A thousand people, maybe. But also our police line was getting exhausted and might break at any moment.

    Embarrassing the U.S internationally and endanger foreign dignitaries or destroying domestic support for what was already sure to be an unpopular treaty by firing on a relatively peaceful protest.

    Loving my options here. Our options here. Damn it, this wasn''t my country, I had to actually persuade people to do things my way. Not the best position for me, especially in lights of the situation.

    I couldn''t suppress that many Wizard phones without sparking suspicion.

    I shouldn''t launch tear or mind control gas on them.

    I couldn''t call up an army or mow them down with the helicarriers.

    I couldn''t give them what they wanted ¨C Which was a little fuzzy? The coalition outside had too many demands to really successfully get what they wanted. Isolationism, maybe, but with international conflict at an all-time nadir thanks to a mixture of our take overs and the Thanos issue. Besides, isolationism was the exact opposite of what we needed right now and the exact opposite of what I was willing to do. I''d rather the treaty was unpopular or, better, the United States embarrassed than that I caved to a retreat when I was on the brink of victory.

    Unauthorized usage: this narrative is on Amazon without the author''s consent. Report any sightings.I could evacuate the dignitaries with Quantum Tunnelers, but that would just embarrass the U.S. and weaken it internationally. Ellis wouldn''t go for it.

    I couldn''t have infiltrators start instigating because I hadn''t bothered to send any in advance.

    The situation wasn''t great.

    Steve and Daisy were lounging out front and I walked up to them. Long had I benefited from the special status of extremely talented individuals in this world, but seldom had I actually had to deal with that fact from the other end of things.

    "Do you know what these people want?"

    "The United States to withdraw support from authoritarian regimes abroad, especially in former allies like India," Daisy said, cupping her hands together.

    "That''s¡­ I mean, I understand the principle of protesting for that, but, uh, think they might need more people than they brought if they wanted a radical transformation of U.S. foreign policy. Candidates that are aligned with that interest. I''m just saying, the picket signs aren''t gonna get the job done."

    Frankly, Ellis'' neglect on this front was my greatest asset. The fool was more worried about not being involved in foreign conflicts than in avoiding a potentially hostile international alliance of authoritarians. That was a mistake that would cost him everything.

    To be fair, I had also subverted most of his internationalism to my interest as well, so maybe I should just say instead that the man had been outmatched generally. He had also hired a VP who had tried to have him killed, which was just¡­ I mean, it was embarrassing and pathetic and so many other synonyms I''d get tired saying them. The single most important decision a president will ever make, unless he decides to drop a nuke, is Vice Presidents. They could be Andrew Johnson or Theodore Roosevelt, and Ellis had the worst taste since Lincoln.

    "There''s some associated boycotts and signature gathering, mostly it''s a membership rally." Daisy said. "Or it was. I don''t know why they''re still out there."

    "Hoping to punch through and embarrass the United States and the President," I said, rubbing my forehead. "Clever threat, the demand''s just too large for them to get what they want."

    "Not much we can do about it," Cap said, shrugging. He locked eyes with me for a moment and saw my frustration. "Or you, for that matter."

    The worst part was that he was right.

    In the end, the treaty would come out to the public alongside pictures of gassed crowds when the protestors had tried to press through a temporary breach of the police line.

 Captain America: Meeting the Guardians

    <div>

    For a final review, Steve decided it was best to test it out loud. "Let me go through who we''re contacting, one last time. Gamora ¨C Daughter of Thanos, Peter Quill ¨C A part human hybrid with a planet, Rocket ¨C Who is, to be clear, a raccoon, Drax ¨C A very literal warrior, Mantis, who can put people to sleep, and Groot, a tree who can only say his own name?"

    "Well," Trent said, shaking his hand in the way he did when he was equivocating, "I''m not sure ''his'' is the right pronoun for Groot, Groot reproduces through a form of parthenogenesis, but the principle is correct."

    Strange rolled his eyes at Trent''s pedantry and looked over at Steve, "Alright, Captain, are you ready?"

    Steve nodded his head. Strange offered his hand to Heimdall and then drew up a portal, opening a portal into the spaceship of the Guardians. Steve stepped through and then Strange did, closing the portal behind them. Worst case scenario, they''d shield up and Quantum Tunnel back to terrafirma to regroup.

    They''d planned in advance not to appear somewhere anyone was to avoid getting blasted in the face. Steve was in his old costume to maximize the chance that he was recognized. "Which way to Quill?" Steve asked and Strange nodded his head toward a door, which they walked up to.

    Strange popped the door open with a button to a young man, fit, blond-ish, buff young man in a leather coat was playing air guitar while listening to some kind of mp3 player. He was facing away from them, so Steve spoke, "Excuse me, Peter Quill?"

    The man startled, lunged for what Steve could only assume was a gun of . Neither Steve nor Strange made any move to stop him ¨C They''d tested Asgardian attacks against Strange''s shielding ability and it was fine.

    "Woh! Don''t move!" Quill said, holding up the gun toward them.

    Steve managed to appreciate the restraint about shooting them, holding his hands in the air .

    "Captain America? Nice try, asshole, Captain America died in 1945."

    "Technically I crash-landed a Hydra-designed bomber in 1945, MIA. Declared dead in ''46. Found alive 2010, held in accidental stasis by a freezing arctic tide."

    "That''s ridiculous," Quill said, walking up to the communicator on the wall and pressing, "Guys, we''ve got stowaways. We''re going to get to the bottom of who you two really are."

    Steve looked at Strange and shrugged helplessly. Strange looked at the mp3 player, "Zune huh? I''ll bet you, any song you have on there, I know its names, artists, and the year it was released. Thirty seconds. Your choice of song. In exchange, you have to lower the gun and let us prove that we''re from Earth and he''s Captain America."

    "Alright, Mr. Red Cloak," Quill said, turning up the volume and handing his headphones over to Strange while keeping his gun uncomfortably close to him.

    "Rubberband man, Atlantic Records, 1976," Strange said almost immediately.

    Quill glared and skipped.

    "That wasn''t part of the deal, but Father and Son, Cat Stevens, 1970, B-side of Moon Shadow, published by Island."

    Quill looked angry now, "You''re- you''re reading my mind or something!"

    "We''re not," Steve said, lowering his hands slightly, "Mr. Quill, come on, we can prove we''re from Earth if you''ll just-"

    "Keep those hands all the way up," a cranky voice said from a low angle behind Steve. That would be the raccoon. Trent had said he didn''t like that being mentioned. "What''re these guys doing here, Quill?"

    "Pretending to be from Earth," Quill said, "I''m not fooled though. Earth''s billions of miles from here." Steve started to glance toward the voice. "Don''t look at him, look at me." Steve looked forward and kept his desire to sigh in check.

    "Yeah, okay good, but how''d they get on the ship? What''re they doing here?"

    "I don''t know!" Quill shouted at Rocket.

    "Gentlemen," Steve said, trying to calm them down.

    "Who are these strangers and why are they in such colorful and ridiculous costumes?" A new voice said. That would be¡­ male voice, not saying I am groot, not short, had to be Drax, the very literal warrior.

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    "It''s an open question that we''re looking into," Quill said, his gun still at the ready.

    "We can explain all this very quickly," Steve said.

    "It would be better if you did," a woman''s voice, calm but clearly edged. Gamora, most likely, the foster daughter of Thanos, kidnapped from her homeworld. A tragic fate for anyone to suffer.

    "Alright, we''re from Earth, Mr. Quill''s homeworld. We were attacked by an exploratory attack by Thanos and now we''re trying to get him before he gets us."

    "That''s hopeless, especially for a backwater world like Quill''s," Gamora said.

    "Hey!" Quill said in defense of his homeworld.

    "We have the aid of Asgard," Steve said, "And we''ve¡­ well, things have changed a lot since Quill was last home."

    "How''d you get here?" Gamora asked, staying on task.

    "He''s a wizard."

    "Wizards aren''t real," Quill said

    "I''ve known a few," Gamora said. "How''d you find us?"

    "Heimdall."

    "Are they telling the truth?" Gamora asked.

    Another female voice now, this one softer and gentler. "They feel nothing that indicates anxiety about being discovered in a lie. The wizard is annoyed. The clown is calm ¨C A warrior''s calm. He is annoyed, no, amused. Annoyed again."

    "I just don''t like having my feelings broadcast," Steve said. He also didn''t like being called a clown but it was kind of funny and she couldn''t have known any better.

    "I''d be more sympathetic if you hadn''t broken onto our ship," Gamora said.

    There was a moment of stillness, a heavy tension from the fact that Steve was completely surrounded by enemies. But they weren''t enemies. If they were enemies, the shooting would''ve started now.

    A voice broke the silence with a tone of confusion. "I am Groot?"

    "We''re working on it," Gamora said to Groot.

    "I am Groot?" The tone was different now, more like someone asking for permission.

    "No you can''t go back to your game, this is important."

    "I am Groot," the voice was grumpy that time.

    Strange coughed. "Look, I''m not interested in your tree-rearing policies, how about I just open a portal to Earth''s low orbit and you can see it for yourself."

    "You can do that?" Quill asked, his voice a little shaky.

    "I''m going to need to be able to see outside the ship so I don''t saw it in half, but yes."

    Quill looked over their shoulders, probably to check with Gamora, who was clearly the captain of the ship. "Alright, alright, yeah. Turn around real slowly."

    Steve and Strange turned around slowly to see the crew. Quill was mostly human, even if he was part planet. But the rest of the crew was a bit of shock

    "The clown finds us unsettling," Mantis said, her voice high and air. She looked remarkably human. Her head had antennae and she wore a green tunic with her large black eyes. Gamora was a fit woman, in leathers, holding a sword. It was only the green skin and purple hair that revealed her as an alien. Drax was a large, burly man with pink and gray skin in a strange pattern. Rocket really was a raccoon. Groot was some kind of human-shaped tree¡­ thing.

    "I''m sorry," Steve said. He didn''t feel it was fair to be judged based on his emotional response. He knew these were people, real people, he was just surprised and taken a little bit aback. "Still adjusting to the whole aliens thing. My problem, not yours."

    Drax humphed. "Humans are strange. Quill''s mother had sex with a planet but you think we look strange?"

    "Drax!" Quill said.

    "The wizard is growing impatient."

    "Can we just get to the somewhere with a view?"

    Gamora lead them to the bridge with the rest of the Guardians pointing their guns at Steve and Strange''s backs. Once they got there, Mantis walked up and put a hand upon the back of Strange''s head. Gamora pointed out the window.

    "Remain calm," Strange said, lowering his hand in front of him and beginning to turn it, opening the burning wheel portal in open space wider and wider until it was wide enough that Steve could see Earth. It was a beautiful sight, that green-and-blue planet that was humanity''s home. Steve loved it. "Would you like to fly through it or is it alright if I bring it through us?"

    "We''ll fly through it," Rocket said, hopping into the pilot''s seat and steering them through the portal. "Holy shit," Rocket said, as if he hadn''t believed the portal was really there. He readjusted so dials as they exited the portal. "Well, welcome home Quill I guess."

 94: Gamoras Preparations

    <div>

    I nodded, taking notes. "Can he stop explosions? Is he vulnerable to vacuum?"

    Gamora shook her head, "No, he can''t."

    "So we blow up his ship on the way out," I said, noting it down.

    "He can stop teleportation on his ship," Gamora warned.

    I had figured. If Tina could do it, I figured Thanos'' wizard could too. "We''ll launch a missile," I said. It had worked last time.

    "How''re you going to get past his point defense system?"

    "Shrink it to the size of fingernail clipping."

    "Could work, though they know you can do that now," Gamora said. "I heard about that ship. Going down to a nuclear warhead¡­ embarrassing."

    "My wife actually used several nuclear warheads," I said, proud of her. It was overkill, the best kind of kill. Thorough. Final. Unmistakable.

    We tallied through the rest of Black Order. The next big heavy was Cull Obsidian, who had a multi-tool hammer and, from the sounds of it, strength to the north of the Fireflies. Unfortunate, but we could also launch eighty fireflies the size of mosquitos at him, so I had confidence we could kill him. The Fireflies were hard as vibranium and their insides were fortified. As long as they could keep breathing, it would be fine. Corvus Glaive, disarm, disable. Proxima Midnight, tough, needed a heavy assignment as well. All of Thanos'' children were insanely well-equiped.

    But in the spars, Gamora had only been able to fight three Fireflies off at most, even with a gun, so I wasn''t in terror of these people. Gamora had been his favorite. Eventually, we dismissed the Fireflies.

    I closed my notebook. "Thank you for your time Gamora, we will avenge your home world."

    "Wait," she said, before I walked off. "If we go to fight Thanos. I need to make sure that¡­ I need something to kill me, if I''m captured. Everyone says you can design anything."

    Wait, what? "Why on earth would we do that? You''ve been nothing but helpful."

    "If I''m captured, Thanos will be able to discover the location of the Soul Stone. I''m the only one who knows where it is."

    Ah, that made sense of the ''Quill working up the will to shoot her'' scene. Nonetheless, "I don''t want to be contrarian, but I have literally thousands of soldiers who, while not quite as good as you, are very, very dangerous. They''re nearly invulnerable. They''re tougher than any terrestrial metal. They have laser hands and can shrink to the size of gnats while punching harder than a sniper round. Stay planet side. Let us kill Thanos."

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    Gamora shook her head, "He could have Nebula. Heimdall wasn''t able to find her." Ah, Thor, we need to talk about the wisdom of allowing assets access to the all seeing eye. "I won''t go without her."

    "Alright," I said with a shrug, "We''ll make a pocket sized consumable that will blow out the inside of your head on command. Not a problem." Pathetically easy, really. "Is your digestive system 24 hours like humans?"

    "Yes," she said. "Why?"

    "Necessary information for the supply of Micron Particles," I said, texting ordinances. "We''ll give you a command phrase, if Thanos captures you, just say that phrase. What command do you want it to be?"

    "Go to hell," Gamora said.

    "Alright, okay, but how about a command that you might not say by accident."

    Gamora paused and thought, for many moments, her face careful. Then she nodded her head slowly. "I love you and goodbye, Peter Quill."

    Wow, okay, that was dark. But there wasn''t anything for it, she wouldn''t say it by accident. "Alright," I said, putting my phone on record, "Say that into the microphone here five times and I''ll have a pill for you to take and eight bombs for you to wear at all times."

    "Isn''t that excessive?" Gamora asked, before saying the code phrase five times, her eyes welling up with tears by the end. Understandable, really. It was a difficult situation.

    "Absolutely fucking not," I said. "If I didn''t need your continued help for preparation and strategy, I''d be refusing you outright. We can save your sister without you being there."

    Gamora shook her head, "You know nothing of honor."

    I shrugged, "I confess to it not being my primary virtue. But I promise you, Gamora, we will kill the man who murdered your world. We will save the universe. I will not be asking anyone''s permission to achieve that goal."

    Gamora nodded her head respectfully. "I''m just glad I don''t have to ask Peter to do this."

    I understood that. I wouldn''t want Andromeda to have to kill me either, though she certainly might given the right circumstances. "If I have to die by someone else''s hands, I''d choose for it to be my wife. I am sure he would have done the honor, or tried his best, if you had asked it of him."

    Right then, a portal opened and Thor, Loki, and Strange walked through. "Heimdall has seen Thanos'' ships above Nidavellir."

    I sighed. I had hoped for more time, but I just pressed the rally call on my phone, sent a message to Garrett to do the same, and walked through Strange''s portal to Norway.

    "No ma''am," I said, pointing at her. "Go down to munitions, get the bombs first, then meet at the rally point with a Quantum Tunneler. Nidavellir won''t burn in a minute." Thor looked at me askance, "But hurry."

    We didn''t have much time to waste.

 Ebony Maw: The Battle of Nidavellir

    <div>

    Eitri, their king, was resistant, "To forge this gauntlet for you¡­ A true one, no pale imitation¡­ it could bring devastation to the whole universe."

    He struck a noble figure, floating in the air, bound by Maw''s will and magic, surrounded by his people in chains. Eitri was clearly a leader of some strength. It was tragic that so many lacked the vision which empowered Thanos, the last Titan, to save the universe. His will, his insight alone were pure.

    "Your people will suffer for your insolence, Eitri, king of dwarves," Maw said, glancing to where his father sat, back hunched forward, watching. He must prove himself to his father. After Maw''s sisters had betrayed him, Thanos had never quite recovered from his melancholy. It was an aching wound. He had rescued them and made them and Nebula had tried to murder him. Weakness. Fear. A lack of vision.

    Maw reached out with his hand to one of the dwarves and lifted the dwarf into the air, slamming him into the ground. He slammed him down again, again, again, and again. The dwarf was bleeding and screaming, his body a mangle. Even in the dark lighting of Nidavellir, it was an ugly sight.

    "No!" Eitri cried, his voice hoarse. A clich¨¦, an overwrought response. A king should have more dignity. "Stop¡­ I¡­ I will¡­"

    Something appeared in the corner of Maw''s eyes and then it seemed to multiply across his vision. Maw''s head flicked over, seeing tiny pinpricks of light and, a moment after that, hearing the screams of the Chitauri as their heads and torsos were pulverized. Soon there were more pinpricks, falling from the ceiling, dive bombing towards Maw. They left his father alone, for the moment, a curious decision.

    Maw batted the pinpricks in the light back up onto the ceiling of Niddavellir, slamming them into machinery and pipes and melting pots. He reached out with another hand, grasping the loose pinpricks and hurling to the ground. There had to be one or two hundred such lights. He focused with his mind to crunch them to dust and found it¡­ harder than he expected. He tried again and this time something strange happened.

    The pinpricks burst into bipedal tetrapods of similar height to Maw''s own, helmets on and masked, with crumbled metal wings.

    "Strange," Thanos said, rising from his to observe them. "What are these things which you have made Eitri?"

    "These men are not of my making," Eitri said, his voice bewildered. "I do not know where they come from."

    Thanos approached one where Maw held him and tore off his helmet. It looked like an Asgardian, dark haired and sharp jawed with a dark, black stubble. He was perhaps late middle age. What would that be for an Asgardian? Three thousand years or four? Maw struggled to remember. There were so many species in the universe. It was so hard to remember. As the Asgardian stared up, his skin began to burn red hot, the origin of the pinpricks of light from earlier.

    Thanos laid a hand around his face anyway, "Foolish," he said, as the being continued to heat up and he laid his hand around the Asgardian''s mouth. For a moment, there were cries of dismay from the Asgardian''s compatriots and then Thanos wrenched his wrist. The head of the Asgardian bent as it was not meant to and a snap could be heard. Thanos tossed him onto the ground and moved on to the next one that Maw was holding.

    "Now," Thanos said, tearing off the next one''s helmet, "Tell me who you are, or you will meet the fate of your compatriot."

    "I''m Andrew Smith, GDT Firefly, we''re going to pay you fucks back for Deecee."

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    "Do you know what they''re referring to, son?" Thanos asked.

    "It is lost on me, father." Maw replied

    "I''m going to have to ask-" Thanos began

    Suddenly a wave of lightning split through the crowd of chitauri guards, shredding them in a screaming waste. Chitauri were screaming, flailing, dying upon the ground. Many of their shock troops had perished in the first wave. Now it seemed that Asgard had come.

    "I thought Asgard had perished," Maw said, his voice confused.

    "It seems our perceptions were not entirely accurate," Thanos said, his voice steady. The loss of troops did not disturb him. There were so many Chitauri. There were always more. In the distance, Maw could finally make him out in the dark ¨C Thor Odinson. They had come for revenge.

    "We came from Earth, you big rotten prune," Andrew Smith said.

    Thanos cracked Andrew''s neck as well like a dismissal and gestured to the Black Order, "Kill the Odinson."

    Cull Obsidian headed out to face down Thor, hammer in hand, and the rest of the Black Order followed after him. They treaded over the bodies of the slain, their fury evident in their will, rushing down the son of Odin.

    "We must study these devices they use," Thanos said, looking at the body of Andrew, lying upon the ground. "It might give us insight into the nuclear weapons that destroyed our capital ship over their homeworld."

    "Of course, Father," Maw said in agreement, keeping his mind focused enough on holding the many, many full grown men in place. It was not too much, his powers were fit for it, but they were a dangerous bunch and shockingly hard to kill.

    Then, Maw saw something stirring upon the ground ¨C Blazing with heat, the first dead man was struggling to stand.

    "I admire your will," Thanos said, bending down to him, double-bladed sword in hand. "The desire for victory. It is impressive. Know that I owe you no malice, child of Earth" and then thrust the blade into his head. At last, the man seemed to be rendered inert.

    "They are very durable, Father," Maw said, as his father finished off the other one.

    "So we are learning."

    Then, almost without warning, from behind one of the overside work benches of Nidavellir, Gamora appeared, charging at them with the microfine blade that had been their father''s gift to her. Such a disgrace. That she had ever held their father''s favor was the single black mark in his father''s record, the one mistake. She had always been, in her heart, a traitor.

    Maw lifted her into the air, though he was shocked to discover how strong she had become. He started to crumple her organs inward and then she let out a laugh. "You''re making a grievous mistake," Gamora said, looking between the transfixed gaze of Thanos and Ebony Maw.

    "What''s that, little one?" Thanos asked, his voice gentle.

    "I¡­" Maw squeezed her again, how he hated her. He did not need to be lectured.

    "Let her speak, Maw," Thanos commanded and Maw obeyed, relaxing his grip on her.

    "I am¡­"

    "I said to let her speak!" Thanos shouted.

    "I am not restraining her, Father," Maw said. Always taking her side, even to the last.

    "I am not Gamora." Gamora said.

    A sharp pain split through Maw''s spine for a moment and then was gone. A blade was protruding through Maw''s chest. He couldn''t feel the cut. He looked down at it to see his black blood oozing out of him. It was surreal. He tried to stagger and the blade yanked out of him, sending him spilling onto the ground.

    "I am," Gamora, another Gamora, said as she stepped onto Maw''s chest. He tried to lift her, but he could feel his constructs and magic failing him. "Goodbye, brother." She said, raising her sword over her head and slicing downward in the final coup d''grace.

 Cull Obsidian: The Battle of Nidavellir

    <div>

    The waves of lightning were getting closer, Cull could see the Odinson carving his way across the horde, destroying horde upon horde. Impressive. A fierce warrior to defeat, Cull roared in anticipation. It had been too long since their father had permitted them to test themselves against worthy foes.

    As they grew more distant from Maw, Cull could see the small men that Maw had dispelled were not the only such creatures. Pinpricks of fire were whipping like missiles, bouncing off walls as they pierced three or five or ten Chitauri on one pass and coming back for another. Cull caught on as it launched towards him and reached his hand to crush it.

    The heat upon his hand was fierce and there was a convulsive expansion within Cull''s hand. He tried to hold his hand closed but it was no use, the crushed man expanded into full size, still alive and breathing. Cull hurled him up against a wall and barked, "Hold him!" to the Chitauri around him. They leapt to his command, but soon found themselves pierced through by more of the unshrunken one''s companions.

    Cull looked back to Proxima, who shook her head and then nodded toward the Odinson. Yes, they had to focus. Cull resumed a full speed charge, closing toward the Odinson, who had cleared a remarkable amount of territory. Then a burst of energy, rippling like a tide, threw Cull off his stride and he stumbled. He looked around for the cause and saw what appeared to be a bipedal, tetrapod -probably female judging by the presence of mammaries- with an upright spine in a closed suit.

    "Good job, Daisy," another voice said. Cull looked for the voice ¨C This place was too damn dark. A black clad man with a shield of red and blue emblazoned with a star was engaged in a fist fight. Cull hurled his ax towards the woman, who managed to duck and blast the ax off course with another wave of force.

    Proxima dashed towards ''Daisy'', three pronged spear in hand, as Cull yanked his ax back. Soon, Proxima was leaping towards ''Daisy'' ¨C But then a red whip curled around her neck like fire and began to close. Cull followed the line of the red whip back to another of the species in a red cloak. This one was, thankfully, unarmored. Cull hurled his ax towards the man, but a portal of fire opened in the air and swallowed his ax, closing again and breaking its chain.

    Cull roared in fury. This was insane. These Earthers should not have been able to stop them. Cull glanced back toward the Odinson and the hail of fiery, tiny men. He had to focus now, if he was to kill the Odinson as his father commanded. They had to act quickly ¨C The line of Odin was powerful and it was immanently possible that they would not be able to defeat these earthers with their aid. Cull gave his sister one last glance, melancholy to leave her to these monsters'' mercy and barreled toward the Odinson.

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    This time, he nearly closed the distance, he reached out his hand to grab the head of the Odinson and plow it into the ground. He could feel victory coming as he did so ¨C But the Odinson had good instincts and ducked just in time, calling his own fearsome ax to him. For a moment, Cull felt his disappointment. If only he had his ax, he was sure he could''ve gotten the better of the Odinson in that moment.

    Then he felt a bolt of lightning to his chest, springing from the Odinson''s aura. It tossed him into the line of the fiery small men, where they landed on and pummeled him. Cull struggled to rise, grabbing at them with his hands. He could grab one or two, toss them aside, but too quickly they were replaced by yet more, and more. He looked back at Corvus Glaive, who was now totally surrounded by a swarm of them, batting them off with his spear at a dizzying pace but unable to advance. He looked at Proxima Midnight, kneeling on the ground, barely able to breath, lashed.

    Things were not going well for the Black Order. He struggled to stand up. He had to finish the Odinson. Had to demoralize these freakish subjects of Asgard. He struggled to his feet, ignoring the burning in his arms and legs, the pain as they tore skin and muscle to sunder beneath their thousands of degree of heat. He stumbled toward the Odinson.

    "Surrender," the Odinson commanded, "And we will grant you mercy."

    Cull was too furious to laugh. It was absurd. He was Cull Obsidian, son of Thanos, and he would not leap to serve as a pet of the kings of Asgard. They had taken more than any race had any right. The Odinson would perish here and his empire with him. Cull leapt forward, feeling the rush of fury, as the fires tore away at him. He would kill the Odinson, regardless of the cost.

    The Odinson swung his ax into Cull''s stomach and split him open. Cull felt the sudden nothingness where his legs should have been and ignored it. He had to focus, had to stay in control. If he could just snap the Odinson''s neck, it would all be worth it.

    He grabbed Odinson''s shoulder as he fell and dragged him to the ground with him, his balance thrown off by the ax blow. They toppled. Cull was dying. He laid his hands around the blond haired man he was fighting only to have his already lightning and fire riddled hands fail him. He commanded his hands to close and they wouldn''t.

    He would be dead in moments he just had to ¨C had to snap-

    But his last thought was that he couldn''t.

 The Chitauri: Battle of Nidavellir

    <div>

    The Chitauri that had surrounded the great leader were killed and a shock of troops were being sent from the midsts to replace them. The wizards of the invaders had slipped the ambush into action beneath the Chitauri''s million eyes ¨C A frustration. The Chitauri central mind was managing its members and had started to direct its forces when the Lightning Ax-Bearer had started in on them and soon enoguh, the other rogue powers were at work. A vibrational attacker, the thousands of metal men, even a few less talented warriors who wore hardened armor.

    The Chitauri shifted its attention back to the main boarding area. Besides the twenty or so floating fires, there were four bipeds there, two tall and broad, the smaller green and the larger blue, and two of metal, floating in the air through the use of repulsers. One of red and gold, one of blue and white. and sent a new wave through the gate to aid its other puppets. The Chitauri central mind did not know how they worked.

    Should it risk attacking? It shifted its thoughts back to the primary horde. The eyes of them were perishing, being cut down in droves by the small warriors and the mighty powers. The Chitauri central mind resolved that it had to act against them. It opened its doors and sent out waves upon waves towards the four guardians.

    Focusing its mind, it comprehended the Gold-and-Red''s speech. The speech of other creatures was so primitive. Carried so little data. "I take back everything I said about this being babysitting."

    Babysitting. An amusing description. Nursery work. The Chitauri sent the first wave after the Blue-And-White-Metal One as a reward for the amusement. Lasers spouts appeared from the Blue and White''s shoulders to carve them up, but the tall-flesh-blue one simply carved the wave away with his blast. But it was imprecise, the aim was poor. Not a true warrior''s behavior. The walls of Nidavellir were not puny and did not break instantly ¨C But if it were overpressed¡­ Ah, the vision had gone out of that wave''s eyes.

    "Woh there big guy," the Blue and White Metal One said. "Carefully, if we put a hole in this thing we''re all going to choke to death."

    "It''s not like I spent my time in the most advanced civilization in the universe engaging in target practice," the big blue one said.

    They were talking too much and the wave was emerging from the cave. The Chitauri Central mind tried to direct them past them. If it was being babysat, better to lose some in reinforcements than to waste time attacking.

    "Alright, alright, just no more blasts!" the Red and Gold said as another wave continued to emerge. He released a small bevy of orbs from his shoulder, each of them was shielded, narrowing the passage for the Chitauri. Now when they passed through, he would shrew them with lasers, carving them up like meat for the horde. Frustrating.

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    The hordes of tiny fires were proving just as inconvenient ¨C Whenever a force could close to one of them and overpower them individually, the fire-points would rip them to shreds. Whenever they tried to bypass, the twenty would draw attention and slow the attack. It was not working. It was immensely frustrating. The Big Blue and Big Green one were powerful as solar flares, tearing through the crowd and slowing them down in spite of everything.

    But even so, some of the Chitauri managed to slip by and¡­ immediately get killed by the Lightning Ax or who knows how many others. The ranks were thinning within Nidavellir and the central mind had no way of tearing through it.

    Wave after wave were being carved up, but if the central mind did not manage them, then it would have to abandon management of its own entry ducts or cut off supply. And while the Big Blue might have some concern for the walls of Nidavellir, the central mind had no confidence that it would exhibit the same concern.

    How were only twenty four costing it thousands of Chitauri? It ached at the fact of its impotence. Its eyes were perishing in the hall, surrounding the dwarves, its eyes were perishing in the battle with the lightning ax. Even the children of the great leader were perishing now, the wizard and the brute alike had perished. The two swift ones were alive for the moment, but it was no favorable occasion. The great leader was speaking with the traitor daughter, the beloved one and not the despised one who was upon the master''s ship.

    The central mind''s flitted back to its horde at the gates, trying to push through and offload. The central mind would stay loyal to the great leader. It would not fail to serve it. The leader had saved it from darkness.

    But retreat looked sweet, regardless, especially as its eyes in the hall continued to go dark.

    It was important in such a moment to focus on the first duty. The first duty was to reach the great leader, so that it could aid him. The Chitauri shifted its focus back to the four, who were still doing admirably. A frustrating thing.

    "Do these things have no sense of self preservation at all?" the Blue-and-White Metal One shouted.

    "Doesn''t look that way, Rhodey" the Red and Gold one replied.

    It sent out a set of suicide bombers. It was confident that they would not be recognized by the opponents, who did not seem to have a deep knowledge of Chitauri physiology or psychology, given what they were screaming. It was a successful bet, because they were not able to distinguish, three of the eight bombers made it through the shield wall ¨C The Red and Gold one was under-equipped for battle in Nidavellir and its high ceilings.

    The bombs crossed over and the first one went off, sending the red and gold one spinning. At last, the shield wall seemed to shake -

    "Jarvis, don''t go soft on me now," the Red and Gold one said.

    The big green and big blue one had jumped atop the other two bombs and it seemed to work. They had scorched stomachs but nothing.

    Then the Chitauri central mind heard a furious cry.

 Thanos: The Battle of Nidavellir

    <div>

    Yes. That diction was recognizable. Loki, perhaps? Or had the Asgardians sent another illusionist? The conclusion was the same either way. The illusionist should be killed. Thanos closed the distance with the illusion Gamora and hefted her off the ground, closing his free hand around her neck. The illusionist was surprisingly difficult to choke.

    "Some aid would be of use," the illusionist said. Gamora, the true Gamora, was charging toward Thanos, her blade ready. She was not wasting time with talk. Good.

    Thanos hurled the illusionist at her. Gamora shifted her stance and let the illusionist slam into a workbench instead of trying to slow him. It probably was Loki then ¨C Thanos had worked with him and would not have helped him either. Then Thanos charged them both with his double-bladed sword. Gamora moved like a river current, dodging the blow and bringing a slash down across his face. The monomolecular blade he had given her still cut true, leaving a gash.

    But Thanos did not permit himself distraction and continued to barrel toward the illusionist, who rolled behind the workbench and suddenly emerged in four different places. Illusionists were so frustrating. The dwarves had scurried off and the hordes of Chitauri were thinning and now he had to pick one of these four illusions to behead. Thanos leapt over the workbench, and landed behind it to see the illusionist.

    "To wear my daughter''s face while you murdered my son," Thanos said, standing carefully to launch into another attack. "A coward in truth."

    Thanos raised his sword overhead to bring it down. The blow should''ve killed the illusionist, but he was truly quick and the blade fell and sliced only tips of the illusionist''s right fingers. The illusion splintered and rolled off the illusionist, leaving Loki Laufison exposed to Thanos'' anger. But Gamora had come around the corner now and with her the¡­ Fireflies of Earth. Dozens of them, bearing down on him now.

    The Chitauri were dying too quickly now to be replaced it seemed. Or perhaps Thanos'' enemies were holding up a rearguard action as well. That seemed more likely. The blade he carried was strong enough to split the bodies of the Fireflies from them, he had tested it against the first two. He began to spin it in one hand. "Daughter, abandon this foolishness. You know that no such primitives could defeat me."

    Gamora smirked and nodded forward to the Fireflies. They launched forward and Thanos carved one, two, three, five, eight in half or headless ¨C But there were so many. They grabbed him and dragged him down. Bent his arm against him, so that he was wrestling for each arm against three or four of them. He tried to spin his blade, struggling it forward and another of them gripped it.

    Gamora approached as they pried his fingers loose. No. This could not be. He had to overcome them. He could not be defeated like this. He kicked wildly, freeing one leg by sending the four children of Earth on it elsewhere. But then there were more. How were there so many? How many had there been? Hundreds had cleared the space around him of Chitauri. No. Without reinforcements, he would not be able to escape.

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    "No ingress spells are troublesome, aren''t they?" Gamora said, his voice pleased at his helplessness.

    "Daughter, do you think you can keep me captive?" Thanos asked.

    Gamora leveled her blade against his neck as calmly as he had taught her, "Where is Nebula?"

    This was a ridiculous request. Even if his daughter believed she had something to offer him, there was no way the children of Earth would allow him to live. "Your sister is receiving her just punishment."

    "For paying you back for what you did to her? What you did to us? Death is too good for you."

    "Here you stand, the leader of an army, the conqueror of the conqueror, the mightiest warrior and sharpest sword in the galaxy. Vanquisher of Ronan the Destroyer." Thanos allowed himself to smile, to show his pride at his daughter. Perhaps it would kindle some spark of mercy, but best of all, it was the truth. "What have I done to you? I have made you strong. And you repay me with hatred."

    Gamora spit in his face. "That''s what I think of the strength you gave me." The wet of her spit dripped down his face. Not as dignified as he would''ve like.

    "Such anger," Thanos said, his voice chiding.

    "Where is Nebula?" Gamora said, flanked now by five soldiers. Good. She was remembering her training. Focusing on the interrogation.

    "I see no reason to tell you," Thanos said.

    "I will make you suffer before you die," Gamora said, "I will teach you pain worse than you felt when your world died. I will teach you what it is like to be weak and helpless."

    One of the other Fireflies snorted, "That''s not going to work for us."

    "Shut up Ward," Gamora said. "This is my mission. I make the calls."

    The one called Ward shook his head sadly, "This is taking too long. We have no way of knowing if he can break the ingress spell. I am sorry Gamora."

    Suddenly, four of the Fireflies grabbed her arms.

    Gamora struggled, but she was out numbered and not as strong as these Fireflies were. She should have seen their betrayal coming. "Let go of me, Trent said I was in charge."

    "Here''s the thing about Trent," Ward said, his hands lighting up with fire, "He lies. Fireflies, fry him."

    The hands of the Fireflies grew so hot that even Thanos'' augmented skin was beginning to curdle. "Ward, please, he''s the only one who knows where my sister is," Gamora begged. The burning hands began to hurt, he would not scream, he would not scream. Ward approached, his hands on fire and took hold of Thanos'' head. The flames were burning his ears but he would grant these barbarians no satisfaction. The last thing he heard before the sound went out around his ears was his daughter crying, "Noooo!"

    It would have been more satisfying if it had been for him and not for Nebula. Nebula would appreciate, however, that at long last she was not second best.

    Ward''s hands slipped up to his face and eyes and Thanos tried to close a bite upon his hands, to struggle free, but it was no use. He could barely feel beneath his forearm, the nerves all scorched off. The world went dark as Ward sunk his hands into Thanos'' eyes.

    He would not scream. He would not give them the satisfaction they so clearly longed for. Burning hands pressed inward and inward and inward and then Thanos felt despair that the whole universe would be damned without him.

 95: After Battle Discussion

    <div>

    Gamora was angry with me. That was understandable. "You son of a bitch," she said, flanked by the Guardians. I was flanked by the fireflies, so I didn''t bother to feel threatened or to fake offense. I glanced over at the crowd of heroes and resisted the urge to sigh. Not a ton of superhero support for my actions, but not much anger, either. They seemed to consider the beef to be between me and the Daughter of Thanos.

    "He gave you the opportunity to ask," I said, rubbing my palm. "I was never going to risk trillion of lives for your sister."

    "She could be lost forever, because of you," Gamora said, her hand tight on a sword, the other Guardians behind her.

    "Ma''am," I said, trying to sag my shoulders just right, "I understand that. I''ve made¡­ We''ve all made too many sacrifices. I wish I hadn''t had to make that one."

    "This isn''t over," Gamora said, gripping her sword tight.

    "It had better be," I said, letting an edge slip into my voice. "We appreciate your aid, Gamora. Whatever help we can offer to find your sister, we''re happy to give. But we don''t answer to you."

    Gamora glanced at the Fireflies and turned and stalked off, the other Guardians following after her.

    I walked over to Thanos'' body and lifted the cloth covering they''d put over him. He looked¡­ authentically terrible. His face was melted through and his arms and legs had horrific burn gashes. He deserved a worse death.

    I turned toward the other heroes, the Terran faction, which composed everyone who survived. "Thank you all for your service." They nodded their heads, exhausted from the battle. We''d have standard military forces here for mop up. "There will be time for rewards and speeches later, but know that the Earth is forever in your debts."

    Technically, I shouldn''t have been the one to give the speech. I glanced my eyes towards Eitri, who looked like a massive Peter Dinklage, was standing over the injured one of his number. It was possible we would be perceived as vassals of the Asgardians after this ¨C Which didn''t bother me much at all. Earth as a military vassal of Asgard was probably safer than Earth which has to prove itself to the Kree or Skrull or any other such empire. But also I had no idea what that meant for Earth politically.

    I walked over to Eitri and bowed low, "Eitri, king of dwarves," I said.

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    He looked down at me and framed me with his hands for a moment, as if taking my sizes before nodding his head back to me. "You are the Romulus I smithed the serpent crown for," he said after a moment.

    I felt my ears heat up and did my best not to look too embarrassed, "Yes, that''s me. My true name is Michael Trent, I''d appreciate it if you''d use it."

    Eitri nodded his head, "Yes, the pre-monarchial days of the dwarves were like that as well."

    "Walk with me if you will?" I said, gesturing away from the crowd. He nodded and began to step forward. He clearly had to constrain his steps not to outpace me and it wore upon my nerves to know it.

    Once we were well away from it, "Eitri, you''ve been a vassal of Asgard for some time, I assume?"

    Eitri nodded his large head, "Yes, since before Odin banished his daughter. Thor tells me that they destroyed Asgard. A pity. I have never seen such a well of mystical power." He shook his head after a moment. "You are wondering, now that your people have come into their power, how your kind will be treated by Asgard."

    I nodded, "It''s a relevant concern."

    "The Odinson is a noble man, Romulus Michael Trent. A better one than his father and Odin was no heavy burden upon the Ring of Nidavellir."

    How to say, ''that''s what I''m worried about'' without saying that was what I was worried about. Odin had won his power by conquest and he had, so far as I could tell, no trouble with those who did the same. By contrast, Thor would inherit his throne and while he didn''t appear to have any trouble with the idea of me taking over the world, it seemed likely he might have some trouble with the acts that could bring about that ambition.

    "What degree do they let their vassals determine their form of rule?"

    "Have they interfered in Midgard''s rules before?"

    I laughed at that. No, they hadn''t. "I guess not."

    "I would not expect them to do so, unless it inconveniences them directly."

    I suppose I would just leave Norway alone and hope for the best. "Eitri, what does the crown you made me do?"

    "The Mind Stone is a peerless instrument of insight, that''s its most prominent characteristic. The crown would make it safe for a mortal like you to contact and contain, if perhaps not fully control. It depends on the exact nature of the mind beneath the crown, the ¨C I hesitate to say the Stone is conscious, but it might be said to have preferences. Those preferences would effect the crown. But likely, it would provide knowledge and insight appropriate to the wearer''s pre-existing abilities and knowledge. A witch would become much stronger. It depends on your gifts."

    And my mind''s powers could be amplified. I was going to have to get that crown from Loki ¨C Especially because without an attack on Earth, Thanos'' death was not going to cut it for our rise to power.

 96: 2018

    <div>

    Durrani was a lean Pakistani, Salcedo was mustached man with graying hair, and Konstantin was beginning to look his seventy five years ¨C No matter how broad his shoulders, age comes for us. But his lieutenants were not the brightest stars in the sky and his sons were even dumber so he was stuck for the time being, Leading Hydra was a headache among headaches.

    The point of this meeting was to discuss how we were moving forward toward world domination. From my perspective, where we were was good ¨C We had a third of the world in thrall, the United States and China alike were willing to work with those countries. We should focus on developing our interests and strengthening our hand.

    Gideon Malick had other feelings that he felt free to air to the group, "We were promised domination eight years ago by Zola and Pierce and you still haven''t delivered. You risked control of the world to defeat Thanos and we accepted the risk, now it is time you keep your promise."

    "I believe," I said, resisting the urge to have him smacked around, "that my exact promise was that we would act by March of 2019, no earlier. There is still work in need of doing ¨C We need higher ranking officers in China and Europe, we need at least a patina of legitimacy within the United States. Rest assured, I am working on it."

    "I have rested assured for some time," Malick said. "We are no closer to summon Hive and humanity is fracturing again now that you''ve dispelled their threat."

    "Malick," I said, "I promised you all the world by next March and you will have it." Either that or things were going to get very nasty for me, very quickly. "Stern," I said, turning to our U.S. political head, "the candidates you''ve fielded in both primaries are not looking promising."

    I could count the beads of sweat forming on his head. Couldn''t blame the guy, all of us were going to suffer if we failed. The dictatorships we had were all propped up on the promise that we could deliver U.S. aid and, in the absence of the threat of Thanos, that meant we needed to actually have some real control of the United States. That was Stern''s whole job. "It''s difficult for us to recruit those with popular talents, Mr. Trent," he said, not bothering to wipe his forehead. "But¡­ we do have one candidate who is polling promisingly among the Democrats."

    "Who is that?" I said, relieved that he had found somebody who worked.

    "You."

    This is the loyalty one expects from Hydra. What a way to offload his problems onto me.

    ---

    Steve didn''t feel like the suit was a good fit but it was what he had. He stepped into the hall of the hotel to see Daisy waiting for him in a somber black dress, "You don''t have to come." Daisy didn''t even know Peggy. They''d never even met.

    Daisy put her finger on her lip and shook her head, "I distinctly remember you holding a gun to my head and demanding I come."

    "Didn''t happen."

    "I guess," Daisy said, tilting her head and spinning her hand as if thinking, "I guess that means I," she pointed at herself, "chose to be here¡­ because I care about you," she pointed at Steve.

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    "Alright," Steve said, holding up his hands in surrender and giving her a polite smile. He didn''t really feel it though. It was a hard day and he didn''t have much levity for it.

    Daisy made a sympathetic face, her eyebrows crinkling together with compassion. She walked up next to him and squeezed his arm, "You don''t have to smile or talk about it or look on the bright side. Just pretend I''m not here if that helps."

    "That wouldn''t help," Steve said, giving Daisy a look that he hoped was appreciative but was probably just sad. He started them walking down the hall. "I''m glad you''re here, it''s just hard."

    "I assumed," Daisy said and then paused, "Ward did too. Been texting me this morning to let you know."

    "I got his text."

    "Well, so did I, several of them," Daisy said, "he must not trust your caveman tech skills."

    "I''m not a caveman."

    Daisy grinned at him as they finished walking down the hallway and Steve held open the door to the steps, "Well, I am told this Peggy Carter woman was a badass heroine."

    "Really?" Steve said as they headed down the steps.

    "Yeah, this guy I know, head over heels for her at ninety, when he could have any woman he wanted." Daisy was taking the steps with a remarkable amount of grace and speed for a woman in heels, but Steve did have to slow down a bit for her to keep pace. It was just two stories. Steve started to feel bad about taking the steps, he wasn''t used to taking into account normal physiology on that front.

    "Not any woman, surely," Steve said,

    "I don''t know," Daisy said as they made it down to the ground floor. "He''d be more successful than he thinks."

    Steve felt his cheeks heat up as they walked through the hotel reception. People stopped and looked at them, two Avengers. Even in London, people knew who they were. They were famous. Steve didn''t think that was fair ¨C He, at least, hadn''t contributed any more than the average Firefly. Daisy had helped clear hordes once the fighting got rough. People were calling her Quake, which Steve thought was a kind of funny name.

    Daisy leaned over, "If you keep blushing like that, they''re gonna think this is a date."

    Steve held the door open for Daisy as they stepped outside and tried to get control of his embarrassment.

    "Holding the door won''t help, Sir Rogers," Daisy said.

    "I kind of wish they didn''t notice us at all," Steve said, hailing down a cab

    "Being noticed isn''t so bad," Daisy said as a cab pulled up. She opened the door and held it open. "After you."

    "Thanks," Steve said, getting into the car. "It feels so fake, they feel like they know you, you may even be really important to them or their family but you don''t know them from Adam."

    "Sometimes," Daisy agreed as she slipped into the car. "But I''ve been able to draw attention to the causes I cared about. Something you should think about doing rather than hiding behind your aviators at every protest. People would take them more seriously if they knew Captain America was there."

    Steve looked at Daisy, took a deep breath and-

    "Oh I''m sorry I brought it up, Steve," she said, "I shouldn''t have-"

    "It''s fine it-"

    They both laughed. Daisy broke the silence, "Let''s table that discussion, tell me about Peggy one more time."

    Steve smiled and started talking. But when Sharon got up and spoke about standing up for your convictions in spite of all opposition, Steve couldn''t help but remember what Daisy had said and wonder if he''d kept his head down for too long.

 97: Thornbush

    <div>

    "Good. Surprisingly, older than JFK," Andromeda said, smiling.

    "All that gray hair helps," I said, kissing her on the cheek. I was running to be the youngest President in American history, thirty seven. I had the fact that we had a pocket full of senators and universal name recognition going for me, though, and that I was an integral part of the team that had killed Thanos. But there were still mountains to climb.

    "Can''t wait to call you Mr. President," Andromeda said.

    "Humility, Andromeda. I lost last time."

    "To a Democrat in California," Andromeda replied, kissing me. "They''ll see they need you."

    I wasn''t so sure. The split Congress had presided over the sharpest drop in cost of living in human history, medical expenses were in the dirt, energy costs were functionally zero. Insofar as I had particularly contributed, it was mostly in green jobs that were now trailing off. But I stood up straight and stepped out onto the stage of the Draft Trent event.

    "Hello," I said, the handful of handpicked reporters here were friendlies if not members of Hydra. "I''m here today to address the question of whether or not I will run for the high office of the Presidency of the United States. I confess, I was not thinking of it a year ago. I had important work, vital work, that I couldn''t do in office. It weighed heavy on me. But as this drafting effort began to take off and as I began to hear more and more about people hoping for principled leadership that moved us toward a more secure, united world with foresight and wisdom, the question started to weigh on.

    I confess that I was going to say no, I wanted to say no. We have only just vanquished Thanos ¨C I wouldn''t have been opposed to a quiet retirement with my family, I''ve contribtued, I think, as much as anyone could have. To retire and sit beneath the vine tree that I had planted, to spend time on my family, I think I deserve that as much as most people. Clean airs, a secure homeland, peace, an unprecedented period of international cooperation. None of these were my achievements alone, but I had been a part of all of them.

    But a few days ago, I was reading the scriptures, going through the book of Judges. I was reading the story of Abimelech. Jotham tells a parable that struck me to the core. In it, the trees go looking for a king. They go to the olive tree, to the fig tree, to the vine, and each says, in their own way, ''What I''m doing here already is important, it does good. I''m too busy for ruling.'' And finally they come to this thornbush, this low, worthless shrub, and the thornbush says, ''Yeah, okay, I''ll rule over you. But if you step out of line I''ll kill you.'' That''s who they''re left with as a king.

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    Now, obviously America is not populated by talking plant life. It''s not going to get a king." Which was true ¨C Hereditary monarchy was such a waste of time. "But, if you''ll follow the parable, it is my conviction that America deserves better than a thornbush ¨C That I cannot allow the good things which I want to do, the important things that I can do, get between this great nation and whatever I can offer it.

    The working men and women of this country need a champion, everyone with sweat on their brows or pain in their feet deserves someone who will fight to take back their rightful share of the American Dream. Everyone who has had to worriedly hover over their children, hoping that no strange power destroys them, deserves someone who will say, ''You''re safe. America is strong.'' They need someone who can stand up for them and for this country, who can keep them safe and keep America at the leading edge of innovation where it belongs.

    I believe that I am that person.

    The first place for me to start with that is me ¨C We''ve begun transferring our assets into charitable funds, only keeping back 2% of it for myself and my family. That''s more than enough for us to live on, comfortably for the rest of our lives. We''ve divided those funds up into long-term endowments as well as emergency relief funds, you can go see where the money is going on America I Am All In Dot Com. But sixteen billion dollars is more than I''ll ever need. I want to dedicate half of that sum to the project of giving America the leadership that it deserves, so I''ll be running off of it and, if I win the nomination, I''ll be funding my run off of it. If I do not win the Democratic nomination, it is my full intention to donate those funds to the candidate I think best in the general election.

    America, I am all in. We''re going to do this, together. We''re going to lead the world into a new dawn. Our flag, our liberty, and our decency will be known across the galaxy. God bless you all and may God bless America!"

    The reporters we had hurried over for quotes and I gave them, thoughtful but ambiguous remarks on any controversial question, staunch support for research and development as well as the existing international alliance. Eventually, much later, I was sitting with Andromeda as we watched news rebroadcasts. "Do you think it''ll play well with religious people?" I asked. Evangelicals weren''t a huge block of the democratic coalition, I was insanely popular with the nones and atheists who were a major part of the democratic coalition thanks to Osiris, but there were lots of Black churches and Hispanic Catholics in the Democratic Party too and they were much less enthused about my immortality machines.

    "I think you''re going to be President," Andromeda said with all the confidence one would expect from her. Andromeda was almost incapable of perceiving me as able to fail, much less expecting it.

    I was going to be the one who had to do all the worrying.

 98: Steve Stands Up For Liberty

    <div>

    Daisy snickered and patted him on the shoulder. "They''re here for you, dummy."

    Steve was taken aback. He looked at Daisy and then at the crowd, but he did have the good grace not to say, ''really'' and instead went with, "I''m not exactly the most qualified to be talking about this."

    Daisy shrugged, "Qualifications are cool, but you know who does have the qualifications? Michael Trent."

    Steve laughed at that, "Yeah, I''m not about to hand it over to him. Do you think¡­ I don''t know, he gave away all that money. Maybe I''m not giving him enough credit."

    "This moral doubt is why everyone trusts your judgment," Daisy said, pressing down on the suit she''d helped him pick out. She''d called him a dork for that, but Steve felt it was important to dress appropriately to the gravity of the occasion. Daisy was just in jeans and a nice blue top. "But Trent''s a smart guy ¨C He knows there are limits to what money can do that you hit before eight billion dollars. Even if he means well, which he definitely does not, it''s not like that wipes out the fact that the international order which he so cherishes is built on the domination of half the human race and America just letting that go."

    Steve nodded his head and heard the speaker previous to him announce, "Please welcome, Steve Rogers!"

    Daisy gestured to him to get up there, "Good luck."

    Steve got up and looked out at the crowd again, choking on his words a bit. "Sorry," he said, unfolding the paper he''d brought his speech from. "Sorry, I''m not very used to this. Um, at my last public performance I got mooned, so you guys are already way ahead of the crowd, best crowd in seventy years."

    The crowd laughed and Steve wondered if it was polite laughter or if they were sincerely amused. Maybe they didn''t believe that he''d been mooned at his last public performance. He looked down at his paper, the words written on it seemed to lash back at him. He''d felt much more confident, sitting around and workshopping them with Daisy than he did now. Was he really fit to be the shepherd to all these sheep? To show them where to go, tell them who to follow, to warn them of those were outwardly sheep but inwardly ravenous wolves? He took a deep breath and started to speak.

    "I went under the ice in the middle of the greatest war for human liberty the world has ever known. I awoke in the freest world in history. Democracies were blooming or flourishing in every corner of the world..."

    ----

    I resisted the urge to scream even though we were in the privacy of my home office and I could get away with it, "Captain America is speaking at the Cry for Liberty rally in Boston?"

    "Yes sir," the Hydra agent reporting to me said. He was a youngish guy, sent over from Garrett to give me the news.

    "And this is public knowledge."

    "Yes sir."

    "How did we not hear of this earlier?"

    "Ward''s been busy since Rumlowe died," he said. "And they''re just a bunch of hippies."

    I was going to die. I was going to die of a heart attack brought on by frustration. I was going to die young and surrounded by idiots. People don''t tell you this, but ruling the world is like being a parent except children are grateful and cute and the world is ugly and ungrateful.

    "Young man, do you know what Captain America''s approval rating is?"

    "No."

    "Guess."

    "Net eighty-five percent?"

    "Captain America''s approval rating is net ninety five percent, with three percent saying they don''t know who he is." It was basically unbelievable. It was the most insane polling I had ever seen. If you had raised Abraham Lincoln from the dead he would''ve had a lower approval rating than Steve Rogers. "And asked if their feelings were somewhat or very favorable, eighty percent of respondents said they were very favorable. Steve Rogers is the most popular man in America and the next person down is not even close."

    The agent looked taken aback by that. "We could always have him killed."

    It was the dumbest idea I had ever seen drift forth from someone''s mouth, "Not when it''s public he''s at the anti-authoritarianism rally!" It wasn''t that someone would trace it back to us ¨C Obviously, that wasn''t going to happen. But the chances of an attack spawning a billion conspiracy theories and a finger pointing game at any of the dozens of ''authoritarian wave'' countries listed by the Cry for Liberty was 100%. And a martyred Captain America would be like a martyred Lincoln ¨C We''d have a palatial statue of him within the year and any cause he blessed would be the cause of the whole country.

    I rubbed my forehead and started to concoct a plan using one of our oldest assets ¨C The Winter Soldier.

    ---

    "...And we have aided and abetted those tyrants, in the name of a fleeting security. To those who said it was a necessary compromise, the threat is over. Thanos is dead. Earth''s reputation is secured on the galactic scale," or, at least, Asgard''s aegis of protection would still function. The exact form of intergalactic protection wasn''t important to Steve, but he had asked Thor about the probability of a second invasion and Thor had said it was extremely unlikely that any would test Asgard''s might again soon. "The time has come to start asking how to disentangle ourselves from those compromises. To stop subsidizing tyrannical regimes across the world, to stop insisting on emergency alliances, to stop living in a state of permanent emergency. We have fought and we have sacrificed. The time has come to reap the fruit of our labor, to begin the real work of building a world worthy of the sacrifices we have made.

    It is time for the whole world to take a stand for liberty. I am not calling for war ¨C Those who accuse us of calling for war underestimate what we are able to do. I am calling for us to begin the work of freedom by implementing policies that don''t pretend that dictators and coup leaders should be fetid and garland with legitimacy. I''m calling for us to start voting, talking to our governing leaders, boycotting businesses that work with despots, and struggling for freedom in a way that acknowledges that the urgent needs of other human beings for freedom.

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    People will say that what I am suggesting is risky ¨C That taking the chance on building a freer world is not worth risking the security we have obtained. I understand their concerns. I am asking you all to take a risk. But there is no final security in the friendship of tyrants ¨C No final security in a world that lives in fear. This work must be done ¨C If there is ever to be lasting, true peace upon the earth, it must be done. What good is it to leave it to our children? To run up a debt of bodies broken, of human misery and anguish, of the bonds of brotherhood broken for our convenience?

    The only thing worse than leaving this debt to our children would be to leave that fate to them, a world that continues the downward spiral into tyranny, till the light of liberty lit those two and a half centuries ago goes out. If the world is to be secure in the long run, it has to be free. Abraham Lincoln said that as a nation of freemen, we must survive for all time or be destroyed from within. There is no greater promise of security than a people accustomed to freedom, sure of their rights, and ready to fight for it. If we want the world to be safe, that is the legacy that we must leave to our children."

    Steve was astonished about the response to the speech. He waved his hand, feeling like he was a teacher waving goodbye to classroom and climbed down from the podium. He was swarmed by a huge crowd of people and looked desperately for Daisy. Once he caught her eyes, he mouthed ''help'' and she shook her head and made a hand shaking motion. Steve felt a pang of betrayal and then set his face to the smiling disposition that had served him when he''d been the government''s cycling propaganda monkey.

    It would be a long, long night before the hands were all shook and Daisy would permit them to head back toward the hotel. They were on foot for a bit, since people were still ridehailing out of the meeting. Steve knew, consciously, that he didn''t have to be worried about muggers. Daisy could put a mugger through the wall with a flick of her hand. But he kept his eyes peeled regardless.

    Finally, they got a cab and Steve let out a sigh of relief.

    "You were worried," Daisy said, almost laughing. "Goodness, Steve, we''re superheroes, I think we can handle the mean streets of Boston."

    Steve felt himself heat up, "It just pays to be alert, alright. I wasn''t always two hundred pounds of muscle." That he was also concerned out of old-fashion chivalry he did not mention. Daisy would call him a dork if he did so, though he did not think she was actually annoyed.

    "Well, nothing wrong with a little caution, I guess. You did good. Did you really get mooned the last time you did a public performance?"

    "Yes," Steve said, "I was doing an entertainment tour to the troops and, uh, well, they were having a bad day. Not their fault, the act was pretty corny. I''m glad I was able to do something more substantial for them." Steve left out that the guy involved in the mooning was an old and bad acquaintance. It wasn''t important information, he''d been serving his country and he''d lost friends.

    Daisy gave Steve a look that he couldn''t quite understand. "Even when they moon you for trying to lift their spirits," she shook her head. "Ward''s right, they don''t make them like you any more Rogers."

    Steve didn''t really know what to say to that so he smiled and looked away. They passed the rest of the cab ride in amicable silence, got out and headed into their hotel. The hotel wasn''t that nice, Cry for Liberty had covered it for him and Daisy had just gotten a room for herself, but it was big and it had a lot of rooms. Fairly modern, tile floors. They got onto the elevator and pushed for their respective floors.

    Daisy looked over at Steve after the doors closed. "What?" Steve asked.

    "There really weren''t any women before Peggy, were there?"

    "What?" Steve said, confused at the question. "Well there was the girl who kissed me before Peggy shot at me." Daisy gave Steve a very confused look as the door opened. "Uh, this is your floor," Steve said awkwardly.

    Daisy stuck her hand on the door so it would stay open. Steve was always surprised by that trick ¨C The first time someone had done it around him, he''d been worried they''d get their hand crushed. "It''ll stick." Daisy said, looking at Steve. Then she held out her hand and said, "Come closer."

    Steve obeyed, stepping closer to Daisy. Daisy let go of the door and grabbed his face and pulled him in to kiss him. It was warm and surprising and¡­ Well, it was nice. Steve liked Daisy. It certainly put some of her recent actions in a new light but it wasn''t unwelcome, really. Except that he was going to hear it from Nat for this.

    "Okay," Daisy said, letting out a breath as the door started to slide shut again and she stuck out a hand to stop it. "That was nice."

    "Um," Steve said.

    "I''m sorry, did that make you uncomfortable?"

    "No," Steve said, "It was really nice. I''m, um, I''m glad you did it. I wish I had done it. Not that there''s anything wrong with you doing it."

    "Smooth Rogers."

    "Dinner, do you want to get dinner tomorrow?" Steve was definitely going to have to get better at this.

    "Sure," Daisy said, stepping off the elevator. "See you tomorrow."

    Steve waited for the elevator to reach his room ¨C He would''ve preferred the stairs, but he hadn''t wanted Daisy to go alone and if he had told her he planned on taking the steps she would''ve made fun of him. The elevator reached his floor and he got off and went into his room.

    He opened the door to his room only to have a man with a metal arm slam into him.

 99: The Winter Soldier Emerges

    <div>

    Steve started up again, seeing the mask on the man''s face mask shaking. He must''ve knocked it loose. They exchanged blows for a few seconds before the man got the upper hand and grabbed Steve''s suitcoat, slamming him into the wall. The move put a hole into the wall and Steve yanked himself free of it to see the man running down the hall toward the west window and staircase. They were four stories up and the neighboring buildings weren''t that close, but the assailant was still moving toward it. Steve bolted after him.

    He was faster than this guy, but not as much faster than he should''ve been of a basic human. He was closing but not fast enough ¨C He thought the guy was going to go down the staircase, but that proved to have been naive. The assailant leapt out of the window and Steve didn''t have much choice, he followed suit, tucking into a roll as they clattered to the ground. The roll scraped off his suit and shirt arm, but he managed to come up intact. The other guy wasn''t looking much better. His mask had fallen off onto the ground and his arm had scraping lines on it. He looked over at Steve in the dim of the parking lot and Steve saw the impossible.

    It was Bucky. He had a cut on his forehead from the glass, but it was Bucky.

    That was impossible, totally impossible.

    But Steve could see him underneath the light, fiddling with something in his sleeve.

    "Bucky?" Steve said, looking at the man.

    The man smirked at him and, gave him a jesting salute just like Bucky had before he''d left for the war.

    "Bucky, what are you doing?" Steve asked.

    Then a nanonswarm started to swallow the metal arm and the head.

    "Bucky, wait!" Steve said, lunging out to grab his hand before he could use the device. But Bucky dodged easily and his skin and metal vanished beneath the assembler swarm and then there was a quantum distortion and he was gone.

    ----

    Natasha was sitting on the stoop of Steve''s apartment building when he got there. "Nat," Steve said, a little surprised to see her. "Good to see you."

    "There''s this great used clothes spot nearby, come on," Natasha said, nodding her head toward the street. Steve fell in line. "Heard you and Daisy had a nice dinner."

    Steve felt his face heat up, "Yeah, you win this one." He wasn''t sure what this was about, but it definitely wasn''t about his date with Daisy. She would''ve just called, not Quantum tunneled across the ocean and camped out at his house.

    "You win this time," Natasha said, looking over at him. "She''s¡­ Daisy''s good real deep, Steve. Your people more than mine."

    "Natasha," Steve said as they kept walking toward the used clothes store or wherever they were actually going. "Anybody who can come back from where you came from, they''re good real deep too. That''s not easy."

    "I was pretty bad when Clint found me," Natasha rounded the corner and picked up her pace and Steve matched it. "Daisy was already good when we found her."

    Steve shook his head, this argument was well worn. "Well, I don''t intend anything untoward with Daisy."

    "Oh?" Natasha raised her eyebrows. "I''m sure she''ll be disappointed."

    Steve laughed and they kept walking, observing the movements of New York. Then they came up to an¡­ actual used clothes store. "Let''s go," Natasha said. "Got to get you dressed for your next date."

    "Now hold on a second," Steve protested.

    "No, no, Daisy said you brought flowers and wore a suit, come on, you need to be able to dress for social occasions." They started ticking through clothes until they found a pair of pants and a shirt. "Go put them on." Natasha drifted over toward the dresses and Steve went to the changing stalls they had in the middle of the room and got into one of them. He was about to put on pants when someone threw a dress over the top of the door.

    "Ma''am there''s somebody," and then the door opened and Natasha came in, walking right in on him and closing the door behind her. Steve blinked, pulled on the new pair of pants over his underwear for his own decency, and leaned against the back of the stall as Natasha rifled through his pockets and found his phone and took the thing apart. She took her phone apart too, laid out the parts, and then looked over at Steve.

    "That should do," Natasha straightened up and looked over at Steve. "Heard you''re looking for a guy, mask, metal arm, soviet star."

    "Yeah," Steve said. He didn''t mention that it was Bucky. "Do you know anything about him?"

    "I used to have a scar he gave me," Natasha said, "Right in my abdomen. Shot through me to his target. He''s called the Winter Soldier. Lots of people think he''s a myth, been active for decades. Vicious. Killed a lot of honorable people on both sides of the Cold War."

    Steve frowned. He didn''t understand why Bucky would''ve done that. Siding with the Soviets, well, that would''ve been weird but Steve would''ve understood. He''d had communist friends in art school and he''d thought they were dumb but it wasn''t unimaginable. Better than the wannabe Nazis of the America First movement. But not siding with either side? Vicious? What had scarred him so badly?

    "Steve, why are you looking for the guy and not whoever sent him?"

    "Natasha," Steve said, looking off into the distance.

    "Steve, I need to know."

    "It was Bucky."

    Natasha blinked and processed. "You''re sure?"

    "He knew me. He gave me this joke salute, the one he gave me when he left for the war."

    "Steve¡­" Natasha said, "I know he was your best friend. But he could be anywhere in the world. Anywhere in the universe, really, with a Quantum Tunneler."

    "So what, I stay here, do nothing?"

    "Steve, he tried to kill you!" Steve was more taken aback that she allowed her voice to rise more than she should''ve let it.

    You could be reading stolen content. Head to the original site for the genuine story.

    "I don''t think Bucky was trying to kill me," Steve said, leaning in and whispering. "My room was trashed but if he''d wanted me dead, he would''ve gone for a weapon."

    "Steve, whoever the Winter Soldier is, he''s not the guy you lost in the war."

    Steve looked at Natasha. She didn''t get it. No, that wasn''t fair. She got it, she hadn''t yet thought of the connection. "If it was Clint, you wouldn''t let that stop you."

    "Look, you''re right, I wouldn''t. I''m not saying you have to stop, I''m saying you should think about your priorities."

    "What should come first, giving speeches?" Steve said, "I''ve given one speech."

    "And it mattered! People sat up and listened. It''s the primary talk of the country. It tanked your popularity some to have an opinion, but it mattered."

    "Bucky matters. What''s the point of fighting if we''re not fighting for every single person?"

    Natasha and Steve locked eyes for a moment in a brief glaring contest. Natasha broke first, "Look, you''ve got to start thinking about how you''re seen if you want to succeed at this. People need to know they''re not being asked to sacrifice by some absentee stepdad."

    "Kind of a weird analogy," Steve said. The implied father of the nation language bothered him more than it deserved to. He was clearly angry with Natasha, which wasn''t fair either. "Look, I''m going to keep looking for Bucky. But that doesn''t mean that I can''t show up to some Cry for Liberty events, at least."

    Natasha sighed and shook her head, "People need a leader, Steve, not a figurehead."

    "I''m a terrible choice, then!" Steve said, lifting his hand to his mouth realizing he''d let his volume get out of control this time. "They should have someone who knows what they''re doing. They should be listening to the organizers of Cry for Liberty, I barely understand what''s going on."

    "They should and it would be great if they did, if they had some magical person with perfect experience and perfect expertise but they don''t, they have you."

    Steve couldn''t help but feel that wasn''t even a little bit fair. It wasn''t even the tiniest bit fair, but he also felt like Natasha wasn''t wrong. People needed to know that the person asking wasn''t unwilling to answer. It was really important.

    ---

    The lights of the debate stage were sharp ¨C There were just three canddiates left, Heartwood and I splitting the SWORD/Hawk vote, and Maurice Milton, the dove. I was leading in the polls, a fairly narrow lead though, and I could have used the lead from her. I was standing behind a glass podium and doing my best to look friendly towards Heartwood in spite of it.

    The moderator looked at me, "Mr. Trent, Steve Rogers, formerly Captain America, has recently come out in support of a major overhaul of U.S. foreign policy in light of the authoritarian wave in other countries."

    People had taken to using me as foil for Steve. Steve''s approval rating had plummeted after he expressed actual political beliefs, but his approval rating was still quite high. Frustrating. Fortunately, a bunch of anti-imperialists'' had their brains so broken by anti-Americanism that they couldn''t hear that what he was suggesting was the end of the American empire because he said it in a CAPTAIN AMERICAvoice. Unfortunately, neither had a bunch of normal Americans. So I was going to be making the case for the selfsame empire.

    "I understand Cry for Liberty''s case, obviously we''re all concerned with the difficulties of our allies" I said. "But I think we''ve seen the consequences of their style of social engineering by the United States. I understand why someone whose last foreign policy experience was the Second World War might be primarily concerned with being too conflict avoidant. However, like most of my generation, I am acutely aware of the limits of American power. Boycotting half the human race isn''t a plan for anything except autarky and a new cold war." Cry for Liberty actually did have a priority list that was sensibly organized around a weighted combination of regime origin, longevity (newer regimes were higher), history of military government, and human rights violations but if you were to boycott them all at once, it would be about half the global population. Hydra''s countries, but also (hilariously) China. It wasn''t like Cry for Liberty could tell who was with us in Hydra. But right now Cry for Liberty was only actively targeting India for sanction as the biggest ''bang for the buck.'' I''m not here to be fair. "Of course, I support closer relationships with NATO nations and our East Asian allies. I just don''t think that''s what is best for America is to be shut out of the international order because other countries run differently than we do. Senator Heartwood has been a leader in our political system.." Democratic debates are big group hugs, nobody says anything too mean about anyone else lest all our college educated voters punish us for the dishonorable conduct.

    The debate went on from there, with questions flitting amongst the three of us. I did my best to be as openly flattering to the other two without sounding like I was too serious about it. Finally, the debate came to an end and the three of us stood to wave when the shots started to ring out from the balcony.

    I had planned for the shots, but I remained standing for a few seconds, frozen stiff, long enough to take the bullet to the arm and shoulder that were part of the plan. I went down screaming in pain. Getting shot fucking hurts, I''m not going to lie to you, so it was easy to act frightened. And I couldn''t get Extremis. Oh, the things we do.

    The Winter Soldier was at the back of the auditorium, his red-star sigiled metal arm on full display. If we had any interest in being discrete, it would have been unbearably embarrassing. But the spectacle was the point. The next bullet got Maurice in the leg, per the plan, and then another bullet ripped through Heartwood''s head. Blood spattered everywhere, her brains splattered everywhere, there was screaming and pandemonium. I glanced up to the Winter Soldier who was waiting for his nanoswarm suit to cover him and then he vanished into a quantum tunnel.

    I didn''t smile and allow myself the moment of external victory, but I cried out in fury, "Noooo!" I thought I did a good job, immediately started crawling towards Maurice even as our security came and pulled us both off the stage.

    That should distract Steve Rogers long enough for us to get away.

    And if not, there was always the footage of Tony''s parents being murdered.

 100: Nominee

    <div>

    "This is hardly the first time that a SHIELD experiment has gotten into the wrong hands but the best defense is an enthusiastic embrace of the technology, not a huddled crouch. I wish I could take the Extremis, I have an extreme intolerance so" I waved my arm in a sling to finished the sentence.

    "So, this isn''t a pity play?"

    "I don''t want anyone''s pity," Gosh I hated Howard. "You should choose between Maurice and I based on who you think is ready to be President." Maurice and I were still in the race, but Maurice could take an Extremis dose to fix his leg and I could not.

    Howard was sitting at her desk, a snake smile on her face. She''d gotten older and you could see the lines, even as she dyed her hair and got botox. "Are you concerned with growing authoritarianism around the world?"

    "I think everyone is a little concerned," I said, trying to keep my tone either from giving any kind of aid to my opponents in the Cry for Liberty. If I won this primary, it wouldn''t for Cry of Liberty ¨C Ellis'' anointed successor, Gloria Pomares, was also of the opinion that we shouldn''t provoke the rising authoritarian nations and so Cry for Liberty wouldn''t have enough elected power to alter the course of U.S. foreign policy. "It is obviously something that matters. But I''m not going to throw away the new global peace for it."

    ---

    Steve was waiting at the diner, drumming his hands on the table. Ward had promised to meet him here. He''d been scrounging for any hint of Bucky internationally or nationally ¨C Apparently, he had become yet another rogue SHIELD asset. Sometimes Steve was glad that Peggy had been losing her memory retention before the organization she had worked so hard for.

    He was on his second cup of coffee when Ward finally arrived, looking kind of¡­ well, he looked bad. Steve got up and gave him a hug in greeting, "What''s the matter?''

    Ward hugged back and didn''t say anything as they sat down. He looked across the table and Steve felt sure he was going to say something, but then he ran his hand over his face and sighed. "Work stuff, classified. Sorry."

    "I understand," Steve said, looking over the table at him. "Did you manage to get anything?"

    Ward nodded his head and slid him a thumb drive, "It''s just a chart of identifiable appearances," he said.

    "Thanks," Steve said.

    Ward glanced around and then back at Steve, "Steve, have you considered not going out on this hunt?"

    Steve looked back at Ward, "Not you too," he said. Daisy had agreed to help, but she''d been grumpy about it. So had Nat. It made sense, of course it made sense, but Bucky was Steve''s best friend. He''d had his back through hails of bullets and the halls of high school, he was a good man. Steve had to find him, had to find him before the entire security apparatus of the United States.

    Unlawfully taken from Royal Road, this story should be reported if seen on Amazon.

    "I''m not-" Ward paused and his mind seemed to turn, his face contorted in thought.

    "What? What do you want to say?"

    "Nothing," Ward said. "I hope you find him first Steve."

    They had a meal that was otherwise quite normal.

    ----

    "The Winter Soldier was a risk," Stern said, taking a drink of win as we sat around the Head Table for the last time before the election.

    I looked over at the people I had put here ¨C Konstantin, Salcedo, Durrani, Garrett¨C and sighed. I had been trying to fill this stupid group with supporters who were loyal enough and trusted me enough to let me set the agenda but completely revamping the structure of Hydra was a task I just hadn''t had time to complete. "Of course it''s a risk, we''re aiming for world domination."

    "Such a large risk to counteract some guy whose glory days were nearly a century ago?" Malick asked, shaking his head.

    "One spark can become a flame, Malick. If they mobilize against us, we cannot hope to win. Steve Rogers is the most respected man in America, he fought the Nazis and Thanos and didn''t dirty his hands anywhere in between here and there. He''s a hero ¨C When he speaks, people listen.Kill him, he''s a martyr. Distracting him is what''s best."

    "Ward''s got him chasing his tail now," Garrett said, proud of his protege. "I wouldn''t worry."

    I wasn''t worried ¨C We could bring Bucky back for reprograming instantly from anywhere in the world, Steve was really chasing his own tail on this one. The only thing worse for Steve would be for him to find him ¨C It would be inconvenient for me, of course, but he''d feel compelled to protect Bucky even though he was guilty of ¨C and I had the full CV ¨C a century of black ops crimes. That alone would be a huge gift to me in pillorying him.

    ---

    The convention was uproarious. There were protestors outside ¨C There were always protestors outside these days. Cry for Liberty had been shut out on the international policy question this election ¨C Not totally, they had a few senators from each side of the aisle who would say loudly that the United States needed a more aggressive foreign policy against rising authoritarianism, but most members of both party weren''t going to argue with their standard bearer, even if they didn''t like it.

    I pressed down on my suit and looked over at Andromeda, "Kiss for good luck?"

    Andromeda kissed me and I walked out into the bright lights, the giant screens of the stage shining down on me.

    "Good evening," I said, waving to the crowd. "Today it is the great pleasure and burden of my life to accept the Democratic nomination to the Presidency of the United States..."

 101: Election

    <div>

    I slipped into my house in the evening, having flown home from the swing state of Texas ¨C Yeah, things are weird here, politically. Without the climate crisis or high oil demand and with the (relatively) cheap Extremis Formula cure-all, a lot of priorities have shuffled around and the GOP had gotten shellacked in Texas.

    Andromeda walked up and kissed me and I held on for a moment before we sat down in the living room. "The kids are asleep," she said, putting her hand on my arm in a suggestive way.

    I grinned at her but I was so dog-tired. I was tired all the time these days. And the day was only getting longer, "Can you bring me the box?"

    Andromeda gave me a smile that was only barely brittle and got up to get it for me. I couldn''t wear the crown in public ¨C First of all, that would be a bad look. Second of all, Strange would come and get it from me if I did. Andromeda got back with the metal box and put it in front of me, "I''ll get you something to eat," she said softly.

    I opened the box and put on the crown, and felt my mind expand once again. Why was I wasting time on politics? I could be breaking the laws of physics over my knee, completely transforming Earth into a technological powerhouse. But I had to, because if I didn''t, Hydra would make the attempt with or without me and they would probably fail. The international order we had created was already fraying and the United States was as open to authoritarian rule as it had been since Jim Crow but it wasn''t enough to close the deal without a very careful threading of the needle.

    "How have the infiltrators done with the CfL?" Andromeda asked as she brought me a plate of fresh strawberries and a glass of water.

    "They''re trying their best," I said, picking through the names in my head of CfL organizers and thinking of embarrassing facts or points of leverage before putting it down on a sheet of paper to remember. "But the CfL is doing less mass protests now and trying to redirect their energies more electorally."

    "Pomares isn''t much different than you," Andromeda pointed out.

    "They''re trying to cultivate more Senate and House allies," I said, "And it''s, you know, free real estate" Andromeda didn''t get the meme reference. "They''re able to offer politicians actual votes ¨C That goes a long way. And there''s a lot of people who agree with them, even if they can''t win this presidential election."

    ---

    At the second debate, Pomares and I had slugged it out over the details of our tax plans, which were not quite tweedle-dee and tweedle-dum level similars but mostly reduced to ''Pomares will be good for your retirement account and Trent will be good for workers'' income.'' I was frustrated at how little credit I got for how all the stuff I and Hydra had done - People credited Ellis with a lot of the stuff that I did. One of the drawbacks of being part of a mass conspiracy, I guess. Now we were coming up to one of the hot topics of this universe''s elections ¨C Transhumanism.

    "Mr. Trent, you''ve been one of the foremost advocates for transhumanism. What do you say to those who are anxious about the possibility of empowered individuals menacing the public?" the moderator, a reporter named Alex Harker.

    "I think we already live in a world where enhanced individuals can do that," I said. Widespread supply of the Extremis Formula had made it so that you could get the power-up relatively cheap, though it was still easier to get C4. "I think we need to address the issue head on rather than trying to trim it down. In a world with abundant usage of the Super-Soldier serum, we''d have an abundant supply of potential protectors and people would be healthier, stronger, with more stable health. My wife has taken it and she''ll tell you how useful it is for her family. A wonder treatment that makes you healthy, strong, and more energized to face the day isn''t something that should be reserved for the government. It is my intention to deliver a future that works for you and what''s more important to you than your health?"

    This story is posted elsewhere by the author. Help them out by reading the authentic version.

    "Secretary Pomares, your response," Harker said.

    Pomares was a Latina in late middle age, he wavy hair dyed black with a great deal of skill. She was wearing her standard skirt suit, a dark blue number with a button up blouse. "It''s easy to talk about the upside, but what Mr. Trent is suggesting is a world where if you don''t take the Serum, you''re disadvantaged at every level and subject to immense physical danger. Today, Extremis cheaters are easily identified and disabled. In a world where that was open, it would be much harder to suppress. Don''t let him sell you on this as an unambiguous good ¨C Just like with his Osiris educations, we''ll start to see people penalized because they don''t want to take the treatment. It won''t be some innocent event ¨C It''ll be you take the Serum or you and your family wind up out on the street. It''ll be an excuse to cut off your healthcare, to turn you down for work ¨C Especially if you make your living by the sweat of your brow, something he might appreciate if he''d ever done it."

    "She''s lying," I said. There were rules at these things, but there was no reason to follow them. Nobody was going to vote on if you were polite to your opponent two months before they cast their ballot.

    "Mr. Trent, please don''t interrupt."

    "Mr. Trent has a well known allergy to the truth," Pomares said. "Especially about his inventions."

    I shook my head and laughed a little for the debate spit screen, "You''re so full of¡­" I said and then held up my hands in surrender.

    Pomares was a smart operator and took it in stride. She was a tough opponent, but she was a little too stiff for most people ¨C She''d gotten into politics when the bars for women were higher and she''d adapted by sheer personal discipline. You could hear her thinking before she said anything, judging, considering. In my opinion, that''s a positive ¨C You don''t want a president who shoots off at the mouth. But boy, do Americans hate it when people think before they speak.

    "Secretary Pomares," Harker said, turning to her for the next question and we were back to the races.

    ---

    The big party at the end of an election had disappointed me before. But I needed there to be a big party for this one too. It was a close race, one or two points of error could swing it for or against me, so I didn''t have to have the crushing certainty of failure surrounded by optimists. So I was drifting around, focusing on thanking people and plotting how to survive the disaster if I lost had to go back to the Heads empty-handed on this one.

    Victor came up to me in the middle of it, bringing drinks ¨C A beer for him and a Dr. Pepper, "You''ve carried the Rust Belt," he said and I felt tension go out of my shoulders. Forward progress. "The old oil states look against you, though. Lost in Florida."

    That meant Texas was out too. "Unfortunate," I said, taking a drink of the Dr. Pepper.

    "I''m going to be devastated if you lose again," Victor said, taking a drink of his beer. "This is a whole new world you''ve built, I can''t think of anyone better to watch over it."

    I smiled and nodded, continuing to mill. Once the totals started rolling in in the West, I knew instantly how I was doing. I looked out over the crowd, as of yet unaware of what was coming, and then I got the pleasure of watching the wins roll in. I took Andromeda aside and kissed her before California officially closed and it sealed the deal for me. She smiled, "I told you."

    "You were right," I said, grinning and then watching on the screen as the announcement came through.

    "With no apparent upsets in the Pacific States," the reporter said at around midnight pacific. "We are confident enough now to announce that Michael Trent will be the next President of the United States."

 102: Preparing for Ascension

    <div>

    Now I was calling Konstantin to try and convince him to my side. I expected it to be easy ¨C We had paved the way for Konstantin to the palace coup in Russia. I stood in my campaign office, the secure line against my ear, and expected it to be a short conversation.

    "No," Konstantin said once I had asked him to vote to release me from the commitment in the round about way that we did whenever I was on the phone at home.

    My ascent to the Presidency had yielded a great deal of power to Stern and the final range of coups were questionable. In Western Europe, we were relying on the Baroness who, I will be candid, was not a great choice. In Eastern Europe, we had the remnants of Strucker''s organization but after the fall of Sokovia, we were in a difficult place and viewed as somewhat less reliable or more in with the Russian government, so I was surprised at Konstantin, "What do you mean, no?"

    "You promised me two years," Konstantin said, his voice rough from age, "March is two and a half years. I cannot live forever, I want to leave a safe legacy for my sons."

    "Konstantin," I said, my voice as gentle and soft as I could make it. I looked out over the packed up boxes of the closing campaign and took solace in my victory. "I understand your concern for your sons, but this is such a risky bet."

    "The ascension is always going to be a risky bet. Your patience will not necessarily change that." Konstantin said, his voice measured. "I am not sure I can hold on much longer. I am not as good at playing the grinning populist as you are and the Russian people are starting to stir again. And even if I can, for me to go down if we lose than for my sons to go down for it in three or four years. You promised me the money to pave over that flaw ¨C Can you give it to me without the ascension?"

    I grimaced and stared at the wood door of my office. I could not. There was no way to get the money I had assured the puppet coup leaders was coming through popular assent ¨C Not with the CfL putting pressures on all our elected officials. I knew how hard it was to hold together Hydra and each of my subordinates were doing that on each step down.

    "No, I cannot Konstantin. But if we fail, your sons may also pay the price."

    There was a heavy sigh on the other end of the line. "I know. But I think I am better suited to this and I think you know I am better suited to this."

    "Yes," I sighed, pinching my nose. If my puppet states crumbled, well, that would be it for my claims to the head of Hydra. With my new position, there wasn''t even a guarantee that I could retain control of the existing hundred billion, which we had already carved up somewhat to donate to Asgard. Luckily, I could probably move that particular treaty through the floor. "Thank you for your input Konstantin, it has been most illuminating."

    "Of course," he said. "The patsies are lined up?"

    "Yes Konstantin," I said. We had been maneuvering Coulson and his team into place for some time, the trail would lead to them when the time came.

    "May victory come to us soon," Konstantin said and hung up the other end of the line in lieu of a ''hail hydra.'' Sensible, no need to be too exact on a phone that might be hacked. It was unlikely, I had done the run through to check it myself, but it was still possible. Anything was possible.

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    ----

    Andromeda had written a message for me at home, we need to talk about the talk. We passed notes whenever we didn''t want Persephone to hear, but she could also read at this point, so they still needed to be sufficiently vague if they were going to last over the phone.

    Talk about the talk? I thought we had agreed to very forthright early discussions of sex. I walked to where Andromeda was playing with Persephone and held up the note, "Thought we already discussed sex?"

    Andromeda laughed, "Not that talk," she leaned down and kissed our little girl''s forehead. Persephone was getting so old now, I''d been a father for half a decade, and I was not enjoying the experience.

    Alright, what other talk was there? No, she couldn''t mean the Hydra talk. She could totally mean the Hydra talk, this was Andromeda we were talking about. I resist the urge to sigh, the girl was five. She did not need the talk. But I motioned to her and we went to another room with a whiteboard and started writing to one another. I stepped up and wrote, Hydra?

    Andromeda nodded.

    She''s five, why do we need to tell her?

    Andromeda stepped up to the board and erased my writing replacing it with, Ascension is coming. She''ll have trouble understanding if we don''t explain. Andromeda put the cap back on the pen as if that settled everything.

    It did not settle everything. I cannot emphasize enough that my daughter was five years old. I held out my hand for the pen as I erased everything. Ascension is not Persephone''s problem, she is five.

    Her daddy is about to become most powerful man in the world under false pretenses but that''s not her problem? Andromeda wrote back.

    What if she lets something slip? Hydra joke much more serious gaffe as president.

    Andromeda glared at me and shook her head, needs to know you''re doing it for the right reason. Very smart, understands what presidency means popularly.

    I grimaced. My daughter was unnaturally smart, she probably did understand that the president was supposed to represent the people. Heck, I said it in some of my speeches while I angled at the crooks and gangsters of the Washington Swamp. Huge security risk. Will not need to understand immediately. Too close to Gert/Molly.

    Andromeda frowned, What''s wrong with Gert/Molly?

    Andromeda had once lied to me and taken me completely off-guard, but apparently Gert had kept her politics more tightly since our discussion or it would be a problem. Nothing, Gert/Molly are good ¨C but brainwashed, like parents, wouldn''t understand immediately. Andromeda could be made to remember her views were unpopular, but you had to actively point it out. To her, the most natural thing in the world was to believe that the world should ruled by a narrow elite. Anyone who didn''t believe that was engaging in false consciousness. People like the Yorkes who sacrificed children to achieve their economic and social ends were understandable and supportable in that context. People sincerely committed to universal human equality, rather than verbally as the Yorkes were, were not.

    Andromeda capped the pen and chewed on it for a moment before making a concessionary gesture and wiping the board, "Not right now then," she said, not hiding the fact that she was grumpy.

    I reached over to her and touched her arm and she didn''t pull away. We kissed and I said, "You''re a great mom. Soon we''ll be able to tell her everything."

 103: The March to March

    <div>

    And then I set to work bringing that office, constitution, and nation to an end.

    ---

    Tony knocked glasses with Mike at one of the big White House parties, "Congratulations," he told the younger man. He looked a bit haggard, worn out. But he had just run a fairly aggressive Presidential campaign and had all these parties to go through.

    Mike managed a game smile, "Thanks Tony."

    "You enjoying that new house?"

    "Well, I wish it hadn''t been demolished a few years ago," Mike said.

    "Oh, really?" Tony said. "Yeah, I think I know the guy who did that."

    Mike mimed being injured, "Well, give him a good sock in the jaw for me."

    "I would, but he''s a friend, you know, a bit slow on the uptake, but I have to settle sometimes."

    "Wow, what a bore he must be." Mike said.

    "So what''s next for America, conquering the stars?"

    Mike smirked, "Think we''re going to try to get things straightened out here on Earth."

    "Pity," Tony said, shrugging. "I''m told there''s a lot out there." An Asgardian had released a pretty comprehensive public summary of known alien civilizations and that had sent another shot of recognition through the whole of humanity that they were under threat.

    "There''s a lot of problems down here ¨C Whoever was driving that rogue SHIELD operative, the rolling transformation of our energy sector still hasn''t quite leveled, the new educational distribution and the issues with that."

    "Still not a huge fan of a procedure that''s so dangerous," Tony said, trying to get his friend''s attention. "You should stop it till you can iron that out."

    "You going to share your Iron Man tech?"

    "Nope," Tony said, shaking his head. They went back and forth like this, ''stop sharing that dangerous tech'' and ''share that dangerous tech'' going between them. Then Tony snapped his finger, "Oh, uh, don''t tell the tabloid press this but Pepper is¡­" he made a motion around his waist.

    "Really!" Mike said, his eyes widening and his face breaking into a real smile. "Congratulations Tony, that''s great. Congratulations."

    "Thanks," Tony said.

    ---

    Steve sat down on the park bench next to Daisy and handed her a hot dog, "I shouldn''t have left."

    Daisy looked at him like she agreed but thought better of saying so. She leaned into him and sighed, "It''s not like you could''ve stopped him. Pomares wasn''t any better."

    Steve put an arm around her. He hadn''t had any success at finding Bucky ¨C Wherever he was now, he didn''t want to be found. He''d been in hiding from the full force of U.S. government and SWORD, even with Ward feeding him locations and sightings it hadn''t been enough to track him down. Hell, Ward had given him a Quantum Tunneler off the books and it still wasn''t enough. Bucky moved too quickly and laid too low.

    The evening air of New York was still chilly, even to Steve, and he looked down at Daisy. She was a blessing, he had to admit that. "How''s the CfL doing?" Steve asked, feeling guilty for leaving them to no avail.

    "Growing, polling is always getting better, lots of organized boycotts and such," Daisy said. "The organizers are really top tier, they put the elbow grease in. I''m sure they''d be happy to have you back though."

    "Yeah," Steve agreed, feeling another pang of guilt. There were a lot of arrows in the quiver of, ''ran off in the middle of an election year and came back with nothing.''

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    Daisy looked at him when he didn''t say anything more, "You are coming back right?"

    "Yeah, of course," he said. There wasn''t any point to continuing the running around and finding nothing routine.

    "Good," Daisy said. "Means I''ll be off the beat, which is a pity, but the CfL could really use you."

    Another pang.

    ---

    Natasha Romanov was a happy woman. She would not have thought happiness was on the table for her, but laying here in this cabin next to Bruce, in a world she had helped to make safe? That was happiness. She grinned at Bruce until he woke up.

    "What''s with the staring?" Bruce said, his voice groggy.

    "I like what I see," Natasha said, running her fingers through his hair.

    "This is my good face," Bruce joked.

    Natasha smiled and kissed him. "Clint called, wanted to know if you were good to come by and see the kids next month?"

    "Yeah, of course," Bruce said. They still lived out in the woods because Bruce was anxious about hulking out, but he was much calmer and more confident than he had been when they met. He didn''t feel like he was on the brink of turning most of the time, at least not to Natasha.

    ----

    It was mid-March and Daisy and Steve were huddling next to the stage of a CfL rally in Minnesota, the cold wind cutting through the easy air. Steve had another speech to give, more people to recruit, and then they''d ship him off to another city to do the same schtick again. It reminded Steve, maddeningly, of his time as a propaganda performer. This was better and more serious, he had to remind himself, he wasn''t a performer he was a messenger, people were listening to them.

    Then Ward appeared right next to the two of them. "Put these on," he said, throwing each of them Quantum Tunnelers. Steve caught his and held it out as Daisy put hers on .

    "Ward, we have a rally going here," Steve pointed out. "I''ll admit I''ve complained to you a fair number of times, but it still matters that I do them."

    "Steve," Ward said, his voice urgent. "I need you to trust me. Put it on."

    Steve put his on and looked over to Daisy, had already prepared it. "What''s the matter?"

    "Someone''s going to try to kill you," Ward said. "Both of you."

    "Here?" Steve said. He hadn''t spotted any super-soldiers. An inhuman, maybe?

    "Not exactly," Ward said, nodding his head toward the clouds.

    "The helicarriers?" Steve asked, taken aback. "I know personal use of a tunneler is illegal, but it''s not a death sentence."

    Ward shook his head and said, "Look, we need to go now. I don''t know when it''s happening. Both of those tunnelers are set for an old safe house basement. Do not come up at any point until I come to find you, no phones, nothing that signals. Nothing that goes off."

    Steve looked at Ward for a moment and then nodded his head, "Yeah. Okay." He nodded to Daisy and Daisy nodded back. "But you''re going to have to explain later."

    Ward looked him dead in the eye for several seconds and then seemed to flinch, looking down and away. "Yeah, I am," he said and Steve realized the tone of voice as shame.

    Daisy and Steve exchanged a last, nervous look before they took out their phones and handed them to Ward. He was their friend. They trusted him. He just dropped the phones straight into the grass.

    "Go!" Ward said urgently.

    They pressed the launch button on their tunnelers.

 104: Five Minutes of Fire

    <div>

    "Fitz says they''re preparing for a mass attack on political opposition," May said, checking her rifle one last time in the belly of the plane. She put it down and sighed. "I don''t like it though. I hate to shoot people just doing their job."

    Phil nodded his head, "It doesn''t matter. We''ve tried the legal channels, no luck, and we''re running low on time. All our sources say it''s happening soon."

    Bobbi Morse came down into the belly of the plane, "You guys ready?" Morse had taken the Super-Soldier serum too, back before it all went wrong, and she was one of their most useful agents. Her blond hair and typically amazonian physique made her conspicuous, but she was invaluable in a fight.

    "As we can be," May said, sighing. "Fitz''s tracker still working? Not getting thwarted by the camo?"

    Bobbi nodded her head in agreement, "We''re all going to go to jail for this."

    "If we''re lucky," May said, her tone dark enough to meet the words. It wasn''t going to be fun.

    "How''s our cloaking holding up?" Phil asked.

    "It''s working fine."

    ----

    The team jumped from a great height onto the new helicarriers, pushing into the building. "Go!" Phil ordered as soon as they touched the tarmac. The alarms had clearly gone off because a swarm of SWORD security was coming towards them. Poor bastards had no idea what they were defending. Melinda fired into the crowd of SWORD security officers as the rest of them made a break for the edge of the helicarrier. They''d considered not landing at all, but it had been too risky. Phil was grabbing the reppling gear as he reached the edge, hooked it, gave one solid tug to see if it was clear, and started climbing down the side.

    The others, led by Bobbi, soon followed and they made their way toward the center of the ship and the glass orb that contained the high-power computer that made the targeting decision. The wind bit hard and pulled at them, but they managed to stay on task thanks to the magnetized gauntlets they had for this purpose. Eventually, they reached the orb and Phil and Bobbi kicked holes in the side of it. The rest of the group followed through the holes.

    A large cross section above where they landed inside was the location of the design. Bobbi and Phil were able to reach the top, where four guards were waiting. Bobbi put a bullet through one and tossed the other one down into the glass, the depresusrization of the space making it difficult to move or think. Phil climbed across the cross section to the center, knocking his two men aside in a brash rush.

    He took out the override command unit and slid it into the airship and slumped up against the wall of the helicarrier, hands in the air, "We surrender," he said mostly to himself, his voice weak. And then the guns started going off.

    "What''s happening?" Phil shouted, "The command unit was supposed to override this!"

    Bobbi looked as confused as he was and the others were making their way to the top. "Fitz, what''s going on?"

    "I don''t know," Fitz said, running up to the central command unit. "It should''ve stopped the program."

    "Make it stop!"

    "Well I would if I could, wouldn''t I?" Fitz said, not looking away from the central console. Then he let out a curse, "Those sons of a bitches," he said.

    "What is it, Fitz?" Phil asked, hauling himself off the ground as more members of SWORD arrived, climbing down into the room.

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    "Phil," he said, looking over at him as Bobbi darted forward, kick spinning off the edge of the cross-section walkway and knocking the attackers to the ground. "This console isn''t live."

    "What?"

    "It''s been updated, where-ever the control console is, it''s not here."

    "Well then where is it?"

    "I don''t know!" Fitz shouted, his voice frayed. "There''s nothing we can do, they won Phil."

    Phil cursed and looked at the others, their eyes aghast. "Alright, fall back, we''ll have to find some way to tell people what''s happened. Use the escape schutes. And if we don''t make it," he looked around at his team and felt a sharp pang. "It''s been an honor to serve with you."

    They dropped back toward the cracked glass and Fitz took a bullet, "Go!" he shotued, stumbling down. But Phil couldn''t abandon him ¨C He came back and grabbed Fitz, aiming his fire at the attackers, hoping for the best.

    They made it to the cracked glass and Phil watched as his team disembarked to the open air.

    That was when the bullets started hailing into the airship. Cracking through the glass, rounds tore into Phil and his friends, into the ship itself, into the SWORD agents. Why were they firing on themselves? Phil wondered hopelessly, as the bullets began to bleed him dry. What were they doing?

    It didn''t really matter, whatever they were doing, someone else was going to have to deal with it.

    ---

    Nat grinned as she served little Nathaniel a sandwich out on the picnic table Clint had made. "Thanks for having us," she told Clint, who was teaching his daughter archery.

    "It''s nice," Clint said. "A bit domestic. Would you have ever imagined?"

    Nat laughed, "Not even once." They had gone from being SHIELD agents to quietly retired, or semi-retired in her case. Bruce was smiling and telling a joke to Laura. This was what she had never thought she would have, what she hadn''t could never have seen coming. She felt ambushed by joy.

    Then the bullet slammed into Bruce''s chest. It came from nowhere, but there were three rounds protruding from Bruce''s newly green skin, blooming into his form. "Inside!" Clint shouted, grabbing two of the children under one of his arms annd Natasha grabbed Nathaniel instantly.

    They had barely started to move toward the house when a bullet went through Natasha''s chest and scraped across Nathaniel''s cheek. "Targeting us," Natasha said, her breath failing her, rolling Nathaniel away from her and breathing what she was sure was her last breaths. She looked over at Clint only to see his head was missing.

    She should''ve known God wouldn''t forgive any of them.

    ---

    I was sitting inside, watching it all play out. The plan went off perfectly ¨C Coulson and his team were dead, as were every senator or house representative who was in the open air and who had been in office four years ago. Technically, there were four or five who''d voted against SWORD, a couple aspiring isolationist Republicans and a few conscientious objector Democrats, but they wouldn''t be an obstacle.

    We''d had to do a lot of coordinating to get so many of our preferred targets into the open air for the afternoon, but we''d pulled it off. Of course, anyone who had been on our side in truth and not by mere coincidence was inside somewhere that was perfectly plausible. I was surprised to discover that Bruce had survived his bombardment and apparently, Steve and Daisy were missing too from the target list.

    That was going to be a problem.

 105: Presidential Address

    <div>

    I paused here, for the gravity of the moment. It really was a tragedy, what I was doing to the oldest democracy on the planet. "So far as we can now discern, we expect over half of our august Congress is dead. This is the darkest day in the history of our nation," please ignore the genocide and slavery period, "The only light in our horizon is that those who personally perpetrated this atrocity were destroyed by the brave men and women of SWORD. Unable to regain control of the Helicarrier, unaware of how many more SHIELD would try to kill, I ordered SWORD to turn their guns on the hijacked helicarrier. In the process of doing so, they lost some of their own friends and fellow service members, including those who were fighting to stop this devastating attack. It was, and God willing shall remain, the hardest decision I have ever made. We are still in the process of recovering the tapes and materials of the downed Helicarrier, but we were receiving word of their heroic sacrifices to the very end."

    I managed to produce a few, manful tears ¨C That particular ship had been stocked with not particularly closely tied to Hydra SWORD members. "We commend them to their maker as worthy of all the honor that any nation or people can bestow. But it is they who have honored us with their sacrifice and courage. It is we, the living, who must bear nobly the heavy honor they have bestowed on us. Today, I am calling upon Congress to empower our administration to do everything that must be done to end this threat to our country. I am calling upon my fellow Americans to be vigilant, we have no idea how expansive of a conspiracy SHIELD mobilized. I will keep you updated, please keep our nation in your prayers.

    Today, more than any other day, may God bless you and may God bless America."

    We were keeping an eye on the Hulk, who had fled from Clint''s house after the attack, but nothing important was happening with him beside that. Ultimately, if I had to, I could have him attacked again. Hulk''s an idiot.

    ---

    Ward arrived in the safe house a second time after he''d gone off to find Nat. He''d come by after he couldn''t find her and the news alarms started going off all around him. He didn''t think anyone was onto him, but he wasn''t going risk being out here for those damn sniper rounds.

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    The underground room was dark and outdated, with an old couch and godawful orange shag carpert and no TV or radio. It was a secure location, not one in regular use, and that was why Ward had picked it. If they were going to lay low, they needed somewhere out of the way, he needed somewhere that could hold a regular supply of Micron particles. He''d been stocking up for years, of course, off the books. No need to tell anyone about his "Get out of Hydra" plan. Worst come to worst, they could always flee off world.

    Daisy jumped off the couch, "Ward, what''s happening? Did you find Nat?" Daisy looked like shit, like she''d been worrying non-stop. He felt bad. He wished she didn''t have to feel like that.

    He shook his head. She was probably dead now. He wouldn''t have been that broken up about it, honestly, but it would''ve been unbelievably dumb to betray Hydra without trying to save her, so he''d tried his best. That was over now. Whenever he came up for air, they were going to come for him. He looked over at Steve and said, "I¡­ no. She''s probably dead."

    "Probably dead?" Daisy said, "How can you know?"

    He hadn''t bothered to grab a phone to show her. "It was all part of the big plan, or at least it probably was."

    Steve looked concerned and frustrated from the couch, but he held it in. He was too good at that. You wouldn''t have expected it from somebody so decent, but he was really in control of his emotions. "Ward, I think you should start at the beginning."

    Ward had never wanted to tell Steve this. He had put it off for years and years. Promise of the ascension around the corner had been the ordinary habit of Hydra for decades ¨C Why would this time be any different? But whoever was in charge now was apparently ready to take more power and a few more risks. So now he had to explain, he didn''t have any choice. "When I was eighteen, John Garret recruited me into a secret organization after I burnt my family home down."

    "Okay," Steve said, annoyed. "I meant the start of this."

    "That organization wasn''t SHIELD." Ward took a deep breath, looking between his friends. This was his last time to be seen as an ordinary person by his friend. "It was, and I know you will find this hard to believe, a substantially worse organization than SHIELD."

    It was clear that they were both finding that hard to believe. SHIELD was a major problem for them.

    "In fact, much of SHIELD''s worst excesses were actually that organization''s actions."

    "Spit it out, Ward," Steve said, looking at him with renewed suspicion. A dagger in Ward''s heart. He was a good friend, he''d come to save Steve even though it might get him killed. He''d tried to save Daisy and Natasha too. He had tried to do the right thing, in the end, he didn''t deserve the suspicion.

    "That organization was Hydra."

 Steve Rogers: The Real Grant Ward

    <div>

    But when Ward said he was recruited into Hydra, Steve wanted to punch him in the jaw. Or rather, wanted to have the experience of punching him in the jaw like a normal human and not a vibranium, Extremis dosed super-soldier. "That''s not funny," Steve said and he was sure his anger was showing through. They''d been sitting in this dank, strangely carpetted basement for nearly an hour. They didn''t need to do this joking thing now. They were worried Nat was dead.

    "It''s not a joke," Ward said, rubbing his hand over his mouth as he sat down on the couch.

    "Hydra?" Daisy asked, confused. "They''ve been dead since the forties."

    Ward shook his head, "They went underground, infested SHIELD from the beginning. Operation Paperclip recruited Zola and Zola recruited from SHIELD''s best agents."

    God in heaven, Ward really believed what he was saying. He was a member of Hydra. Grant Ward, one of Steve''s closest friends in the twenty first century, was a member of Hydra. Steve didn''t like that at all. "Then what?" Steve put his hands folded his hands together so he wouldn''t be able to flex his fist at Ward.

    "Then, for a long time, nothing ¨C We had a few extra missions, kept a few extra secrets, but mostly we were just SHIELD Agents," Ward said. Steve felt that was eliding a lot if Hydra was really responsible for SHIELD''s worst excesses. But he didn''t interrupt. "During the Attack on D.C., I was available, so I got dosed with the Super-Soldier Serum."

    Steve sighed, what came next was obvious. Ward had the best espionage ranking since Nat, it made sense, it made perfect sense. It had been right there in the file and Steve had never thought, ''what if he''s lying to me?'' Steve felt like an idiot. "And they sent you to spy on me."

    Ward at least had the decency to look guilty, "Yeah."

    There was a heavy silence in the room. Steve looked over at Daisy who looked like she was struggling mightily not to quake Ward into a wall. Steve understood the impulse, but he reached over and grabbed her hand and shook his head. Daisy nodded, reluctantly, but she shook her hand free of his hand regardless. He understood. She stood up and started pacing the room.

    "So besides Trent," Steve said, looking at Ward next to him on the couch. The President of the United States. Goddamnit. "Who''s Hydra?"

    "Garrett," Ward said, ticking off his fingers, "Jacobs," the present Director of SHIELD, "Rumlowe was but he''s dead now. Probably a third of the Fireflies are active members and another third of them are associates ¨C Uh, people who are assets to hydra without signing on to the mission."

    "Wait, you signed on for the mission?!" Daisy said, "Killing the inferior races?"

    "No!" Ward said and he was genuinely offended, "Modern Hydra is more about -" Ward paused and thought for a minute as if the question had never occurred to him in a demonstration of human depravity. "I guess they''re just a society for mutual self-advancement? I mean, they''re for them being in charge? There''s a lot of talk but its basically, you know, we should be in charge because we know how the world really is and the people can''t be trusted to see things clearly." Ward shrugged, "I was mostly in because of Garrett."

    Steve was furious with Ward. This was despicable. Hydra was despicable. The scum of the earth. But they needed to focus on the important information if they were going to stop a conspiracy that contained the President of the United States. "Alright, let''s skip to the reason you tucked us away here."

    "Garrett came and asked if you would be in the open air," Ward said. "I knew you would be and I told him so, he''s checked on you before, it wasn''t weird." Another in the string of betrayals, each as big as the sun, as numberless as the stars. It was hard to concentrate when Ward was saying these terrible things like they were normal. "But there was talk about assignments on the helicarriers and he was being especially laudatory about my service, he''s been a real ass for a few years now, and I just-" Ward paused.

    "You knew he was going to kill me," Steve said. It was such an obvious endpoint to spying on him that Steve was surprised that Ward had waited so long to break off from it if he was going to do so at all. It bespoke a moral cowardice or lack of foresight that was yet another mark against the true Ward''s character.

    "Yeah," Ward said. They had come so close to killing both him and Daisy. Because of Ward! But Ward also the only reason they knew, even now, that Hydra existed. He was a part of the very system they now had to oppose, he had helped it, worked for it, for years, decades, without hesistation or remorse. But they still needed him. What Ward was doing was risky and Steve could at least respect that he was willing to take this risk to stop them. Even if it was very, very late.

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    Steve looked over to Daisy, whose mind was clearly running along the same path because she looked like she had just scraped manure off her shoes but she didn''t look ready to put him through the wall. "So why Natasha? Or Daisy, for that matter?"

    "If they''ve got a chance to clear the tables," Ward said, "They''ll want to do it clean ¨C The obvious targets who are threats to Hydra. You, obviously, just as a political symbol of the old order. Daisy, because she''s a superhero and a reporter. Natasha because she caught on to Strucker, got him killed by Fury. I don''t know what excuse they''ve got cooked up ¨C Might target the CfL leaders too if they can, might not. It all depends."

    "So what''ll they do?"

    "Find a scapegoat, like Fury and SHIELD before now, they''ll use them and then they''ll dispose them." Ward said it all in a business like tone.

    "Did Hydra torture my mom?" Daisy asked, her eyes narrowed, her body tense, pacing now in fury.

    "I don''t know for sure," Ward said, but then seemed to think better of the equivocation, "but it sounds like that''s something they would do, yes. Especially if it gave them super-powers, Hydra has been really obsessed with enhancement recently."

    Daisy did not put Ward through the wall, and honestly, Steve was impressed. Her hands were flexed to her side, though, like she might at at any moment, even as she paced. Ward could''ve delivered that news a lot better. "So we were part of a frame up." She slowed to a stop in front of Ward. "Coulson was right."

    Ward seemed to have realized his earlier mistake and just nodded his head.

    "I really want to break you in half right now," Daisy said, looking at him with something that Steve could only call hatred. "You were my friend," She was back to pacing furiously across the room, back and forth, stopping to punctuate her sentence, "I trusted you."

    Ward held up his hands in surrender, "And I deserve that, I do." Good, better, Steve thought. "I betrayed you and I broke your trust and that''s my fault." It was sounding less sincere the more he said it.

    "How can we stop them?" Steve asked, trying to get back to a topic that didn''t make him want to hit Ward in the face.

    "Stop them?" Ward asked, surprised at the question. "We can''t stop them, we need to hide. They''re going to try to kill all of us. They have an army of Fireflies and control of the Presidency of the United States. Plus who knows how many other countries."

    "The Authoritarian Wave is Hydra, isn''t it?" Daisy said and Ward nodded. "Goddamnit Ward, you really waited till the last fucking second didn''t you?"

    The language didn''t even bother Steve. It was true. This would all have been much, much better if Ward had scraped together the courage to do something three months ago, let alone three years ago. "Let''s try to focus, here, Ward. They were going to kill us, that''s not something they''ve tried before, why now?"

    Ward shrugged, "I wasn''t that high level, even after they put me over the Fireflies. But I think¡­ I think they''re moving towards controlling the Untied States. You two, the CfL, everyone was inconvenient to that."

    "Inconvenient how?"

    "You''re America''s Best Self, if you opposed something, that means it''s bad, I know you''ve taken a popularity hit, but man, they were really mad when you started attending the CfL messages."

    Steve looked at Daisy, "Daisy, can you get out a message?"

    "Yeah, I can Steve," Daisy said, looking at him, her face transforming into something much warmer. "But I think Ward needs to explain where Bucky is, since obviously Hydra knows."

    Steve felt like his throat had been slashed open. Of course. If Hydra had infiltrated SHIELD, if SHIELD had found Bucky, it would''ve been possible for them to twist him into something hideous. Steve didn''t know how, but it was clear that Ward had been a part of it, in his own way.

    "Steve, no." Ward said, "I don''t know where he is, I would''ve told you."

    "But you knew you didn''t know," Steve said, staring at the man he had once believed was his friend.

    "Yes, okay, I knew. I thought they were going to kill you, Steve."

    "You could''ve told me that whenever you wanted."

    Ward looked down. "I know, I know. But I was ashamed, you can understand why."

    "Yeah, because you suck," Daisy said, crossing her arms. Steve didn''t think that was helpful.

    But it was true.

 106:Release the Ward Tape

    <div>

    She heard a door open and voices in the hall. "Ben!" she shouted, her finger hovering over the get-out button on the Quantum tunneler in case this went south because he was actually a Hydra agent or something else like that.

    "Daisy?" Ben Bernstein said, coming up to the bathroom door and opening, it looking back to his wife. He was starting to get older, early middle-age, but he was still in decent shape with the balding hair. His wife was clearly angry, totally understandable for "Daisy, what the hell are you doing in my house? Do you even know what''s going on right now?"

    "Yeah," Daisy said, holding out a flash drive. "I do."

    Ben took the flash drive into his hand, rolling it for a moment. "What''s this?"

    The scoop of a lifetime, which there was no way Daisy could get the byline on now ¨C Not if anything Ward had said about Hydra''s monitoring of the internet was true. "It''s the confession of the leader of the GDT to membership in Hydra as well as participation in a number of identifiable crimes."

    "You mean your friend Ward? He''s Hydra?" Ben said, not really believing it. That was understandable. She might as well have shown up and blamed the freemasons.

    "I know it''s hard to believe," Daisy said, pulling her hair behind her ear nervously. "But I believe it and Steve believes it. You need to watch the video."

    Ben nodded his head, "I suppose you''re going to insist on an offline one?"

    "Every day," Daisy said. "I''m going to go, they''re looking for me. Goodbye, Ben."

    "Bye, Daisy," Ben said, looking a little slack-jawed as Daisy activated her Quantum Tunneler.

    ----

    When I had consolidated control, I was going to kill John Garret. He was on my list. His protege was fucking up my life. I had told that dumb son of a bitch not to tell Ward, but Garret had somehow given it away anyway.

    Now a video was circulating with Ward basically admitting to everything. Admitting to the fucking attack, admitting to the crimes we had so thoughtfully pinned on SHIELD, admitting to contributing to and working with Hydra ¨C All with the Superheroes Quake and Captain America sitting on either side of him. The video had been distributed by mail, copied onto dozens of flash drives and sent to reporters all over the country. Then it had been published online for everyone to see and now I was going to have to deal with it.

    I went out to address the matter directly, stepping out into the "The enemies of our democracy have once again launched a full frontal assault, today aiming at this administration. The baseless accusations of former SHIELD Agent Grant Ward have been disseminated by an irresponsible press corp with no regard for the public good. This slanderous activity is absolutely unacceptable and will be met with all the force that the law allows. Grant Ward is wanted for treason. The actions which he attributes to our noble defenders in SWORD and even to myself are his own crimes ¨C I urge all honest citizens to report him at the first opportunity.

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    Our intelligence leads us to believe that Captain America was killed in the five minute terror of SHIELD''s helicarrier hijacking. Thus I must admit that one of my worst fears has been fulfilled ¨C Someone has developed a perfected Thoth Engine. I never had any desire to proof my simulator against detection, but we are entering a new phase of information terrorism, where frauds like Ward hijack the names and reputations of their murder victims." Of course, if Steve came out into the open I''d murder him instantly. "The whereabouts of Daisy Johnson remain unknown. It is time for all patriotic Americans to unite against these terrorist thugs.

    In order to ensure that no doubt exists as to these claims, I have called upon the DoJ and the Congress to independently investigate," that I controlled Congress and the DoJ went without saying, "for the public that every word I have said is true, to investigate the libel of Grant Ward, and to stand against this information terrorism that he is now engaging in. Thank you and may God bless America."

    I got down from the platform without taking questions and went back inside the New White House to the Oval Office and turned on our holoprojector. A hologram appeared of Konstantin and he immediatel bitched at me about three different things, "Trent, this is unacceptable! The exposure of the entire organization, the accusation of collaboration with a former Nazi faction¡­ You have no idea the damage it will do to my legitimacy in Russia and-"

    "Konstantin, shut up," I said, flexing my right hand as I leaned against the desk. "It''s hurting all of us. But it wasn''t my op that got botched, it was Garrett''s and it was this damn scheme you insisted on. I took on these risks for you, remember? Not the other way around."

    Konstantin looked at me for a moment and then sighed, his old face incredibly tired, "I will do what I can, my friend. But I need aid and as much of it as you can send as soon as you can send it."

    "I am doing my best," I said, looking at the projected imagine of my subordinate. "The funds are being requisitioned right now, the U.S. Congress is taking out loans, we should have money to you soon and more after that. But remember, it''s not just you, it''s Salcedo, Jalal, Durrain, Bhatia and their subordinates too. I''m doing all I can on that front."

    Konstantin nodded his head, "I know. Thank you for your service, my friend. May your victory last forever."

    "And the victory of us all," I said, hanging up the phone.

    This was going to get a lot worse before it got better.

 107: Recruitment and Propaganda

    <div>

    They were wearing a pretty wild assortment of clothing ¨C Steve had gotten more used to the current flamboyance in dress and hair, but it was odd to see this particular spectrum all in one room. Some people were dressed more like college professors in suits and some were bouquets of piercings, tattoos, weird hair-coloring, and what had to be deliberately shabby dress and there was just about everything in between.

    They were all totally shocked that Steve had just appeared.

    "Holy shit!" one of the women in the bouquet catagory said, jumping. The rest of the group made murmurs more or less to that effect.

    "Language," Steve said with a laugh afterward so they knew he wasn''t too serious about it. "I have no appointment with St. Peter at this point, contrary to the President''s lies." The whole room burst into noisy conversation again and Steve held up his hands, "I''m not going to be able to be here long, eventually, someone''s phone always catches a signal and then," Steve snapped his finger, "the Fireflies are here and I''d better be gone by then." People were scampering to turn off their phone, though only a few had simple enough phones that battery removal would work.

    "That''s some Patriot Act bullshit," one of the more college-professor looking skewed men said and the rest of the room nodded. Daisy''s activist friends were, at least, very liberal. Steve looked at the room. Nobody was leaving, in spite of the risk. In Steve''s experience, if one person broke rank, half the room would go with them ¨C but that only happened half the time.

    "Alright, first, no names. You were told that in advance, you should abide by it now. Second, some of the most obvious questions ¨C Yes, Hydra is real, that wasn''t an exaggeration or a propaganda fake. No, we don''t have inarguable proof, there''s no ''Hydra Members List'' sitting out there somewhere, though we''re working on finding more, but Ward says he did it and," Steve took a pouch off his belt and pulled it open, revealing a handful of flash drives, "he wrote these. Read them on something that cannot be online, your laptop in a forest if you have to. You''ll get some evidence and you''ll get an idea of how their system works, it''ll help convince you that what Ward is alleging is possible and it''ll give you the chance to adapt what you morally can to fight against it." It would also mean propagating the possibility of mass conspiracies, but since the present set of mass conspiracies included Hydra, Steve figured they needed to expand on the available options. "Not going to lie to any of you, this stuff ¨C some of it is very unpleasant." It would''ve been easier to convince people if Trent had flooded the zone with faked videos that were easily disproven, but now video was basically worthless as evidence in the conflict between the two groups.

    The crowd walked forward gingerly at that, taking flash drives out of Steve''s hand like they were grabbing snake''s tails and walking back into their places.

    "Say we believe you. Obviously we want to defeat, you know, fucking Nazi Illuminati," Bullshit woman said, "But how are we supposed to do that, exactly?"

    "Well, since this will probably be my last chance for safe contact with you all and any other kind of signal could be easily faked, we''ll need to make this fast and simple. The plan is a general strike on Labor Day..."

    As Steve explained the plan, the fact that the United States hadn''t had a successful general strike even over his long lifespan was a heavy burden.

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    -----

    Steve Rogers had taken to appearing like the Risen Messiah, popping into random gatherings of activists and then disappearing again into the night. The only reliable code signal we could find that worked quickly was that it was rare for multiple phones to lose access to their wireless network at once, but once he had figured that out, they''d just started giving a no phones order.

    It wasn''t hard to get the contours of his plan after an event ¨C Someone always fucked up somewhere along the way and we had mind-control poison. But there is a beauty in the simplicity of a mass movement organized in cells, planning to show strength, hitting us in a way that we couldn''t fix with our obviously superior firepower. If he achieved a general strike, he could gum up the gears of government but if we tried to violently suppress the strike, either by disappearing organizers or by breaking it with the helicarriers, we''d just look worse and give his cell organization more fodder for recruitment. Kill a man and those who love him will hate you forever.

    Of course, the United States had last had a general strike in Seattle a century ago and it had lost, so there was that. So there was no reason to panic, but we were also not the only Hydra country in the throes of a burgeoning opposition movement and some of them had much stronger union movements than we did.

    That was why I was taking a drastic step now to discredit this Risen-Messiah-Steve-Rogers. I hated to do this, it was a very low blow, but I needed to bait Steve into doing something stupid that I could prove with public witnesses.

    I was standing on the platform, next to Tony, as they brought up the Winter Soldier in a glass box. The pageantry was the necessity at this point. Tony was furious ¨C I had shown him the tapes of the Winter Soldier killing his mother and father. He''d been suppressing the creation of the next-gen Arc Reactors that Tony had designed and of the specialized element for Hydra, an absolute tragedy.

    There was no rain, it was a clear, sunny day and the press crowded around the unmasked Winter Soldier ¨C Bucky Barnes.

    "I fear I am forced to once again deliver bad news, but I have promised you all honesty. Today, we discovered that Bucky Barnes, reported dead by Peggy Carter, founder of SHIELD, and Steve Rogers, is alive. When we broke into his hideout, we found evidence of a long, violent career throughout the Cold War and early 21st Century. In light of the available evidence, we believe that Steve Rogers and Nick Fury''s claim that he had been trapped in a frozen tundra after downing a nuclear-equipped bomber was a lie. Instead, Steve Rogers and Bucky Barnes were both subjected to periodic hybernation, brought out to do SHIELD''s dirty work as it sought to bring down national sovereignty throughout the world. Together with Peggy Carter and, later, Nick Fury, they engaged in treason of the highest order.

    Once the U.S. Federal government obtained the Patriot Armor, it became necessary for Fury''s criminal cabal to counter-balance this independent force for democracy, so SHIELD ''rediscovered'' Steve Rogers. I now believe that it was Steve Rogers, not Phil Coulson or Grant Ward, who coordinated the attacks. If he is alive, as we now believe likely, he has gone to ground to engage in terrorist action. He is cowardly, he is unwilling to engage in the public square or with any of our attempts at outreach, and he is a threat to all that we hold dear and sacred. I regret to tell you all that the man that we learned of in history class, the hero who represented the best of America, instead represented its worst enemy. This is a heavy day for us all."

    Frankly, ''Bucky and Steve worked as wetworks operatives for SHIELD'' just made more sense than that Hydra had just happened upon Bucky and SHIELD had just happened upon Steve.

 Steve Rogers Meets Tony Stark

    <div>

    "Do not move," the machine voice said, in a tone perfectly calm and softly masculine. "Mr. Stark will be here momentarily. I repeat, do not move."

    Weren''t AIs illegal? Steve wondered idly as he waited for Tony Stark to come down the steps. The basement had a bunch of nice cars and an array of Iron Man suits, all silent, with a variety of paints. Soon enough, Tony was walking down the steps behind a glass wall, stepping into the open.

    "Ballsy," he said, holding a drink as he pushed the door open. "Stupid, but ballsy." Tony gave Steve a once over as he took him in, no doubt noting the total body coverage Steve was wearing from baclava to socks. "You can''t steal them, by the way, they''re registered to me, Rhodey, and Pepper if she ever wants to use one."

    "Noted," Steve said, his hands still in the air. "But I''m not here for the suits."

    "Oh?" Tony said, putting the drink down on a desk and walking over to the Iron Man suits, putting his hand on one''s chest and opening it, "What are you here for?"

    "I wanted to give you something," Steve said, hoping it didn''t come to activating the quantum tunneler rapid-fire in this instance.

    "Ah, that''s nice Santa Claus," Tony said, getting into the suit. "Very toned, though, getting into summer shape, I suppose?"

    "The gift is in my left pocket," Steve said, motioning with his hand, "Can I give it to you?"

    Iron Man stepped off the platform and walked over, "I''ve got it," Tony said through the metal mask. Was it being output by a voice machine? There wasn''t an echo like Steve would''ve expected.

    Tony slid a metal hand into the pocket and took out a flash drive, "Ooh," Tony said, holding it out in front of him. "I should warn you if there''s some kind of virus in this thing it won''t work, the drive is too small."

    "Not a virus, just some information," Steve said as Tony reached up and tore the mask off his head. That had been anticipated, it had been part of the plan to put Steve somewhere that he couldn''t be framed.

    "Wow," Tony said. "Ballsy but stupid really was on the nose wasn''t it?"

    "Mr. Stark, look at the flash drive."

    "Should I report him to the authorities?" the AI asked Tony.

    "Hold off on that Jarvis," Tony said, walking over to the desk where his computer was and sticking in the flashdrive, "let''s see what the golden boy has given us. Pull it up on the projector."

    A set of documents appeared in the middle of the room, floating in the air. Steve was still not used to the wild tech that people had at this level, he''d never used a hologram projector himself. But as he looked closer, he could see all the notes, all the information Ward had accumulated on Garret, all the facts he knew because he''d shepherded all the crimes himself, were up on the screen.

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    Tony walked into the middle of the documents and began to flick through them, grabbing a sheet in midair and then flicking it out to an extra-large size where Steve could read it even from a distance, "Names, bank accounts, payments. Interesting," Tony said.

    "Most of these bank accounts are defunct, Mr. Stark," Jarvis said, spinning the documents in the air around Tony. "All of them are here alleged to have payed out substantial sums to the current Director of SWORD, John Garret. The names cover a variety of forensic accountants, some with black market connections."

    Tony turned to Steve, "So you bring me a bunch of outdated information about, what, maybe bribery?"

    "We can''t track it down," Steve said, "and if we released it, it wouldn''t be viewed as reliable. But you can look into it."

    "Why would I do that? Your best friend is being executed right now for murdering my family," Tony pointed out, taking a drink. "Who gives a shit if Garret is on the take?"

    "Look," Steve said, shaking his head, "What the Winter Soldier did is wrong," he couldn''t bring himself to attribute it to Bucky, "but I wasn''t involved in it it. Your father was one of the founding member of SHIELD, he worked with Peggy for decades why would she have him killed? And Daisy is the person who brought SHIELD down, it doesn''t make sense, the story Trent is telling doesn''t add up. I think you know that."

    Tony looked over at Steve, flicking up the face guard of the Iron Man suit, "You know," he said, looking at him. "My dad talked about you all the time. He worshipped the ground you walked on."

    Steve felt his face heating up. Howard had been a friend, a good friend. There hadn''t been that sort of reverence when they''d known each other, but that had been before he had joined the ranks of the sainted dead. "He was a good man. I''m sorry for what happened to him."

    "Yeah," Tony said, walking around the documents in the middle of the room, flicking and reading them. "Alright, well, I''ll take a look at these. Why don''t you click that tunneler get out of jail free card you think I don''t know about before I arrest you myself."

    Steve smirked at that. Starks. Always too clever. "He''d be proud of you," Steve said.

    "I kind of doubt it," Tony said, taking a sip of his drink. "He was a hardass, my dad. Now, like I said, get out of here."

    Steve flicked the trigger in his shoe and the nanomachines swarmed over him before he vanished into the Quantum tunnel.

 108: The Tony Chapter

    <div>

    But Tony had pounded out enough, hacked into enough big bank and secret firms, and read deep enough with the help of Jarvis and the forensic accountant he had hired in the aftermath of Obadiah''s death to keep the books clean, that he knew what it all meant and what was probably missing. It wasn''t easy, but two weeks in Tony was pretty sure that Captain America was right ¨C At least about Garret.

    Part of Tony twisted against the recognition, the thought that once again he had been betrayed by an old friend. Mike had been a decent friend ¨C Sure, he was a lying opportunist but Tony had a lot of friends who were lying opportunists and, he had to assume, most were not members of an international conspiracy to establish worldwide fascist rule.

    That hope seemed forlorn. At best, Mike was a patsy. At worst, he was a crucial part of a international fascist conspiracy. Garret had been involved in much that had gone wrong in the world in the last thirty years.

    Tony was pissed and he was going to do something about it.

    "Jarvis," Tony said, spinning in his chair, "where''s John Garret?"

    They''d hacked the SWORD protection list to see where the signal was coming from ¨C It was genuinely unforgeable, Mike had made sure of that, but it was possible to piggy back relatively unnoticed. Of course that still meant that Garret could summon a dozen Fireflies if he got jumped, but there was only so much you could do. Hit fast, move fast.

    "John Garret has gone to his wilderness retreat, sir," Jarvis said, his voice polite.

    "Alright, well," he looked over at his old armor. He''d come a long way since then, "Wait until I make it there, then I want you to publish what we''ve got. Tell Pepper I won''t be home for dinner tonight, superhero stuff."

    Tony activated the vibranium nanotech suit that was now his standard and began the long flight to Garret''s location.

    ----

    The old house in the woods was nothing special ¨C Wood and stone, dogs, lots of dogs, and not a lot else. "Heat signatures?" Tony asked Jarvis, rotating around the house at a substantial distance.

    "Strong temperature differential in the living room, sir," Jarvis replied. "Would you like me to publish the files now?"

    "Yeah, do that," Tony said, absent minded. He was thinking now about how to attack ¨C Once he cut the signal, he would only have five minutes to get a confession out of the guy before the Fireflies got there. "And I want a live feed to everything I''m about to see, straight onto the internet, five minute delay. Now cut the signal with the base."

    "Very good, sir," Jarvis said and the heads up popped up the five minute counter .

    "Let''s go interrogate a crook," Tony said and launched himself down and through the one wood wall to the living room.

    John Garret was sitting in a chair next to a long table, his Extremis and Super-Soldier chiseled body radiant with heat in jeans and a wifebeater. To his credit, he wasted no time ¨C As soon as Tony was in the room, he was leaping towards him.

    Tony only narrowly managed to dodge a latching hand, blasting him as he went by. But Garret''s vibranium enhancement nulled that out faster than Tony had anticipated, once Garret landed. "Stark," Garret said, standing up gamely, "What are you doing here?"

    "Here to ask you a few questions," Tony said.

    "Feels a little less friendly than a few questions," Garret said, approaching closer.

    Tony glanced at the ticking of the clock and launched towards him, "You received substantial sums in bribes from a Libyan extremist in exchange."

    "That''s bullshit," Garret said, drawing closer to Tony and into the gap they had both blown in the wooden outer wall. "You can''t believe every little thing Ward says."

    Tony''s eyes fell on the ticking clock and he sighed, "Don''t have time for this bullshit," Tony said, launching multiple deliverable packets of vibranium nanotech onto Garret, wrapping around his feet and gripping him to the ground.

    "You also received a substantial amount of money from authoritarian groups in Eastern Europe before the Sokovian Uprising," Tony continued to lecture. "Millions of dollars, in fact."

    "I''m not exactly a millionaire on a government salary," Garret said, gesturing to the small house in the woods.

    "You''re not," Tony agreed. "But that''s because you funneled that money back into extremist groups and wild scientific gambits, like the so-called Centipede Project that was being worked on by Raina," Tony added. Not everyone appreciated being abandoned. "Gave up on it after the Firefly formula was proven, makes sense I guess, it works better."

    Garret growled and started hacking at the vibranium foot shackles and boiling them from , "I''m the Secretary of SWORD," he said, pulling a foot out of a burnt vibranium boot. "I don''t need to take fucking insults like this." He ripped his foot out of the next boot and launched himself forward once again.

    Tony tried to dodge but failed. Garret''s vibranium-qualitied body slammed into Tony''s Iron Man vibranium armor, sending a wave of concussive force through the air around them but leaving Tony stabled in the air. Tony flashed his eyes back towards the counter ¨C Three and a half minutes left.

    "You paid money to Al-Qaeda in the nineties," Tony said, trying to pry the angry Garret off his suit.

    "Warning, Secretary Garret is dealing substantial damage to our vibranium nanotech," Jarvis said.

    "Then blast him off!" Tony said, frantically. The central beam began to form almost immediately, blasting into Garret in a wave of concussive force that wafted off him and then another and another till both of them were actually thrown apart. Tony stumbled up, looking at the counter. Three minutes left.

    Tony flicked out his hand and formed a rod of vibranium nanites, flying toward Garret on a low trajectory on the ground and knocking him off his feet with a swing of the rod in conjunction with his acceleration. Once Garret was off the ground, Tony whipped the rod around and batted him out through the wooden wall again.

    Tony headed out after him, trying to outpace him and keep him from catching the ground and leverage, but Garret managed to tuck himself into a roll, grab turf, and launch back toward him and get another grip on Tony''s armor.

    Tony looked at the clock, one minute. "You''re a crook, Garret, it''s past time you admit it." Garret did not admit it, in a way that was surprisingly inconvenient. Movie villains were so much more polite.

    "Sir, Garret has damaged our supply of Pym Particles," Jarvis said.

    This tale has been unlawfully lifted from Royal Road. If you spot it on Amazon, please report it.A pop up on his screen implied he might not have enough to jump. "Alright, time to get this guy off of me," Tony said. "Sorry, Garret, got to go." He''d have to get out of here quickly. Tony checked the oxygen supply, even as the time ticked down and hit zero and then he started upward, flying straight into the sky.

    They jetted upward at a very high speed, but Garret still holding on like a maniac ¨C Tony supposed he must figure if he got away in the air, he''d just take pot-shots at Garret. That wasn''t Tony''s plan ¨C The plan was a tasteful exit. But now they were getting higher and higher, the air thinning, and Garret ¨C for all his durability ¨C still had to breath.

    The timer hit zero right as Garret''s grip loosened and he started plummeting to the ground.

    Then a dozen Fireflies appeared and Tony realized he wasn''t going to get away. He darted down and grabbed Garret before the Fireflies could adapt to the low-atmosphere area. "Gentlemen," he said congenially, "You don''t want me to hurt your boss do you?"

    One of the Fireflies managed to shrug, the jet from his wing unit powering him stable in the air. "We''re not supposed to allow hostage taking," he said, blandly.

    Then the Fireflies were on Tony. He used Garret''s unconscious body as a shield, battering off the others as best he could with the vibranium rod, trying to fly away and escape, staying in high atmo where the Fireflies weren''t able to use their Extremis tricks.

    But the Fireflies were quite good at what they did, it turned out. Tony wasn''t able to outpace them, any time he did they''d just appear in front of him again. They wove through the air for minutes, sustaining a path of contention, Tony beating them back, them appearing in front of him. There was no dodge that quite stuck.

    Then one of them, through luck or skill, managed to tunnel directly onto his position. He grabbed hold of Tony and started frying through the vibranium armor toward Tony''s arc reactor, forcing the nanotech to start swarming to repair even in the face of the enormous heat of the vibranium. Tony let go of Garret hoping to distract the Firefly on his chest.

    "Shouldn''t you try to get him?" Tony asked when that didn''t work immediately.

    "One of the others will catch him," the Firefly on top of him said and

    "Jarvis, intercept course with Garret," Tony said. "I didn''t come here to murder anyone."

    He started pushing against the Firefly on top of him, prying him free, tossing him loose ¨C Just soon enough to remember that in lower atmo he had little more maneuverability than a Firefly. The other Fireflies closed around him before he could reach Garret, who the Fireflies were simply ignroing in preference to killing him.

    "You people are completely psycho," Tony noted as they latched onto him. "Your boss is falling through the sky, you know that right?"

    "He''s made of vibranium," one of them said, jamming his hand into the melting core space.

    "Jarvis," Tony said, worried now, "Tell Pepper I love her as well, won''t you?"

    "Of course sir," Jarvis said.

    Tony peeled upward now, abandoning Garret to his fate and pulling up and up into higher atmo, trying to peel the Fireflies off him and escape. But before he could, he started to feel the hot fire grazing his skin from behind him, the burning sensation cut out faster than he would''ve anticipated.

    Because they got to his lower spine first, he got to reflect that he thought death would be a lot more painful than it was.

    ----

    Andromeda wanted me to come out of my room and I absolutely did not want to do that.

    Tony was dead.

    Garret was dead too, some mixture of the fall and the oxygen deprivation. But who gives a shit about Garret? He sucked.

    Tony was my friend and he was dead. It was, in some sense, my fault. In a very real sense, it was my fault. If I had finked on Hydra ¨C even after Thanos had died - I wouldn''t be in this situation now.

    I was discovering how much that hurt right as I was discovering the blow he had dealt to our support. The forensic accountants of the world all had access to Tony''s work and it was damn good. We had, of course, tried to wipe the traces off the books. But Tony had managed to find the cleaner''s fingerprints. The fucking genius bastard. If he hadn''t immediately sabatoged that information with what was perceived by many as an assassination, we would''ve had to hung Garret out to dry and lost a ton of approval. Now we were investigating him posthumously for a terrorist attack, Pepper Potts insisted she knew nothing, through her lawyer of course, and we had no idea where the Jarvis intelligence was but it was fucking up our monitoring programs something bad. It still wasn''t quite enough to get us back up to where we would be without the release, but it was keeping us from going totally underwater.

    Andromeda wanted me to come out of my room, "Get the fuck up, Mike," she said, yanking the blanket off of me and my headset.

    "Isn''t a man permitted to mourn, even for a day?" I asked, taking down my headset, desperate to be left alone for a few days and not have to fucking do this any more.

    "Look, Garret is dead, and that''s sad, but you need to get back out there and show you''re not going to be cowed by some billionaire with a fancy toy."

    Tony was my friend. He was our friend and she thought this was about Garret? Fucking hell Andromeda. "Garret was an idiot who got caught," I said bluntly.

    "Oh my god, you feel bad about Tony?" Andromeda said, her voice baffled. "Jesus Mike, Tony was an idiot. He shouldn''t have gotten in our way. Simple as that." I looked at her, narrowing my eyes. "God, I didn''t marry a fucking pussy. This is where you draw the line? Now you go soft?"

    "Maybe I don''t like it when my friends die," I said. This was not a dark, strange corner of the human imagination.

    "Someone who tries to destroy everything you ever built isn''t a friend, Mike!" Andromeda said. "I''m sorry that you''re sad, but Hydra needs you right now."

    "I already gave the speech," I said, waving my hand.

    "You need to give more!" Andromeda said firmly, "People will listen to you."

    I knew better than to say I doubted that. If Andromeda saw weakness in my spirit at this point, that was one thing. But if I poked a hole in her faith in my abilities at the same time...

    A knock came on, "Why''d Mr. Stark die?" Persephone asked in a sad voice without waiting for anyone to open the door.

    Andromeda came over to the door and opened it, "Mr. Stark attacked a government agent," she explained carefully, giving our daughter the official story.

    I pulled myself out of bed to maintain the illusion and walked over to Persephone, squatting next to her, "Daddy''s just sad, pumpkin," I said, running a hand over her hair, "he loves his friends no matter what. Just like I''ll love you no matter what. But now I have to get back to work, I have to be strong, can you be strong with Daddy?"

    Persephone nodded and I gave her a long hug that almost washed out my bitterness.

 109: General Hale

    <div>

    A number of cars pulled into the floor and parked, Steve ducking his head out periodically to see if they carried General Hale. Finally, a nice, sturdy sedan pulled in and parked. It was a new enough model to be electric but it wasn''t brand new, it was black, sedate, quiet. A middle-aged woman in button down shirt and dark grey skirt stepped out of the car, her hair done up in a bun.

    "General Hale," Steve said, trying to stay as confident as possible as he began to approach. This was a risky move.

    "I thought they''d send someone less vital," Hale said, looking at him with a moment of hesitation and fear.

    "We figured you might need assurances of our promises," Steve said, looking at her. He didn''t honestly think he was as vital as they all thought. "We''re optimistic we can remove the bomb in your daughter." Ward had heard about a U.S. general''s daughter with a bomb from the graduates of Hydra''s indoctrination school, but it wasn''t until they''d gotten Jarvis that they''d been able to figure out who had an appropriate aged daughter who had attended a school.

    "Mr. Rhodes said as much," Hale said. "But why would I side with you? If you know about the bomb, you know who I am, who I work for. I know the penalties for a high officer of the United States committing treason and my daughter''s safety is assured by my loyalty."

    This was just haggling, she wouldn''t be here without Fireflies. That was why they had sent Steve. "We''re working with Ward, aren''t we? We''ll get you a pardon or, failing that, safe extradition." Steve didn''t like letting someone off for treason, but if he could abandon Bucky, he could extend some unwarranted mercy. That was so much less a sin than he had already committed.

    "So I can live penniless but free, that''s your offer?"

    Steve paused, "I haven''t been licensed to offer money," he said slowly. Mrs. Stark-Potts was not going to like it if he did this willy-nill, "but I''ll support the restoration of your military pension in the public sphere after this is over and I''ll see to it that, at least, you receive enough to live securely."

    "And you can make that promise? How?"

    "We have lots of rich supporters," Steve said. But the specific hope here was Mrs. Stark-Potts would provide the money. "But I can provide thirty thousand of my own incomes if I get back to my pre-coup income levels." It would be tight, to say the least, but he could do it. He wasn''t as used to comfortable living as many members of the government.

    Hale extended her hand, "My daughter free, your best effort to restore my military pension, or, failing that, an income of thirty thousand a year. Give me Captain America''s word of honor on it and I''ll turncoat."

    "You have my word," Steve said, shaking Hale''s hand.

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    ----

    I sat next to the frozen super soldier in my bunker, the Serpent''s Crown upon my head. I had been trying to come up with a justification for killing him since Tony died, but none of them made any sense. The marginal risk that it would escape that I had kept him alive was not even close to the marginal risk that I would need a bargaining chip. Steve had proven he wouldn''t sacrifice his revolution for Bucky, but I was willing to bet I''d be able to get some concessions for him.

    I looked over the Project Insight notes with the Serpent''s Crown aiding my comprehension, wheeling through it as quickly as I was able. The problem with a straight adaptation of Project Insight at this point was that it was a false-flag plan from the beginning ¨C Frame the World Security Council for the attack, emerge as the liberators of a benighted populace. But I could probably use it to firm up stability to some degree, there were just limits.

    I sighed and rubbed my forehead when the landline phone rang, "General Hale has betrayed us," the other end of the line said.

    "Kill Ruby," I ordered immediately. There was no point making threats if you didn''t follow through on them. "Then give me a damage report."

    "We''ve tried sir," my aid said, "but the bomb seems to have been deactivated. We''re still getting the signal, but it isn''t responding to us."

    Ah for fuck''s sake! How''d they pull that off? "Unfortunate. Now give me the damage report."

    "She sent a notification through the Air Force, calling for all ''oath bearing'' officers to defect and for you to be arrested as a traitor to the Republic, admitted to her Hydra affiliation, and then vanished to ground."

    "And the Jarvis AI prevented us from intercepting this comminque, I take it," I said, sighing heavily.

    "Yes sir."

    I checked my mind for the economics effect of that and they were absolutely atrocious. I wasn''t optimistic about our control of the military either ¨C We had plenty of high ranking officers, but Hale might have outed a few of them on her way out. Well, most pressingly, this destroyed any hope of controlling the inflation situation and so I should get as many loans as I could before the markets reacted. I thanked the subordinate and picked up the phone to Stern, "Push through a bailout of our friends in Russia, India, and Pakistan."

    "Hale hit us that bad huh?" Stern said, his voice haggard.

    "I''d rather we kept the nuclear states than South America or the Middle East," I said bluntly.

    "I understand that," Stern agreed. "It''ll give us needed leverage and help us retain the helicarriers. They''ll never be willing to fight us if we can shoot them dead en masse."

    I wished I was as confident that we could pound the opposition into the dust like that, but if the U.S. hadn''t managed it in Vietnam, I felt it was still an open question. I just had to hope that dissent hadn''t gotten so bad that I was chased out of office.

 Labor Day Prep

    <div>

    He wanted to relax, but one of his coworkers came in and he took a deep breath and walked over to him. Gale hadn''t yet agreed to the Labor Day strike, but Dillon was going to convince him.

    Dillon waved Gale over and he came and sat down in the cheap plastic seats they were reserved to, "What''s up?"

    "Gale, have you given any more thought to¡­ you know," Dillon looked over his shoulder to the door to make sure management wasn''t coming

    "I know," Gale said, leaning against his forearms on the table. "Dude, I don''t know, I''m not sure if I can afford it. The lady''s pregnant and I can''t afford to take off."

    "We''ve got something set aside," Dillon said. They''d pulled together a strike fund, in cash, over the past few months and they needed people to actually take off if they were going to manage it. "We''ll get you through it."

    "Dude, the man''s president, we elected him. I voted for him. You voted for him, even."

    Dillon felt his ears heat up, "Yeah, I voted to be a beefcake without working out, not martial law and blaming Captain America for all of our problems."

    "Okay, it''s not martial law," Gale said, more defensive than skeptical in Dillon''s opinion. "They''re hunting down Steve Rogers for his involvement in the attack on Congress."

    "That still doesn''t make any sense ¨C Was Hale part of it too? Grant Ward? Patriot? Stark? Quake? They just add every new enemy to the list of people who were involved. It stops being credible, it stopped being credible a long time ago."

    Gale shifted in his seat uncomfortably, "Look man," he leaned forward, "if we do this, maybe we''re the next ones on the list."

    "Look, if we don''t do this, maybe we''re the next ones on the list," Dillon said in response, taking a drink of Monster and looking him dead in the eyes. "Who knows, maybe you''re right, maybe this is all just and decent. But if it''s just and decent, well, they can''t put us on any list."

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    Gale gave Dillon a look of annoyance, "I can''t risk my job man, political strikes are definitely not protected."

    "Lots of guys are higher up on the firing pole than you," Dillon said, taking a bite of his sandwich. "Come on man, you''re gonna have a kid, what''re you gonna tell him you were doing while the U.S. was under martial law? Working at a super-market, trying to keep your head down?"

    "Least I''d be able to tell him," Gale said.

    "Look, if you''re right, if this Presidency is legitimate, if you really believe that ¨C You have to know you can go to a protest and not get shot. Captain America hasn''t done anything violent since the attack, he''s not asking us to do anything violent, just some marches and some strikes. If it''s no problem, it''s no problem." Gale made a cutting motion with his hand but Dillon was on a roll. "But if it is a problem, well, you don''t want to be sitting on the sideline when it means your kid''s freedom. And," Gale was still making the cutting motion, so he turned around to see that Clara, the manager, had walked in without him noticing.

    "Relax Dillon, Gale," Clare said, her voice heavy. She was older than Dillon and Gale and she really looked it right now, mid-forties and tired as a dog. "Feel free to strike. Neither of you work the pharmacy, nobody''s life is on the line here, your job will still be here when you get back."

    Gale and Dillon looked at her and then at each other in shock.

    "Look, I don''t like that our government has been taken over by a fascist cabal either," Clara said, "Corporate can''t say anything, obviously, and so I can''t say anything officially or hold a meeting for snitches or whatever but there''s been no noise about discipline for the strike coming down the pipe. And I, at least, am all for it. If the strike goes on long enough, we''ll need to bring some people back to help stock and move food, but we could run on a skeleton crew to do it."

    Gale nodded slowly, "Well, if I''m not going to get fired for this, I''m in."

 110: Mene Mene Tekel parsin

    <div>

    The first day of the Labor Day strike was worse than I had expected and I hadn''t exactly expected it to be good. The marches were millions strong, filling the cities, and I was trying to coordinate responses without people absolutely losing their shit. Everybody stay calm, no need for a fuss.

    That was the idea, anyway.

    But the next day, there were even more marchers and strikers and all the cities in America were turning into carnivals of Anti-Trent, Anti-Martial Law, Anti-Hydra sentiment. Businesses were letting their employees off, some of them were even still paying wages ¨C Including Stark Industries, goddamnit, which was also making huge donations to hardship funds.

    "I don''t think your ''let them air out their grievances'' approach is working," Stern said, his tone as dry as the words themselves while he lounged on an oval office couch.

    I looked over at him and hated him, "You let a man air his grievances, he likes you more, you beat the shit out of him, he likes you less. This is a very basic dynamic."

    "If people don''t fear the government, the government can''t do anything at all. It''s getting worse," Stern said, "desertions in the military, firms funneling money to the protestors, you have to put a stop to it or you won''t rule this country at all, even if you still get to sit in that chair."

    I grimaced at that thought. He was right about that too ¨C Legitimacy was slipping away from me far faster than I could stitch it back together. I needed to prove I had the strength to do it. And Konstantin had successfully suppressed his first mass resistance, so it shouldn''t have been impossible.

    But the whole movement was so damn big and there was only so much I could do. Still, I supposed there wasn''t much of a cost in doing it. I should try, at least, to put down this rebellion by what force I could manage. I called up the military officers we still had under total control. I called up Director Jacobs, the man I had given new life and a new body, and gave him the order.

    The velvet gloves were going to come off and they were going to face the iron fist.

    ----

    Dillon was on the front line, trying to talk to the military officers and convince them to stop supporting the fascist coup regime. "You don''t have to do this, man," he said as the shield wall advanced toward him, "you can stop. Turn around. Fuck this invading American soil bullshit. This isn''t legal, it''s not right, you know that." Dillon was starting to lose his nerve but he kept insisting to himself he had to stand there and try to convince them. Showing the enemy his back was a mistake and allowing the soldiers to think he was a coward wasn''t going to help either.

    But the shield wall kept advancing toward the front of the protest and pressing into them, launching tear gas grenades and whipping out batons. Tear gas fucking sucked, it was so damn painful, it hurt so bad, he was choking now and he started to stumble away. His will had left him, he was trying to get out, someone stopped and tucked under his arm to help him out, some middle aged dude with a bandana over his face, carrying him toward the edge.

    Dillon expected they would make it out together, but then the man fell down with an awful ripping sound. Dillon dropped to his knees, checking on the man''s body, trying to get under the tear gas. Did tear gas fall or rise? He didn''t know, but he fought off the urge to run long enough to look over the dude and see that he was dead.

    Fuck Trent. Fuck Hydra. Fuck these guys.

    ----

    The second evening was absolutely a bloody mess ¨C We sent huge forces down to the various cities, clearing the streets with anti-grav tanks and tear gas and batons. They cleared the streets and started patrolling in place of the local police, which were proving increasingly unreliable. We used Project Insight to target civilian leaders and put bullets through them as they fled, criminals labeled under the war powers act I had received for the civil war. We put a total media blackout and batted down Jarvis'' attempts to turn it back on again.

    "I''m sure it''ll be fine," Andromeda said on the phone, in our house under heavy guard with Persephone and Pericles. The White House was marginally more secure, but it was also a political symbol and it didn''t have a Lilypad Time Machine in the basement. I hadn''t told Andromeda about it, that was on a dead man''s switch, but it was there ¨C If something happened to me, they could get out. "They''ve seen you mean business now."

    I smiled to myself and let myself for a moment believe that I had proved my point.

    It was only a few hours later that I got a call from Stacey Yorkes.

    "You son of a bitch," Stacey said, her voice quaking with fury.

    I had expected that Stacey would not approve of my actions, "Stacey, calm down. We''re just trying to restore some peace and order. It''s only temporary."

    "Gert''s hurt," Stacey said. "Unconscious. Bleeding from the head. They say they won''t release any Extremis to any protestors." well ¨C ah ¨C shit. I mean, I had known she was going to be out there and obviously, Extremis would go to military personnel first. I had just hoped she wouldn''t be one of the people getting bludgeoned or shot.

    "Stacey," I said slowly, "tell me what hospital Gert is at and I will get ahold of the Extremis myself"

    Stacey gave me the number and I said, "I will address this immediately. I''m so sorry."

    I got into my ship and flew to the other side of the country to be there as quickly as I could, trying to outrace the coming dawn.

    ---

    A few hours later, the whole PRIDE arrived at the perimeter around my house, the early sunlight exposing tens of thousands of protestors across the city. Several of the PRIDE were super-soldiers, so that was awkward for my secret service detail. I got on a phone to tell the guards to let them in.

    The eight of them shuffled inside. They looked bad, Stacey and Dale especially looked thoroughly wrung out ¨C Which made sense, if it had been Persephone, I''d have freaked too. I was flanked by my ever present Firefly bodyguards. "Hello," I said, doing my best to look grave and serious. "Did Gert get the Extremis?" The Yorkes nodded and I let out a sigh of relief. "That''s good."

    Victor stepped forward to speak for the group. He was dressed in an abnormally casual fashion, just a t-shirt and running pants like he had thrown on his clothes without thinking about it. "Mike, you have to stop this."

    I sighed, "Until the unrest comes to an end, we''re not going to be able to stop this. I have a duty to secure this country."

    "Have you always been this full of shit? Did we never notice before or is this new?" Stacey said. Dale grabbed her arm.

    Victor looked over at Stacey, his eyes narrowing into a glare. In truth, they had just never noticed before, Stacey was right to ask. "What Stacey is trying to say," Victor said, carefully, "is that this crackdown was a severe overreaction to the attempted SHIELD putsch and it''s time to put a stop to it."

    I looked back at them ¨C After Tony, I had hoped it wouldn''t come to this. "Don''t tell me you believe this Hydra smear job."

    "Of course not," Victor said, waving his hand dismissively. "But I think that you might have overreacted. We know you came from a world that fared substantially worse than ours has, we appreciate that. We''re here as your friends. Stop this."

    I flexed my hand and resisted the urge to shout, "I''ll take your advice into consideration."

    "You told me that my son was going to grow up to be a hero," Victor said, looking me in the eye. "Was that true?"

    Oh. "Yes," I said. There was no good in saying I was lying at this point, it would only make this situation even worse. It might even convince them that the Hydra story was true and that would really ruin everything between us all forever.

    "All our kids came to us and told us we had to stop this and we couldn''t let it go on," Victor said.

    Well, that made sense. The Runaways were Heroes and of course they would oppose me even if I was their cool uncle. "I appreciate their input too," I said sincerely. Nothing but respect for such convictions. I remembered when I had them.

    Stacey practically spat, "But you''re not going to do anything about it." Man, she was really angry.

    Victor flicked his eyes towards her, "Stacey, we agreed I would talk to him."

    "He''s just going to nod his head seriously and go back to beating and gassing kids," Stacey said.

    I felt a tension build in my chest, "You know I''m still here Stacey."

    "Yeah, Mike, I''m just not sure you realize that we''re here too."

    "Of course I realize you''re here," I said, struggling to grasp for whatever argument I was supposed to be making right now. These were parents who were here for their kids, who I also liked and enjoyed, who were basically cousins to my daughter. "I understand a lot of things. It''s complicated and if you knew what I knew, you''d know why I have to do what I do."

    "You know, when things get so complicated that you can''t explain them to your best friends, you should maybe stop. You''ve been so much different since Tony."

    Fuck off about Tony. "Shut up." I said, looking at them all. "Go home. I''ve tried to be civil because we''re friends, but I think you have all forgotten that you belong to me. I''ve tried to be polite, but I don''t think your kids would much appreciate having their parents thrown away for murder. Get out of here."

    The whole of the PRIDE stiffened up. I hadn''t mentioned the tapes in half a decade. We were friends, our relationships were all mutually beneficial. I had done real damage to our friendships with those words. But shocked and cowed, the PRIDE murmured assent before they turned around and left the room. Stupid self-righteous child serial killers.

    I was aching now when I saw that I was getting a call from Jacobs, the Director of SWORD.

    Standing in my kitchen, my head still spinning from the confrontation with the Pride was not exactly the best state for a phone call wherein I was expected to navigate and pilot the fate of the whole world. Why had I decided it would be a good idea to rule the world? It was definitely a lot of trouble to not be able to take the night off, to get clear and think.

    "They''re laying siege to the New White House. Almost a hundred thousand civilians have marched down to the building''s gates, chanting and waving flags," Jacobs said, his voice steady and easy. As if he wasn''t talking about the potential end of it all for us. "Do you want me to pull the trigger on the helicarriers, clear them out?" Ah, that was why, he was too stupid. I had surrounded myself by violent, bloody handed men who didn''t understand you can''t kill your way out of every problem.

    "No," I said, keeping the frustration out of my voice. "I think that''s how we wound up in this situation in the first place."

    Things had gotten worse after the clearing in Los Angeles. Of course they had gotten worse. I hadn''t had many options when I gave the order but it had not worked out great for us at any rate. I didn''t have a lot of options now either ¨C I had to go to the Triskelion to manage the Helicarrier fleet and make sure no idiot decided to pull the trigger. That would only make things worse.

    "Sir, we need to take decisive action. Our power rests on their fear of us."

    How far we had fallen from mankind''s united cause. Nobody was thankful for the gifts of plenty and peace, it was only ever on their lips, ''give us liberty.'' I guess I couldn''t blame them ¨C I''d started all this rich when I arrived in this universe, rich enough to never need to work a day in my life. I hadn''t been satisfied with that ¨C Why would they be?

    "Just do''t pull the trigger till I get there," I said, on the verge of losing my cool again. I had done that once and that was enough for the night.

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    "Yes sir," he said, not sounding at all convinced.

    "Tell your subordinates that you will be busy for the rest of the night in your office," I ordered, flicking on a screen to watch him obey.

    He didn''t look comfortable, but he glanced at the cameras I had in his office and sighed, pressed a buzzer and gave them the same orders

    "Antiphones sings old songs, but we all forget them" I said, activating an old safe code. The command phrase was an override I had designed to stop him from issuing any orders without my permission, all it really did was lock him in place for twelve hours ¨C Since a talking, chattering SWORD director would be able to give orders and if I had been mind-hijacked, that would''ve been catastrophic.

    Then I hung up the phone and went out into the living room where Andromeda and the children were sitting. Andromeda was in a bathrobe and the kids were in their jammies, not really sleeping. Who could sleep tonight.

    "I''m going to have to head to the White House," I said.

    I looked over my family. My joy. The only thing I had left. I didn''t want to leave them. Persephone was barely five. If I died, or went to jail, they would never know their father. Even Persephone''s excellent memory would probably fail her. Only our powers would get in the way.

    "Daddy, are you gonna get hurt like Gert?" Persephone asked. Persephone knew that we couldn''t take the Extremis formula, so she was really asking if I was going to die.

    I tried to quell my flinch, but Persephone was nearly as perceptive as I was. "I''m going to do my best not to, honey."

    "Why does everybody I love have to risk dying? Why did Tony have to die?"

    I shook my head back and forth, "Everybody has to do what they think needs to be done. Sometimes, that isn''t safe or fun, sometimes we don''t agree, but we have to do it."

    I wondered after I said it what I was talking about it. Was I talking about crushing my enemies beneath my feet? Maybe I was. It was on the list of things I would do if I had to do it. Maybe I was talking abut giving up so I didn''t have to bury any more of my friends, come what may.

    "You''re really scared," Persephone said, "Do you want a hug?"

    "God, yes," I said, holding my arms out to her. She embraced me. "You take care of Pericles, okay?" I hated myself for saying it. She was a kid. But if this ended badly for us, it would be up to her regardless.

    "Okay," she said, holding me tight. "I love you Daddy."

    "I love you too, Persephone."

    Andromeda grabbed my hand and took me to another room, where one of our white boards was still sitting on a desk.

    You''re blaming yourself. Andromeda wrote in her looping handwriting. She had decided on a softer tact after last time, I guess. Sensible, I might have tried something stupid if she did.

    Gert is my fault and I started this, I wrote in my caligraphic hand.

    This isn''t even like Tony, she''s not dead, no permanent harm done.

    I looked at my wife, a beautiful, Amazonian woman ¨C My good right hand. I loved Andromeda. She was talking about one of our friends, she was talking about our daughter''s oldest friend, the girl who''d babysat for us. The one who''d said, ''When a woman asks you to marry them, you''re supposed to say yes.'' And she was saying it didn''t matter that I got her hurt, when it definitely was my fault. I had given the order.

    We were fucked up people. It was easy to dissociate when it was some random tax attorney, when it was Hank Pym trying to ruin my plans for humanity. It had been harder with Wanda and Pietro. But I had gotten used to killing. I had gotten distant from it. The blood on my hands was just the soap and the water of my daily life. Andromeda had too, so much younger, so much less at fault than I had. I reached over and touched her face. She could''ve been a better, more decent person in a better, more decent world.

    I''ll deal with it, I wrote back and I headed out onto the front porch. I wasn''t at all sure how I was going to deal with it.

    The perfect winter evening of California was not a comfort. I stepped onto the new Airforce One spaceship, ordered it back to the White House, and stepped into the corridor and watched the earth fade away into the distance. I took the time to catch a wink of sleep and enjoy that my signal went dead on my phone. I was so tired. The ride wasn''t that long and soon enough my phone came back into service, there was a message on it from Victor.

    ----

    "Mike," Victor''s voice said on the recording, "We want you to know¡­ We''re going out there. We can''t do this any more. You can publish your damn tapes if you want. SWORD has to be stopped."

    It was just a message. But I had listened to it a few times. I had listened to it a lot of times. I sat in the oval office, listening to it on repeat. They had followed their children into the mass of protestors right as I had been losing my grip on the Hydra heads. My secret service agents were looking at me funny, saying nothing.

    I put my phone down and pulled up the holoprojector. What remained of Hydra''s heads was on the end of the line. With Garrett dead, Jacobs was paralyzed in his room, Jalal was on the run and thus stripped of post, and President Salcedo imprisoned, that left Konstantin, Durrani, the Baroness, the Swiss Banker, Malick, Whitehall, and Stern. I hated all of them. Which, in hindsight, was probably a sign that I should''ve done something else with my life. There were a lot of ways out that I had ignored along the way.

    "What is our situation?"

    "The repression shots aren''t working," Durrani said, "We need to use greater force, go full hog on Project Insight."

    That set heads to bobbing, agreement all around.

    "You''re talking about killing millions of people," I said. "We need to consider other options."

    "What other options are there?" Whitehall said, his voice calm as if discussing the weather. "If we don''t want to end up like Hadir, we need to kill them before they kill us."

    "I''m not seeing many other options myself," Stern said, tightening his tie anxiously. "They''re calling me the new Patain, I don''t see a future for me in that, so I too would like to endorse killing before being killed."

    I had the switch at my fingertips. At my command, I could set our helicarriers to destroy the rebel forces. I could bring an end to all of my enemies in one fell swoop. Nothing would stop me from doing this, nothing could stop me from doing this.

    I could hear the rioters outside of the White House.

    I had worked so hard for this and it had all¡­ just slipped away. Six months and the international system that had been the dream of Hydra from its birth had frayed to incomprehensibility. The governments of Earth had crumbled beneath the weight of the first Helicarrier assault, then it had been easy enough to pen the assault of Phil Coulson and his rebels. A new, global government ¨C A golden dream broken down.

    They were massed around the barriers, they were screaming and yelling. I could put bullets through them all. I could make an end of them all. But I couldn''t make an end of their ideas, I had tried that last night and I had only hurt my friends and my cause. People were even angrier now as they woke up to a world where the government terrorized them than they had been before.

    It had, in the end, been a fatal mistake to think that I could rule the world through terror and deceit. I should''ve taken my laurels with Thanos and let it go. The man of foresight, of vision, had perished in the public eye. Grant Ward had proven everything I had said was a lie, proven everything we had done since the invasion was a lie.

    I could see them press against the military forces that were still loyal, which was a lot less than it had been three days ago. We weren''t going to hold onto even these soldiers forever.

    Ruling the world hadn''t worked.

    I could continue to deny that fact or I could adapt to it.

    I looked at the other faces on my screen ¨C The baroness, the banker, the Sheikh, the Old Bear. Nobody knew exactly who we were, which world leaders belonged to us. We could make a go of it again ¨C We could fade into the black, try to start over.

    "We can still win this," Konstantin said, his face determined. "We have only to throw the switch on Project Insight, victory will be in sight. You know what you must do, Michael. It is time that you do it."

    The problem with this plan was that I would have to kill my friends for, at best, a few more weeks or months of rule. I nodded my head as if I agreed with Konstantin, as if he had anything useful to say. "Konstantin, give me twelve hours. I believe that I can still win this for us. Just give me twelve hours and remember, whatever you see, whatever you hear, do not doubt. It is all a part of plan."

    Konstantin hesitated but, with the exception of this latest clusterfuck, I had always been right so far.

    But I could hear the rioters outside. Hydra''s day had come and gone in an instant. I had been, in truth, their last and perhaps only real chance ¨C And I had failed. To rule the world by force of arms, to hold a gun to its head, we had tried. We had failed. It made no sense to try to beat them to death now. There is a limit to every rule, an end to every dictator.

    If you know how the prior empires ended, you knew how this would end too.

    Sooner or later, you had to run off with the family gold. I called my wife.

    "Mike," Andromeda said, "What the hell is happening?

    "Andromeda," I said, my voice shaking, "I love you. I want you to know that. I love you, okay?"

    "Mike, what are you talking about? Throw the switch, we can still win this."

    God, even to the very end. I had been a fool. Love had made a fool of me. "I have¡­ I have a better plan. But it''s chancy. I just want you to know, if it doesn''t work, I love you. I love Persephone and Pericles."

    "I love you too, Mike. We''re going to beat them."

    "Goodbye, Drama," I said, reaching back to the nickname I had stopped calling her so long ago.

    "Goodbye Mike," she said, her voice tinged with fear.

    I pulled up my command codes and started killing my deadman switches, one by one. Then, for once in my damn life, I did the right thing. I picked up my phone and called down to the guards on the frontline.

    "Tell them that Michael Trent wants to speak with Captain America."

    -

    Fifteen minutes later, the door of my office came open and Grant Ward and a collection of men in the Patriot masks came in. There were limits to the amount of blood I was willing to shed. Or at least, whose blood I was willing to shed.

    "Don''t think this makes you a good man," I said to him as I held out my hands for him to arrest me.

    "Same to you," he said, latching a pair of handcuffs onto my hands. Then he patted me down and stripped me. I cooperated until he grabbed me and held my head over a trashcan.

    "Is this necessary?" I asked.

    "Have you ever seen your contingency planning?" Ward said. I relaxed and accepted it. Besides ¨C Ward was effectively made of vibranium. He pulled my jaw open and forced me to vomit by igniting my gag reflex. I still made the mistake of reflexively biting down. I yelped in pain as my teeth bit against the vibranium, but Ward didn''t break them on purpose. Nice of him really. They handed me spare clothes from a bag, I guess if someone had needed to flee the scene? I don''t know why they had them. Maybe they''d been hoping to capture me all along.

    He lifted me back up and walked me to the lobby of the new White House.

    At the foot of the door stood Captain America. Technically, he hadn''t had that title for years ¨C But I still thought of him by it nonetheless.

    "I want to talk peace."

    "Sure you can do that?" he asked

    "I''m the Chief Head of Hydra," I said, "I''m the only one who can."

 111: Cutting a Deal

    <div>

    "Yes," Steve said, looking at me across the table.

    "I want to make an exchange," I said honestly. "You have no trust in me, but I have things I can give you immediately. I, however, do trust your word and honor." He''d taken Hale and Ward into his organization, after all. I was substantially worse than them, but it was still promising for my long term health. "So what we can do is, I can deliver for you on the condition of your word, and then you can render me the assets."

    "I''m not above a deal," Steve said, his mind turning patiently. "What do you want?"

    "I and my family are permitted to go into exile as opposed to being summarily executed or pulled apart by a mob and PRIDE and my other mad scientists are recognized as innocent dupes and not penalized. They really are, by the way, I''m not lying about that." At least, innocent in this scheme, and I had eliminated proof of their involvement with the Gibborim. I paused and thought about it for a moment, "I''m also going to want personal protection from Andromeda when I deliver the news that we''re surrendering." She was not going to be happy about it. I still hoped I could convince her that it was for the best that we lost.

    "You killed thousands of Americans, including a healthy swath of our leadership last night," Only a healthy swath? Goddamnit, the Hydra Construction Manual was really effective. "and looted something like five trillion dollars from the treasury last month," Steve pointed out, crossing his arms, his frown deep and his eyes narrow. "Not to mention my best friend. I hope you''re offering something pretty substantial if you think I''m going to let you go."

    Of course I did, I wasn''t fucking stupid. "I''m sorry about that." Not in the sense that I wouldn''t do it again if it would work, but obviously none of it had so I was sorry I had done it. "My offer is, roughly in order of importance, the locations and trajectories of the helicarriers so that you can bomb them with the Quantum Tunnelers before the rest of Hydra takes control of them in about twelve hours and murders millions of people to no real purpose. The locations and hideouts of the Hydra Heads, as well as what of their resources you need to appropriate in order to prevent them from mass-producing the Super-Soldier Serum." America had always held the technology to make them to its chest, but I was absolutely certain that Whitehall, at least, had backed up and designed a duplicate facility. "The names and ranks of all high-ranking U.S. military officers under our control. A list of members of the GDT Fireflies who are either members of Hydra or pawns of Hydra. A list of ranking members within the bureaucracy who were either members or pawns. A full confession, as well as my remaining for the duration of the transition to prove you didn''t doctor the video, performing as you and your leadership see fit, unless it should exceed a year''s time. The Mind Stone, embedded in a crown that makes it somewhat functional for mortals. And the location of the living Bucky Barnes."

    "I thought you killed Bucky," Steve said, his spine stiffening. The rest of his promises weren''t that shocking, but that was difficult to believe.

    "Better to have insurance than a corpse," I said with a shrug. "I can give you the coordinates, as long as you promise my safety and my family''s safety"

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    "And you can do all that?" Steve asked, looking at me very cautiously. I was proud of him for not leaping at i

    I turned to look at Ward, "Tell him I can do that."

    "I don''t take orders from you any more," Ward said, annoyed. But he looked at Steve and nodded his head, "Between the presidency and a head position, I think most of those promises are very fulfillable, even if he were lying about being chief head. Except Bucky, but he''s a snake, so he could be there. We won''t send you to retrieve him, obviously."

    Steve nodded to Ward and looked back at me, "Where are you thinking for exile? Nidavellir? Asgard? Vanaheim?"

    "I''d actually like to go to an alternate timeline of Earth," I said, without bothering to insist on it. Nidavellir or Asgard were fine by my standards, I wasn''t going to murder millions of people for a mild increase in comfortableness of my retirement.

    "So you can try it all again?"

    "No," I said, jerking my head out the window. "I think that definitely proves I couldn''t win. Maybe if I got luckier, I could hold on for a few years, but there''s just no mass constituency for Hydra."

    "I don''t believe you," Steve said. And I realized it might truly be a deal breaker for Steve, that he might prefer to keep me here and condemn this world to millions of death than risking that I would do this again somewhere else at some later time.

    Principles can be a terrifying thing. "Well, you can check and make sure that Hydra no longer exists in the timeline I choose," I said. I wasn''t planning on going to a pre-Snap period anyway, and even if my alternate self had done literally nothing, my fallback period would be post snap. An ideal time for me and my tech to come through and make some basic money.

    Steve thumped on the table between us and looked toward Ward. "Deal," he said after a moment. "You give us what you''ve promised and then we let you and your family leave, give amnesty to the PRIDE and your scientists who aren''t Hydra members, and we make sure your wife doesn''t kill you."

    I had Captain America''s word, now I just had to earn it.

    Shuffling around the Fireflies assigned to me was fairly easy, I just told them to go get on a helicarrier and await the planned moment ¨C Most of the Fireflies were Steve''s problem, there was only so much I could do, but I could try to make it easier on him. I wrote out the trajectories and signatures of the helicarriers, the locations of the Hydra Heads bases, and all my promised knowledge as well as where to acquire the Micron Particles and the nanotech to deliver the ordinance. We called in the Fireflies who were clean to replace them at the White House, Jarvis ran communications interference around my household and I called Andromeda on the phone, spoofing the phone they leant me as my own personal line.

    "Andromeda, I need you and the kids to come to the White House. It''ll be safer here while we wait out the next part." There was no way I was risking her keeping the kids. Under absolutely no circumstances were my kids going to grow up into Hydra agents in a world where Hydra was hunted and hated by the U.S. government.

    Andromeda let out a sigh of relief on the other end of the line, "Thank God," she said. "We''ll get on the escape ship and be there in a few hours."

    "Alright, great. Come as quickly as you can. I love you, Drama."

    "I love you too," Andromeda said.

    I hung up the phone and handed it back to Ward, before over the table at Steve, sitting across from me.

    "Well, I owe you a confession. Where do you want me to start?"

    "Why''d you do it?" Steve Rogers asked, looking me dead in the eye.

 112: Andromeda

    <div>

    Now I was waiting for Andromeda on the landing pad in the White House backyard. The bracing air and the clear sky were a taunt to the bloodiness of the day and the plain gray of the landing pad seemed inappropriate for the. I was there with four Fireflies and a woman dressed like an ordinary staffer waiting behind the door from the landing pad to the White House. I had made Steve promise to wait behind a door, I didn''t trust these patriotic Fireflies to protect me if he wasn''t nearby. All too convenient to let Andromeda murder me and say, "It was a tragedy! We tried to stop her!" and then orphan my children. It''s what I would''ve done. I had given them everything now and had only Captain America''s honor to defend me and the bad precedent it would set if they didn''t. If Andromeda were to kill me, it would be merely unfortunate and not a breach of honor.

    The escape ship landed on the platform, Airforce One having been cleared off, and Andromeda came off the ship, carrying Pericle in her arms and holding Persephone''s hand. I greeted her with a smile and took Pericles into my arms, "Hello young man," I said with a smile, kissing his cheek, and then extended my hand to Persephone.

    The secret service agents assigned to Persephone were not fireflies, but they were also mostly Hydra. I nodded to them, and they nodded to me. "Get the ship out of here," I commanded them, "I don''t want them to know my family is here."

    They nodded immediately and the Secret Service left us on the roof with all my wife''s enemies, unwittingly enough. I looked at Persephone and smiled at her, "Persephone, Mommy and Daddy have something they need to talk about, please go with Ms. Ellen here," I gestured to the staffer woman, "and keep an eye on Pericles please."

    Persephone looked at me for a long time, like she was faintly suspicious but then she nodded, "Sure."

    Ellen took the kids from me and walked down through the door and away. I waited until I could not hear Persephone''s steps or Ellen''s chatter.

    "What do we need to talk about?" Andromeda said.

    "I surrendered."

    The sequences of faces Andromeda made at this were, ah, well, it wasn''t great news for me. It settled on looking like breathless and weak. "Surrendered?" Andromeda asked, her voice soft and confused and¡­ hurt.

    "We were never going to win once there were tens of millions on strike," I said, sighing. "So I called Captain America and arranged for our survival. I did it for Persephone and Pericles and for you and me. This was over. Killing more people wasn''t going to help."

    "So¡­ so what now¡­ do we just¡­ start over? How could you do this? You said you had a plan!" It was clear Andromeda still thought the Fireflies with me were Hydra and that I had arranged a surrender as President.

    "I don''t want to start over, Andromeda," I said hopelessly. I was just straight tired at this point ¨C I had been up for such a long time, I had been working against Cap and with Cap, and dealing with my confrontation with the PRIDE. "I want to have a family, to go back to a normal life," I reached out for her hand and she jerked it back.

    "I don''t want a normal life!" Andromeda shouted, pointing at me, "We never agreed to a fucking normal life. Hydra still needs you, especially if you have to step down as President. Nobody''s going to know you''re in charge then. We still have other countries¡­"

    I hesistated and said, "Not really," I said. "They were always a lode around our neck, the leadership wasn''t very good at being in charge and the people didn''t want them in charge," by contrast to me, where the leadership was at least fine and the people REALLY didn''t want me in charge, "it was never going to work. I thought it would, it was a solid plan, but it didn''t work."

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    "Okay, so we start over," Andromeda said, "a few people, that''s what the original Hydra agents started with. We''re younger than Zola was when he started up the new cells."

    "Andromeda," and I almost said or implied or hinted that we would do it in the next world. But I wouldn''t have Firefly bodyguards or Persephone and Pericles out of Andromeda''s way when we got there and I just didn''t want to do this again. It couldn''t possibly go well ¨C And in the world we were going to, most likely, there would be an alternate me, watching me with an eagle eye and making sure I didn''t do anything. "Andromeda we can''t do this again. It''s over. We lost. We should cut our losses and try to live in peace."

    "You can all hear him, can''t you?" Andromeda said, looking at the Fireflies behind me. "Tell him he''s crazy. The world needs us. It needs him."

    "We don''t work for Hydra," one of the Fireflies said. You see, this is why Captain America was waiting behind the door, these guys were clearly not trying to be helpful.

    "You son of a bitch!" Andromeda said, looking at me. "Who did you just give our children to?"

    "Andromeda," I said, "They''re fine." I did not say, ''they promised to give them back.'' I didn''t want her to try and kill me.

    Apparently, this intervention was not effective because she straight lashed toward me and landed a hit so hard on my face that the next thing I knew I was blinking my eye open on the ground and she was stooping to grab me.

    But then the Fireflies came toward her and she lashed at them too. I wanted to say not to hurt her but my head was still spinning and all I got out was a "guhhh."

    Andromeda was fierce in a fight ¨C She was one of the oldest Supersoldiers in the world, lashing out, trying to grab at her wrist and activate her Quantum Tunneler. She wasn''t stupid enough to think she could beat four Fireflies. The Fireflies really were trying to restrain her, not kill her, but they let her wrench a little bit too loose and she grabbed at her wrist, activating the tunneler, sending the nanotech vibranium bots over her arm and threatening to let her escape. One of the Fireflies lanced his hand straight into Andromeda''s ribcage, straight through her chest.

    "Nooo!" I shouted, trying to stand up and stumble towards where she was, falling to the ground. By the time I had reached there, one of the Fireflies had sawed off her arm with his laser hand, and was busily nulling out the vibranium nanontech with his own heat.

    I didn''t care, I just squatted next to Andromeda, looking at her. Begging her to live, the brown-eyed girl, the mother of my children, my oldest friend in this world, my wife. I put my arms around her and she wasn''t quite dead ¨C Did Extremis work without a heart? I wasn''t sure, I had to try, "Extremis!" I shouted, "I need extremis," I pleaded. "I love you Andromeda, you''re gonna be okay, come on, stay strong,"

    Andromeda looked up at me and narrowed her eyes and tried to say something, moving her lips. I could read them easily enough - ''hate you.'' I ran my fingers over her hair anyway, but I could see the light going out of her eyes. Even the Super-Soldier Serum won''t save you from a hole in your chest. I felt the tears falling out of my eyes, falling onto Andromeda''s face, and I could hear her blood stop flowing over my hand.

    I cradled her body and cried and said, "I''m so sorry" so many times it was enough to make me sick. None of the Fireflies interrupted, they just stood there, impassive as stone. Nobody interrupted. Nobody cared.

 113:Explaining Things

    <div>

    I looked down on the body that had once been wife and felt hollow inside. Something was missing now, the warmth in my belly. I couldn''t imagine tomorrow. I just wanted to sleep and not think.

    I had to tell my daughter.

    I walked over to the door to the steps and saw Captain America leaning against the wall, looking at me with a surprising amount of sympathy. "Do you want them disciplined?"

    If Andromeda had gotten away, she would''ve gotten millions of people killed. "No," I said without any particular interest. What did it fucking matter? Would it bring her back from the dead? I hadn''t grieved for Arden and I wasn''t going to insist on revenge over Andromeda.

    "Where are you going?" Steve asked as I opened the door.

    "To tell my daughter and son that their mother is dead," I said, feeling the deadness in my tone. Maybe I should try to inflect more, get more sympathy, but it didn''t make much sense when you said it like that.

    "You should get cleaned up," Steve said, "and maybe take a nap if you''re thinking it would be a good idea to tell them in this state."

    I looked down at myself and saw the blood on my shirt. I hadn''t been this bloody since I had beaten Nicole to death. I wondered which of my subordinates had those tapes. I had never gotten ahold of them ¨C But they were almost certainly inside one of the hideaways that I was sending Cap to, along with a lot of our other skeletons. I wondered where they would put her body, what they had told her children.

    Certainly better than what I was going to have to tell mine.

    "Yeah," I agreed belatedly. "Yeah."

    I went down to my room and got a change of clothes. I made sure to change my step balance so that Persephone couldn''t realize it was me. I nodded to Cap as I stepped into the bathroom and started to shower.

    I did feel dirty before I started trying to wash my wife''s blood out of my hands. But it did not help at all. I wondered if I should preserve the blood, some little scrap of her. But that didn''t make any sense, so I just kept scrubbing.

    Finally, I was clean and I stepped out into my room in more casual dress, just a button up and slacks. I was barefoot but it didn''t matter. I walked down toward where I could hear Ellen being interrogated by Persephone.

    I walked into the room and sat down on the ground, looking at the small beds that were laid out for my children. Persephone came over and sat down across from me. "Why is your face bruised?"

    Ah, right, that. I had forgotten it. Captain America was right, I should''ve taken a nap. "I got hit."

    "By Mommy?" Persephone asked immediately. Fucking super-genius human assessment bullshit.

    "Yes," I said. "We had a fight."

    "Is Mommy okay?"

    "I didn''t hurt her," I said. I wondered what there was to say. Is there some way to tell a little girl that her mother is dead?

    Persephone started bawling before I could find any words to say anything at all.

    I held out my arm and scooped her up, "Mommy''s died," I said, my voice trembling as the words slipped out of my lips. Persephone started crying even harder and Pericles started crying too and I walked over and scooped him up to.

    The crying went on and I got to feel even worse with every statement.

    But eventually Persephone asked, "How''d Mommy die," with her head buried against my chest.

    "Well," I said slowly, "I told you we all have to do what we think we have to." I bit my lip and continued, "And for a long time, that meant Mommy and I were on the same side."

    "The side that hurt Gert," Persephone said. More of a comment then a question.

    "Yes," I said, feeling guilty as Ms. Ellen left the room. "But when Gert was hurt it made all our friends really mad, you remember that, right?"

    "Yeah," Persephone said.

    "Well," I said slowly, "A lot of people''s friends were hurt last night and I decided," I slowed my speech to a crawl, "I decided that I didn''t want to hurt our friends any more. And I told Mommy and she was mad."

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    "And your secret service protectors stopped her?" Persephone asked.

    "They tried," I sort-of lied. Technically, the Fireflies were not secret service, but it wasn''t an important deception. "and then Mommy tried to run away," I said slowly, "and the secret service were worried she would hurt a lot more people." There was no point lying about this. "So she got hurt while they were trying to stop her and she didn''t get better."

    It sounded nicer than, ''she was impaled on a burning hand and died.'' I held my kids and didn''t let them go for a long time. But eventually I heard Captain America''s footsteps paired with Ms. Ellen''s. I let them go and kissed them on the forehead before the door knock came. They''d probably heard the footsteps too, because they were quiet. Me and my mutant children, my legacy that wasn''t ashes and bodies at the end of this.

    "Come in," I said. Steve and Ms. Ellen stepped inside, looking at me with consideration. Steve made a jerking motion with his head. I sighed and stood up, "Be good for Ms. Ellen," I said to Persephone and Pericles, who instantly started bawling again. Totally understandable. The last time I had left them with Ms. Ellen their mother had died, I turned my eyes to Steve and made a pleading face.

    "Sorry," he said, holding up his hands. "We''re ready to execute the strikes on the helicarriers and Hydra bases with the honest Fireflies. We need you to give an address."

    I kissed my kids and told them, "Be good," and left them crying.

    I followed Captain America limply to the Oval Office, where a camera was set up in front of the desk. A crew of dozens was in front of "No script?" I asked as I walked up to the desk.

    "Say whatever you need to say, it''ll be a pre-recording, we''ll screen it,"

    I sat down at the desk, looked into the camera and said, "My fellow Americans,"

    "Oh," Steve said with a bit of a blush, "you need to get a make up for the bruise."

    "Right," I said as a woman walked up and started applying it. There was no polite small talk, everyone in this room hated me, soon everyone in the world would hate me. After the makeup was done, I looked dead into the camera, waited for the little red light and began what would unquestionably become one of the most famous public addresses in human history.

    "My fellow Americans," I said, "it is my grave duty to report to you that the public accusations you have heard are true. I am a member of a surviving faction of the Nazi science organization known as Hydra. Together with other world leaders whose names I have rendered to Captain America, I have been engaged in a years long campaign to achieve global domination through deceit and treachery and the exploitation of the global security apparatus which the democracies of the world built to save us all from mass destruction. With our economy ground to a halt by the strike and with both ignoring it and violent suppression failing to stop you, I have been unable to find any way of stopping you without making a desert and calling it peace. Unable to stop you, I have done the reasonable thing and surrendered to Captain America. My co-conspirators are, unfortunately, unlikely to be similarly reasonable, so I have rendered their names over to Captain America as well as the locations of their technology and forces.

    I am not proud of what I have done. It did not work. It is not what I wanted. It is clear that it is not what you wanted. It perhaps could never have worked. You may be proud in knowing that you defeated me and proven on behalf of all popular governments that the people are indeed sovereign over all. The coming days will be dark for the world and now I can only beg you to prove more worthy of that sovereignty than me."

    It was a bit heavy handed and overstated, but now was not the time for quibbling.

    Captain America and the "patriotic" Fireflies managed to destroy the helicarriers using my scry and die advice. I was surprised when I discovered they aired my surrender uncut but I was not surprised by the mass of cheers that went up outside when they did.

 114: The End

    Three months later and the world was a mess. Everywhere was in a recession and in turmoil. I wanted to say it would have been better if we had succeeded, but also we didn''t succeed, we were colossal failures everywhere except Pakistan and India, where the huge ass monetary gift from the United States had enabled Durrani and Bhatia to stumble through the fall with some stability and a shitton of sanctions. South America had struggled through the spiking of the U.S. dollar, with the pink tide returning once more, totally vindicated by events but also left to rule over battered countries with limping economies. China had taken over Taiwan and Hong Kong while America was distracted trying to sort itself out.

    Everybody had to deal with the rogue Hydra Fireflies recruiting in their territory, but the Hydra scientists who could''ve made more were all caught. Whitehall''s capture had triggered Konstantin''s fall. Working personally with Nazis? No amount of money can wash that out of any man over Stalingrad. Of course, then there had been a massive looting of the treasury and the American money had never ended up trickling down to the Russian people. Things there weren''t the second fall of the Soviet Union, but they also were not great. The Middle East was a chaos basket of feeble democracies and vindictive majority-backed dictatorships and paranoid minority backed dictatorships.

    Personally, I was doing worse. I hadn''t recovered from Andromeda''s death and I still saw her mouthing, ''hate you'' whenever I closed my eyes. The PRIDE didn''t talk to me any more. Nobody talked to me any more, except the occasional fanatical true believer that I met when trotted out by the new government who was convinced that I had been forced into confessing on television. At long last Steve had told me he was ready to let me leave, that they''d gotten their uses out of me and my family was taking up too many protective resources.

    We were driven to the location in an unmarked van, accompanied by Steve Rogers. He came to all of the things he had promised me, for the sensible reason that I trusted no one else. We were flanked by six other vans full of Fireflies ¨C With Hansen and the Yorkes'' help, the procedure was running full steam again and with the threat of Pakistan and India looming, they''d just given up on the international treaty and started loading up as many loyal soldiers of democracies as they could find.

    I looked over at Steve Rogers and said, "You talk to my doppleganger?" I asked, trying desperately to get my mind off the issues I had created. Steve had definitely consulted with his alternate self, who had reported that Thanos wasn''t a problem, but he had done a few more checks.

    Steve nodded his head, "That was the weirdest experience ever. He was¡­ good."

    This was as close as Steve Rogers had gotten to calling me a scumbag. Ever polite.

    "He wanted me to run for President," Steve said after another moment. It made sense. A democracy needs politicians like a gut needs bacteria ¨C Nobody wants to see them, but they''re vital. This was all a state secret, so he pretty much only had me to talk to about it. "Well, he wanted me to push for a new constitution to reconstitute the country as a parliamentary democracy or a, uh, ''sortition democracy in light of the possibility of mass conspiracies''. But I told him I wasn''t going to do that."

    This book''s true home is on another platform. Check it out there for the real experience.

    "Listen man, you''ve got a right to the vine and fig tree," I said, not wanting to say loudly that Steve should absolutely do one of those things. People needed to have a government they could trust and the present crop of politicians weren''t going to be able to deliver that. Steve could. "Things are rough in this America, there''s a big recession, a brewing Cold War with India and Pakistan, and no trust in government. That''s why I asked for exile, I don''t want to be here for this mess."

    "It''s gonna be a tough few years. We''ll get through it. But I see what you''re doing," Steve said as the cars slowed to a stop. "You agree with your doppleganger."

    I nodded my head before I got out fo my seat and lifted Pericles to put him into hiscarrier, "You a bible reading man, Mr. Rogers?"

    "Not as much as I should be," Steve admitted.

    "That parable of the trees I quoted in my campaign speech, for me it was bullshit, but you might want to read it." I shook Persephone awake and she blinked her eyes open.

    "In this analogy, wouldn''t you be the thornbush?"

    I guess he had checked it before this conversation. Or hell, maybe he knew it off the top of his head. "Yeah, I was the thornbush, there was a fire, it nearly consumed the whole country."

    We were out in an old woods, trudging towards the reconstructed Lilypad. Victor''s masterpiece was still a glowing ornament of metal and roses.

    "Daddy, we''re really leaving?" Persephone said from my side.

    "Yes," I said, trying to make my voice encouraging.

    "Good," she said. The long months under house arrest had not been kind to two children who had lost their mother and me, their not-particularly close or familiar dad. Plus Persephone was smart enough to know everyone hated us.

    "Maybe you''ll have cousins," I said, trying to figure out what to say so I didn''t have to think about this cursed world. I needed to be strong, for my daughter.

    "You mean the other you might have kids?" Persephone asked, "Even though he didn''t marry Mommy."

    "Right," I said. It would be good for her, to have cousins

    "Do you think their Mommy is dead too?"

    Right in the gut kid, "No," I said, "I sure hope not, at least." Wouldn''t that be messed up? Such different lives and that''s where we land.

    We walked a bit further in silence and I felt like shit. I had wrecked this world, top to bottom, and I was leaving other people to clean it up. Andromeda was dead, her doppleganger was no doubt either in prison or likewise. We climbed onto the platform, I turned on each of our single-use Quantum Tunnelers that some mad genius had designed to thwart me from coming back. I don''t know why they bothered ¨C There was some cool stuff here, but I could rebuild it if I wanted to, and besides that it was just political clusterfucks stacked in a row, many of them my fault, all of them blaming me.

    I gave a thumbs up to Rogers.

    We left that hellhole forever.