"Just to be precise about the legal situation," Simmons said, looking at the mission file, "any SHIELD agent apprehended on Maltese soil can be prosecuted under local law. Up to and including execution by firing squad." She looked at the table. "Which is legal there."
Fitz nodded without looking up from his screen.
Skye, who had been on her phone for the last twenty minutes while the briefing continued around her, looked up. "I can get in. And they'd need to actually catch me first."
Donnie turned. "Skye. We're discussing a real operational risk."
"So am I." She set the phone down. "Coulson, let me lay out what I have."
He looked at her. "Go ahead."
"Two options. First: I contact someone at Afterlife. There's a member there who can transport a group directly inside a target location through his own ability. We go in with our full team, find Hall, and come out the same way. No laser net, no beach landing, no exposure."
The room was quiet.
"Second option." She picked the phone up briefly, then set it back down. "I've already done it. There's an e-invite in Quinn's system in my name. I created it while we were talking about the tire treads."
Coulson and May looked at each other.
"Which do you prefer?" Coulson asked.
"The second one." She didn't hesitate. "Easier to control, and it doesn't pull an Afterlife operation into a SHIELD mission file." She paused. "If it gets bad, I can escalate. But I'd rather not open with it."
The plane banked toward Malta. Coulson stood in front of his kit locker looking at the options laid out inside, and Donnie came to stand behind him with the door half-closed.
"I understand what you're going to tell me," Coulson said.
"She built the fake invitation on her phone during an active debrief," Donnie said. "Half-listening to us, half-running the hack. That's a real skill set. I'm not dismissing it."
"But."
"Sending an untrained agent in as the inside contact is the kind of call that ends missions." He crossed his arms. "And there's the other thing. She holds back, Coulson. She says she wants to be a full agent and then she keeps one foot in something else. This Afterlife community she belongs to — we have almost no visibility into what it is, how many of them there are, what their interests are."
"Director Smith manages the Afterlife relationship directly."
"I know."
"If the director considers it managed, it's managed." Coulson selected his operational jacket and turned around. "As for Skye — you're right that she's not a conventional agent. But that's the reason she's here. The things she did without training, without access to our systems, without any institutional support — those are exactly the capabilities we needed in this specific situation. Her thinking doesn't look like an academy graduate's because it isn't. That's the point."
Donnie leaned against the wall. "She needs tradecraft."
"Yes. She does." Coulson closed the locker. "Which is why I'd like you to spend some time with her before we land. Teach her what she doesn't know." He picked up his tablet. "She's not a liability. She's an asset that hasn't been properly equipped yet. Those are different problems."
Donnie was quiet for a moment. Then: "I'll go find her."
Coulson nodded and turned to his screen to file the mission update with Director Smith.
Earth. Fraternity.
Smith looked at the product list Fox had put together and set it down on the desk.
"Walk me through the lineup."
Fox had done the preparation thoroughly, as always. "Second-generation Baymax medical support unit. Third-generation combat capability detector, three-tier product line. A co-branded item with Capsule Corporation. And a single-person aerial vehicle — personal scale, civilian operation capability."
"The detector tiers. What are the ceiling figures?"
"Standard edition: five thousand combat power. Plus edition: ten thousand. Pro edition: twenty thousand. All three versions include automatic recording, cloud sync, one-touch alert, and integrated communications."
Smith looked at the numbers. Three products for what was essentially one function — it had the logic of any tiered consumer electronics release. He could see the argument for it.
"Why not standardize at twenty thousand across all versions?"
"Cost of the detection array scales significantly with ceiling," Fox said. "For the majority of buyers the five-thousand version gives them everything they need. The superhumans we've measured in field conditions have generally come in between ten and a hundred points. The higher-ceiling versions are for government contracts, military applications, and the agencies that encountered things like the Dark Elf incursion or the Kree fleet."
Smith sat with that. Malekith. Ronan. Neither of them would have registered on a twenty-thousand ceiling — not because they weren't powerful, but because the nature of that power didn't translate directly into the ki-based combat power scale. The life energy of beings like that exceeded their raw destructive output by a significant margin. A detector that could measure destructive force had its limits when the target operated on a fundamentally different energetic framework.
The detector was useful. It wasn't a complete picture.
"The lineup is solid," he said. "One change: expand the product launch into a full expo. Open invitations to other companies. Let's see what else is out there."
Fox noted it. "I'll get invitations out. Format change, open exhibitor floor."
"Good."
The Airbus.
Coulson pulled up the Quinn compound schematic and waited for the team to settle.
"Skye enters through the main entrance. Her invitation passed Quinn's verification — she's on the guest list for the shareholders' meeting." He moved to the secondary overlay. "The compound's external vulnerability is the beach access point on the western perimeter. Low elevation, no guard rotation at the waterline. A two-person team can reach the facility from there."
Fitz stepped forward. "The entire property perimeter is enclosed by a neodymium laser shield. Twenty feet of vertical coverage, sealed overhead. Contact anywhere on the field is instantly lethal. There is no section of it that's reduced-intensity or intermittent." He paused to make sure that landed. "The only approach that avoids it entirely is underground — below the foundation level of the compound, the shielding isn't extended."
"The field can be brought down," Coulson continued, "but only by shutting down the system and forcing a full restart. That gives us approximately three seconds of open access before the field comes back up."
"Which means Donnie needs to be at the perimeter the moment it drops," Simmons said.
"Correct. The problem is that Quinn's facility is not connected to any external wireless network. There's no way to trigger the restart remotely." Coulson looked at Skye. "Which is where you come in."
Simmons produced a compact from the equipment case — the kind that would pass any security scan as exactly what it looked like, a standard powder compact in a rose-tinted shade.
"Wireless connection device," Simmons said. "Once you're within a few meters of any networked system inside the compound, the mirror activates the reader automatically. The indicator light on the interior panel will show red while it's searching." She demonstrated with her thumb. "When it turns green, the connection is established. Set it down somewhere inconspicuous and walk away. We do the rest from here."
Skye looked at the compact. "Red. Green. Put it down. Don't look back."
"Don't look back is important," Simmons confirmed.
Donnie had been watching Skye through this. "The plan works if you execute it and only it," he said. "No improvisation. No additional objectives while you're in there."
"Understood."
Coulson rolled up the schematic. May stepped forward the moment he turned.
"I'm not questioning your decision," she said. "But a two-person team on the beach approach, against a facility of this size, is the minimum viable option. Not the recommended one."
"That's why you're staying here."
May's expression didn't shift. "Field personnel aren't the same as tactical leads. The person running operations from the beach needs to have run operations like this before."
"I've been in the field with the Avengers," Coulson said. "And with Skye managing access from the inside, the internal resistance we'll encounter is significantly reduced. The math changes."
"Phil." Just his name. Quiet.
"Hall is ours," Coulson said. "We're going." He turned toward the forward section. "Everyone get ready. We're on approach."
May watched him go. "Don't get shot," she said.
He raised a hand without turning around.
Quinn Manor, Malta.
The taxi dropped Skye at the main gate. She was in a red dress that she had selected with the specific goal of looking like someone who attended these events regularly, paid the right amount of attention to fashion, and didn't need anyone to tell her she belonged.
The security checkpoint ran her invitation through three separate readers and cleared her on all three.
Inside, the atrium was built for the impression of wealth — the kind of architectural statement that announces its own price tag in every line of the ceiling. A waiter materialized at Skye's elbow with a tray.
She took an appetizer, ate it, and looked around.
"Charming accent."
She turned. The man behind her was in his late sixties, white-bearded, watching her with the easy attention of someone who had been in rooms like this their entire life and had long since stopped being impressed by the rooms themselves.
His assistant appeared at his side within two seconds, speaking quickly in a low voice. "I apologize — he doesn't have much English."
"It's completely fine." Skye offered her hand. "I'm Skye."
"Qasim." He took her hand with a slight bow.
In her earpiece, May's voice was already running. Qasim Al-Zahrani. Real estate and development. Responsible for six major projects in the Gulf region, including the Arabian Blade tower in Dubai.
"The Arabian Blade building," Skye said. "I've looked at pictures of that building for hours. It's the kind of architecture that makes you want to reconsider what buildings are actually for."
Qasim's expression warmed immediately.
His wife is Nadra, May continued. Two sons, twins. School age.
"Is Nadra here with you tonight, or—?"
"At home with the boys." He smiled. "Twins."
"That must keep things interesting."
She chatted with him for another two minutes — May feeding her details with the quiet efficiency of a navigator reading coordinates — and then excused herself warmly and moved on.
In her earpiece, once she was clear: "This is exactly what having a good Siri feels like."
In the Airbus command center, Simmons looked up from her screen. "I'm sorry?"
"Nothing. I see Quinn."
She crossed the room toward him. He was mid-conversation with two men in suits, gesturing at a presentation displayed on the wall panel, and she gave him the three seconds he needed to finish the sentence before she stepped into his line of sight.
"Ian Quinn."
He looked at her, and the shift in his expression was very slight — not surprise, not alarm, just a brief recalibration. "Hello."
"I'm Skye." She extended her hand. "I appreciate you making room for a late addition."
He shook her hand and turned to the men beside him. "This is Skye — you may know her from the Rising Tide. Activist organization, information freedom platform." He paused, with the practiced timing of someone who had learned to deploy information for effect. "And, more recently, a World Martial Arts Tournament competitor. She reached the top sixteen."
Skye kept her expression easy. "I prefer 'hacker-activist' to the standard framing, but I'll take the tournament introduction. Nice to meet anyone who follows the circuit."
"I follow everything connected to that event," Quinn said. "The prize alone are worth the attention, and the quality of the competitors has been extraordinary." He turned back to her fully. "We share some values, I think. Information should move freely. Governments tend to overcollect and underreport. I've read quite a bit of the Rising Tide's published work."
"Then you know we're consistent," Skye said.
"I do." He looked at her with the slight amusement of someone who had already done the relevant research. "I'll be direct — your invitation came through an interesting channel. Our system flagged the origin. But your credentials checked out, and honestly, if I were building an event guest list for next year, I'd put a top-sixteen tournament competitor and a Rising Tide senior member on it anyway." He tilted his head slightly. "If you'd applied through the standard process, I would have sent you an invitation personally."