Chapter 84
"Are you absolutely sure this will work?" Barton asked. He was sitting across from me in the jet, flying toward the bunker housing the paranoid AI, Zola.
Next to us, in the third seat, sat Pierce. With a faint, vacant smile, he glanced our way periodically, listening to the discussion like a passenger who didn't understand a word of it.
"Absolutely," I answered, running through the details in my head. The entire mission hinged on this task. We had to deal with Zola so Hydra wouldn't find out.
Before our departure, I'd spent several hours in S.H.I.E.L.D.'s secure laboratory understanding the problem and creating a solution. And there was a problem. Zola wasn't simply an AI. He was a paranoid, analog nightmare running on 1970s technology. He existed on magnetic tapes, room-sized mainframes, and punch cards. He couldn't be hacked via Wi-Fi because he had no Wi-Fi. His protection protocols weren't modern digital encryption. They were thick concrete walls, physical isolation, and a series of dead switches.
As soon as he detected a cable break, anomalous radio signals, or a direct attempt to access his core, he'd trigger physical self-destruction. Thermite charges sat on the server racks. All that priceless information would become slag. That was precisely why the plan couldn't be an attack but a transplantation.
"Still," Barton chuckled, "that mustache doesn't suit you."
A mustache? Oh, right. Allow me to introduce myself. I was Sergei Mikhailovich Lomonosov, a security audit specialist from the Soviet Hydra division, urgently summoned personally by Secretary Pierce. In reality, this was a high-quality disguise based on a real agent. It was me.
"A mustache only suits cockroaches and the old man from Monopoly," I muttered, adjusting my fake glasses.
"We're descending!" the pilot warned over the intercom. It was Phil Coulson.
I ran through the plan one more time. On my knees sat a laptop loaded with a sandbox program. In my pocket sat a quantum drive disguised as an unremarkable flash drive. All the pieces were in place. I just needed to push the first domino.
"Good luck." Barton gave a terse nod. He was staying with the jet, our insurance if things went sideways. Though, honestly, in this operation, a bad scenario was essentially the worst-case scenario.
"Luck is only for amateurs," I answered, borrowing Gwen's line as I followed Pierce off the jet.
The moment his boots touched the concrete, Pierce's foolish smile vanished like it had been erased. His shoulders straightened. This was no longer a mental slave unaware of his own condition. This was Secretary Alexander Pierce. And he commanded respect.
Playing the part of a grim Soviet subordinate, I followed him in silence. The doors of the bunker, hidden beneath an old farmhouse, opened automatically before him. Inside, it was cramped. The air was dry and smelled of dust, ozone, old machinery, and, for some reason, coffee.
Hundreds of armed Hydra agents, support staff, analysts, and scientists in white coats filled the space. Each of them straightened up and saluted when they noticed Pierce. He simply nodded in return.
The walk to the main control hall took a grueling twenty minutes. The deeper we went, the colder the air became, the more armed bastards stood guard, and the more stringent the security measures grew. It was Pierce's status as head of a faction embedded within S.H.I.E.L.D. that let us pass through this gauntlet without a single question.
Finally, we entered the main control hall. On dozens of 1970s-era monitors, a digitized face flickered to life. It showed a balding old man in round glasses.
"Alexander! In person?!" Zola's synthesized voice echoed through the hall, full of surprise. "Honestly, I doubted until the very end that you would fly here. When were you last here? 2007?"
"It was 2008," Pierce corrected him grimly. "Arnim, we don't have time for games right now. Our satellite node in Munich went silent an hour ago. It looks like a coordinated external cyberattack by an unknown opponent."
That was the core of my plan. The paranoid Zola had to swallow it.
"I am ordering the immediate activation of Protocol Dark Object," Pierce pronounced, enunciating each word. "Complete bunker isolation. Activate internal EM shielding and immediately sever all external network trunks. This is an Alpha-One order!"
The face on the monitors changed sharply. The relaxed old scientist transformed into a cold, emotionless machine and proceeded to execute the command.
"PROTOCOL DARK OBJECT ACTIVATION." A mechanical voice boomed from the loudspeakers throughout the bunker. "INTERNAL SHIELDING ACTIVATED. EXTERNAL TRUNKS DISCONNECTED. BUNKER IS SEALED."
Zola had literally locked himself in a cage.
"Sergei." Pierce turned to me, gesturing at the console. "Proceed with the diagnostics."
Without hesitation, I connected my laptop to the main terminal and activated the emulator server. At that same moment, Zola's external world was now entirely within my local simulation. He was completely cut off from the real network, but he didn't panic. He was confident he was executing a high-level order for self-protection. He had locked himself in my sandbox.
Pierce stepped up to the nearest monitor displaying Arnim's digital face.
Arnim, right now a specialist named Lomonosov will conduct a full audit of your core. He will search for any vulnerabilities to this new threat and create a full backup of you on a protected quantum carrier. This is necessary in case the main complex is physically attacked. Grant him full administrative access at the Creator level. Hydra cannot afford to lose you!
That was a direct order from a Hydra head, confirmed by all protocols. Zola was physically incapable of disobeying. I inserted the quantum drive into the terminal.
A line appeared on the monitor. It read: ACCESS REQUEST LEVEL CREATOR. AUTHORIZE? YES/NO.
Pierce silently entered a code and placed his hand on a palm scanner. ACCESS GRANTED.
Perfect. Please come in. I smirked. Zola had handed me the keys to his own prison himself.
Instead of manually copying him piece by piece and risking that I'd miss something or trigger an alarm, I activated the emergency backup function built into Zola. He did everything himself. He compressed his core, algorithms, and memory into a perfect, clean copy and transmitted them to my drive. He considered it standard procedure.
COPYING COMPLETED. 100 PERCENT.
"And can a robot write a symphony?" I muttered under my breath in Russian as I extracted the drive from the terminal.
"The backup procedure has been completed, Secretary Pierce. I am ready for further instructions," Zola reported in his soulless voice. He either hadn't understood the reference or hadn't appreciated it.
"Continue working in Dark Object mode until my special order. The specialist and I are returning to the Triskelion for data analysis," Pierce cut him off.
Despite the enhanced protection protocols, we were out of the bunker in twenty minutes flat. In my pocket sat a flash drive containing a perfect, clean copy of the entire Zola AI. The original would remain in his bunker for the next several weeks, maybe months, completely cut off from the world and convinced that a cyberwar was raging outside. Naturally, we weren't going to leave him there to rot. We'd deal with the bunker and the agents inside later. Right now, we had different priorities.
"Well, Mustache Man, did the transfer work?" Barton asked when we boarded the jet.
I held up the flash drive without a word.
"Good." He nodded, then added casually, "By the way, while you were digging around down there, our invisible friend made contact. Gwen pulled it off. Malick is under control."
"Zola's neutralized and Malick's on the hook," I answered, more for myself than for Barton, running through the next steps. "That means we pay a covert visit to Malick, led by Pierce. Meanwhile, Hyperion storms Strucker's fortress."
"Coulson, set a course for the Malick estate. I assume there's somewhere to land?" Barton asked the pilot.
"There's a small S.H.I.E.L.D. base near Los Angeles," Coulson answered with his perpetual half-smile as the jet began to climb.
I turned the situation over in my mind. The plan was simple but elegant in its own way. It leveraged every resource we had, striking at three main Hydra fronts simultaneously.
First, we disabled Zola's Algorithm. The most dangerous element, the lynchpin connecting the Hydra cells embedded in S.H.I.E.L.D., is done.
Second, we brought Malick under control. Done. Now I just needed to get within range of the Worm.
Third, Baron Strucker. Hyperion would demolish his fortress, trying to knock him out rather than kill him. There was a considerable chance the Dead Hand protocol would activate, and the entire base would blow up. But there was a nuance. The attack on Strucker was framed as an attack on Strucker, the terrorist, not Strucker, the Hydra member. The man had stepped on too many toes in this world. He must have known that people were sharpening their knives for him from all sides. Seeing Hyperion, he would be unlikely to immediately activate the Hydra protocols, naively believing he still had a chance to wriggle out of it.
He was in for a rude awakening. He had no way out. Hyperion already had a vial with a Mental Worm for him, too.
I ran through the plan again and again. It was held together by pure audacity and the principle of Occam's razor. I exhaled. Even if something went wrong later, we already had Pierce and Zola. They were priceless sources of information. And at the very minimum, Strucker's base would be destroyed. About that last point, I had no doubt. Hyperion was an annihilation machine.
"Gideon." Pierce activated a secured video call. Malick's grim, aristocratic face appeared on screen. "I am at Camp Lehigh. I just activated Dark Object at Zola's. There has been a leak. A personal meeting is necessary. Immediately."
"What is the code phrase?" Malick asked, squinting.
"Red Squid," Pierce answered without batting an eye.
Malick studied him for a long second, evaluating. Then he nodded. The call ended. Excellent. He was ours.
The rest of the flight to Los Angeles was routine and took less than two hours. We landed at a small mothballed S.H.I.E.L.D. base. Malick was already waiting for us in the conference room. Hyperion, thousands of kilometers away in Sokovia, was waiting for Fury's signal.
I could not let Strucker and Malick somehow contact each other. Though the risk was small, it was better safe than sorry. The speed of events was already off the charts.
"Alexander, what has happened?" Malick asked as soon as we entered the conference room. He was alone.
"What's happened is that it's time for your retirement, Gideon," Pierce answered, shaking his head with regret.
Malick frowned. He looked at Pierce. Then he looked at me, still in my disguise. Then at Barton, who was cosplaying as a piece of furniture. Then at Pierce again. And he smiled.
"A retirement, then. A retirement. Where are we going?"
He had agreed so easily, as if he had been offered a cup of coffee. I was once again horrified by the power of the Mental Worm.
I looked at Barton. He briefly nodded, checking his tactical tablet. The screen read, "We are at Malick's. It worked cleanly." That was a signal to Fury. And Fury gave the signal to Hyperion.
At that same moment, Hyperion began storming Strucker's fortress. Across the world, an information bomb exploded. A massive trove of compromising material surfaced. Files Pierce had provided during his interrogation were now being sent from anonymous sources to the planet's largest media outlets.
Contract killings. Bribes. Dark financial schemes. Kidnappings. All of it and more were leaked in full, implicating Gideon Malick. Now the intelligence agencies, and S.H.I.E.L.D. in particular, officially had the go-ahead to detain him.
Half an hour later, back at the Los Angeles base.
Pierce, acting in his capacity as Secretary, initiated an emergency Security Council meeting via video link. Controlled chaos reigned in the conference hall.
"Gentlemen, this is an emergency situation!" Pierce began, his face full of righteous anger.
"We are aware of it, Alexander!" A man with a military bearing, John Rockwell, barked. "This is a catastrophe! The entire world is talking about how one of our Council members is a mass murderer and a corrupt official!"
"At the very least, I am glad S.H.I.E.L.D. acted promptly and Malick was immediately detained." The Council's youngest member, Hawley Wixshow, supported him.
"This casts a shadow on the entire Council!" Yen Banks, a gaunt elderly Asian man, stated grimly.
"It is precisely for this reason that I have gathered you." Pierce took the floor. "Director Fury is handling this matter promptly and minimizing the damage. But the problem runs deeper. Malick's departure creates a power vacuum. And in light of his betrayal, I believe we must strengthen our direct ties with S.H.I.E.L.D. We must show the world we are in control of the situation. I think it is time to offer Director Fury a seat at this table."
Here it was. This was what all of this had been leading up to.
"This is hasty!" Rockwell objected immediately. "This is a direct violation of the charter!"
"I'm in favor," Hawley declared unexpectedly. He had always supported Fury and considered him a professional through and through.
Opinions were divided. A heated discussion ensued. But Pierce was a master negotiator. After ten minutes of subtle manipulation, playing on their fear of a public scandal, he dropped an opaque hint...
"I've been having some health problems myself lately." Pierce sighed heavily. "You may have to find another candidate. We need someone like Fury to stabilize the ship. Right now."
That was the last straw. The scales tipped toward approval.
From this moment on, Nick Fury was no longer simply a hired director. He was a Council member, part of the very body that had previously controlled him. Now he was his own master. And I was confident that, eventually, he would bring the entire Council under S.H.I.E.L.D., making the organization truly independent.
Why all the political maneuvering with the Council? In fact, this had been my initiative. It was another coin I'd tossed into the fountain of Fury's goodwill. And more importantly, it was about strengthening the future S.H.I.E.L.D. After the Hydra purge, with Fury at its helm, it would become an order of magnitude more powerful than in any reality I knew.
The look Fury had given me when I proposed this Council idea was a complex mixture of suspicion, reluctant gratitude, and furious mental calculation. It was worth all the effort. Ultimately, another system of checks and balances had been created. And honestly, it made things easier primarily for me.
After this brief interlude with the Council ended, our group, consisting of me, Barton, Gwen (now visible), Pierce and Malick (both under control), Coulson as the pilot, and the flash drive with AI Zola in my pocket, headed back to the Triskelion. The atmosphere in the jet was tense.
In theory, Hyperion should have finished his epic confrontation with Strucker by now. By that same logic, the hardest part should have been behind us. But I wasn't ready to relax just yet.
"Tell me about Hive." It was the first thing I asked Malick once we were airborne.
At the same time, Fury listened in over an encrypted channel.
"Oh! You want to hear about my god?" Malick's eyes flashed with fanatical fire. "That is a commendable aspiration! It's true, though... unfortunately, I don't know much about Him myself. We simple mortals aren't granted the ability to understand all His greatness." He shook his head reverently.
"What is He capable of? How do you plan to bring Him back? What is the point of it?" I pressed on.
"God, He is almighty! But my god can also control anyone!" Malick preached, almost ecstatically. "The seventh commandment of the Malick family Covenant states, 'And the sinful planet will become His Kingdom, and the sinful planet will become Him, Himself! And every person will be a part of Him, and He, Himself, will become every person!'".
He snorted contemptuously.
"The scientists from my foundation... they were fools! Not understanding the entire essence of it, they decided my god was some kind of parasite. I executed them for those sinful thoughts."
"But you still recorded and saved that information," I pointed out. "Which means..."
"Yes!" Malick's eyes flashed again. "Deep down, I believe... that is, I drive these blasphemous thoughts away! I believe that bringing God back to Earth through the Monolith, an artifact portal my family has protected for generations, will prove my Faith!"
"A Monolith. An artifact portal. Where does it lead? Have you managed to activate it?"
"It leads to Maveth..." Malick whispered. "A desert world. A world where other gods, in their ignorance and weakness, managed to exile my god. They understood that otherwise they could not defeat Him! My family, for generations, has sent worthy people to Maveth. And those worthy people have become a part of Him."
"I see," I concluded. "This parasite simply devoured everyone who went through. Why couldn't He come back if you can activate the portal?"
"It is a one-way portal," Malick stated with obvious regret. "But we are close! We are closer to creating a reverse portal than we have ever been before! There is every chance that I will get to behold God face to face in my own lifetime!"
"There are no more chances like that," Barton chuckled. He had been silently listening to all of this nonsense until now. He looked at me. "I'm sorry I doubted your methods. Now, after hearing this, I understand what kind of catastrophe could have started if you hadn't decided to burn out this infection at the root."
He knew Fury was listening. He knew this went against his direct superior's official position. But he had still said it.
"Thank you, Clint." I nodded. "That truly means a lot to me."
Gwen, sitting on my left, softly took my hand. She was showing her support again. Barton nodded, accepting the gratitude.
"Now, let us go back to the Monolith," I said to Malick.
Yes. This was going to be a very long flight.
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