The Mediterranean Sea was pitch black. A sleek, unmarked cruise ship cut through the choppy waters between Spain and Sardinia. Officially, the vessel didn't exist. Even within S.H.I.E.L.D.'s highly classified mainframes, a registry search for this hull returned nothing but a ghost file.
David Cannon, Whirlwind, touched down on the reinforced steel deck of the cargo bay. He dropped two heavy, pressurized containment capsules onto the grating. The vacuum seals hissed and popped. Silt and water spilled onto the floor, violently bubbling and shifting until Flint Marko and Morris Bench pulled their physical forms back together, coughing and solidifying in the dim light.
Heavy servos whined from the shadows. A 1.2-meter-tall mechanical chassis rolled into the bay. It lacked a human head; instead, a massive, swiveling camera lens tracked their movements. Below it, a broad monitor built into the machine's chest flickered, displaying the green, 3D-rendered face of Arnim Zola.
The chief scientist of Hydra was supposed to have died seventy years ago, but his mind lived on as a purely digital consciousness.
"Welcome back," Zola's synthesized voice buzzed from the room's speakers. "I perceive your excursion yielded suboptimal results. Satellite telemetry confirms Spider-Man has successfully captured Mark Raxton. A highly unexpected variable."
"Your intel was absolute garbage, Zola," Cannon spat, pacing the deck. "You neglected to mention the kid throws actual magic."
The digitized face on the screen flickered. "Magic. Fascinating new data."
Zola processed the implications across a dozen simultaneous subroutines. "It appears Project VII is officially obsolete against him. Spider-Man continues to exceed all parameters. He is already the pinnacle of Project II, the Savage Force initiative, and currently hosts Project V, the Symbiote program."
Zola's mechanical arm gestured to the corner of the room. "Do not despair. I have acquired a temporary substitute to fill Raxton's vacancy. One perfectly equipped to dismantle the Spider."
A man stepped out of the gloom. He moved with a stiff, vacant gait. At a sharp snap of Zola's mechanical digits, the man's entire body erupted into blinding, roaring plasma.
Bench stepped back, raising an arm to shield his face from the intense heat. "You're replacing Molten Man with him?"
"Just temporarily," Zola hummed.
Marko frowned, the sand grinding in his jaw. "I know that face. That's Jim Hammond. The original Human Torch. You can brainwash your old enemies?"
The Elementals exchanged uneasy glances. They were career criminals and mercenaries. Bench and Cannon worked for cash. Marko sold his skills to the highest bidder, and Raxton had nearly burned himself alive just to fence stolen tech. Hydra's extremist ideology hadn't bothered them because the checks cleared and the operations felt highly Americanized.
But watching a literal World War II hero paraded around as a blank-slate puppet made the hair on the back of Cannon's neck stand up. Hydra had recovered the original Human Torch, a WWII-era synthetic being recently AWOL from Essex's control.
"Hammond is not human," Zola dismissed, sensing their hesitation. "He is a synthetic android. This yields three immense tactical advantages: First, he lacks a soul, rendering Spider-Man's astral magic entirely useless. Second, his thermal output easily exploits the symbiote's biological weakness to fire. Third, his obedience is absolute. He will not let ego derail the objective to fight one-on-one."
The three Elementals offered reluctant nods.
As they filed out of the room to debrief, Zola accessed an incoming encrypted data stream from Rome. His operatives in the catacombs confirmed the two S.H.I.E.L.D. agents had survived the inferno. They were battered, but alive, and currently extracting themselves from the tunnels.
Nick Fury was proving to be a catastrophic nuisance. Over the past year, his relentless internal purges within S.H.I.E.L.D. had forced Hydra to sever dozens of its tentacles just to maintain cover. Entire allied syndicates, like the Serpent Society, had been forced entirely off the grid to avoid detection.
"Deploy the Winter Soldier to Rome," Zola transmitted to his tactical network. "Have Taskmaster accompany him to ensure successful termination."
Zola ran the variables through the Zola Algorithm. The probability of success hovered at 70%. He added a secondary safety net to the parameters and accepted the margins.
The heavy bulkhead doors hissed open. A man stepped into the bay.
He wore an immaculate coat and a deep purple mask that clung seamlessly to his bone structure. The fabric expanded and contracted slightly with every breath he took.
Zola's mechanical chassis bowed deeply, looking utterly comical. "Baron Zemo. It appears my elemental toys are encountering friction."
"They are not your toys, Arnim," Zemo said smoothly, adjusting his cuffs. "They are merely an extension of the weapons expansion project. A tiny fraction of Hydra's true Super Soldier blueprint."
Zola's screen flickered with a sycophantic smile. "Of course, Your Excellency. Tell me, how does the new acquisition feel?"
"When I lost my face, the sensation was entirely alien," Zemo murmured. "But now... it feels as though I can become anyone."
Zemo raised a gloved hand, dragging his fingertips across his purple face. The mask was the stolen Soviet-era bionic artificial skin originally used by the Chameleon.
As Zemo touched his jaw, the synthetic flesh rippled. The cellular structure rearranged itself in seconds. The purple vanished, replaced by the gruesome, crimson visage of the Red Skull. A blink later, the skin shifted again, perfectly mirroring the stoic, square-jawed face of Captain America.
Zemo smiled, wearing Steve Rogers' face. "It is perfect, Arnim. The Avengers will never suspect their oldest friend. And the Captain will finally pay for destroying my father, and for what he did to my face with the Adhesive X."
PS:
In the comic Adhesive X is a super-glue created by Nazi scientist Baron Heinrich Zemo. It forms an unbreakable bond with any substance and can withstand almost any solvent, water, or extreme temperatures and Captain America infiltrated Heinrich's lab to destroy the supply.
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