Art of War

VII

The three pulled up to outside an abandoned military base where the signal led them to.

"This is it," Steve said.

"The file came from these coordinates," Natasha noted.

"So did Mick and I."

Later that night, they walked around the base trying to pinpoint where the signal came from.

Steve continued. "This camp is where I was trained and where Mick did a little training."

"Changed much?"

"A little," Steve and Michaela replied.

Steve and Michaela had a brief vision of the former's former, smaller self running past them as he was getting trained with other soldiers.

"Pick up the pace, ladies!" Sergeant Duffy ordered. "Let's go! Let's go! Double time! Come on Rogers, move it!" His former self stopped and stared at Steve as he was now while Michaela's former self offered an encouraging smile. "Come on! Fall in! Rogers! I said fall in!" Present Steve and Present Michaela watched nostalgically as the former Steve ran off and while the former Michaela smiled.

"This is a dead end," Natasha said. "Zero heat signature, zero waves, not even radio. Whoever wrote the file must have used a router to throw people off." Steve and Michaela noticed a building ahead of them. "What is it?" They walked over to the building.

"Army regulations forbid storing ammunition within five hundred yards of the barracks," Steve replied. "This building is in the wrong place." Steve opened the lock with his shield and they entered. They turned on the lights and noticed it was a S.H.I.E.L.D. office.

"This is S.H.I.E.L.D."

"Maybe where it started," Steve and Michaela said. They entered a room where they found old framed portraits of Howard Stark, Peggy and Colonel Chester Phillips.

"There's Stark's father."

"Howard."

"Who's the girl?" Steve and Michaela didn't reply and turned away to walk further down the room, but were stopped by a massive bookshelf.

"If you're already working in a secret office..." Steve began as he pushed the bookshelf and slid it open to reveal an elevator behind it. "Why do you need to hide the elevator?" They went down the elevator which took them to a room with old-looking computers.

"This can't be the data-point, this technology is ancient." Suddenly, Natasha noticed a small flash drive port. She placed the flash drive in it which then activated the ancient computer in the room.

"Initiate system?" the computer asked.

Natasha typed using the keyboard as she said, "Y-E-S, spells yes." Natasha smiled as the old computer started to crank up. "Shall we play a game?"" She turned to Steve and Michaela. "It's from a movie that..."

"Yeah, I saw it," Steve and Michaela interrupted. Suddenly, they heard an accented voice speaking.

Dr. Arnim Zola said, "Rogers, Steven. Born, 1918. Romanoff, Natalia Alianovna. Born, 1984. Evans, Michaela Caroline. Born, 1919." They saw an old camera moving above them as it analyzed them.

"It's some kind of a recording," Natasha noted.

"I am not a recording, Fräulein. I may not be the man I was when the Captain and the nurse took me prisoner in 1945, but I am." The computer screen showed an old photo of Dr. Arnim Zola.

"Do you two know this thing?"

"Arnim Zola was a German scientist who worked for the Red Skull," Steve replied. "He's been dead for years."

"First correction, I am Swiss. Second, look around you. I have never been more alive. In 1972, I received a terminal diagnosis. Science could not save my body, my mind, however, that was worth saving on two hundred thousand feet of data banks. You are standing in my brain."

"How did you get here?" Steve and Michaela asked.

"Invited."

"It was Operation Paperclip after World War II," Natasha said. "S.H.I.E.L.D. recruited German scientists with strategic value."

"They thought I could help their cause. I also helped my own."

"HYDRA died with the Red Skull," Steve said.

"Cut off one head, two more shall take its place."

"Prove it," Steve and Michaela ordered.

"Accessing archive." The computer screen showed them old footage of Johann Schmidt/Red Skull, of the original S.H.I.E.L.D. founders. "HYDRA was founded on the belief that humanity could not be trusted with its own freedom. What we did not realize, was that if you try to take that freedom, they resist. The war taught us much. Humanity needed to surrender its freedom willingly. After the war, S.H.I.E.L.D. was founded and I was recruited. The new HYDRA grew. A beautiful parasite inside S.H.I.E.L.D. For seventy years HYDRA has been secretly feeding crisis, reaping war. And when history did not cooperate, history was changed."

"That's impossible, S.H.I.E.L.D. would have stopped you," Natasha told him.

"Accidents will happen." The computer screen showed them that HYDRA had killed Howard and Maria Stark, making it look like a car accident along with the recent death of Fury. "HYDRA created a world so chaotic that humanity is finally ready to sacrifice its freedom to gain its security. Once the purification process is complete, HYDRA's new world order will arise. We won, Captain, Fräulein Evans. Your deaths amount to the same as your lives; a zero sum." In anger, Steve and Michaela suddenly smashed the computer screen. "As I was saying..."

"What's on this drive?" Steve and Michaela demanded.

"Project Insight requires insight. So I wrote an algorithm."

"What kind of algorithm?" Natasha asked. "What does it do?"

"The answer to your question is fascinating. Unfortunately, you shall be too dead to hear it." Suddenly, the doors started to close. Steve tried to stop it by throwing his shield in between it, but he was too late.

"Steve, Mick, we got a bogey," Natasha warned. "Short range ballistic. 30 seconds tops."

"Who fired it?" Steve and Michaela asked.

"S.H.I.E.L.D."

"I am afraid I have been stalling, Captain, Miss Evans. Admit it, it's better this way. We're each of us... out of time."

Steve noticed a small opening on the ground. He threw the metal door aside and just as the place exploded, he threw himself, Michaela and Natasha into the hole and protected them with his shield. He then managed to get them out from under the building rubble just as STRIKE agents arrived to roam the area for them. Natasha was in his arms and Michaela was slung over his back.

Rumlow noticed a footprint in the dust and said, "Call in the asset."