Buzzkill: The Reckoning

Chapter 43

"But what about the electricity thing?" Ruth asked, still unsure about what to call her abilities.

"With the new files you gave me, it looked like the Woman's intention wasn't really mind control, it was to give you the ability to control whatever she wanted you to have," Tony explained.

Ruth scrunched her eyebrows, "And what does that mean?"

"You know that file that had pictures and information on those different agents from the facility?" Tony asked Ruth, turning to face her.

Ruth nodded.

"The Woman designed a specific serum for each of you. The base for the serums all the same, but what she wanted each of you to control, that was different."

"So she wanted me to be able to control electricity?" Ruth asked, dumbfounded.

Tony nodded somberly. "That's why you were hooked up to that electricity machine after each injection."

All the blood rushed to Ruth's head, dizziness taking over. Why would She want Ruth to be immune to electricity? That was the Woman's favorite tool to use against her for training, interrogations, anything. Was she going to just be used as a tool for whatever the Woman wanted to inflict on others?

"What about the others?" Ruth started, her voice giving out a bit. "What did Ma'am want for them?"

Tony turned back to his computer, searching through the files to get back to the serum data. "I think I remember you saying a while back that Danielle was a sharpshooter, right?" Tony asked.

Ruth nodded, "Yeah. The best of all of us that were there at the time."

"The Woman designed the serum to target not just Dani's brain, but her eyes. This serum, if it didn't kill her, would give Dani eyesight far beyond anything a normal person could comprehend, as well as giving her body the ability to stabilize her muscles any way she wanted." "So she would never miss a shot," Ruth finished.

Tony nodded, "Exactly."

Ruth furrowed her brows, thinking back to her hallucinations of the Woman in the Hydra facility. There, Ma'am told her she had been working on this serum for years. Was that true? Was there any truth to the hallucinations?

"With all this work," Ruth started, "With all of the planning that must have gone into making the serums, She must have been working on this for years, right?"

Everyone seemed to exchange the same look with each other, as if they all knew something Ruth didn't. Their faces were solemn, conflicted with what to say, and who would say it.

"Based on some writings deep within the files," Steve started, speaking up, "the Woman chose many kids for the facility based specifically on if she thought they would work for the experiments."

Ruth glanced around to all the weird looks everyone was still giving, even Bucky. That would make sense to her that the Woman would want to find kids that would work for her experiment. What was the issue? "Ok..."

"She chose kids based on their lineage," Steve continued. "She found relatives of military leaders, assassins, world leaders—"

"Super soldiers," Bucky interrupted.

"And waited until they had a kid that she could take to the facility," Steve stated.

"Alright," Ruth began. "I still don't see why you are all acting so odd about this. Ma'am told me about my relation to Steve throughout my life." She shrugged, "I guess it doesn't surprise me that she knew I was related to Captain America when she bought me."