The Avenger's Soul

The Hub (Part 1)

Coulson barely glanced at me as he kept his expression neutral.

"I'm afraid this mission's classified," he told us as May, Ward, and Simmons walked into the living room area to listen as well. "Clearance Level 8," he informed us.

"Uh..." What the hell does that mean?

"Ah," said Simmons, nodding that at least she understood whatever that meant.

Coulson turned around and walked in the opposite direction. Fitz-Simmons also turned to head back to their lab. I stared around as everyone seemed to go back to what they were doing - while I was still confused.

"Wait, what? He can just shut us out of the process like that?"

Ward stopped walking away and listened as Fitz explained things to me.

"Well, he did say the mission was Level 8." That totally makes sense now...not!

"And, we're not. So we can't know about it," Simmons said, shrugging.

"Right, but this is normally the part where we all stand around the holocom and learn about stuff. I mean, aren't we all, on the same team?" I said, still not understanding.

"No need to get started on one of your socialist riffs," Fitz said with his hands out in front of him. I glared at Fitz as I noticed May smirking.

"Shield's whole infrastructure is based on the hierarchy and compartmentalization of intelligence," Simmons stated as she and Fitz started off again. I stared at their backs.

"Every agent can't have the intel on every mission. Makes the entire organization vulnerable," said Ward.

"Okay fine, but if I just fought my way out of an underground Siberian prison, I'd kind of want to know what for!" I said, feeling sympathetic towards the agent we had just extracted from Siberia.

"Coulson's got you used to the plane, the way we do missions here. The Hub, is different," May cut in.

"The Hub? What's The Hub?" Am I ever going to understand all of their wacko lingo?!

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I looked down at The Bus, now parked inside what looked like a building.

"Wow," I mumbled to myself as I glanced over to the side and hurried to catch up with everyone else as they strode through some sort of entryway and down a hallway.

"I didn't realize Big Brother was this big!" I exclaimed when I finally caught up with them.

"Oh, this is nothing. Wait until you see The Triskelion!" Simmons told me.

"Everyone's wearing the same suit. Someone tell me why, please," I commented. It looked bizarre. It was like watching penguins waddling around in the desert.

We walked up to some sort of reception desk and everyone but me grabbed badges.

"Do I get one?" I said.

Coulson pointed to the bracelet wrapped around my wrist.

"That's your badge, which means you've got a long way to go to even make Level 1," he stated. I frowned but nodded.

"Copy that. Does that also mean no access to any computers here whatsoever? I could run a search on the redacted Shield file on my parents!" I whispered to him.

"Skye..." Coulson sighed as he glanced at me.

"But it just, it seems like the place they'd keep them, right?" I pressed.