KillSwitch ─ s. rogers ✓

eleven

ALEX was going to feel pretty damn embarrassed if this wasn't the right place. She checked the address once, twice, three times, but between the rather unreliable-seeming Internet and the fact that she had no idea where she was, it was wholly possible that she wasn't even close to where she was supposed to be. At the same time, a part of her almost hoped this wouldn't be her brother's house. There was no way this would go over well, and understandably so. There were few good outcomes to knocking on your brother's door after sixty years looking exactly the same. However, she walked all the way here, and she had nothing left to lose, so she knocked on that door and waited for disaster.

She stood on the doorstep for a few moments. A dog barked from inside the house, and she nearly jumped out of her skin. Muffled voices traveled outside, but they were too muted for Alex to make out the words. Her right foot bounced up and down.

When the door swung open, a chill of anxiety jerked through Alex's body and sent the hairs on her arms straight up. She didn't even know what to do at the sight of her brother, who, after all this time and the fact that a lot of her memories were still fuzzy, was instantly recognizable. She simply stood there still as a statue, and Michael's jaw dropped.

"I—" Michael had no words. He had changed radically in the sixty plus years since Alex disappeared, grown older both inside and out, but here Alexandra was in front of him, looking only slightly older than she did in nineteen-fifty-six. This couldn't possibly be his sister. Though a part of him still hoped, he accepted the fact that she was probably dead. Not only was it nearly impossible that she was alive, it was completely impossible for her to have aged just a couple years.

"You are Michael Sousa, right?" Alex asked timidly. "I mean, I know you are. I know who you are. I remember a little bit of back then—I mean—I...hi."

She really wished this had been the wrong house.

"You are not my sister," the considerably older-looking man insisted. He shook his head. "I don't know who you are or how you pulled this off, but you need to leave."

"I'm Alexandra," Alex persisted. "Look, it's a long story, and my memories are all scattered, but I swear to you, I'm Alexandra Carter."

Michael shook his head.

"What you are is delusional. Get off my property before I call the authorities."

The tiny dog growled, his head sticking out from inside.

"No!" Alex exclaimed desperately. "Look it up! All of Hydra's files are up on that Internet thing! Search up my name!"

Michael was about to respond, but he was distracted by something Alex couldn't see. It was so hard to wrap her head around the fact that her younger brother had experience so many more years than she had. He was in his sixties at this point, and he looked it. He had the voice of a man who had seen decade after decade, whereas Alex, who was technically in her late sixties, had only seen tragedy after tragedy in between her times in the cryochamber. She was jealous; he had truly lived.

"Who is it?" another voice said from behind the open door. A woman who looked to be a few years younger than Michael stepped into Alex's view. It took her a moment, but the instant she realized what she was looking at, she gawked. Her head whipped around to face Michael. "She looks just like those pictures of Alexandra. Who is she?"

"I am Alexandra," Alex butted in. "I'm serious. Please. If you really don't believe me, search my name, or search KillSwitch. The files are all out there, alright? Hydra kidnapped me before they wanted to recreate the effects of the serum that changed my father's genetic makeup by studying my blood, and they planned to kill me after that, but they couldn't recreate the effect. The only thing they did create just created a bunch of violent, uncontrollable soldiers. That's why they decided to wipe me and use me to kill for them. They trained me, then put me into cryosleep until I was needed for a mission. It's all in the files. I know it sounds insane, but it's the truth."

The look of irritation on Michael's face twisted into one of genuine confusion.

"My mother said you—you—Alexandra never knew who her father was," he stammered. "When I was older, she told me and my sister that she never had a chance to tell Alexandra that her father was—"

"Steve Rogers," Alex finished. "I didn't. At least. I didn't until I went to the library and accessed the Hydra files. I know that this is weird. I know that this doesn't make sense. I didn't even realize until today. But I swear to god, I am Alexandra Carter. I'm just here to find someone who can fill in my blanks. All I can remember is bits and pieces, and...and I need you to tell me how to find my mother. Please."

She pulled her usual knife out of her pocket (she dumped all of her other weaponry into the Potomac) and let it clatter to the doorstep. Then she lifted up her hands.

"I'm totally unarmed now. I'm not here to hurt anyone. All I want is answers. I just want to talk to you. For you and everyone else, it's been decades, but for me, it's only been a couple years. Those years were spent being mindwiped and trained and tortured in a Hydra facility so they could turn me into their super soldier. For the first time in so long, I'm free, but I don't know who I am now. I don't know who I was before. Please just help me find out what I'm missing so that I can figure out what I need to do next. Okay?"

The woman standing next to Michael, who Alex presumed was his wife, eyed him hesitantly. Then she looked back at Alex.

"Come inside," she ordered. "And please pick up that knife."

Alex nodded. She picked the knife up and slipped into her back pocket before stepping inside.