Chapter Nine;
The tracer led them to an old army camp, which was no longer in use. Surrounded by high fences, they used Steve's shield to break their way in. Delaney gazed around with interest at the old buildings.
"This camp is where I was trained," Steve muttered, as they picked their way through the numerous buildings. Natasha held one of her many devices aloft, searching for any waves or signals.
"Change much?" Delaney asked.
"A little." Steve looked around – he looked wistful. And a little bit sad. Delaney tried to understand what seeing this place again would mean for him.
Delaney rested a hand on his arm. Steve smiled – it didn't reach his eyes. His face was clouded over, reminiscent. Delaney could tell that he was lost in old memories.
Delaney didn't know what she was doing – she just wanted to be there for him, to help him, to try and understand. She reached out with her mind and lightly touched his own, trying to feel closer, to let him know how sincere she was.
Her eyes widened. Images, blurred images, appeared in her mind: a soldier's battalion, the shouts of the leader... A regular training exercise, from years ago.
Delaney gasped and wrenched her mind back, eyes wide. She looked at Steve, but he didn't seem to have noticed what had just happened. Delaney touched her temple, her heartbeat quickening.
Did I just touch Steve's mind? Was I reading his mind?
No, it wasn't reading – only blurred images. Delaney groaned and pinched her nose, which earned her a concerned look from Steve. She'd never read anyone's mind before - only controlled it.
I hate these powers. Delaney balled her fists. I hate them. They cause nothing but trouble – and I barely understand them.
"This is a dead end." Delaney's head snapped up at Natasha's voice, welcoming any form of distraction. Her friend shrugged. "Zero heat signatures, zero waves, not even radio. Whoever wrote the file must have used a router to throw people off."
Delaney snorted. "Well isn't that typical?" She relieved her frustrations by kicking out at the ground – and only ended up wincing as she stubbed her toe.
Delaney wasn't paying attention to the others, so it was a surprise when Steve started to stride toward a nearby building.
"What is it?" Natasha asked. Delaney jogged to catch up to them.
"Army regulations forbid storing munitions within five hundred yards of the barracks," Steve explained. He stopped in front of the door; it was locked. "This building is in the wrong place."
He broke the lock with his shield. The door creaked open, revealing a dark corridor. Delaney exchanged glances with the other two and they stepped inside.
Lights flickered on once they entered. Delaney's eyes widened. This was no ordinary army building. Numerous desks were lined in orderly rows, computers on each one. On the back wall was S.H.I.E.L.D's symbol.
"This is S.H.I.E.L.D," Natasha murmured.
Steve nodded. "Maybe where it started."
They moved through the building, which led them to a hall. Three pictures hung on a wall – a man who somewhat resembled Tony, another man, and a pretty girl with short, dark hair. Delaney's eyes were drawn to the girl. She was pretty, yes, but there was a hardness to her dark eyes but showed she was strong, fierce, and wouldn't let anybody get in her way.
"And there's Stark's father," Natasha said, nodding in the direction of a fairly handsome man.
"Howard." Steve's voice was like an echo. Delaney looked across at him in concern.
"Who's the girl?"
Steve's face tightened as he took in the picture of the short haired brunette. After a lengthy pause he turned abruptly, not saying a word.
They crept along the last of the base, where empty shelves were covered in cobwebs. Delaney shivered. She had never liked spiders – the sign of the cobwebs, more than anything, made her want to run. Natasha had teased her relentlessly about it, especially since her alias was Black Widow.
Delaney shivered again – but it was nothing to do with spiders. A cold breeze touched the bare skin of her face. She frowned. They were indoors. There shouldn't be a breeze.
Steve noticed it too. He inched closer to one of the shelves. "If you're already working in a secret office..." He grasped the shelf and pulled it back, revealing a hidden elevator behind it. "Why do you need to hide the elevator?"
"This is creepy," Delaney muttered as they approached the elevator; Natasha used her phone to decode the code needed to access the elevator. "It's like we're stepping into some big conspiracy."
The elevator doors opened. They stepped inside and after a short period of time, they were walking outside of it again. Delaney frowned. Hundreds of old pieces of technology littered the room.
"This can't be the data point," Natasha scoffed. "This technology is ancient."
Delaney sauntered toward the desk in the middle of the room. She bit her lip. Something silver, something modern, rested on top of the desk – it didn't fit in with the rest of the room.
"Nat, over here."
Natasha was by her side in an instant, Steve not far behind. Natasha whipped out the drive and inserted into the device.
"Activate system?"
Delaney blinked at the robotic voice.
Natasha typed on the keyboard. "Y-E-S. Yes." It worked – Delaney could hear the computers whir to life.
Natasha grinned. "Shall we play a game?" When no one responded she elaborated, "It's from a movie that was really..."
"I know, I saw it."
The middle screen fizzled to life. Delaney tilted her head to the side as a pixelated image that resembled a face appeared on the screen.
"Rogers, Steven, born 1918." An old voice crackled into being. "Romanoff, Natalia Alianovna, born 1984. Esqiuvel, Delaney, born 1987."
Delaney sucked in a breath.
"What is this? A recording?" she breathed. Even as she spoke, she knew it was more than that: how else would it know their full names, and the ear they were born?
"I am not a recording, Eris, weapon of Mano del Infeirno." All the blood drained from Delaney's face and turned to ice in her veins. She clutched the desk for support, her breath coming to her in trembling gasps.
How does it know? How could it possibly know?
"I may not be the man I was when the Captain took me prisoner in 1945. But I am."
"You know this thing?" Natasha demanded Steve. She moved closer to Delaney, resting an arm around her shoulders. She positioned herself in a way as though to shield Delaney from the face on the screen.
Steve looked at Delaney. His body was tense, his lips soundlessly forming the words, Are you okay?
Despite feeling like she was about to be sick, Delaney nodded once and waved back toward the screen.
"Arnim Zola was a German scientist who worked for the Red Skull," Steve said tersely, though his eyes didn't leave Delaney. "He's been dead for years."
"First correction, I am Swiss," the computer – Zola, Delaney guessed – spoke irritably. "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 databanks. You are standing in my brain."
Delaney choked. Her eyes flicked across the technology that was, in comparison to what that day had available, ancient. Yet it was something so much more advanced than any modern scientist had achieved. Her head spun.
"How did you get here?" Steve demanded.
"I was... invited."
"It was Operation Paperclip, after World War II," Natasha explained. She tightened her hold on Delaney. "S.H.I.E.L.D. recruited German scientists with strategic value."
"They thought I could help their cause. I also helped my own."
"H.Y.D.R.A. died With the Red Skull," Steve snapped.
Zola's face disappeared, replaced with H.Y.D.R.A's symbol. "Cut off one head, two more shall take its place." The image decreased in size; another one appeared beside it.
The skin around Delaney's lips prickled – she really did not like where this was going.
Steve narrowed his eyes. "Prove it."
"Accessing archive."
Delaney tensed, unsure what to expect.
What she did made bile rise in her throat.
War. People crying. Dying. Blood on the streets. Gunshots ripping through the air. Children – skinny, running from violence. Protests in the street. Everything horrible and wrong in the world – it was all being shown in front of them, one horrendous picture after the other.
"H.Y.D.R.A. was founded on the belief that humanity could not be trusted with its own freedom." The voice spoke like terrifying commentary over the continuous flashes of information. "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."
Images of war and destruction, blood and violence, continued to flick across the screen. Delaney's breaths were shaky, but she forced herself to continue looking, to see what they were up against, to understand. Horror clutched her body in an iron grip but she gritted her teeth.
I will not let this... thing, understand what this is making me feel. I will not give him the satisfaction.
"After the war, S.H.I.E.L.D. was founded, and I was recruited. The new H.Y.D.R.A. grew. A beautiful parasite inside S.H.I.E.L.D. For seventy years, H.Y.D.R.A. has been secretly feeding crisis, reaping war, and when history did not cooperate, history was changed."
"That's impossible," Natasha breathed, eyes wide. For the first time, Delaney thought she sounded unnerved, frightened. "S.H.I.E.L.D. would have stopped you."
"Accidents will happen."
Delaney slapped a hand to her mouth as an article of Howard Stark's death appeared – followed by the image of a man, the only distinguishable feature about him a metal arm with a red star. Tony's father. She felt like she about to be sick.
"H.Y.D.R.A. created a world so chaotic that humanity is finally ready to sacrifice its freedom to gain its security," Zola proclaimed; images of war and destruction continued to filter across the screen. Delaney turned her head away and squeezed her eyes, as though by being unable to see what was going on, it wouldn't exist and none of this could be true – it was all too horrible. "Once a purification process is complete, H.Y.D.R.A'S new world order will arise.
"We won, Captain." If Zola was still a person, Delaney could just imagine the smirk that would be drawn across his face. "Your death amounts to the same as your life. A zero sum."
There was the sound of broken glass – Delaney gasped and saw Steve had put his fist through the screen. It was now blank, shattered.
A smaller screen flickered to life – Delaney gripped the hem of her shirt to refrain from punching the renewed face of Zola. She wished he was still alive so she could freeze him with her powers, make him spill every secret. Every last one.
"As I was saying -"
Steve was in front of the screen in an instant. Delaney bit her lip – she had never seen him so wound up. Ever.
"What's on this drive?"
"Project Insight requires... insight. So, I wrote an algorithm."
"What kind of algorithm? What does it do?"
"The answer to your question is fascinating. Unfortunately, you shall be too dead to hear it."
Delaney balked. "What do you mean?" she yelled, punching the desk and glaring at the screen.
Natasha pulled a device from her pocket. Her face turned white. "Steve, Lane, we got a bogey," she stammered. "Short range ballistic. Thirty seconds tops."
Delaney gasped; her hands flew to her mouth. She couldn't breathe – she might as well stop breathing then. Thirty seconds left to live.
Snap out of it, Delaney! You have not given up everything for two years to die now! There'll be a way out of this, don't give up. Don't you ever give up!
"Who fired it?" Steve demanded.
Natasha swallowed. "S.H.I.E.L.D."
"I am afraid I have been stalling, Captain," Zola said as Steve darted forward and yanked the grating off a crevice in the ground. He beckoned frantically for Delaney to join him; realising what he was doing, Delaney followed Natasha as she sprinted to Steve's side. "Admit it. It's better this way. We are, both of us, out of time."
Delaney threw herself down into the hole and flung herself against Steve's side. She yanked Natasha beside her and Steve frantically raised his shield – just as an almighty crash resounded in Delaney's ears.
The world was burning, red – it was raining fire and destruction. Delaney screamed and buried her face in her hands as the stone crumbled around them; walls and debris rained upon them in torrents, the sounds of ripping and tearing and crashing assaulting her ears. Her screams turned to coughs as dust filled her mouth and soon dust was all she could see – she felt Natasha press herself into her side, and Delaney couldn't see anything or comprehend anything that her overwhelming panic and fear. Her body shook and her heart beat in her ribs and she closed her eyes as everything fell to pieces.