Chapter 17: The Ghost of the Past
The return flight was quiet, a stark contrast to the frantic chaos of Sokovia. The team was huddled around a restrained HYDRA soldier, who was currently unconscious and strapped to a gurney in the back of their custom-built quinjet. Skye, her face pale, was running diagnostics on his cybernetic enhancements with her Techno Gu, a silent fury in her eyes.
"Any luck?" Adam asked, his voice low. He was trying to be the calm in the storm, the anchor in a sea of dread.
She didn't look up from the flashing screen. "He's a textbook case. Enhanced reflexes, strength, a tactical AI… and a complete memory wipe. They didn't just brainwash him; they scrubbed his entire life clean. He's a ghost in a machine."
Adam knelt down next to the gurney, his gaze fixed on the man's face. He looked… familiar. Not like he knew him personally, but like he'd seen him somewhere before. A quick mental search through his meta-knowledge brought up a name. Jasper Sitwell. A SHIELD agent. A HYDRA sleeper agent. Adam's blood ran cold.
"Skye," he said, his voice barely a whisper. "Find a picture of a guy named Jasper Sitwell. Mid-level SHIELD agent. Tell me if it matches."
A moment of intense keyboard-tapping and a few muttered commands later, a picture of a smiling, slightly doughy-faced man in a SHIELD uniform appeared on the screen. It was an older photo, but the resemblance was uncanny.
"No… no way," Skye whispered, her hands shaking. "He's an agent. He's one of us."
"Was," Adam corrected, his voice hard. "He was one of us. Now he's one of them."
The revelation hit the team like a punch to the gut. The silence was thick with a new, terrifying emotion: paranoia. If a trusted SHIELD agent could be a HYDRA operative, who else was? Was the mission even real, or was it a setup?
"You know, this is the part of the movie where they all start pointing fingers and accusing each other of being a robot in a skin suit,"
Luis said, trying to break the tension. "Like that one episode of Star Trek where everyone thinks they're a shape-shifting alien. It always ends badly for the guy who's actually the alien. He usually gets phased out of existence." His Clarity Gu was probably trying to find the logical solution to their trust issues, but it was coming up with nothing.
"We need to get some intel out of him," Frank stated, his hand instinctively going to his knife. "I can make him talk."
"No," Adam said, his voice firm. "We're not going to be like them, Frank. We're not going to use torture."
Frank glared at him. "He's a HYDRA dog. He deserves it."
"He's a victim, Frank," Adam shot back. "He was a good man once. We're going to use a different method. A… more humane method."
Adam then turned to Sitwell. He leaned in close, his voice a low, conspiratorial whisper. "Jasper," he said, using his full name. "I know about your family. I know about your house in the suburbs. I know you like to watch old Seinfeld reruns on a Tuesday night. I know you're not just some cybernetic pawn. You're a person. And that part of you is still in there. We can help you."
He was using a tactic he'd learned from years of watching procedural dramas. It was a shot in the dark, a desperate attempt to appeal to the ghost of the man who once was. And for a split second, a flicker of something—fear? recognition?—flashed in Sitwell's eyes.
Skye, in the meantime, was using her Techno Gu to decrypt the data they had stolen from the Sokovian base. She found a hidden file, buried deep within the system. "Adam… it's a list. It's a list of… people. SHIELD agents. High-level ones. And next to their names… there's a little HYDRA symbol."
The list was long. Disturbingly long. And at the top of the list, a name that made Adam's stomach churn: Alexander Pierce. He was one of the big ones. The head of the snake.
[Main Mission: Expose HYDRA's infiltration of SHIELD. Reward: 100 Coins, 1 Gu Egg (Rare Gu).Side Mission: Find and neutralize a high-ranking sleeper agent. Reward: 30 Coins.]
The team fell silent, each of them staring at the horrifying list. Their world, which was already a complex, messy place, had just been turned inside out. The people they were supposed to trust, the people they were supposed to be protecting, were the very same ones who were trying to destroy them.
Later that night, Adam found Skye sitting on a crate, staring at the list on her tablet. She was picking at a loose thread on her gloves, a habit she had when she was stressed.
"Hey," he said, sitting down next to her.
She didn't look at him. "How did you know about Sitwell?" she asked, her voice barely audible.
"I have a good memory," he lied, a half-truth that was a whole lot of trouble. "I remembered seeing him in an old file."
"Our whole lives… the people we trusted… were lies," she said, finally looking at him, her eyes wide and full of a profound sadness. "This isn't just about good guys and bad guys, is it?"
"No," he said gently, taking her hand. "It's about the gray. It's about the people who live in the shadows, who pretend to be something they're not. And it's about us, fighting to bring them into the light."
He didn't have to say anything else. She squeezed his hand, a silent thank you for the comfort. The bond between them, which had been a slow burn of bickering and shared glances, had just been forged in the fire of betrayal and shattered trust. It was a terrifying new reality, but at least they weren't facing it alone.
"This is it," he thought. "This is the part where the movie gets real. This is where the witty banter turns into something more. Something… dangerous."
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