Constantine sat in a dimly lit bar, nursing a drink in silence. The struggling establishment was his refuge, a place to rest.
A spider skittered across the table. He trapped it under a glass.
Lifting the glass slightly, he exhaled a plume of smoke inside and muttered the same words he'd once said to Gabriel:
"Welcome to my life."
Since thirteen, he'd smoked over thirteen cigarettes a day. Now, his days were numbered.
Having dealt with demons countless times and lost more than one comrade, any hope of heaven was long gone.
"Manny, what kind of being are you, really?"
Constantine spoke casually.
"I'm just observing you. After all, you don't pray much or seek our help," the bartender replied, his face briefly morphing into the angel's. He grabbed a glass and polished it slowly.
"When I did pray, you lot didn't exactly help," Constantine said, his voice tinged with drunkenness—perhaps a ruse, but too convincing to call out.
This man might just be the world's greatest con artist.
"How do you know we didn't help?" Manny drawled, seemingly unbothered by anything, the sound of glass being wiped forming a soft backdrop.
"That's rich."
"Indeed."
The conversation between Constantine and the angel ended there.
"Bartender, get me a dry martini."
"One dry martini, coming up."
…
"Are we still no closer to identifying these people?" Nick Fury barked at his subordinate, his tone sharp.
The agent's bowed head said it all.
The mysterious figures in S.H.I.E.L.D.'s headquarters left no trace on any surveillance. The cameras worked fine, yet these intruders appeared in the elevator as if from thin air.
Highly unusual.
No one could tell if Fury's frustration was genuine—his heart had long turned black.
The agent wanted to quip, "My skin's different, but our hearts are both black," to prove his loyalty and end this endless investigation. But he knew better.
Agent Hill, meanwhile, pored over the elevator footage. Less concerned with identities, she fixated on what the intruders mentioned—materials.
What did Rumlow have that was worth risking exposure, even death, to obtain? Hill was intrigued.
Fury, however, was less focused on that detail.
Ever since he acquired that indestructible crystal vial, he'd had ideas.
"Director, we've made progress on the research!" an agent's voice crackled through the office intercom, interrupting Fury's theatrical display.
The research could only mean the crystal vial.
Fury's real interest wasn't the vial but the Purple Man's corpse. That kind of power was too dangerous not to be under S.H.I.E.L.D.'s control.
Fury stood, ready to head to the lab.
A new material could be a game-changer for S.H.I.E.L.D.—for the Helicarrier project or replicating alien tech hindered by material limitations.
This warranted a personal visit.
"You, get back to work. Report any findings immediately," Fury said, dismissing the agent with a wave, irritation clear.
He didn't need agents who just bowed and apologized. Someone like Melinda May would do, but these elites couldn't yet stand on their own.
"Hill, drop what you're doing and come with me to the lab."
He wasn't hiding the material issue from Hill or the World Security Council behind her. Whether the material was hard to obtain or not, they'd need others to share the burden.
Better to involve them now than let them swoop in later to claim the prize.
S.H.I.E.L.D. would get its share—Fury trusted Pierce on that.
Pierce, meanwhile, sat alone in his office, pondering the attackers' origins.
The assault on Rumlow pointed to a conclusion he dreaded: S.H.I.E.L.D. had a problem. To him, S.H.I.E.L.D. was Hydra's property, and this breach unnerved him.
Fury was investigating relentlessly, and Pierce was certain these intruders weren't Hydra's.
How had they evaded S.H.I.E.L.D.'s surveillance and appeared in the elevator?
Pierce began to think.
As the saying goes, "When humans think, God laughs." But for Hydra, who saw themselves as masters, that notion was dismissed.
If someone could infiltrate S.H.I.E.L.D. and bypass all surveillance, something was being hidden from them.
That wasn't the scary part—S.H.I.E.L.D. didn't know Hydra still thrived, after all.
But launching an attack inside S.H.I.E.L.D. with no apparent plan to escape? That was unusual.
"Are they trying to warn me?" Pierce wondered, sensing a clue.
"Interesting. Who would do this?"
He began mentally sorting through possible culprits.
…
"Rumlow, things are looking bad. We need to move faster!" Dugan said loudly, fresh from meeting Peggy Carter.
After exchanging intel with her, Dugan believed this was the first step in Hydra's purge.
Neither Fury nor Pierce had identified the attackers, so they could only be operatives under one of these "Hydra" leaders.
How else could they appear in the elevator?
Rumlow had the materials, and Hawkeye would've told Fury.
But Fury didn't want S.H.I.E.L.D. to know, so he moved to eliminate Rumlow before he could report.
It added up.
Nick Fury was Hydra. Maria Hill was not.
Hill, backed by the World Security Council, had climbed from the bottom but was seen as an outsider. That made her trustworthy—to a degree.
"I'm going to share some minor intel with Maria Hill," Dugan said, pulling a half-smoked cigar from its box, tapping it on the desk, and relighting it.
"That increases our risk," Rumlow replied, downing a half-glass of iced vodka.
After too long in Harlogas, he'd grown fond of the warm buzz that followed a drink.
(Chapter End)
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