Steve Rogers disobeying orders barely registered.
Reports flickered across my peripheral awareness—Barnes captured, a reckless rescue, a symbol finally choosing to act like a soldier instead of a mascot. Important, yes. Predictable, absolutely. The classic trajectory of a hero. I filed it away for later.
What mattered now was Schmidt.
Me and Julius stepped through a portal I carved into reality with practiced ease, the world folding inward as color and sound vanished. A heartbeat later, we emerged inside Site-001.
God's Blind Spot.
The air itself felt heavier here, layered with wards, counter-concepts, and suppressive fields so dense that even reality hesitated to misbehave. This was not merely a facility—it was a statement. The O5 Council's true headquarters. The place where the world's rules quietly went to die.
We walked down a long corridor of obsidian alloy and reinforced reality anchors, our footsteps echoing despite the sound-dampening enchantments. Around us, security unfolded in obscene depth.
Private military units equipped with laser weapons stood at every junction—not conscripts, but veterans conditioned for anomalous warfare. Hidden missile silos sat beneath the rock, loaded with nuclear warheads, air-to-air and land-to-air systems primed to erase anything that dared approach uninvited. Jets waited in underground hangars, engines warm, pilots already synced to combat protocols.
And that was just the mundane layer.
Dozens of anomalous individuals were stationed throughout the site—entities, enhanced operatives, and loyal assets whose existence was classified beyond classified. Each one vetted, bound, and utterly loyal to the Foundation. If the entire world united against this one location, Site-001 could hold—long enough to make the victory meaningless.
We entered the meeting chamber.
A circular room, stark and severe, designed for decisions that would never be written into history books. The O5 sigil hovered faintly above the central table, more conceptual than physical.
Julius leaned against the table, arms crossed."We can't let this continue," he said calmly. "Schmidt is accelerating too fast."
I nodded.
Red Skull. Johann Schmidt. Hydra's mad prophet.
He wasn't just stealing anomalies—he was using them. Abusing them. Feeding them blood and belief. Making deals with demons, sacrificing prisoners, and tearing knowledge out of artifacts that were never meant to be understood by men like him.
And Hitler was encouraging it.
Between the two of them, anomalous escalation had become routine. Every month they survived was another ritual completed, another artifact weaponized, another variable introduced into a war that was already spiraling out of control.
"If Schmidt falls," I said, "Hydra fractures. Hitler loses his most effective anomalous spearhead. Progress slows. Chaos becomes… manageable."
Julius's eyes narrowed slightly."But killing him outright isn't ideal."
"No," I agreed. "Too clean. Too quick. And it wastes an opportunity."
Captain America.
Steve Rogers was already moving—driven by loyalty, anger, and a very human refusal to abandon his friend. He was going to crash straight into Hydra's operations whether the military liked it or not.
Which made him perfect.
"We let Steve do what heroes do," Julius said. "Fight. Inspire. Survive impossible odds."
"And we position ourselves so that," I continued, "when Steve reaches Schmidt… the Foundation is already there."
We weren't fans of heroes.
But we understood how useful they were.
Schmidt had to be captured, not killed. Studied. Contained. Neutralized in a way that ensured he never touched another anomaly again. Without him, Hitler's occult ambitions would rot from the inside.
I looked around the chamber, at the heart of the Foundation's power, and felt a familiar cold certainty settle in.
"This war," I said quietly, "is going to decide more than borders."
Julius smiled thinly."Then let's make sure it ends with us holding the pieces."
Far away, Steve Rogers was already running toward destiny.
And here, in God's Blind Spot, we were deciding how tightly it would be contained.