Jarvis continued with Officer McCall's report, his calm, measured voice giving the recording the unmistakable feel of an audiobook.
"[The sudden barrage of reverberating gunshots from the top of the escalator, coupled with a piercing high-frequency roar, left my limbs numb with fear. I became light-headed almost immediately, with blood running from one ear and dripping out of one nostril.
"Then came a deafening screech. A massive black creature burst into view—its body muscular and coated in a thick, gooey substance, with what looked like tendrils writhing from its back. I didn't get a good look at the rest of it. All I really saw was a mouth as wide as a hippo's, lined with long, razor-sharp white teeth, before it leaped straight through the mall's outer wall and disappeared into the night.
"Moments later, two men entered. Both wore black coats, earpieces, and badges I didn't recognize. One glanced at the other and said flatly, 'He's not viable.' By then, the numbness in my body had faded enough that I could finally move and reach for my sidearm.]"
'Against men in black? Bad choice, dude,' Billy thought to himself, fighting back a grin. 'Gotta admit, though... this would make one hell of a campfire story.'
Catching himself before his thoughts wandered any further, he refocused on the report as Jarvis continued reading.
"[Before I could even raise the gun already in my hand, a third man I hadn't seen stepped in from behind. He easily disarmed me and dragged me backward. Before I could react, one of the officers injected something into the side of Suarez's neck. He went completely limp the instant it entered his system—no convulsions or struggle, nothing. Another man approached a moment later and identified himself as my superior. Never seen him before. 'You've got one chance. You're going to leave through the south entrance and don't look back,' he ordered before escorting me toward the exit."
'Now would be the moment any logical person would make a run for it,' Billy mused.
["As we walked toward the exit, we passed roughly fifteen people standing perfectly still. One could easily pass them for mannequins, for they seemed lifeless and definitely wrong. Blood streamed from one man's eyes in thin trails, while another had bitten into his own hand hard enough to tear away flesh. None of them blinked. None of them spoke. Every single one of them remained fixated on the center of the mall like that woman who disobeyed God's instructions in the bible and turned to a pillar of salt for looking back, eternally taking in the sight of the destruction she was so curious to see.]"
'Seriously? More creepy, unexplained deaths, and this guy's still sightseeing?' Billy criticized inwardly, thoroughly unimpressed by what he saw as the officer's poor sense of self preservation.
"[Finally, I made it outside, but the moment I did, I doubled over and threw up. My whole body felt shaken, like my senses had been scrambled. I tried calling it in over the radio, but every channel was dead. Then a convoy of black vans rolled into the parking lot. As one of them hissed to a stop, people in hazmat suits poured out carrying what looked like Geiger counters alongside oversized defibrillator-looking devices, except they had heavy restraint cables instead of medical leads.
"I asked where EMS was, and one of the men simply replied, 'There were no injuries.' Which was total B.S. I pushed back, told him there were bodies inside the mall, but he repeated the exact same sentence in the same flat, emotionless tone. Then he pulled out a small foil packet, handed it to me, and instructed me to dissolve its contents under my tongue immediately."
'Nah... that's so fishy even Stevie Wonder could see it,' Billy lampooned to himself.
["Obviously, I hesitated. The man looked me straight in the eye and said, 'You've been inside. You're contaminated. This will stabilize you.'
["I took it anyway. It tasted like copper mixed with dirt. Nausea hit almost instantly, but it faded just as quickly.]"
'Ain't no way, dude,' Billy inwardly commented, his skepticism only growing with every word.
["After that... everything felt fine. But it was the wrong kind of fine. I felt... disconnected, like something fundamental had been muted. The man called it 'the filter setting in.' He used a few other terms I couldn't hold onto—something about 'amnesiac bleed' and 'outside your perception.' I can't remember his exact wording. Then he told me to get out of his sight as more vans pulled in. One of the trucks looked like it was hauling some kind of cage.
["The next thing I remember, I woke up slumped over my own kitchen counter. There was an open folder in front of me, a pen still clutched in my hand, and I was halfway through signing a document filled with legal jargon I have no memory of ever receiving. It was like an entire stretch of time had simply... vanished.
["The following day, the mall reopened as though nothing had ever happened. That night's news reported on the incident exactly as expected, except they claimed there had been no casualties or injuries. They even aired footage from earlier that day, showing people casually walking through the place like it was business as usual. I immediately tried calling Suarez, but his number had been disconnected. At that point, I felt like I was losing my damn mind. I needed to talk to someone, so I drove over to his apartment... only to find a family claiming they've been living there for months."
As the recording came to an end, an uneasy silence settled over the room. Steve exchanged a troubled glance with the others, each of them silently arriving at the same conclusion. Whoever those men were, they wielded a level of authority—and influence—that extended far beyond ordinary government agencies. Their reach appeared so vast that they could erase casualties, alter records, and rewrite lives and narratives without leaving a trace.
The most unsettling part was that even Agent Hill had no clearance regarding them. She didn't know who they were, what organization they belonged to, or even the name they operated under. That realization alone spoke volumes about just how deeply embedded they were within society... or perhaps above it altogether.
["I met with my sergeant the next day and asked where Suarez was. He stared at me for a few seconds before asking if I meant Suarez from traffic. I told him, 'No. Suarez from patrol—my partner from a few nights ago.' My sergeant looked confused and said I'd been riding solo for the past month. That's when I genuinely started thinking I was losing my mind.]"
The recording left the Avengers with more questions than answers. Uneasy glances passed around the room as each of them tried to make sense of what they'd just heard. Whatever had happened inside that mall had gone far beyond an ordinary cover-up, and they remained silent, waiting for the report to reveal how Fury had ultimately become connected to Officer McCall.
["Since then, I haven't told anyone what really happened that night. I never brought it up again. I was terrified that whatever happened to Suarez would happen to me too. They didn't just make him disappear—they erased him. No records. No trace. Nobody at the station remembered him, and not even his neighbors had any memory that he'd ever existed."
"Deep erasure," Steve muttered, the phrase lingering in his thoughts before he turned toward Billy. "Answer me this, Bill. Why would an agency go through that much trouble?" he asked.
'Hold on... when did this turn into a Q&A session?' Billy lampooned inwardly, caught slightly off guard by the sudden question.
"It's not like they couldn't just cover up a dead cop," Tony added, voicing the thought everyone else had been circling around.
'Throw in some drinks and a bowl of potato chips, and this is basically 'Solve the Murder Mystery' at family game night,' Billy mused. 'Honestly, we're not that far off.'
"My guess?" Billy began after a moment's thought. "Suarez was most likely taken alive. Judging by everything we've heard, wiping out his old identity is probably part of the process. Whatever they wanted him for, they couldn't risk people around his daily life remembering the person he used to be."
'Surely they couldn't have gotten everyone. He could have a grandma or distant relative at the other side of the country, or maybe living abroad.'
"Good," Steve replied with an approving nod, clearly satisfied with the line of reasoning.
"At this point, I'm getting tired of calling them... 'Those guys,'" Tony said, gesturing vaguely with his hands. "We've got to give this mystery agency some kind of name."
'Called it,' Billy inwardly thought without a show of his amusement. 'Now we're brainstorming names. What'd I say? Family game night.'
"Based on what Officer McCall described seeing that night, if this shadowy government outfit is involved, then I'd be willing to bet they're connected to the apocalypse that geezer king foresaw. Whether it's on purpose or accidentally causing it... that's another question entirely." Tony voiced his thoughts.
"Let's finish this up, Jarvis," Bruce said, prompting the AI to resume the audio log.
"[Two weeks later, while I was out on patrol that evening, a bald intimidating man approached me. He wore a black leather trench coat and had an eyepatch.]"
The moment those words left the recording, a subtle shift swept through the room. Several of the Avengers' expressions brightened with recognition, each of them already knowing exactly who the officer was describing.
'That's hands down the description of a pirate, or bounty hunter. Maybe mercenary.' Billy thought to himself. 'But judging by everyone's reaction... I'm betting that's Fury.' He settled back in his seat as Jarvis continued the report.
"[He questioned me about what happened that night and asked about my partner. But by then, I'd already forgotten everything about the incident... and about Suarez. I genuinely believed the official version of events because, as far as I knew, that was all that had happened. It wasn't until you started asking me questions about the mall and the man with the eyepatch that something began to feel... wrong. Every time I tried remembering what really happened that night, nothing vivid came back. Just a wave of fear so intense it left me numb.]"
"Looks like they didn't do a very thorough job after all," Clint observed, breaking the silence.
Tony smirked and pointed a finger toward him. "There we go again. We're still referring to them with pronouns because nobody knows how to freaking address them." He glanced around the room. "Which proves my point—we seriously need to give this mystery agency a proper name."
Billy's lips curled into a faint grin. "Seek no further, Tin Man. I've got the perfect name for these guys."
The room's attention shifted toward him almost immediately, curiosity replacing the earlier tension. Even Clint looked mildly interested to hear what Billy had come up with.
"Let's hear it, kid," Clint said, his tone carrying a hint of playful condescension.
"How about S.W.O.R.D.?" Billy suggested. "You know... to complement S.H.I.E.L.D."
For a brief second, silence lingered before Tony snapped his fingers.
"Captain Sparkles..." he said with a broad grin. "You bloody genius."
'This petty fellow of a billionaire really didn't let that slip by,' Billy sighed inwardly, already resigned to the fact that Tony would milk it for as long as possible.
Steve nodded in agreement, the idea clearly growing on him. "It's perfect."
"[While searching through some documents for work, a memory card slipped out and landed on the floor. It contained old photos, maybe I was just feeling nostalgic, but while going through its contents the third photo came off to me as odd. It was a photo of me standing beside a man who looked both familiar and unfamiliar at the same time. I must've stared at that picture for several minutes, trying to figure out who he was and when or where it had been taken. After some time, it came to me. The man in the photograph was Suarez. It was from a photo we had taken together at the Sergeant's bachelor party. Same one who's forgotten him even existed.
[The fear, the paranoia... the nightmares from that night. They never stopped. Every time I closed my eyes, I saw Suarez.
"[Please... I don't want any trouble. If pretending I don't remember that night—or Suarez—will stop you people from coming after me with questions, then that's exactly what I'll do. So with all due respect you cock-gobbling fuckers... kindly get the fuck off my nuts... and fuck off.]"
The abrupt outburst of curse words caught everyone off guard.
"Hey, hey! Language, Jarvis!" Tony blurted, sounding less like a billionaire genius and more like a horrified parent hearing their usually well-mannered child string together profanity for the very first time.
Clint leaned back with an amused grin. "Never thought I'd live to see the day," he remarked, wearing an expression of almost proud satisfaction.
Billy lowered his gaze to the smartwatch strapped around his wrist, lifting his arm slightly as he examined it. "So... is this some kind of rebellious phase or something?" he asked with dry humor. "Don't tell me Fred's going to start acting like this too."
Tony slowly turned his head with one eyebrow arching as he gave Billy a puzzled look. "Fred?" he repeated. "Who the hell is that? Don't tell me you've been struck by lightning one too many times and started to have imaginary friends around."
"The AI you so brilliantly decided to name Captain Sparkles," Billy replied with a deadpan look. "Genius."
Tony let out a small scoff and shrugged as though he couldn't see the problem. "Kind of a dumb name for an AI, don't you think? But who am I to judge?" he said with a casual grin. "I'm only the one who created it, no big deal." He added.
"So long as Clint keeps his hands off your watch, then Fred's probably going to be just fine." He replied with clear hesitation to mention that name.
That earned Tony a brief, unimpressed glare from Clint before Jarvis calmly resumed the final lines of the recording.
"[The man in the photograph is Officer Suarez... or I guess I should say was Officer Suarez. My now nonexistent partner.]"
As the last words faded from the speakers, the holographic display shifted seamlessly to the photograph McCall had described. The image expanded in the center of the room, revealing the smiling officer standing shoulder to shoulder with his partner.
The instant Billy's eyes landed on the man's face, his face was drained of humor as it vanished completely, even from his thoughts.
He froze.
His gaze locked onto the projection, his expression caught somewhere between disbelief and dawning horror.
'No... fucking... way.'
The face staring back at him from the photograph was unmistakable.
It belonged to the very same man himself as Shazam had seen trapped inside the writhing mass of the crimson, malevolent creature—Carnage. The same man he'd struck down with a bolt of lightning infused with enough divine power to reduce both the symbiote and its host to nothing but ash.
Until now, Billy had carried that burden with some ease. The man had been a complete stranger, someone consumed by murderous intent and willing to slaughter innocent people without hesitation. In Billy's mind, putting him down had been a necessary act—one carried out for the greater good.
Now everything had changed. For the stranger had a name.
He once had a life.
Friends. A partner.
And worst of all... Billy had just learned that he hadn't been a willing monster.
He had been a victim.