(Chapter 14)An Adult Conversation

Andromeda was inside my house and my alarms weren't going off. So she was inside alone and so must've used the facial scan at my door for access. She was dressed in a black sweater and pants, with a wad of black cloth in her pocket. She was using her gun instead of her badge, so this was a Hydra op not a SHIELD op, and she hadn't shot me so I was pretty sure they wanted me alive. Her finger wasn't even on the trigger yet, but there was a silencer on the thing so nothing was certain.

"Give me the gun Andromeda," I said.

"What? No," Andromeda hissed, moving the gun somehow even closer to my face.

"Okay," I said, "Then shoot me." The dark of the room felt oddly symmetrical with the situation, since I was flying blind.

"I don't want to shoot you Mike."

"Give me the gun and try to convince me to do whatever it is you're here for me for willingly, or I can let the archive of my facial scan records send you to prison for decades."

"Mike…" she took her finger off the guard and onto the trigger. She might really do it, I realized. Even corrupt cops seemed to find killing a lot easier than I got the sense was normal in the MCU. Zealots like Hydra? It could be even worse.

"I might agree if you explain why you're here," I said, doing my best not to sound hurried. "Don't expect crooked cops to stop my killers from being caught, I took that into account when I designed my failsafes. But you can kill me, go to jail, AND fail this mission if the idea of having an adult conversation is too scary."

She took her finger off the trigger and lowered the gun. "Fine."

"Give me the gun, Andromeda. Neither you nor your bosses will get what you want unless you hand it over." She hesitated and then handed me the gun by the barrel. I took it gingerly, turned it on her, and said, "Sit down," as I got out of bed.

She did so. Which was good, I was not a great shot and my nerves wouldn't help. "You need to hurry," she said, "They want me back out there in," she checked her watch, "three and a half minutes. And they won't go to jail if they kill both of us."

"Tell them I sleep naked," I said breezily. I actually sleep fully clothed, which tended to freak people out more actually. "Who's them by the way?"

"The first line of defense for humanity. You've met a lot of our members already, not that you knew that. We're saving the world."

"Gonna need a little bit more."

"An organization like the Agency for Mankind."

"And does this organization," I said patiently, keeping the gun as level as possible while backing away from Andromeda. "Have a name?"

"Really it's a little misleading, I don't want you to get caught up on that with a gun in your hand."

I moved my finger onto the trigger, "I will shoot you Andromeda, and probably die to the people waiting for you out there. Then you lose, I lose, and your organization loses."

"We're called Hydra. We're here to enlist you."

Well, it was definitely do or die now. I let out a long breath, "Have they considered a rebrand?"

Andromeda laughed in a way that belied her kidnapper agenda. "Not really."

"Why the gun?" I asked, "Doesn't seem like optimal recruiting."

"Our retention rates are very, very high."

"Do a lot of people die in the recruitment process?"

"I knew you wouldn't," Andromeda said, leaving unsaid that a lot of people did indeed die in the recruitment process.

"And why's that?"

"You don't let your feelings get in the way. People get caught on the Hydra thing. You don't care."

I sighed, "No, I don't." I did care, I told myself. But a little voice in the back of my head mocked me for lying about what I was lying about to myself. I turned on the safety of the gun, ejected and emptied the clip of ammo, and cleared the chamber of the loaded bullet, and then handed the gun back to Andromeda. "Alright, let's go join Hydra."

"I need ammo," she said.

"No," I said. "My leverage reduces substantially if we leave this room and I want to make sure there are two of us invested in it not degenerating into shooting."

"Fine. But you need to wear this hood," she said, pulling the wad of cloth out of her pocket. "They're expecting me to bring you out under duress."

"Sure," I agreed, "But you hood me at the door, not before."

We walked to the door, "Do you have internal security recordings?"

"What do I look like, Nixon?"

She leaned in and kissed my cheek, "I love you Michael Trent. However scary this gets, remember that."

Weird thing to say to the guy who you just held at gunpoint, I thought as she pulled the hood over my head and the world went black. She put the empty gun to my back, opened the door and pushed me out.

I felt two strong hands grab me by the arms, one from each side. I was pretty sure they were two separate people from the feeling. They zip tied my hands behind me. "Any trouble?" a gruff male voice said, to my left.

"He sleeps naked, but besides that no."

"Nothing you haven't seen before, right?"

"Just keep walking," Andromeda said, her voice irritated.

I wondered how, exactly, they were operating a kidnapping in the open like this but I knew I couldn't ask. I was totally helpless now, and most of my leverage had gone out the window. Andromeda might have a personal attachment to me and a stake in not going to jail, but these two guys didn't have those problems. If they'd kept clear of my cameras, then it was likely they could wipe the hall security and put me in the ground without any trouble for them. I didn't know where Hydra marked my value, but it couldn't be as high as I deserved.

They threw me in the car once we made it out of the apartment. Three car doors opened, none of them a sliding van door, so I figured that reaffirmed for me that there were three. Andromeda reached over from next to me and buckled me in, which was considerate of her. As we accelerated at, frankly, an unsafe speed from the parking lot, I could hear a woman whimpering in the trunk and I got a twisted feeling in my stomach.