(Chapter 15)Nicole Arden

I had decided on intelligence and information because of the asymmetry with the traditional heroes of the MCU. If I was being dropped in, I wanted to be useful to everyone and not dart from fire to fire putting it out. On my way to write my name in the devil's book with a sacrifice in the trunk, I thought perhaps I should have gone with super strength. Or teleportation. Really, there was a whole list of things that would've gotten me out of this.

The car ride was long. To be fair, at least that meant that we were going somewhere there wouldn't be a ton of witnesses. So, maximum of two deaths, minimum of one.

When we finally came to a stop, I had to guess it had been an hour and a half. We pulled over and people started to climb out of the car. I could smell a variety of trees thick on the air and hear the crinkling of loose brush under their feet. So we were out in some forest - Probably Washington and Jefferson since I wasn't choking to death on the scent of pine.

There were five sets of footsteps. Mine, Andromedas, my escort, the hostage, and the hostage's escort. It was a moment of great relief when I heard the hostage couple puling away from me. I hoped that meant they'd just been trying to save a trip, though I knew in my heart that was unlikely. We moved in a different direction.

"Sit down, Mike," Andromeda said and I obeyed. She took the hood off me and I looked around. A camera and tripod marked the space separating Andromeda from a lean, muscular dude dressed in black and fatigues - Nathan Skinner, a mercenary for one of a dozen Blackwater equivalents in this damn universe. And, apparently, a Hydra agent.

"Mr. Trent," Skinner said. "Do you want to save the world?"

"Obviously. I pictured it involving less, you know, kidnapping, but you can't have everything." I didn't want to seem too obsequious. Projecting weakness on my way into an authoritarian death cult with aspirations to world domination seemed like an obvious mistake.

Skinner smirked. "I apologize for the rough intake process, but I work for a very important organization. We are trying to save the world."

"Is that true, Drama?" Had to stick to the part.

She nodded.

"Alright, sensible enough," I said. "So you dragged me out of bed, held me hostage, brought me out to a forest to offer me a job? What's the job?"

"Have you looked around at the world lately? American hegemony in tatters, the greatest empire on earth run aground in a backwater in Afghanistan. Russia and China rising. The world is falling to pieces, Mr. Trent. We're the people who are going to pull it together."

"Past time," I said. I considered spitting for effect, but when I imagined it, it looked ridiculous.

"Indeed," Skinner said approvingly. "We're a network of people of vision like yourself. You've already benefited from our largesse. In order to advance, we need people who can see the big picture and make the big moves. People like you. But we also need people who can follow orders. We need to be of one mind. Are you able to do that?"

"My entire life I've been surrounded by discord. Everything out of joint, everything noisy and pointless." I said. "One mind, one purpose. Sounds like something I've been looking for my entire life."

"That's good," Skinner said, "What do you know about Hydra?"

"Hydra, a rogue science division from Nazi Germany. Sort of like the Western Front's equivalent of the division between the Army and the Navy in Japan, but the divide was much more lopsided. Captain America died defeating their leader, known as the Red Skull, and downing a plane with an armed, experimental nuclear bomb. I could also explain the various preceding clashes with Captain America and tell you about Herr Schmitt. Some historians theorize a connection between Schmitt's preterhuman abilities and Captain America's. Some of its scientists were vacuumed up in Operation Paperclip."

"Goddamn, Andromeda, how did you find anybody this nerdy?"

"Isn't it great?" Both I and Skinner glared at her, "Look, I told you he's better than Wikipedia, you just thought I was exaggerating."

"Half that report sounded like puppy love."

Andromeda snorted, "Your mistake."

"Anyway," Skinner said. "After the fall of Hydra, some of its members reflected on its failures. Can you guess what those were?"

"Bigger bombs don't create greater obedience." People are born to be free would, of course, be beyond these fanatics.

"Not bad. Fascism as a plan was a crock. Racism was a dead end, violence was not the meaning of human life, and the division of men into nations was a mistake. People wouldn't give up their freedoms at the end of a gun. No, we needed a better idea. So now Hydra labors in secret, working to transform the world - Not in accord with the chaos of the markets or the envies of the masses, but in accord with order, peace, and sanity. Cut off one head,"

"And two more shall take its place," Andromeda intoned.

"Do you want to join us?"

"A chance at a noocractic ruling class instead of these gibbering idiots? I'm in." I said, not hesitating. There weren't a lot of other options on the table right in this moment.

"Noocratic?" Nathan asked, looking at Andromeda.

"Noocracy is the rule by the wise, Nathan. It's from Plato. It's as good a fit as any, I suppose."

"Ah, good," he said, turning back to me, "You're a sensible guy. Andromeda thinks the world of you. I think you could be a great agent. But we need you to prove your sincerity. So, we need you to kill someone for us."

Well. Boo. "Alright," I said.

Andromeda leaned over, drawing a knife out of a holster under her pant leg. She walked over to me and sliced the zip tie off my wrists. "She got in the way," Andromeda whispered, "We're not psychos, we don't kill for no reason." I wondered if this was supposed to be a good cop/bad cop thing, or if the 'she got in the way' was the sort of thing you said because you were an anxious girlfriend.

Yeah, killing everyone who makes your life harder. That's not psycho. Normal, sane behavior. My mind was racing for a way to get out of this, but I was in the middle of the forest with at least two and probably three trained killers, my hands were still zip-tied, and nobody had any reason to risk letting me live.

Andromeda flipped the knife around and held it out to me, "You'll take the camera over there, you'll set it up facing you and recording, you'll kill the woman with the knife."

"Give him your pistol instead, Andromeda. The bosses want you on the line too in this one."

And I felt the moment spiral for a second as Andromeda's eyes flickered with fear. "But this is my service weapon, I can't just report it stolen, if the bullet is found…" She was clearly casting about for some excuse, any excuse, not to give me an unloaded weapon.

"We'll protect you. Unless you're worried that your boyfriend is disloyal and when we unearth the case, you'll go down with him."

"Of course not," Andromeda said, "It-"

I grunted, "It's fine Andromeda, give me the gun." No point getting killed here or losing a potential asset.

Her eyes wavered but she unhooked her gun holster and handed it to me. "She's about five minutes that way," Andromeda said as I buckled the holster onto my pants. I walked over to the camera and picked it up, holding the tripod and camera in each hand.

"I'll go over there

"Hail Hydra," Nathan said, throwing his hands up in that ridiculous salute.

"Hail Hydra," I said back, lifting my hands into the air in return. Andromeda burst into a grin like a mother on the day of her child's baptism. I walked towards the woman.

Ten minutes, alone with my thoughts. Ten minutes to try to figure out some way out of this. Skinner, at least, could probably track me. There were only three of them that I knew of, but if I were them I would have people waiting. And, furthermore, I was just in worse shape than they were. I had chosen a focus on knowledge and information, not physical stuff. I might be able to play that out, since I could use the stars to figure out where I was, but I wasn't sure how much longer I could do that. We had to be getting closer to dawn.

Ten minutes is not really that long of a time and I reached the woman. She was bound and gagged in a clearing, surprisingly well lit by the moon. If you've never been out at night in the summer, so far from city lights that the stars and moon are clear, it would surprise you. The fifth set of footsteps was fairly well concealed, but I thought I could see the flash of a scope about a football field away.

One of the things about my powers is that I know almost everyone in the world by name, face, and age. I can tell you what they do for a living, where they live. Most of the things that they would put up on facebook. Some other stuff as well.

Her name was Nicole Arden. She had pretty silver hair from age which she refused to dye at forty two and two girls at home and an ex in town. She was a tax finance expert who worked for the IRS in auditing where, given her skillset, she probably investigated billionaires and multi-millionaires for tax evasion. It was easy to see how she'd run afoul of Hydra.

I closed my eyes and took a breath. There was no point in making excuses to her or to myself. I set up the camera and pointed it toward her. She looked scared. Of course she looked scared. I was scared, but I was keeping it tapped down. I unscrewed the silencer and checked the clip and chamber just in case Andromeda had managed to reload it without any of us noticing, but it was still empty. Damn. It would have made this smoother. I turned on the camera and made sure it would be able to record the whole gruesome scene.

I walked up to her and I wanted desperately to apologize as I saw the terror in her eyes. To tell her it wasn't my fault. To make excuses. Here was this kidnapped woman and I wanted her to comfort me, her murderer. It was too disgusting to countenance. I twisted the pistol in my hand, feeling its heft, and I slammed it into Nicole's head.

She went down to the ground, screaming in pain, and I pinned her so she couldn't move. I wanted to hit the same spot as much as possible. Pity shot through me, but I ignored it. Slowing down would only make it worse for her. I lifted and swung. Lifted and swung, lifted and swung. She went unconscious at that point. I pounded and kept pounding until I heard the crack of skull, the mush of brain, and the slow of the flow of blood to a full stop.

I got up, noticing the blood on my hands and skin like it was alien to me. I didn't feel, well, much of anything as I stared down at the corpse of the woman I had murdered. I wanted to feel something, but it didn't really make sense to do so. I had killed her. I wouldn't make a new set of decisions. I walked over to the camera, turned it off, and walked back to the area where Andromeda and Skinner were waiting for me.

"Jesus," Skinner cursed. "How'd you get that much blood on you?"

I handed the gun and holster back to Andromeda and shoved the camera into Skinner's chest "That should more than prove my loyalty to Hydra."