22 If everything seems under control, you're just not going fast enough.

It was the 1st day of my new job as an Agent of SHIELD. Agent Coulson picked me up and we drove to the airport and flew to Los Angeles then drove to an office building and this time the elevator actually went down instead of up. It was another secret SHIELD facility I guessed. When we arrived we went to a conference room and there were only a few people there.

Then in walked agent Hill and another agent with a stack of files and started giving them around. Once everyone had a file she got up and said: "As some of you may already know we have had an emergence of new extranormal candidates in the last few months and we have been tracking them. most of them seem to have abilities that could be very dangerous but the subjects don't seem to have enough power to use them in such a way. What we have noticed is that this emergence has been different from earlier ones in that there was an actual awakening of abilities and with no prior cause. These are not mutants with X gene who are now able to use their abilities but people whose genetic code has suddenly changed and given them abilities and have nothing in common with each other. The way they awaken these abilities is the same, i.e. they just wake up one day with these abilities as far as we can tell from the ones we have already talked to. The changes in the genetic code all are unique though unlike the case of the mutants who have an extra gene insert the so-called X gene which holds different information in regards to their abilities."

At this point out of curiosity, I raised my hand and Agent hill said: "Agent Nightshade you are the exceptions to these exceptions, although we know you gained your abilities as these awakened but you have no genetic changes yet to speak off, any other question?"

"Yes well, what I wanted to know was how do we know if there aren't others like me. The only way I emit those particles are under specific conditions and not everyone is likely to experience them immediately."

"That is true but just like your case if it's all internal and no outward threat shows up then it's not really urgent or important to get to them and if it does then we will know and we can intervene."

I nodded in acknowledgment and she continued.

"As I was saying, you all have been assigned these new case files, each team has a senior agent to make contact and one or two specialists for backup depending on how dangerous the person is deemed. You all have your files so let's get to it, talk to your subjects evaluate them and add them to the index if needed, then get a new file and keep moving on to the next ones."

As soon as she finished everyone got up to leave and I followed Coulson out. When we got back into our car, He opened up the file checked some details and handed it to me and said: "Take a look at it and familiarize yourself with the target, its a low threat target so it's just you and me and the watcher that is assigned to him. He seems to able to release a little bit of electricity from his fingers, somewhere in the range of a static shock to give a small friction burn on the surface of the skin. We will go contact him at his home and test out the limits of his abilities and see if he should be put on the Index and long term monitoring."

"Got it. Are we going to go now?"

"Yes since today is a Saturday he is expected to be home and he lives alone and if things go sideways then there will be likely less collateral damage and it will be easier to track him if he tries to run with you around."

"You know I have never scanned an enhanced before, what do we do if I scan him and somehow my body learns to use his ability."

"If that does happen you will tell me and we will have to add you to the Index with an upgrade and you can continue to be under my watch as long as you can control the abilities you gain and do your job. I am not going to bench a newly trained agent when he becomes more useful, but if you lose control then you will be sitting in a lab learning to gain back control."

"Yes, I understand, let's get going then."

We were lucky I guess, all the other teams had to travel all over the world, the only one in the country was right here in Los Angeles which was assigned to us. Our target lived in the outskirts of Los Angeles when we arrived at the apartment building he lived at we met his watcher who stayed out keeping watch and we went up to meet him. We went up to his apartment and knocked on his door and waited for him to open it.

The door was opened by a 6-foot tall well-built man and he was the only one I sensed on my scan in that direction, so he was alone. I also noticed his abilities didn't affect my scan, I could scan him but his abilities didn't show up and so obviously I couldn't learn them. The man that opened the door said: "Hello, Can I help you? "

Coulson took out his card and badge and showed it to him and replied: "Hello, We are agents from the Strategic Homeland Intervention, Enforcement and Logistics Division and we want to talk to you about some recent events. Can we come in and talk?"

"Uh sure come on in. Would you like something to drink."

As we walked in and got seated at his dining table Coulson replied: "No thank you"

"So what event do you want to talk about?"

"We oversee an outbreak of extranormal occurrences and you recently showed up on our radar as a person capable of such things. We just need to talk to you about your abilities in manipulating electricity and see if you need any help in maintaining control of these abilities and living as normal a life as possible and to keep you safe from certain people who like to collect people with abilities."

He got angry and stood up quickly "I am not going with you, You think you can just walk in and sweet talk me into letting you experiment on me."

Coulson quickly replied: "We don't want to experiment on you, just want to talk and know the extent of your abilities and give you the contact information for a local area handler that you can contact in case you need help and who will keep in touch with you once every few months to see how you are doing or if there are any developments in your abilities."

It was at that point that things went sideways and every other way possible. The man raised both his hand and pointed them towards Agent Coulson and suddenly his hands started sparking. I didn't wait and enhanced my senses instinctively and tried to push him out of the way of what I expected to be a blast of electricity that would come towards him. I did succeed in that I pushed him out of his chair but I wasn't fast enough and that blast of electricity hit me dead center on my chest and blasted me away till I hit a wall. Then he turned and ran out towards the door.

It seems that my energy was better than his since it absorbed most of it and let me get right back up. As soon as I got up and saw him running towards the door I took out my gun and shot him in his leg. I missed the 1st 2 shots but the 3rd one hit and he fell down and turned towards me and tried to shoot another blast at me but I rolled towards my right to dodge out of the way got up and jumped on him and punched him on his stomach first and then his face and that one knocked him out.

Then I got up from on top of him to check on Agent Coulson but he was already up and talking into the mike on his cufflink, probably calling for backup. So I picked up the man and carried him over to the table and put him on the table face down.

"Good job on not shooting to kill, bandage up his leg, we will wait for the backup team to come in after they take him in you will write an after action report in the office and we will go over it and then pick up the next subject to approach unless there is an emergent situation. That's all there is to it till we get assigned to a new task force."

"OK got it, Though I will need a few days of RnR in the hospital wing to fix my ribs, I don't actually heal from broken or cracked ribs that much faster than any other normal person, only flesh wounds heal faster not bones. Also, no new abilities gained from scanning him, although that's a shame what's worse is I couldn't tell the difference between a normal and an enhanced so I can't use that to figure out how strong someone's ability is"

"That would have been useful, it's alright we will be more careful and let people know that these abilities are not fixed and can increase to higher levels than what was initially observed."

After the backup team came in and took him back to the lab, Coulson took me to SHIELD Medical facility in the old office building. The doctor took an x-ray and I did have a few cracked ribs, so I got bandaged up and a week-long stay in there during which I finished the paperwork and caught up on how their interrogation of the guy we took in went.

After the week was up and I was let out, we made another trip to meet new subjects one in Paris, France and one in Luanda, Angola. Thankfully these 2 went smoothly and my doctor didn't get angry at me going on missions even when I was injured.

That brings me to the mission in Manama, Bahrain in May.