Chapter 78: Project Insight

A/N: All the world's a stage...

-x-X-x-

"This is ridiculous. You can't possibly think you'll get away with this."

How utterly cliché. No longer having to keep up appearances, Pierce rolls his eyes before fixing Councilman Singh with a closed lipped smile.

"We already have, Singh. Look around you. HYDRA has already won. The launch of Project Insight will only cement our victory."

As he speaks, a couple of the guards grab Stark's body from the middle of the room where he'd dropped and drag him off to the far wall so he's no longer in the way. Pierce appreciates that, his corpse was really starting to be a mood killer truth be told. None of the Council Members comment on it either, so he thinks they probably all privately agree.

"I never took you as a terrorist, Alexander."

Looking over at the sole female member of the WSC, Pierce chuckles.

"I'm not a terrorist, Pamela. And neither is HYDRA. That's what I'm trying to tell all of you. That's what I want to show all of you. This is a new dawn… a new day. You only have yourselves to blame if you force me to leave you behind."

Moving over to the console, Pierce swipes away the HYDRA specs that Tony had brought up, bringing forth communications instead. A moment later and Arnim Zola appears on the large monitor in front of their eyes.

"Secretary Pierce. I assume that Stark has been liquidated."

"He has, Dr. Zola. Everyone, allow me to introduce Dr. Arnim Zola. You have him to thank for the new and improved HYDRA."

"Hm. Yes. I have spent the last seventy years rebuilding HYDRA within SHIELD. Even when my mortal body failed me, I did not let that stop the mission. I uploaded my mind, became a digital consciousness, and continued advising the leaders of HYDRA from the shadows. You, all of you, have indirectly benefited from my guidance as well."

Councilman Rockwell scoffs at that, his withered hands curled into angry fists.

"Benefited from a bunch of Nazi Scum, you mean. I'd rather be dead."

Pierce doesn't hesitate. He can tell that Douglas means it… and truthfully, he has no love lost for the man. He was far closer to Nick Fury, and he'd ordered the SHIELD Director's death all the same. Hell, he was closer to Tony Stark, and he'd pulled that trigger himself. By comparison.

"As you wish, Douglas."

A simple press of the button on his phone and the security badge goes off, killing Rockwell on the spot. The three remaining Council Members all jolt a little bit, even as Pierce just smiles.

"Please don't test me, Councilmen, Councilwoman. Not today. I have no reason to show mercy to those who have no vision for the future."

"The future, you say. And what exactly does this future look like?"

Councilman Yen's own hands are also curled into fists at his sides, but at least he has the good sense to keep his tone respectful. Straightening up from the console, Pierce gives him his full attention.

"A good question. To correct one common misconception… we are not Nazis. HYDRA abandoned Nazi Germany's ideology and methodology near the end of World War Two, giving it up as a lost cause. They were far too narrowminded, as well as… discriminatory. Modern Day HYDRA does not discriminate on basis of skin color, ethnicity, or anything else that you have no control over. The HYDRA of this era is concerned only with two things."

Chao Yen frowns, but his curiosity overcomes him.

"… And what would those be?"

"Order. And Chaos. We in HYDRA exist to bring order to the chaos. Peace and prosperity for all. An end to all wars. In that way, your own government aligns quite well with our common goals, Councilman Yen. Order above all else. An end to the Chaos, once and for all."

Indeed, while some in China's government would still have to go, given they were using their power and authority for their own ends instead of the betterment for the world, it was actually rather ironic but China's authoritarian government was better than the United States. Democracy was a failed institution, and it was time to curtail certain freedoms that had been allowed to run rampant for far, far too long. The world was on fire… but once Project Insight launched, they would finally have enough water to put those fires out.

"So what? We're just going to stand here for another ninety minutes?"

Pierce chuckles and shakes his head at Councilwoman Hawley's caustic tone. She's lucky he likes her more than he liked Rockwell, or he might well terminate her for that comment. As is…

"No, Councilwoman. I suspect we can pick up the process now that Dr. Zola here is able to move freely through our systems."

"Indeed. With Tony Stark's AI neutralized, there is nothing that can stop me. As well, all of HYDRA is making their way onto the Helicarriers. Everyone is almost in place."

Pierce can see out of the corner of his eye as the rest of the WSC reacts to that news while he turns back to the console. All of HYDRA… for them, it was terrifying. For him, it was exhilarating. Right here, right now… this was the moment that Pierce had been waiting for all his life. Everything had been leading up to this. The largest concentrated movement by multiple branches of HYDRA all at once, all for the final stratagem… to at long last bring the world under their complete and total control.

Moving his hands over the large glass console, Pierce sends out messages through both proper and improper channels. Project Insight's launch is moved up, even as he gets responses back from his fellow HYDRA heads. Gideon Malick is in place. Daniel Whitehall is in place. Wolfgang Von Strucker is in place.

Each of the three men have their own Helicarrier to command. Pierce, despite not being on the bridge of any of his, has three. The heady feeling of power brings a broad smile to his face, even as the doors begin to open and the six Insight Helicarriers begin to rise from the depths of their secret construction bays.

IN-01, IN-02, and IN-03 are first to come up. Then, from another set of bays hidden underneath the first, IN-04, IN-05, and IN-06 all begin to rise as well. It's honestly beautiful. Enough to almost bring a tear to Pierce's eye, even as he steps away from the console and moves past the glaring Council Members to the window.

Looking out, he watches as the six Helicarriers all rise on Stark's Repulsor Engines, every single one of them bristling with weapons and laden with advanced quinjets. Their potential is honestly so immense it's a little mind boggling.

But Pierce doesn't have to understand the ins and outs of the technology to know power when he sees it. Unadulterated power… in his hands. Moving back to the console, he watches as the Insight Helicarriers reach suborbital flight, all six of them ultimately coming to float side by side. He watches as they connect to the satellite network and he watches their list of targets given by Tony's algorithm come flooding in.

The voice of IN-01's Captain comes over the comms a moment later, filling the room.

"Sir. Target Lock is set. We can fire on your mark."

Finally. Order was in his grasp. Leaning forward, he presses the button on the console that will make sure his voice reaches the Captain.

"Fire when ready, Captain."

There's a sharp intake of horrified breath from Councilwoman Hawley behind him. A shame, he's not sure she's going to have the stomach to be a member of HYDRA. He still has hope for Councilman Singh and Councilman Yen, however.

There's a brief pause as he turns to the window, expecting to see firing lines from all six Helicarriers as they neutralize their first batch of millions of targets on this side of the globe. The brief pause extends into two seconds, and then three, and then four… as second five ticks over, Pierce frowns and looks back to the console.

"Captain, what's causing the delay?"

"Sir, targets are locked but weapons are refusing to fire. I don't know what's happening."

At the same time, Pierce finds himself getting calls from Malick, Whitehall, and Strucker. All three appear before him looking frustrated, but it's Malick who is the first to speak with a snarl.

"What is this treachery, Pierce? Our weapons refuse to fire on our command!"

What? Looking to Zola, Pierce's eyes are wide.

"Zola?! What's happening?!"

"I am not sure. I… I am… no… this is not possible…"

Before the uploaded mind can explain what 'isn't possible', another voice pipes up… from a man who should be very, very dead.

"Trouble with the follow through? To be fair, I hear that's a very common problem with men of your age, Mr. Secretary."

Every eye in the room whips towards that voice at the same time. Pierce spins around just in time to see Tony Stark back on his feet, hole in his chest mysteriously healed… and the innocuous watch on his wrist that Pierce had noticed but ignored transformed into a miniaturized Repulsor Gauntlet. Before anyone can say or do anything, the Repulsor Gauntlet fires and Pierce chokes before looking down to see a hole punched out of his chest by the powerful weapon.

He opens his mouth to speak… but his lungs are gone. Either that or they're just too damaged for him to draw in the breath he needs to say something. As he collapses against the console, Stark rises to his feet rather smoothly, blocking an attack from one of the guards closest to him. Then, he pulls the gun out of said guard's holster, shoots that one in the chest, and shoots another as well.

At which point, the other HYDRA guards in the room open fire, some of them with rifles. Their bullets strike Stark in the chest, center mass… but have no effect on him as he shoots back, one shot planted in the forehead of each of his enemies. The idiots should have gone for the head, but Pierce can't speak up to correct them.

This… this wasn't possible. Except it was and Pierce was now realizing that he'd been had. The three other HYDRA heads have suddenly been muted. And Zola… Zola is freaking out.

"No! Pest! Get away from me! I am the superior intelligence! No fledgling AI could ever hope to match the genius of Arnim Zola! No! NOOOOOOO!!!"

As Zola's face disappears, Stark finishes off the last of the HYDRA guards and winds up standing over Pierce as the strength rapidly flees from his limbs. He opens and closes his mouth, but no words come out. Looking up into Stark's eyes… Pierce realizes he's planned this. All of this. He knew Pierce would try to kill him. He was ready for it. More than that, he… Pierce never told them Stark was HYDRA. Nobody knew.

No… this… this couldn't be allowed. Stark was going to come out as the big damn hero. He'd betrayed HYDRA and he was going to… going to…

-x-X-x-

As Alexander Pierce slumps down dead, fully falling off the console, Tony makes a show of keeping a gun trained on him for a moment before moving to pick up the Secretary's phone. With a few taps, he disarms the security badges the remaining members of the World Security Council are wearing and then sets the phone down while giving them a nod. At the same time, the incoming video calls from the muted heads of HYDRA wink out.

"Those badges are no longer primed, Council Members. Feel free to take them off."

Singh, Yen, and Hawley waste no time in doing exactly that. Tony tries to feel bad about Rockwell's demise… but honestly, while the man was no Nazi, he was a curmudgeonly old fool who had all but asked for death. And frankly, Tony didn't have time to mourn him.

Moving to the console, Tony calls out for the benefit of the audience he currently has.

"J? How are we doing?"

"I have managed to destroy the uploaded mind known as Arnim Zola, Sir. He believed that he'd neutralized me earlier, which was what prompted Secretary Pierce to try and end your life. In reality, I simply hid myself away on the network of Insight Satellites until he'd let his guard down enough that I could time my ambush to coincide with yours."

A load of bullshit, of course. But the remaining WSC members didn't know that.

"Excellent. Do you have control of the Insight Helicarriers?"

"Yes Sir."

"Lock them all down, JARVIS. And with Zola gone… we can finally do a deep dive of HYDRA's files. Find out who's involved with HYDRA. I want the names of every single living recruit they have on file."

"As you say, Sir."

Again, complete theater. Tony already knows who HYDRA are. But the WSC doesn't know that. In fact…

"Stark, how did you survive?"

Turning to face Councilwoman Hawley, Tony smiles at her and the others.

"A little insurance policy of mine called Extremis. It provides… intensely powerful regeneration. It's what I used to save Agent Coulson during Loki's attack on the Helicarrier back in 2012. I suppose it skipped Pierce's mind that I might have given myself a more permanent version of that drug."

It hadn't, of course. Pierce had actually brought it up to Zola at one point, only for 'Zola' to tell Pierce that it was fine and Tony didn't have anything that powerful. What he'd used on Coulson was 'experimental' and a 'one time use' item, so as long as Pierce killed Tony quickly enough, it wouldn't matter. Or so the dead man had thought.

Of course, he immediately sees hunger in the eyes of the remaining members of the World Security Council. They want Extremis. They want the ability to tank an assassination attempt like that and keep on trucking. Well, they could discuss that after this was all over.

Singh is the next to ask an obvious question.

"You knew about Pierce and HYDRA? You knew their plans?"

Tony shakes his head, feigning a perfect grimace.

"All too late. I knew some of their plans, but fortunately JARVIS and I realized that they had Arnim Zola acting as a Quasi-AI of their own rather early on. Zola was one of the HYDRA scientists that the SSR recruited for Operation Paperclip back in the day, before they became SHIELD. His recruitment allowed him to rebirth HYDRA inside of SHIELD, just like he said."

Sighing, Tony looks back down at the console.

"Once I found out what HYDRA was up to, I did my best to stop them where I could. I've been fighting a shadow war against Pierce for over a year now, since shortly after I was invited to join this Council. I'll be honest, I hoped he didn't know about me… but it seems JARVIS and I were found out along the way, because Zola attacked JARVIS the moment I separated from the suit earlier, and Pierce tried to have me killed the moment he thought JARVIS was out of the picture."

Taking a deep breath, Tony pretends like he's about to continue… only for JARVIS to 'conveniently' interrupt him.

"Sir. I have finished my deep dive into HYDRA and SHIELD's files. I can say with ninety-nine percent certainty… that every single human being currently onboard a Project Insight Helicarrier is HYDRA."

Silence falls in the Council Room, as those words reach the ears of the rest of the WSC. Tony barely has to wait a second for them to all start speaking at once.

-x-X-x-

A/N: I know people wanted Pierce to die slowly, or to have a big reveal scene. But at the end of the day, he dies without a whisper because he must, because it serves Tony better for him to never be able to reveal Tony's ties to HYDRA.

Next time, the stageplay continues as the World Security Council deliberates~

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