CHAPTER 17

I studied the whole map with a few glances and found some room that their walls reinforced but then again I didn't care what was in there.

"Where are the leaders located?"

He pointed at a room in the map located at the top most floor which would be almost impossible to get to… maybe I..

Turning to Ernst who was having labored breaths due to the pain of having his knees snapped, most likely, I asked what I really wanted to know.

"Who are the heads of HYDRA presently?" I knew HYDRA had moles in S.H.I.E.L.D and one of them was even one its leaders but then again an organization like HYDRA was bound to have others under the main seat of power. The fact the they stuck to the mythos wasn't some propaganda or else they would have long since been destroyed.

"I don't know wh… ARRRGHHHHH!" I stepped on his broken knees as he sat on the chair.

"Who are the heads of HYDRA? Last chance." I gave him an ultimatum which I would carry out if he tried to stall again. I couldn't afford to waste any more time here. Each second I spent within the confines of these walls made me jittery.

Whether he picked that up or not, but fortunately for him he answered.

"I only know of some; Hale Klepter, Gideon Malick, Octavian Bloom, Baron Strucker…" he paused there and looked at me.

"And Dr. AndrŽ Ernst." He completed and I had to withhold the mild surprise I felt. I knew he was up there in the hierarchical ladder but I never expected him to be one of the heads of HYDRA.

He left out some names, a few I knew like the guy who turned himself into an A.I, Arnim Zola I think, and the guy who was up there in S.H.I.E.L.D and later became part of the WSC during the latter part of the Avengers franchise.

No matter, I had things to do now. Looking at Ernst, I contemplated what to do to him and I figured I might as well ask him a few questions but before I could, Ernst beat me to it.

"Hah… Hah.. The… brainwashing… Hah… How did you undo it?" He asked me amidst labored breaths and I had to do a double take whether he was really serious. These mad scientists type always had to either tripping or on some heavy shit because, here I was, minutes away from ending his life, and what he asked first was how I escaped their brainwashing. I stared at him trying to see if the blood and pain was making him already dizzy but no, his eyes still held that deranged clarity it always had.

"… Hah… I was sure we were able to overwrite your rationality node into a state of semi-dependence…" He continued talking as I continued staring.

"I triple checked your brainwaves, and your thetas were the most dominant with occasional spikes in your alphas, but that was only when you were active." He concluded and this time looked at me with fervid curiosity that made me uncomfortable, reminding me of the gazes he had when he ran his experiments on me.

"How did you do it?" He asked again, almost pleading with his gaze.

"Adaptable gammas." I gave him a short reply, since a longer one was meaningless given how much smarter he was than me. It didn't take him more than ten seconds before his eyes widened in realization.

"Suppressing consciousness! You can control even your gamma brain signals, inducing forced therapy and higher consciousness, getting smarter and also…" Getting there he paused and looked at me with shock and incredible want, bordering on lust. Unsurprisingly this guy was smart, figuring out what took me 6 months in just ten seconds and also coming to conclusions I don't know.

"And also what?" That last part caught my attention as since the beginning, he never once displayed a shocked expression so that slip up caught my attention.

He looked at me in silence suddenly going mute. His face was impassive as a defiant expression adorned it. I was about to question him more but the beeping from the computer switched my attention to it as it signaled the completed task.

I took the drive as I turned to Ernst once again and saw that this time his face was one of resignation. He already knew his death was here and he accepted it.

"Tell me one thing," he said, "How come you weren't affected?"

I frowned at his question which I didn't understand and he took that as my incomprehension and continued.

"We were sure such an act would lower and inhibit your mental obstructions." The more he talked, the more I got confused. Was he talking about the killing?

"Killing a stranger for survival is understandable, and not something the mind would collapse on itself on…" I felt a dreadful suspicion as he rabbled on, "… but killing a close kin, a father no less was something we were sure of."

I froze.

My adapting mind crashed on itself and froze at the revelation. He hadn't confirmed anything yet so maybe it wasn't what I thought. I had to know, I had to confirm.

"What do you mean?" My voice was steady betraying no emotion as it always was these past few months.

"How come killing your own family didn't affect you? Even if what you insinuated was true and your mind was capable of adapting, it should have shaken you mental barriers stronger… unless…" Saying up to that point he looked at me as a light of understanding shone on him and he broke into a smile before cackling in a deranged laugh.

"Hahahaha…. You didn't know? Hahaha…You slit the throat of the man who sired you and you were nescient of the fact that you had the blood of your father in your hands… Hahahahaha!" He laughed while I stood rooted there already comprehending what he meant before he even finished his rant.

I wasn't feeling any sort of righteous anger or the like, not because I was suppressing it and keeping calm, but because I just didn't feel it. What came over me was an euphoric state of calm and understanding.

It all lead me to a glaring fact I knew all too well;

I hated HYDRA.

Seeing them in movies and comics sometimes gives me the impression of them being an annoying reoccurring villain organization whose plans always gets thwarted by the heroes and agents of S.H.I.E.L.D or the mutants.

In short, they were synonymous with failure and that knowledge subconsciously downplayed the heinous acts the did to me.

The knowledge of me killing my father in this life was an honest shock, but what really had me transfixed and frozen was the thought that what if the father this body had was anything like my old man?

The knowledge that I had killed someone who could mostly likely be an identical twin of my father in this universe left me jaded with unpleasant thoughts.

The fact that I had very well slit the throat of the man who took care of me for decades and raised me, even if I didn't experience it, and just the idea that he could very well have resembled my past life's old man shut me down.

These individuals weren't humans.

This was a fact that I've convinced myself of over and over again, but unbelievably, somehow, they always proved that my conviction was still lacking.

I had made myself a promise that I would burn HYDRA to the ground, with any means necessary but with this recent knowledge, I couldn't help but wonder if that was enough.

Should I burn with them before I'll be satisfied? Or was that what they wanted?

I looked at Ernst who had an amused face all along and came to the conclusion that there was nothing more I had to do. No higher conviction to gain nor a resolve to set alit.

I would do what I wanted ever since that day – I would watch HYDRA burn. Nothing had changed.

Tearing my gaze away from Ernst, I walked towards one of the many cupboards in the office cum lab and looked for some acids and solutions. With duck tape.

I could feel the amusement wash away from his face even with my back turned to him.

With my well met loot, I walked towards him and chuckled to myself as he fidgeted in his chair and wince from the pain from his crippled appendages.

A few punches and love taps to his knees later, I had him strapped to the bed he had me lay on when he experimented on me with HCl acid gurgled down his throat and a taped mouth.

I let out a chuckle as I saw him writhing on the bed with muffled screams. Somehow, I felt it was funny looking at him this way. Maybe this was why they had those stupid grin when they experimented on me eh? Who knew it felt as good as this.

Relishing in my new fetish, I strapped both his hands and legs with restraints and for the final touch I added other apparatuses to him. Some to read his brain activity and others to monitor blood pressure and then I introduced the magnum opus of this operation –

The defibrillator.

Cranking up this contraption of torture to the mid point I taped it to Ernst and watched as all his vitals spiked before becoming irregular as he heaved and started twitching violently.

The intake of such large amounts Hydrochloric acid will make him feel the electricity all through his body with magnified sensations. Who knew scientific knowledge could make for inspirations for torture.

Leaving the insignificant Ernst alone, I took the drive and looked for something small to encase it in. I found a tiny metal box with pins in it and threw them away and stuffed the drive inside it.

Making sure the box was tightly shut with no way of it open due to extreme motion, I took one of the scalpels from the table and looked at it for a while before I hardened myself.

"This was not how I saw this day going." Saying that, I used the surgical knife to cut open my stomach and stuff the box inside.

I had two reasons for stuffing it inside my stomach. First because putting it inside my pockets was just asking to lose it in the upcoming gun fights and explosions. Secondly...well that's for later.

I wished I could have just swallowed the drive, but given that the stomach could dissolve metals like concrete nails in days and also because I couldn't swallow the box as it wouldn't fit my throat, I went for seppuku.

"God! The blood… Is that my intestines, what's it  doing out here?" Stuffing my tousled up and disarranged organs back inside my body and hoping it didn't kill me, I went towards another machine and got to work on the last loose end on me.

I sewed close my stomach to prevent any more leakage with shabby workmanship and adjusted some screens to my front as sat on a chair in front of a machine that showed my X-ray with screens in front of me.

With the same scalpel, I made a precise cut to the base of my neck and I could already feel my grip becoming lighter making it all too obvious that I cut some blood vessels and nerves.

Paying my error no mind I took my other hand to my neck as I dug two fingers into the incision and watch with full attention as it inched ever closely to the brain scanner chip inside my head.

The moment I hands touched it a wave of electricity rushed through my spine to my entire body making me numb as I relaxed into the chair without pulling out my fingers.

After some minutes, I regained my body's motor functions and this time not caring of the consequences, I yanked it out with full force even as it made a cut in the tissues surrounding my spine.

Looking at the small rectangular contraption, I couldn't help but smile.

Looking at the time on the screen made me realize that I've spent almost 25 minutes in here. I looked at Ernst and saw him lying still with some twitches at intervals, with a bloated chest and spiky hair. His countenance was ghostly pale with bloodied eyes.

"No doubt about it. He dead dead. Ain't no surviving that, that's for sure."

Leaving Ernst to his fate… uh death, and seeing as how my stomach wounds were already healing and I was covered in blood, I grabbed a few scalpels since these were the only weapons I had on me.

I stood in front of the door and took in deep breaths for a few minutes. The moment I walked through these doors, there was no going back. It was me versus this entire HYDRA base.

A rough estimation gave me an assumption of 200 soldiers in here, factoring in estimation errors I'll say give or take 300 men, armed and ready.

Its game time.