A Parallel Investigation, Part III

Posted on Thu Sep 28th, 2023 @ 4:58pm by First Lieutenant Bethany Harrison & Level 10 Minamoto 源 Takashi 崇

Mission: HYDRA: Another Head Rises
Location: Cult Compound
Timeline: Present Day

“It would appear,” he said softly in his Japanese accented English, trying not to startle her as he stood next to her, his left thumb, pulling the *tsuba* of his katana snugly back into the *saya* with a soft click. Takashi had followed right behind her like her shadow, his footfalls easily covered by the sound of the generator in the next room. “That we have finally arrived soon enough for them to make a mistake in leaving something for us to find.”

Reaching up with his right hand, he placed his index finger on the earwig, activating it. “This is Agent Tak. I am going to need an encrypt/decrypt team down here ASAP. We have an active terminal with power.” He nodded once as soon as he received confirmation of his order and closed down the connection.

“Either that,” he continued with his earlier comment to Marshal Harrison. “Or it was left on purpose so we would waste time with it. Either way, this is the first time we were able to find something. All the other sites we have raided have been clean.” He continued walking around the server room to see if there may have been anything they might have missed, but it appeared clean.

“Someone needs to put a bell on you,” Bethany said. While she didn’t jump at his approach again, she did give an uncomfortable laugh as Tak stepped up beside her. As sneaky as she was, she tended to be wary of those that were even more sneaky.

There was a pause, a slight tilting of her head, as though she was listening to someone speak. Then, one by one, the bank of screens flickered on. One showed the open silo entrance to the bunker, a high vantage from one of the seemingly dead cameras. Others showed barracks rooms and general living quarters, while others stood sentry over the generators and servers. One even showed the pair of them standing at the control center, though Bethany’s image was skewed, fuzzy, the generic shape of a person hovering near the table.

Some of the rooms had collapsed in, and the monitor directly in front of her began displaying the green-line schematics of the bunker, giving them a better idea of what they were looking at in the eerie images of high quality cameras.

“Please tell me that you have signal jamming tech in place,” the young soldier said, her gaze moving to each monitor as they lit up. “Because this system has been broadcasting.”

“As soon as our bird landed,” he said to her, nodding in the affirmative. “SHIELD S.O.P. is to shroud the area in signal jamming. Only our secured comms can go in and out of this location. Most black bag operations not only keep an eye on their own, but they usually remotely monitor for any possible infiltrations. As soon as the tech team arrives, I will have them backtrack that signal to its origin.”

Moving back to where she stood, Tak quickly looked over the bunker’s schematics then over to the other monitors, making sure the bunker was clear. Unless someone was using good stealth camouflage, they were alone. He also took note of the ‘blanking effect’ of Harrison on the video feed and pointed at it.

“I must say, that is a neat trick, Marshal Harrison,” he commented to her, a slight grin curling the right side of his mouth. “I can remain unseen if I wish, but this is something different. SHIELD has very good stealth tech; it can even block an IR signature. Is it a subconscious backscatter from your abilities or is it something you have to concentrate on?”

Takashi had seen various forms of adaptive camouflage on many different types of recording devices, but this was… unique. It seemed as if someone had smudged her image on the CCTV, effectively leaving an unrecognizably hazy, ghost-like image on the screen where the Marshal now stood next to him. Moving his left hand behind her relative to the camera, he slid it first upward then downward hiding it from view behind the hazy image.

“My body automatically scatters light differently, I guess you could say,” Bethany answered, arching an eyebrow at his curious attention. She had already guessed that he knew exactly who she was, and this was one of the more well-known facts about her powers. Catching her clearly on camera had, thus far, been impossible. “That tends to annoy the fans, frustrate the enemies, and make any family photos, well...pretty creepy if I’m being honest. Though, a band of traffickers managed...”

Bethany’s voice fell off sharply, her attention dragged to a pair of monitors. “Damn it!” She nearly hissed, then turned and bolted back up the stairs, uncaring of how much noise her well worn boots made as she backtracked up the corridors, then turned down a set that had been passed by in their search for the generators.

The heavy vault door was barred when she got to it, and she slammed her fists on it furiously. Then she stepped back, her strange eyes swirling with multi-colored light, her right hand cupped, thin streaks of light gathering into a ball just above her palm. In the next instant Bethany started carving through the vault door, warping and melting the metal, a steady stream of superheated light making short work of the secure door, then simply walked up and pushed the carved out metal inwards.

Takashi had turned toward the sound of her voice when she yelled out, facing her only to see her back as she ran out of the server room. He immediately ran after her, easily following her wanton footsteps as she scrambled through the complex and down a passage they had passed earlier. He arrived just as she pushed through the vault door, his *tabi* grinding him to a halt so as not to slam into her back.

As the sound of the falling door echoed down the corridors, Bethany stepped through the opening and went unnaturally pale, the color even leached from her hair. The room was lined with cages that weren’t even fit for a large dog, much less a normal sized human being, and the stench of death was thick enough to cause her an involuntary grimace. It had been a blood bath. Mutants, humans, slaughtered alongside each other as though they were no more than cattle.

Crouching down in front of one of the cages, she reached out and gently touched the golden curls of one of the younger victims, hair that was streaked with blood. They had left them where they had fallen and ran. She had hoped that she was wrong, but if they had been alive when Talon was there, he would have found them. He was connected with life on a different level. “I’m sorry, little one,” she said, her voice soft, sad.

The young woman lowered her head, her jaw working angrily. If her team had been on tap, this would have gone down way differently. They had been the best at these types of raids, and had taken down far larger facilities from the inside out on numerous occasions. Each of them had been infiltration specialists in their own right, and every one of them had a pretty hefty price on their head because of their successes.

The fact that this raid had gone down without an infiltration team to protect potential victims ate away at her already weary soul. According to everything she had seen about the raid, they knew that there was this potential and didn’t plan accordingly. The fact that they didn’t seem to notice anything unusual about the silo also started bothering her, and she was starting to wonder if they had a mole. One with enough pull to call an end to the larger investigation within the Marshal’s office.

Takashi entered the room slowly, looking about at the slaughter as he walked about the cages, a seething anger slowly building within him as he went from cage to cage, checking to see if any had survived. None did.

He didn’t know the extent to which this had been happening, having just been given this case by his surveillance team as they monitored the communications frequencies of the various law enforcement agencies. After several moments of walking about, he stepped next to Marshal Harrison and stood in silence as she presumably grieved.

“This happens more than I like to think about,” Bethany said, her voice hoarse as she tried to hold back the ire that was burning in the back of her throat. “That’s why my team normally went in before a raid. Our job was to secure the hold and protect the victims from...this. They just kill them all when the raid starts. While we’re worth a lot of money, it’s easier to cut their losses and run. Cowards. Every last one of them.”

The young Marshal stood up slowly and looked over at the agent, her eyes still swirling with color. She wasn’t studying him this time, though. She was simply furious. “I’m sure if you check those collapsed rooms, you’ll find secret escape routes. Not sure they’ll lead anywhere important, though. They normally just lead to an exit off site.”

Tak nodded at her, his face hardening with resolve. Reaching up to his right ear, he keyed on his earwig. “This is Agent Tak,” he said, his normally soft voice sharpened with an edge as he called in to HQ. “Tell the Marshal’s office that SHIELD will be taking over this investigation. SHIELD emergency powers protocol 104, section seven Alpha, as decreed by the World Council.”

He switched off the comm and turned to face Harrison. “Now SHIELD is on the case. Whoever did this, we will find them and stop them, so they can’t hurt anyone else. Then, they will pay. I can assure you of that.” His tone left absolutely no doubt that he would make it so.

“Good luck with that. It’s HYDRA that we’re fighting, Agent Tak. And that’s a battle that’s been raging since long before either of us drew our first breath. Well, unless you’re some ancient being, or something,” Bethany said, raising an eyebrow slightly as she listened to his orders. In her experience, it wasn’t exactly normal for field agents, even those in charge, to give such weighty commands. It made her wonder just exactly who the man really was.

“These cults are simply a convenient cover for the trafficking going on behind the scenes. Most of the...congregants have no idea what’s going on down below. They’re normally desperate, simple-minded, or easily controlled via drugs, alcohol, and religion. Normal folk that don’t conform, and any mutants, are dragged into,” the young Marshal motioned all around the hellish scene that they had found, a furious anger burning in those strange eyes, “this hell, just to be sold off to the highest bidder. Those that can’t be sold are pretty much tortured to death.”

“SHIELD’s ancient enemy,” Takashi said, his voice almost a his as he crossed his arms over his chest as his face slid into a slight frown.

“Hell, even Lorde hates HYDRA and fought against them as hard as anyone in the last war, as weird and twisted as he is,” Bethany said, giving a small, involuntary shudder at the mention of the leader of the Watch, even though she was the one that said his name. “Some of these compounds are old, predating the war by decades sometimes. Like the one that I was born into. It used to be some artisan’s commune, just like-minded people tired of society. I’m pretty sure the Preacher had his parents killed, and chased the older, less controllable, members out, to set up a...mutant mill. Not that any of us knew that until...well, until I turned that part of Nevada into a glass bowl when I awakened.”

The woman paused, paling, muted blues and grays briefly rolling in waves over her skin, and spiraling through her unnaturally thick hair. The young woman took a long, pained breath, blinking rapidly, as the faces of the innocents, those not unlike the ones filling the cages around them, that her awakening had simply burned out of existence, rising up to try to choke her.

After a moment of uncomfortable silence, the mutant woman cleared her throat and continued, “Not on purpose, mind you. But yeah, all to make some money by selling people like me off to HYDRA. I think they were even involved in a breeding process with us, because our eyes always changed color well before any noticeable powers manifested. Like some kind of built in tell, or something. This is a very, very personal mission for me, agent. Becoming a Marshal only made that easier. So, with or without the Marshal’s Office, and whether you like it or not, I won’t stop taking these places down until they manage to take me out.”

“Always this hostility,” Takashi said softly, shaking his head slightly then turned to face her. “Have I done something to offend? Because I am not your enemy, Marshal Harrison. SHIELD is taking over this case because apparently no one in any government agency the world over has cared enough to do so competently. SHIELD exists to help the people of Terra, *all* the people of Terra.” He raised his hands to indicate the whole world in a gesture. “And that is what we will do, whether *you* like it or not, with or without your help.”

“I would prefer with, if we are being honest,” he said after a moment's pause, then continued. “And I don’t care if this is personal for you or not. You seem to be a capable person, but your emotions always seem to get the better of you, likely because of all of the unresolved trauma and abuse in your past.” He lowered his arms and began walking towards her as he continued.

“All I am trying to do is help, Marshal,” his voice softened slightly as he approached her. “You are far too young and hot headed to be as powerful as you are,” that last coming out of Tak’s mouth almost sarcastically, then he continued. “And one day, thousands if not millions will suffer at *your* hands, all because you were hurt as a child. You MUST learn control, if not…” His voice trailed off as he raised his hands at waist length as if to weigh what he was saying in one hand or the other. “The consequences will be dire.” He filled that last with grim warning, not a threat.

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TBC
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Bethany Harrison
Fractal
Mutant Underground

Minamoto Takashi 源崇
Hypernova
Director of Shield