Steve Rogers carefully slid the Glen Miller record from its sleeve and set it on the turntable. Moving the needle over and lowering it to the vinyl, he paused for a moment until he started to hear the music slowly flowing through the speakers.

The former Captain America had avoided the CD and digital music revolution for as long as possible. He had little interest in new music and all the old stuff he already had on vinyl. No real need for all the new fancy technology.

He walked to the large recliner and sat in the dark, taking a sip from the bottle of beer on the table with one hand, his other picking up the book he had been reading, Catch-22 by Joseph Heller. Since his retirement, he found he had time to catch up on some of his old habits. Reading was one of them and he had started sketching again as well. It was strange to think of how much time had passed since he allowed himself these simple pleasures in life.

Retirement, he began to realize, seemed to suit him.

He had been following the exploits of his replacement, the man he himself appointed as the new Captain America. Steve watched as Josiah X and the Falcon resolved a hostage situation involving a group of Neo-Nazis. Thwarted a terrorist bombing, a raid on an AIM facility, and the recent announcement that Josiah had accepted Tony’s offer of membership in the Avengers.

Although opinion on Josiah seemed to be mixed, with some welcoming while others protesting his new role, Steve found himself confident in the decision. Josiah had proved himself so far and despite Steve’s long association with the title of Captain America, Josiah perhaps had more combat experience than he did.

That’s the one thing Steve always found somewhat amusing about the way he was looked up to. As he had been frozen in ice for about half a century, he didn’t have much more experience in this role than Reed Richards, Tony Stark or even Spider-Man.

The record began to skip. Steve stood from the chair and walked over, resetting the needle and listening to the Glen Miller Band resume the sounds of “In The Mood.” When he turned around, he could make out a form in the darkness of his apartment.

“You might as well come out,” he said. “We both know how this is going to end.”

Shots rang out from the intruder’s side arm. Steve dropped to the ground. Once he heard a halt in the firing, he sprung up again and lunged for the shooter. The man was fast, however, and he had been ready when Steve’s fist came at him. The intruder dodged the strike and delivered his own, right to Steve’s chest. He followed it up with a swift kick, powerful enough to knock Steve back against the book case.

He swung again, but Steve grabbed the fist and countered with his own cross. He brought that hand around again, backhanding his attacker and then moving in close and flipping him onto his back.

The attacker rocked back on his hands and swung his legs up, striking Steve in the head. The attacker kicked Steve once more in the neck and then swept his legs out from under him. Now Steve had fallen on his back and found himself staring down the barrel of the mysterious attacker’s gun.

“Looks like my time has come,” said Steve.

WHAT EVER HAPPENED TO THE LIVING LEGEND?

Part I

By Dino Pollard

SHIELD Helicarrier

“You going to tell me what this is about?” asked Josiah.

“If I did, maybe I would,” said Sharon. The two walked side-by-side through the corridors of the Helicarrier. “Fury wouldn’t tell me what the score is, just wanted me to pick you up. You believe that? All these years of service and now I’m a glorified taxi driver.”

They approached the door for Fury’s office and Sharon pushed a button beside it. From inside, Fury received the notification and confirmed via a security camera who stood outside his door. It slid open automatically.

A thick cloud of smoke hung in the air and Fury stood with his back to them, looking out a window at the view from the Helicarrier over the city of New York. Josiah and Sharon stepped up to his desk and paused, waiting for some signal from Fury.

Slowly, the World War II veteran turned to face them, his sole eye closed. He sat down at his desk, his head hanging. “The two of you are gonna want to sit.”

Josiah and Sharon exchanged glances before they accepted his suggestion and sat in front of his desk. Fury slowly looked up at the both of them. “There’s no easy way to say this. And before I tell you, I want you to know it was too late by the time we found him.”

“What…what are you saying?” asked Sharon, although in her heart, she already knew the response and dreaded the words.

Fury removed the cigar from his mouth and stomped it into the ashtray where several similar ones already sat. He sighed before he offered the explanation.

“Steve Rogers is dead.”

Sharon found herself unable to speak or even move for a few moments. She just stared at Fury in disbelief as time stopped completely dead for her. Once she finally recovered from the shock, she shook her head.

“No.”

“We did DNA tests just to be sure and it’s him,” said Fury. “I’m sorry, Sharon. But it’s true.”

“This isn’t possible,” said Sharon. “That place we had him in, it had state-of-the-art security. Plus, we’re talking about Steve. He may have retired, but he wasn’t an invalid. He’s just as good now as he was when he first started—better, even. That man could single-handedly take out an entire battalion without even breaking a sweat.”

“I know how good Steve was, I’ve tangled with him before,” said Fury. “But it don’t change the facts.”

“Something’s not right here,” said Sharon. She stood from the chair. “And I’m going to find out what it is.”

“Sit back down, Sharon,” said Fury.

She ignored him and stormed towards the door.

“Carter, get your ass back here now!”

No response, save for the door closing behind her once she left the office. Fury sat back in his chair, his hand drawing a fresh cigar from a nearby wooden box. “Goddammit…”

“This is a bit difficult, give her some time to come to grips with everything,” said Josiah.

“Thing is, she’s right,” said Fury. “Steve was as good as she said and his place was well-protected.”

“Tell me what we’ve got,” said Josiah.

“Cameras were disabled, as were motion sensors. There were signs of a struggle, but they were minimal. Meaning whoever did this was good enough to not only avoid being detected by the security systems, but also to avoid being detected by Steve himself until it was too late.” Fury lit the fresh cigar and puffed until the tobacco leaves caught the flame. “It takes a special kind of soldier to be that good.”

Josiah looked up. “You mean a super soldier, don’t you?”

“Given the connections we’ve unearthed between Weapon Plus, Operation: REBIRTH and Control, I’d say that’s very likely,” said Fury. “There’s also another matter.”

He took a sheet of paper from the desk and handed it to Josiah. The new Captain America skimmed the report quickly before he looked up again. “A break-in at the Raft?”

“Two confirmed prisoners have escaped. One of them is Frank Simpson.”

“Nuke.”

“Bingo.”

“It makes sense,” said Josiah. “Steve uncovers Control’s existence, he resigns, and then he appoints a rogue super soldier to take over his job. To add insult to injury, he reveals information about Operation: REBIRTH on national television. I’m guessing Control wasn’t too happy about that.”

“To say the least,” said Fury. “So they bust Nuke out of prison and have him go after Steve. Except there’s something that doesn’t add up. The last time they got Nuke out, they did so without making any mention of it. All records of his release were covered up. Why go with something so public this time? And why risk using Nuke again after he got beat last time?”

“Hiding in plain sight. They’re trying to throw us off their trail,” said Josiah. “What do we do now? Cover this up?”

“No, that’s what they think we’ll do. They’re expecting us to keep this quiet,” said Fury. “Instead, we go public. We tell the world that Steve’s dead. It’ll give you added credibility as the new Cap and it’ll come as surprise to them that we made that gamble.”

“And Nuke?”

Fury took a drag on his cigar. “We send them another message about Nuke. We let them know that we’re not playing games anymore. Bring him in.”

Inside the home of the now-late Steven Rogers, Sharon Carter searches around for some clue that could lead her to the identity of the killer. Aside from the signs of a struggle, nothing appeared to be left behind by the man who shot Steve.

“Guess I shouldn’t be surprised to see you here.”

Sharon turned on her heel, instinctively drawing her gun and pointing it at the low voice that came forth. The man she had in her sights wore a white and red costume which was a sharp contrast to his dark skin.

“Whoa, whoa, take it easy!” The Falcon raised his hands in the air.

“Sam.” She lowered her weapon. “What the hell are you doing here?”

“Same as you, I imagine,” said Sam. “Trying to find out who killed Steve.”

“How would you know about that?” asked Sharon.

Sam gave her a quizzical glance. “You’re kidding, right? It’s been all over the news.”

“What?”

“See for yourself,” said Sam. He walked over to the empty chair and lifted the remote control from the table that sat by it. Sam turned on the television set and switched to a news network. The headline across the bottom of the screen read THE DEATH OF CAPTAIN AMERICA.

“How?” she asked. “Only SHIELD knows about this, Fury wouldn’t have released this news so soon.”

“Something’s up, I’d say,” said Sam. “Someone killed Steve and someone wants the world to know about it.”

“Might even be the same someone,” said Sharon. “How long have you been here?”

“Not long, came soon as I heard, wanted to see if I could dig up anything on my own,” said Sam.

“How did you disable the security?”

Sam shrugged. “I didn’t.”

“…what?” Sharon ran from the main room down a corridor.

“Hey, wait up!” shouted Sam, running after her. He found Sharon in a small control room, leaning over a computer terminal and entering commands. “What is this?”

“This is where all the security in the brownstone is controlled from,” said Sharon. “And if you didn’t trip any wires and weren’t trying to, then that means…”

She entered a few more commands and gasped once she read the computer’s message to her: SYSTEM OFFLINE

“It’s probably just something recently done, maybe SHIELD shut it off when they came to take his body,” said Sam.

“Not according to the log,” said Sharon. “The system went offline approximately fifteen minutes before Steve’s estimated time of death.” She looked up at Sam. “That means the killer knew about the security and knew enough about the system to disable it without leaving any trace. So surveillance cameras, motion detectors, all of it was offline when Steve was attacked.”

“This was an inside job,” said Sam.

The Raft

Captain America stood with his arms crossed, shield slung on his back, examining the giant hole left by the escaped alien called Half-Life. He looked over his shoulder at the Raft’s warden, Colonel Kraig.

“How did she get out?” he asked.

“There was a break-in, that much we know,” said Kraig. “We suspect that the culprits disabled her restraints, allowing her to make her escape, not to mention cause quite a bit of damage in her wake.”

“Any other escapees besides her and Nuke?”

Kraig shook his head no. “Just those two.”

Captain America nodded, but then something else caught his eye. He walked away as Kraig continued to explain the situation. “We tried to ID the perps who broke in, but they scrambled the surveillance cameras with chaff gre—hey!”

Kraig followed after Josiah, who had already reached the giant hole towards the end of the island. “Captain, what are you doing over the—”

“Only two escapees, Colonel?” asked Captain America. “Then how do you explain this hole?”

“May have been caused by Half-Life as she was making her escape,” said Kraig.

Captain America stood and stared down the officer. “So Half-Life escaped from her cell, only to burrow down into the ground?”

“I can’t tell you how these monsters think, Captain. I just cage them, that’s all.”

“There was a third escapee, wasn’t there?” asked Captain America. “And judging from the size of this hole, it was someone or something very big.”

“You can check our records if you don’t believe us, Captain,” said Kraig. “I assure you, all prisoners with the exception of Nuke and Half-Life have been accounted for.”

“Check again,” said Captain America. “This isn’t the first time I’ve heard a story of a prisoner being accounted for when they had actually managed to escape.” He started to walk back towards the Raft. “Now let’s get to your records room. I want to see everything you have on Nuke, understand?”

Henry Peter Gyrich paused during his morning jog, resting his hands on his knees as he caught his breath. He walked to a nearby drinking fountain in the park and lapped up the cool water. Something began to vibrate against his leg. Gyrich reached into his pocket, surprised to find a cell phone there. He remembered leaving his phone behind, like he always did.

The phone kept vibrating, the call from an unidentified number. Gyrich accepted the call and placed the phone to his ear. “Yes?”

“Mr. Gyrich, I believe you know who this is.” The caller spoke with some sort of voice distortion.

“No, I can’t say I do,” said Gyrich.

“Then you’re aware of who I represent?”

“What is this, some kind of joke?”

“Mr. Gyrich, please watch your tone. Now I want you to proceed to the street. There you will find a white car waiting. Get into the passenger seat without drawing any suspicion to yourself, understand?”

“What if I don’t?” asked Gyrich.

“Then Weapon V puts a bullet in your head.”

Gyrich swallowed hard.

“Mr. Gyrich? I’d advise you to hurry. Weapon V has something of an itchy trigger finger.”

“U-understood.”

Gyrich turned off the phone and went to the pick-up point. Sure enough, a white car sat near the curb, the windows tinted. He walked over to it and climbed inside the passenger door. There was a divider separating Gyrich and the driver from the man in the back seat.

“Hello, Mr. Gyrich. So nice to meet you in person.”

“Wish I could say the same,” said Gyrich. “What’s this about? I told you, I tried to stop Bradley but Rogers himself vouched for him. Now you’ve got to deal with him in some way.”

“We will deal with Weapon VI in due course. Right now, we have a more pressing issue. Driver?”

The driver dropped the morning edition of the Daily Bugle on Gyrich’s lap. The front page read THE DEATH OF CAPTAIN AMERICA. Gyrich nodded.

“What’s your point? It’s been all over the news, I already knew about Rogers. If this is to try to threaten me—”

“Allow me to speak, Mr. Gyrich. We have an assignment for you—we want to know who is responsible for the death of Weapon II.”

“What?” Gyrich found himself taken aback. “Wait…you mean this wasn’t you?”

“Having Steve Rogers alive means doubt is thrown on Josiah X. With him gone, Josiah has now become the rightful successor to the role of Captain America. Don’t you see what this all means?”

“So if you aren’t responsible for this, then who killed Captain America?” asked Gyrich.

“That’s what we want you to find out, Mr. Gyrich. As you may or may not be aware, Weapon VIII recently escaped from the Raft.”

“And? I thought you controlled all these different numbered weapons.”

“We control some of them, others have broken free of our conditioning. And some of them may have fallen into the hands of our competitors.”

“Competitors?”

“In the seventies, we had a disaster that led to the temporary shut-down of the Weapon Plus Program. But the man who spearheaded our first two mutant experiments—Professor Thornton—fled to Canada to continue his work. He had access to all our files on Weapons 0 through X and would know how to control them if necessary.”

“What are you saying?” asked Gyrich.

“It’s really quite simple, Mr. Gyrich. We believe Nuke was the man who killed Steve Rogers, but we weren’t the ones who set him loose. The culprit, we believe, is the Weapon X Project.”