SHIELD Helicarrier

“We found nothing,” said Fury.

“No mention whatsoever about Control among Haywerth’s things?” asked Captain America.

“Other than that photo Carter found, not a damn thing. No documents, no computer files, nada,” said Fury. “So either Haywerth had destroyed all that stuff or someone destroyed it for him.”

“And we left before we could have a chance to fully investigate, more content with getting Nuke back out here,” said Captain America.

“I’ve got him chained up in an interrogation room,” said Fury, pointing down a corridor. The two war veterans stepped inside an elevator and it descended to one of the Helicarrier’s lower levels. “He’s restrained pretty tightly, I’ve got Carter in there with him right now.”

“Has she had any luck?”

“Dunno,” said Fury. He stepped up to a door and inserted a small key into the lock. After pushing a few digits on the number pad, he turned the key as he hit enter and the door opened.

Sharon Carter, Agent 13, stood with her arms folded staring at Frank Simpson, the man called Nuke. He sat in a specially-designed metal chair, with restraints bonding his arms and legs to the chair. The American flag he had tattooed on his face was dripping with sweat and he body quivered, like he was having convulsions except the restraints kept him pinned down. Sharon leaned against a simple table, just watching him.

“He won’t get out of there,” said Fury. “We’ve got him locked up good and tight.”

Captain America stepped in front of Nuke, studying the soldier’s face. Simpson had a distant look in his eyes and he just kept mumbling.

“…they’re everywhere…hiding in villages…can’t trust the gooks…can’t trust any of ’em…gotta do what you gotta do…ears are the trophies…I got three full necklaces…”

“What’s he saying?” asked Captain America.

“He’s just been muttering about Vietnam ever since we stepped into the room,” said Sharon. “Looks like pretty severe post-traumatic stress.”

“Nuke’s always been unstable, so that’s no surprise,” said Fury.

Captain America reached into one of the pouches on his belt and drew a small bottle of pills. “Would you two excuse us for a few minutes?”

“You sure about that?” asked Sharon. “He wouldn’t talk to me, what makes you think you’ll have better luck?”

“Back at Haywerth’s, he said we were brothers,” said Captain America. “Maybe a chat with family will work better if there aren’t…well…”

“What?” grunted Fury.

“Outsiders around,” said Captain America. “We were both products of Weapon Plus. It’s time to see just how much he knows about them.”

“Suit yourself,” said Fury. He left the room with Sharon lingering behind.

“Steve…”

“I’ll be fine, Sharon.”

She nodded. Her relationship with Steve Rogers was a strange one. Old enough to be her grandfather yet with the body of a man at least half his age. Not to mention the tryst he once had with her great aunt during World War II. She has been linked to this man since long before she was born, yet whenever the two began to get close, something happened to drive a wedge between them.

Once the door closed, Steve took a chair from the table and set it in front of Nuke. “Are you ready to talk, Frank?” he asked.

“…they don’t bleed like we do…cut off the faces…use it as a mask…perfect disguise…”

“Frank…”

“Nuke ’em…shoulda just nuked the fuckers…”

Steve sighed. “That second heart of yours must be working overtime. Killing Haywerth, fighting me, and now being locked up in here. You’re suffering a flashback, aren’t you? ‘Nam?” He opened the bottle and produced a blue pill. Nuke’s eyes widened once he saw it.

“…blue is to relax…”

“I’m sure you’d like one of these, wouldn’t you? Give you a chance to relax?”

“…give…give it…I need it…”

“Not so fast, Frank.”

“NUKE!”

He tried to lunge forward but the restraints wouldn’t let him. His facial muscles bulged, his eyes wide as he bared and grit his teeth. The twisted rage on his face caused the flag tattooed over his features to wrinkle into a twisted vision of itself, one that sent shivers down the man who draped himself in that flag. But Captain America did not flinch, not even a blink.

Nuke had to know who was in charge here.

“I’ll give you a blue pill, Frank. But only if you’ll tell me what you know.”

“…know…ha ha ha…that’s why he’s dead…knew too much…”

“Haywerth?”

“…blue is relax…red means it’s time to party…”

“Answer me, Nuke. Did you kill Haywerth because he knew too much?”

“…loose lips…sink ships…you remember that old slogan, Cap?”

“I do,” said Steve.

“Haywerth…he was a loose end…needed to be tied up…”

“By who?” asked Steve. “Who sent you after Haywerth?”

“Need to relax…then…maybe I’ll talk…”

Steve hesitated for a moment and looked down at the pill. He stood from the chair and Frank stuck his tongue out, waiting for the pill to rest on it. Once Steve set the pill on Nuke’s tongue, the madman sucked it into his mouth and gulped it down. It took a few seconds, but Nuke’s body began to slowly relax, his convulsions seeming to cease, his muscles relaxing and he began to breathe normally.

“Now, who sent you to kill Haywerth?” asked Steve.

Nuke just laughed. “You think you can stop them? Who the hell do you think you are? You can’t stop them. They’re in control.”

SENTINELS OF LIBERTY

Part V: Into The Fire

By Dino Pollard

Nevada Desert

“There it is,” said Nomad. He handed the binoculars to his partner. Jim Hammond raised them to his blue eyes, looking out at the base off in the distance. The pair stood at a rocky ridge overlooking the desert. There wasn’t anything else around for miles.

“It’s an old Hulkbuster base, I found it mentioned in the files I stole.” Nomad double- and triple-checked the gear he had strapped to his body, ensuring everything was in place, just as Captain America had taught him to do. “Actually, it’s the first one ever built.”

“I don’t want to come across as an idiot, but what does that have to do with anything, Monroe?” asked Hammond.

“I checked the dates on when the base was completed,” said Nomad. “Did you ever think it was interesting that Ross’ Hulkbusters were able to assemble so quickly?”

“I was deactivated when the Hulk first appeared, I wouldn’t know,” said Hammond.

“Yeah, well I was in stasis, too. But I did my research. Turns out this base opened for business fifteen years ago.”

“And? That’s about the time when Banner became the Hulk, isn’t it?”

“It’s exactly at the time Banner became the Hulk. In fact, this base opened for business one week before the gamma reactor exploded.”

Hammond lowered the binoculars and looked at Nomad. “Are you telling me this base was operational before Banner first transformed?”

Nomad nodded. “Now why would that be? Either Ross was in league with Miss Cleo or that explosion wasn’t an accident.”

Hammond held out the binoculars to Nomad. “You’re saying the government not only knew what was going to happen to Banner, they engineered it?”

Nomad took the binoculars and shrunk them down with the Pym Particles contained within his glove, shrinking them down for easier storage. “That’s exactly what I’m saying, Torch.”

“That’s insanity,” said Hammond. “There are any number of reasons why that base was in use before the Hulk. Maybe it was originally supposed to be just another military base or maybe it served some different purpose. The Fantastic Four were fighting their fair share of monsters during that time.”

“I say it’s suspicious,” said Nomad. He removed a tiny glider and dropped it to the ground. It enlarged to a full-size one and he hopped on, activating the propulsion system and flying towards the base.

The Original Human Torch watched his partner leave with mixed feelings. “Hammond, what have you gotten yourself into?” he asked as his android body erupted in flames and he flew after Nomad. As he did, however, he activated the internal satellite phone implanted into his robotic brain, sending a message to Nick Fury.

Little Mogadishu

The motorcycle came to a halt and the rider stood, pulling off the black helmet. Josiah X saw the flames in the distance, and he instantly knew and feared where they were coming from.

Hopping back on the bike, he downshifted and sped off, moving like a rocket. As his Muslim mission came into view, Josiah’s fears were realized—the flames were coming from the place of peace he had put so much time, money and effort into building.

He took an incline, speeding off it and going into freefall while still clutching his bike. It landed in front of the mission, screeching to a halt. Josiah hopped off and saw several young men in gang colors holding various weapons.

One of them came at Josiah from behind with a lead pipe. Josiah ducked and threw his body back, driving his elbow into the banger’s chest. His fist shot up from that position, the back of his hand breaking the kid’s nose. Josiah then grabbed him and flung him towards another charging banger wielding a chain.

Another came at him with a knife. Josiah used his bike helmet as a shield and the knife went through the visor. The Super Soldier then twisted the helmet, fracturing the banger’s arm in the process. He grabbed the knife just as another one came at him. Josiah deflected each slash with his newly acquired blade. Josiah slashed him across the chest, just deep enough to cut through the banger’s shirt and draw a little blood. And then he followed it up with a kick to the jaw.

A gunshot rang out and Josiah ducked for cover. He grabbed the discarded chain and found himself against one lone banger, aiming a Magnum at him.

“You picked the wrong place, brother,” said Josiah.

“Fuck you, nigga!” shouted the banger. Before he could squeeze off another round, Josiah swung the chain forward and it wrapped around the banger’s wrist. The minister yanked on the chain and with seemingly minimal effort, the banger flew into Josiah’s waiting arms.

“First off, I hate that word. Stupid kids these days have no idea what it means.” He pinned the banger to the ground, taking the Magnum and pointing it under the kid’s chin. “Second, I want to know just why you targeted my mission.”

“I ain’t tellin’ you shit, preacher!”

“Oh, I think you will.”

“Fuck off, man. This dude, he scarier than you. If I talk, I’m a dead man.”

“I’m the one who’s here now, so focus on me.” Josiah pulled back the gun’s hammer. “Now what do you think I’m going to do if you don’t talk?”

“Alright man, dammit I’ll talk!”

“I want to know three questions—why, who and where?”

“Dunno why, this dude just promised us a ton of money if we torched this place. An’ I dunno who is he, either. Cracker had no face, gave no name.”

“What do you mean he had no face?”

“I mean just that, you dumb shit, he had a skull for a face.”

“Fine,” said Josiah. “You don’t know who or why but you do know where, don’t you?”

“Yeah, he told us once it’s done, to meet him back at this place in the Bronx.”

“Tell me where.”

Josiah X drove the bike down a deserted path, pulling into the driveway of a fairly nice house hidden away. He took the bike into the garage and leaves it there. The first thing he did was proceed to the basement, stripping off his jacket and shirt as he descended the steps.

Feeling around the wall, his hand found a hidden switch. One of the walls slid open, revealing a hidden room. The room was small and bare, save for a glass case in the center. On the wall was a framed photograph of a well-built man in his thirties who bears more than a passing resemblance to Josiah and an old woman in her eighties, wearing a Muslim scarf around her head. Also framed on the wall was a drawing of a black man dressed as Captain America, holding the original triangular shield, yet unpainted.

That same shield sat behind the glass. The case also held a blue, chain-mail shirt with a white star emblazoned over the front. Josiah looked at the photograph of his parents.

“I guess there’s no running from what was done to us, huh Pop?” He removed the sunglasses and kufi atop his head, letting them both fall to the floor. Clenching his fist, he punched through the glass, shattering it into millions of tiny shards. Josiah removed the chain-mail, pulling it over his bare chest. Next, he took the shield out.

Nevada

“Are you still fiddling with that thing?” asked Hammond.

“Give me a break,” said Nomad, trying to hack into the security system with a PDA. “For an abandoned base, this thing has sure kept up to date with security.”

“Maybe you were right, maybe there is something out here,” said Hammond. “My question is why isn’t there better security?”

“Don’t speak too soon, we don’t know what’s waiting for us behind these doors,” said Nomad. “Dammit…it can’t seem to decipher the code.”

“Step aside,” said Hammond.

“What are you going to do?” asked Nomad as he disconnected the PDA. The Original Human Torch stepped forward, his blue eyes beginning to glow like hot embers.

“FLAME ON!”

His body erupted in the flames and he directed them into a central location on the door. The Torch pushed the temperature up as high as he could and Nomad moved far back, still feeling the intense heat.

Slowly, the door began to melt into nothing and once their path was clear, Hammond’s flames vanished. “Flame off. Let’s go.”

The two men entered the base and looked around. It had definitely gone out of use, with large sheets draped over objects all over and thick layers of dust on everything. “What are we looking for?” asked Hammond.

“Anything we can find about Control,” said Nomad.

A loud boom was the answer the two men received.

“Monroe?”

“Yeah?”

“Looks like you were right about security,” said Hammond. He flamed on again as Nomad reached for his weapons. In the darkness, they saw a pair of glowing eyes. A hulking figure stepped out from the shadows, a massive robotic construct colored red and gold.

“You’ve come too far,” said the mecha.

“That voice…” said Hammond. “It looks like we found Thunderbolt Ross.”