USAgent

WALKABOUTS

Part III: Truths Revealed

By Clayton Tooley

Author’s Notes: This story arc takes place between issues #9 and #10 of Dino’s Captain America series, just after Josiah X took over the shield but before Steve Rogers’ death in #10. It also occurs just after Daredevil’s battle with Scourge in Amazing Fantasy #23, and the events of Bring on the Bad Guys #3. The remainder of “Walkabouts” will occur within that same time period.

One Day Ago

“So, Mr. Moonhunter. How many times in a day to you think about killing yourself?”

Zack Moonhunter looked up sharply, surprised and flushed from the statement. “What?”

Dr. Ashley Kafka crossed her legs, adjusting the way her long skirt laid across her bare legs, and smiled at him as he lay on the long couch. “Please, Zack…it’s not my first rodeo. I can see it in your eyes the same as I saw in it your records that Dr. Foster and SHIELD sent to me. You’re hurt, physically…mentally…emotionally, and you aren’t handling it well. That’s normal, I’m not judging, but I won’t believe that you’ve never thought about it. So please don’t lie to me.”

Moonhunter looked at her, his head cocked to the side, for a long moment. Then he sighed, turning his had away and stared at the cat on the poster on the wall over the caption that said, ‘I Hate Mondays.’ He picked some lint from his shirt and said, nonchalantly, “Four or five times, I suppose.”

“This month? This week?” Dr. Kafka asked.

“Since I’ve been in here,” Zack said, crossing his arms.

“Oh,” Dr. Kafka said, a little surprised but not put off her focus. “And how does that make you feel.”

“Free,” Zack said, his hands dropping to his side, tired of fighting. “It makes me feel happy.”

“And why is that?”

“It doesn’t hurt,” Zack said honestly. “It’s not lonely.”

“It’s not?” Kafka said, scribbling some notes. “Does that mean you believe in a life after death? That something more awaits you beyond Earth?”

“No, not at all,” Zack said, scoffing. “I was raised an agnostic and I used to work for a hypnotist who hunted werewolves. I have no religious affiliations. Yet, at night, I can hear voices sometimes, like someone is talking to me, comforting me, calling to me. It all seems very nice…but I would have to kill myself, they all say. And I have to admit…that seems like the wrong thing to do, Doctor.”

“That’s good, Zack. Killing yourself is a terrible option.”

“I think so,” Zack said, nodding. “Most days. But then I do something so humiliating because of my ruined spine and legs, like last week when I tripped getting off of the toilet and sank my hand, forearm and elbow in my own excrement. I could probably do without days like that.”

“A little shit is hardly worth your life, in my opinion,” Dr. Kafka said. “And believe me…I had to witness, first-hand, a Cleveland Steamer once.”

Zack turned, a little smile on his face. “Really? Why?”

“Medical school is a lot like Band Camp,” Kafka said, smiling. “I will not elaborate further.”

“Fair enough,” Zack said. “Just don’t take your pants off.”

John Walker stood inside of Dr. Janet Foster’s office in the headquarters of his ‘team’ beneath the brownstone home of Steve Rogers, as she told him about the injuries to his sister, Katie, who had been brutalized at the hands of the Watchdogs.

“Will she recover?” he asked

“Not fully, no,” Foster said, sighing as she turned computer monitors toward him. “Her injuries were – are – terrible, but physically, with time and rehab and some reconstructive surgeries, she can be reasonably mended. Mentally…that’s a bit harder to gauge. She was…” Foster paused, dropping the pages on the clipboard in her hand and looking uncomfortable.

“Let’s hear it, Doc,” John said, girding his heart. “Throw the punch, I can take it.”

“She was raped a lot, in groups most of the time, if the injuries, scars and other evidence visible upon my inspection are to be believed.” Jack paled but his eyes stayed locked on her. “The torture performed on her was obvious but, as a woman, I knew there was more, was worse, so I looked.”

Foster sat the clipboard down on her desk and put her hands into the pockets of her lab coat. “I’m sorry that medical terms are so blunt. They had her for a month and they used the time terribly, cruelly well. She hasn’t spoken much and has not shown much in the way of emotions, but she is responsive and engaging when spoken to, but otherwise sleeps or stares at the ceiling. I think you should speak to her, try to see if she responds better to you. Get her to talk about things, what happened, what she’s feeling.”

“What they wanted from her,” a new voice said from the doorway. Major Jason Bludd walked in and stood beside Foster, looking at Jack. “And why they just let her go.”

“I told you before…” Jack began, his contained fury at Foster’s words sharpening into a blade he deeply wanted to sink into Bludd’s face, “…that we aren’t interrogating her about that! She needs rest and care, not more abuse!”

“They did this for a reason, Walker!” Bludd said. “Something is fishy with this and you know it. I don’t want to hurt her any more either, but we have to press her about what happened to her or something just as bad is going to happen to us!”

USAgent was in his face instantly. “Let me make it clear, Jason: if you get within screaming distance of my sister I will pretend you’re a wishbone and see if I get my wish when I pull you apart. And by the way: my wish is that you shut the fuck up!”

Without a further word he turned and stormed out. They were quiet for a moment and then Bludd straightened his shirt and said, “So, I guess that’s a no, then.” He turned to Foster. “Do you have an update on Bonita?”

Jane flushed, embarrassed. “Well, yes and no,” she said, gesturing to him and walking from her office without looking back. “I do believe I solved the initial problem with Bonita’s condition…but she hasn’t woken up yet.”

“Oh?” Bludd asked. “Why’s that?”

“I haven’t the foggiest idea,” Jane said. “Medically speaking, it’s weird that she hasn’t woken up yet. I’ve reviewed every medication given to her, reviewed every scan, x-ray and blood test, and monitored every available electronic testing method we have available from SHIELD…but nothing. And, given her apparent immortality…which I can personally say Thor has backed up to me recently over a Skype call, not to brag…it’s beyond impossible, Mr. Walker.” Jane turned on him, her eyes cold as death. “It’s utterly impossible, and I don’t mean that lightly. It. Is. Impossible.”

Bludd’s eyes narrowed and his mind raced. “I see.” He looked toward the room where USAgent’s sister lay resting and, even though it hurt his heart, he let his mind look at all angles like he’d been trained to do and had learned to do the hard way over the years. “I’ll check it out, but I need more before Jack’ll believe it. Look for something else. Keep working.”

“I never stop,” Foster said, smiling and heading back toward her office.

[I really don’t see what benefit this is going to have, Doctor Kafka,] Machine Man said as he stood stiffly in the office of Dr. Kafka, who was seated in an arm chair watching him. [I am a machine and, as such, should not be required to participate in a ‘mental health examination’ as if I were some…fleshy human.]

“Is that so?” Kafka said. “Is that how you see humans, Aaron? As ‘fleshy?’ That would seem to denote a type of superiority on your behalf.”

[I am superior, Doctor, in many ways. While a growing number of humans are being gifted with powers, abilities and outfits that equal or far exceed my own numerous mechanical abilities, few possess as many or varied talents as myself and few handle their improvements with as much aplomb as I do, or handle them with anything resembling proficiency or ethics.]

“I see. So since your abilities are built into your person and you more often than not seek to do what would generally be perceived as ‘good’ acts, you are entitled to be a judge for how humanity should act? I think there would be many who would argue that a machine, or even a Machine Man, would have no set of ethical beliefs aside from those built into them with programming. And as recent events have shown, programming can be compromised, in your case by a free-floating human consciousness.”

[The Machinesmith is a megalomaniac who became deranged when separated violently from his body by the well-intentioned yet obviously flawed actions of Steve Rogers after, I should add, the Machinesmith had decided to try to kill himself by manipulating the good Captain into a no-win situation.] Machine Man turned away, looking out a nearby window. [And I do not wish to be humanity’s ‘judge’, Doctor, or its savior.]

“What he did to you was horrible, Aaron, and I know from reading the reports filed by USAgent and Major Bludd that you took the violation hard. I know you have emotions and you have sympathy for humanity and have earned the trust and respect of a great many spectacular individuals in this world. You have been a hero and saved the world many times, and I don’t believe you truly believe you are so much ‘superior’ to humanity as you feel separated from it. I think you’re lonely, Aaron, and exposed after what Machinesmith did to you. But you are not alone, not if you don’t want to be.”

[I have tried to work with humanity before, Doctor, with the Avengers and other entities, and even on my own, with…]

The yellow light behind Machine Man’s eyes dimmed a little and he turned away, his back becoming ridged as some grief overtook his systems. His mannerisms were so purely human, like a child who is overcome by grief without the years of experience and tarnish that adults accumulate to handle such shocks, that Kafka’s heart was suddenly in her throat from experiencing the rawness of it radiating off of him.

“What happened, Aaron?”

[I was attempting to battle a reborn Baron Brimstone with my long-time friend Gears Garvin. I had suffered some injury and Gears was attempting to administer a patch to get me mobile enough to continue the fight, but a near-death Brimstone tried one last shot at me with a magical bolt that hit Gears instead, just as he completed my repair. He never saw it coming and his blood…his terrible, sticky, awful blood…coated me. And Brimstone’s laughter as the light faded in his eyes…I was so – FURIOUS! I grabbed his leg and started swinging, thrashing, and then his awful blood was coating me as well and yet all I could see was Gears’ unblinking eyes looking at the moon.]

Machine Man had gotten agitated as he’d talked and stalked around the room, his voice raising in volume as he spoke, and the limited mobility of his constructed face was heartbreaking in what it was trying and partially failing to express, and Kafka felt tears streaking her cheeks. “It wasn’t your fault, Aaron.”

[You all say the same thing, ‘it wasn’t your fault’, to me, but I am a creation of my father and one thing I do possess is logic…cold, inhuman and clear logic. I am the commonality in the equations, Doctor, so even if you are correct and I wasn’t at fault I most certainly was not the solution, either, and most likely the cause around which events unfolded. Perhaps I was cursed by Brimstone as he died.]

“Don’t be absurd,” Kafka said, standing and walking over to him. “You are a living being who stands up for those who can’t and sometimes doing that can lead to terrible consequences. But more often than not you save more lives than you’ll ever lose and you inspire even more people to be better than they are, to do more good than bad, and to protect those who cannot. In short, you do the best you can, just like any other ‘fleshy human’, and usually better.”

Machine Man looked at her, head skewed to the side as if he was processing what she had said. Finally he said, [No, I’m fairly certain I am cursed.]

“Have you made any progress on what happened to her?”

Major Jason Bludd shook his head at his superior’s face in the monitor; Nick Fury was not a happy man. “No, sir. She isn’t talking and Walker is physically throwing anyone who tries to talk to her out of the medical area. Literally.”

A faint smile crossed the exposed lips next to the ever-present cigar. “Figures. Well, shit’ll hit the fan soon enough. Keep your head down and me posted.”

Bludd stared at the screen and felt a cold certainty etch down his spine as he realized he agreed with his superior. Something bad was in the air and they would need to be ready, but this ‘team’ couldn’t be more scattered. While Machine Man was on his way back from Ravencroft with Moonhunter, and Free Spirit was still here at the moment along with USAgent and Doctor Foster, Arachne was who-knows-where dealing with a parental rights suit* and no one had seen or heard from Battlestar or D-Man in days, and Tigra may or may not come back at all. And despite all evidence that Dr. Foster’s new plan of treatment for Firebird was working, she still had not awoken and that was a very serious problem.

* See Marvel Girls: Arachne for full details – MC

So, in summation, there were precious few arrangements he could make to prepare them for any attack or call to action, but he set himself to trying to prepare what he could and on a side monitor he pulled up the list of potential new recruits he kept tabs on, looking for any likely candidates.

“So, Zach, why haven’t you killed yourself yet?” Dr. Kafka asked, crossing her legs the other way.

“Are you sure you’re a real doctor?” Zach asked. “You seem incredibly blunt and not so sympathetic.”

“Let’s just say I’ve had a rough go of it here at Ravencroft,” Kafka said. “You’ve heard of Carnage, right?”

Zach had and shuddered. “Why didn’t you guys just put that animal down? No one can honestly think a true monster like that can be rehabilitated?” Even what the Resistants had done to Cathy and Jack hadn’t been as bad as anything Carnage would ever do.

“Spider-Man did…and politicians don’t like authorizing obviously mentally damaged patients being lobotomized in today’s Politically Correct world without analysis. Well…Carnage didn’t take well to being institutionalized long enough for us to handle the red tape. In any event, I’ve dealt with really damaged people, Zach, so I don’t suffer the fools I’m forced to see so lightly any longer.”

“Fool?” Zach asked, stunned as he pushed himself upward. “Wait…forced to see? What are you talking about?”

“Do you think we get city or federal funding just for the hell of it? Or for egalitarian reasons?” Kafka laughed, putting her pad down and crossing her arms. “Zach…Ravencroft does not generate any profit and, at best, we marginally reduce the level of violence our inmates cause either to themselves, society or the eventual mental or penal institution they are assigned to once their trials are carried out. We are a drain on resources that politicians are forced to abide because it looks good when they try to save their precious jobs every two or four years.”

“No,” Kafka continued, sighing. “I keep the doors open here by doing all of that plus taking consultations as they are forced upon me by local law enforcement, the FBI, Homeland Security…and SHIELD. Our agreement allows me to charge a special rate for my services, given my history, education level and willingness to take on the housing and treatment costs of these referrals, and it is those few loopholes that keep Ravencroft open, other than a few paltry grants from the Maria Stark Foundation and the Second Chances Organization.”

“So Stark and Williams throw money at you to make their businesses look good and them feel better. I’ve met them both; Stark was a huge douche and Williams seemed like a phony. Don’t know why Cap liked them both so much,” he said, his face darkening to rage.

“Well, he’s known them longer and all that saving of each others’ lives and the world tends to form bonds,” Kafka said. “But tell me about Captain America.” Zach snarled a little. “Oh, raw nerve?”

“Don’t play dumb, Doc, I already know you’re far from it and have it figured out. I’m pissed at him and you know it.”

“Because of your injuries?”

“Not even slightly,” Zach said immediately and Kafka could see he meant it. “I may not be handling those well but I knew what I was getting into. Fabian explained very clearly what the speed enhancing equipment would do to my body, even in the short-term, and no undercover operation ever goes as planned, so I’m not mad at Cap for that. It’s a dangerous world.”

“So…the kids, then.”

“You’re goddamned right,” Zach said, strength filling his voice along with grief. “He brought them together, he taught them his own impossible sense of responsibility, and they took to that with the ignorance of youth and reacted when they shouldn’t have and now Jack’s dead and Cathy’s so messed up she may never recover. And they only reacted because he was to busy in yet another pissing match with the Red Skull and a petty disagreement with the government and didn’t oversee his ‘children’ properly. It’s his fault!”

Kafka let him stew for a time, his breath finally slowing from his tirade and, when he’d settled, she said softly, “Even though I know you believe that…what’s the rest?”

Zach began to cry silently, no sobbing or outward sign other than tears streaming down his face. “I…I could have left the Resistants camp at any time…with my speed, in the middle of the night, I could have been four states away before anyone knew. It would have blown my cover, would have resulted in them moving location and all my research and time and pain lost forever, but I could easily have gotten out at any time.”

“But I didn’t…because I was in love.”

Kafka shuffled some pages. “Mist Mistress.”

“Belinda,” Zach said quietly. “Belinda. From the first day we met I knew she was the love of my life. I’d never felt that way, you know, the sense of attachment, the sense of rightness…I knew she’d what I used to dream about when I was a child. I loved her with all of my heart and soul, Doc.”

“And I betrayed her and the best friend I’d ever made*.”

* See Amazing Fantasy #14 for full details – MC

“We should attack now before any of the others return. Only Walker and the multi-hued whore are present with the small SHIELD support staff and the Doctor. The machine and gimp’ll be back within the hour, and the other three could appear at any time. Now is the best time to strike!”

Lowering the magnification of his mechanical eyes and turning away from the distant brownstone building, the Watchdog Elite known as Redeye looked at his subordinate, the recently liberated from incarceration Spike, and sneered. “We didn’t come here and do all of this just to kill Walker, we could do that at any time. We need to ensure our procedure with his sister and our efforts to immobilize Firebird are both successes, and to cause as much damage to this group of heroes as possible to cause as widespread impact on the ‘heroes’ of this sinful world as we can in service to our benefactor’s broader goals.”

“The Watchdogs need that continued funding and support to rebuild our ranks and re-establish our efforts to cleanse this world of its awful, sinful, alcoholic, drug-addled, pornographic and homosexual ways. Then, once we are strong again, we will chart our own path free of the limited ambitions of the Red Skull and truly bring this world the peace and prosperity it deserves.”

“Ruled by the Watchdog Elite, of course,” Spike said.

“Obviously,” Redeye said. “We will strike when Machine Man and Moonhunter return. If we can do so quietly enough, we can prepare a welcoming committee for the others as they trickle in, including the good Captain America. It will be a pleasure to rip out his vertebrae one at a time in his own home, after we skin, flay and bleach the bones of John Walker very, very slowly…”

John Walker opened the door to his sister’s room and entered, pulling a chair in with him and settling into it beside her, the material of his costume squeaking a bit as his weight was redistributed. His mask was pulled back and he looked at her while she dozed, unsure of how to awaken her without scaring her.

“Don’t stare at me, Johnny,” a sleepy voice said as one of Katie’s eyes opened. “You’ll give me a complex.”

John smiled, a true and happy smile, at hearing her voice and the old saying her their mother any time someone did something she thought was critical of her, not that anyone ever did anything of the sort. “I just wanted to savor the ability to look at you at all, Katie,” he said in a thick voice. “I was beginning to think I wouldn’t get the chance again.”

Tears welled up behind Katie’s eyes and she reached a hand out for him. She didn’t say anything, she didn’t have to, he simply took it and they both wept together for a while. After that they spoke about family, their parents and Michael, but never once about what had happened to her, the death of her husband, or her injuries. He helped her sit up and drink some water, and that led to a discussion of food and what they missed most about good Georgia cuisine, and other places in the world they’d eaten, mostly him.

He was telling her about a Thanksgiving feast thrown by Jarvis for the East and West Coast Avengers teams once when she asked about how he became the USAgent and what had happened prior to that as Captain America and their parents, then more recent times. He told her honestly, withholding nothing, even though talking about his last days as Captain America, from their parents deaths to his capture and torture by Flag-Smasher, and his ‘death’.

There was no judging in her demeanor, and she was impressed by his accomplishments as a hero, including his recent encounters with the Resistants and Machinesmith. He told her how he agonized over doing those things while she was a prisoner, and then she finally began to speak about what she experienced. Though her voice was steady and clinical as she spoke, the details were as horrible and awful as he had imagined…and worse. He had no more tears to cry but his rage had no such limit, and the blood pumping through him pulsed like a living current as he struggled to maintain a calm exterior for her benefit.

When she finished they said nothing, had nothing to say. She did not remember anything after attempting to kill herself* to escape them, nothing until she awoke in the medical center after surgery a day or so ago, and had no idea how she had gotten here. Though it should have gone against his training, his experience, John never questioned it, blinded as he was to how he was going to make those sons-of-dogs pay for this latest and most violent attack on his life. He stayed with her for a few more moments then, noting the time as after midnight, he rose to let her rest.

As he neared the door, he turned back and with two fingers touched the tip of his nose and then raised it to the sky, smiling at Katie as he did so*. She smiled back and turned on her side, fluffing her pillow as she lay back down and said, “Good night, Johnny.”

* See Bring on the Bad Guys #4 for full details of Katie’s time with the Watchdogs – MC

USAgent stared at her for a moment and then realized he wasn’t quite out of tears after all.

“What is it you wanted to talk about, Dr. Foster?”

Jane looked up from the scans of Katie Walker-Tomlinson she’d been staring at for the last few hours. The young woman standing in her doorway was just past 24 years old, but her eyes looked 42 easily, only a half-decade or more past Jane’s own age. She gestured with her hand at a chair and sat back, solemn for a minute because she already knew Cathy Webster’s secret…it was all over her bloodwork and any first-year medical student could have seen it.

Her eyes must have given her away because Cathy, also known as Free Spirit, tucked her tri-colored red-white-and-blue hair behind her ears and hung her head briefly before raising her eyes to lock solidly onto Jane’s. “So…you know. I figured it was only a matter of time.”

“Cathy,” Jane said, sitting forward and clasping her hands. “I think you should go see a friend of mine…her name is Dr. Ashley Kafka, and she’s the head psychologist at Ravencroft Sanitarium. I think she can help you with your…situations.”

“What?” Cathy asked, incredulous but not accusatory. “The fact that I’ve gained my Jack’s abilities…or that I’ve lost his baby?” Her eyes were shining but none of the restrained tears fell. “That he gave his life to me…just to me…without even knowing he was going to be a father?” She looked away, remembering something that caused her to fade out for a moment, and then she was back, fiercer and angrier than before. “The only consolation I can take is that he didn’t know, Dr. Foster. He gave me all he had, it just wasn’t enough…am I supposed to hold that against him? Am I?!”

Jane Foster was silent for a long moment, her hands instinctively clasping in front of her chest as if protecting her own secrets from the view of the crushed, violated young woman before her. “No, Cathy, that’s not what I’m saying.”

But Cathy was on her feet in a shot, her arms planted on Foster’s desk and she leaned forward, sneering in her building rage. “I’m glad he didn’t die with that knowledge, Doctor, because I know in my heart he died reluctantly but pleased that he could help me, and he didn’t know any of this until he made it to heaven and held our child in his arms, rejoicing forever. But I guess you wouldn’t know any of the joy or pain of those types of thoughts, would you? No, you fuck your Gods, don’t you? Who are you to lecture me on my ‘conditions’? Tell me!”

Her blue eyes were blazing and there was shame blushing on her cheeks that Jane couldn’t imagine the source of, but her own flashed onto her cheeks and her eyes lowered. “I…” Her mouth was thick with emotions but the bared pain before her beat her down and in a low voice, Dr. Jane Foster said, “…I have terminal breast cancer…likely caused by exotic particles absorbed during my relationship with Thor. That’s who I am, Cathy.”

It was just that moment, with those dire words hanging in the air between the two emotional women, that USAgent was punched through the wall of the private room of his sister.

To be continued

 

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