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I
Running down the last slope of the SHIELD obstacle course at the training facility in Quantico, Virginia, is a lot like trying to land a badly damaged aircraft: you are glad to be at the end of a hazardous flight, but you know the worst is still ahead of you. As the seven-foot-tall combat training LMDs jumped from their hiding places, three machine guns sprang out of the underbrush firing live ammunition. Ben Percival hit the ground hard for the tenth time in an hour. Crossing the finish line would be an adventure.
"Halt!" The normally reserved Jasper Sitwell ran toward Percival and the other trainees, followed by two SHIELD Training Instructors. The afternoon sun was withering to most of them, but Sitwell had hardly a bead of sweat. He was dressed in his usual retro-fifties suit, which looked more like an affectation than a fashion statement. The machine guns ceased fire, and two other stun-grenade launchers powered down without firing. Unfortunately, the LMDs didn't get the order to stop and kept up their attack.
Sitwell and the two trainers reached them on a run and, with leg sweeps and elbows to the throat, chopped the LMDs down like lingerie dummies. Sitwell gathered them in a line and the trainers straightened them up. "I need the following two Agent Candidates in the command bunker immediately! Percival! Stienburg!"
Ben Percival looked at Manny Stienburg, who was looking at him. Their tired bodies froze at the thought of failure. Of the 150 Agent Trainees who started the program with them ten weeks before, only a dozen were left. They had faced long days of backbreaking exercise and combat training, classes at night, and daily examinations on all mental and physical disciplines. A single failure meant a ticket home.
Since graduating from Bates College and taking up Sitwell's challenge to become a SHIELD Field Agent, Ben had been pushed to the limit. He hadn't failed a test yet, thought there had been some close calls. Now he was the only African-American Candidate left in the program, and he was determined to succeed.
Stienburg was the sharpest guy he'd ever met. His choices after graduating Yale had been to either continue on for his Ph.D. in physics or declare for the NFL draft. After meeting with Sitwell, he'd come to SHIELD.
They ran double-time to the small wooden shack at the far end of the compound, near the fence that seperated SHIELD from Quantico's other training facilities for the FBI and the Marines. Officers of both watched daily as men they couldn't hope to recruit pushed themselves to the limit for SHIELD.
Inside the shack, Sitwell and the two young men stood still for a moment while the floor beneath them became translucent and they slowly melted through it. They stopped on the finely polished stone of the main training hall floor. The air was cooler in the dimly lit cavern. Sitwell walked briskly toward the hangar deck and the two large VTOL aircraft. To their right on the parade ground another hundred and fifty candidates stood in line in their civilian clothes, wincing as the SHIELD training officers drilled them. The smell of fear and the sweat filled the chamber.
"We don't have much time," Sitwell shouted over the din of aircraft and men, "you both have enough points to graduate right now and we need you." They reached the glassed-in office of the Training Director. Sitwell entered and went to a large cabinet on the wall. The outer door sealed behind them with a hiss and the noise was shut out. Their ears were ringing.
Sitwell opened the cabinet and pulled out two sets of weapon belts and holsters - SHIELD combat webbing. It included a hand-and-a-half rifle/machine gun with underslung grenade launcher, a pistol side-arm, and various grenades and other weapons and equipment on a belt that went around the waist and over the shoulder.
"Don't worry," Sitwell said with a smile that was a bit forced, "Stienburg, you're on Jayhawk 207," Sitwell pointed through the glass wall to a jet preparing to leave, "and Percival is on 108." Sitwell handed each of them the weapons and a shoulder patch with their name emblazoned along with the SHIELD crest. He shook each man's hand and said, "Congratulations, Agent."
They stood for an awkward second before Sitwell shouted "Go!" They tore out of the office as the new trainees ran past. They had to bump their way through, and Percival knocked one of them to the ground. He stopped and pulled him up.
The youngster saluted: "Thank you Agent sir!" and then ran to join the others. Ben looked at Stienburg with a wry grin.
"That's about as good as it gets, Agent."
"Damn right, Agent."
They shook hands. "You take care of yourself. Let's meet in Washington and tell war stories when we get back."
"You got it."
Jayhawk 108 was a supersonic VTOL transport which was the size of a civilian airliner. The four engines were pointed at the ground and had been started, making the run to the door a hazardous one. Ben dodged around as best he could and reached the stairs with no perceptible burns or scarring. He dodged past the three ground technicians who wore full body heat shielding, and bounded up the staircase as it started rolling away from the fuselage.
He made it through the door with a short jump. The door was sealed shut behind him. He stood and looked at the interior of the aircraft, which was comparable to most civilian planes, but with workstations at each seat. Agents of every department - administrative, technical, medical, and field operations - filled about half the available seats.
The engines grew louder and he was ushered to a seat. He strapped himself in, quickly checking his weapons and making sure nothing was about to go off. There was a lifting feeling and Ben could see out the window that they were leaving the hangar, rising straight up into the sky. His training was over.
The G-forces pinned him to his seat as the jet accelerated into the sky. He had arrived at Quantico on the same kind of jet, but it had been a much smoother trip. The pilot was burning about twice the fuel now and they were supersonic in less than a minute.
Ben was watching the clouds sprint by when the PA speaker sputtered to life. "All Field Agents report to the forward cabin for assignment." Ben got up slowly, trying to get his balance as the aircraft bumped and turned, leaving him floating one second and pinned to the floor the next. Carefully, he made his way forward.
He knocked once on the door of the private cabin in the forward section just above the cockpit, and walked in. The view was spectacular, and Ben just stood and stared for a long second. The room was a glass bubble on top of the ship, and only the door behind him and the floor below him seemed solid. There was a feeling of floating unsupported in the sky. When the plane dropped altitude and Ben's feet left the deck, he thought, "This is what the Angel must feel like."
"Agent!" The voice snapped him out of his daydreaming in a hot second. It was a commanding voice, one that was used to being obeyed. Ben looked across the room and faced the man who he had dreamed of meeting since the day he decided to join SHIELD. The man was a legend in his community - bigger than life. And he was standing there in the middle of the room with six other Field Agents.
"Agent Candid... Agent Percival reporting, Mr. Jones." The words sputtered out of Ben's mouth before he could catch them. "Mister?" he thought; "Stupid stupid stupid - it's `Agent.'" He opened his mouth to correct himself then stopped. That would only make it worse.
"Just call me Gabe," Jones said, smiling for the first time, "And relax, kid." He turned to the other Agents and motioned to the large boardroom table. They sat, and Ben followed, feeling self-conscious. "Okay, I told the pilot to change course. We're not going all the way to the Helicarrier with everyone else. We've got a team that's been in the bush in northern Myanmar for 13 hours now. We're going in to find them and get out, hopefully in 24 hours. Get your jumpsuits on and meet me belowdeck in 20 minutes. Any questions?"
No one said anything, and they got up to leave. Jones stayed behind as Ben followed the other Agents to the door.
"Percival, you keep close to me on this one and you'll be fine. The forest will be full of green suits, but we're not looking for a fight. This will just be an evade and survive job. You okay with that?"
"Yes, sir. Gabe."
Ben saluted and stepped out the door. Jones was just as he had pictured him. He felt excited and scared and nervous, and it took the full twenty minutes of wandering around for him to find the jumpdeck below.
The six field agents and Jones were pulling on their jumpsuits. Ben had jumped twice in training, but never at supersonic speeds. He buckled it on and tested his mobility. The suit was designed as a jet powered parachute that would be invisible to radar. It took a lot of practice just to descend from a stationary helicopter, but jumping into hostile territory from a Mach-2 jet was something else entirely.
Gabe came over to him and checked his suit, redoing two buckles and clipping on the emergency generator that Ben had forgotten. He smiled and clapped him hard on the shoulder. "Just stick with me, kid."
"Okay, in 30 seconds..." Ben looked at the other men, who were steely calm. Would he ever find nerves like that? "... five four three two one." The panel in front of them blasted open and they were blown out by air pressure before they could jump. The three large containers of weapons and supplies went first and flew as though they knew where to go. The men followed.
Ben thought his heart skipped a beat, and he tumbled several times in the air before the jets kicked in and righted him. He was flying at the ground at just under Mach-1 with the seven other agents flying ahead of him. The forest below him was a brilliant green, a shade he had never before seen or dreamt of. Ben caught a metal glint out of the corner of his eye.
He thought about reporting it, but remembered he was under strict radio silence. He looked up and watched the plane they had jumped from accelerate into the sky and disappear.
The blast of hot air hit him like a steam hammer, and without the jumpsuit he would have been killed. More of the glints appeared and exploded around him and he tumbled in the air, his jets unable to keep him upright.
In his helmet's earpiece, he heard screaming. He looked below and watched in horror as three of agents plummeted, burning, their bodies limp and their jets out of control. Gabe's voice came through: "Emergency descent! Kick it in! They were waiting for us!"
Ben watched Gabe's form become a missile as his suit locked in a straight position and he rocketed to the ground. The other agents weren't as lucky, as a burst of the small silver missiles shredded them in the air.
"Don't look, Percival!" Gabe's voice came on his headset, " Just hit the emergency button! It's inside your right gauntlet! Now!"
Ben watched another grouping of missiles climb toward him and felt a surge of adrenaline like he had never felt before. He hit the key in his glove and felt the suit take control of his body, pointing him toward the ground and surging forward past the sound barrier. He passed through the missile grouping, but was too fast for them and they exploded harmlessly above.
He hit the ground at better than 1500 miles per hour and left an eight foot crater in the soft, fertile earth. He lay there past sundown.
The evening air was cooler, but not much cooler, than the afternoon. It was more humid and heavier to breathe for the five men who pushed through the jungle. They wore green outfits head to toe, in a light cloth made for the climate. They wore hoods, and on each man's chest and forehead yellow lines formed a broad "H."
They moved expertly through the underbrush, wary of large and small threats. Most of the local snakes were deadly, and a good many of the insects as well. They stepped expertly on the ground and pushed their long-barreled Maser assault rifles ahead of them to test their path before proceeding.
The lead man held his open hand in the air and they all silently and fluidly stopped in their tracks and did not move. He pushed aside the last broad, flat, dripping leaf and looked down to see a large crater. It was an unnatural sight in the jungle, and an obviously man-made intrusion on its purity.
With a slight wave of his hand he motioned the squad forward, and they slunk one by one into the clearing, covering the area outward with their fields of fire. The leader tested the disturbed earth with his fingers. The dirt was mostly dry, which meant it had been disturbed in the afternoon.
He stepped forward and laid a hand gently on the shoulder of one of the men, who turned to face him. He made a circular motion with his finger, and the man removed a motion detector from his belt. A soft green LCD glow was cast on his face and the hand of the detector circled. Faintly etched in the track of the light was a definite sign.
It was close. Someone was hiding, and trying to be motionless, but no one can be completely still forever. The signal became more distinct, and showed a figure. It was directly above them.
The reaction was instant and deadly. Five men trained to hunt and kill with no hesitation swung their weapons to cut down the enemy. Four pointed to the trees above. One fired first and cut down all four before they could pull their triggers.
There was a brief, violent flash as the Maser beams cut through the men and several miles of forest. There was no shout or word or utterance, other than a soft wet trickle of fresh blood which quickly stopped as the men's hearts ceased to function. The rich earth soaked the blood in.
The leader of the Hydra squad pulled his cowl off and stood looking at his handiwork. Next to him, Ben Percival jumped from the tree above and landed on the ground. He turned to the man in the Hydra uniform.
"Gabe, how did you infiltrate a Hydra Jungle Assault Team - while they were on patrol in the bush?"
"Lower your voice, kid," Gabe said as he took what supplies he could from the dead men.
"But, but, that's not possible."
"Ask me about some of our Howler missions in the Big One, kid. Talk about `not possible.'" He handed half the equipment to Ben and started to move. "Follow me. We won't be safe here much longer."
"More Hydra patrols?"
"See that blood on the ground?" Gabe pointed to the shattered bodies, "That's tiger food." Gabe led the way through the bush, silencing Ben until they had made their way, several slow miles ahead. The air was dense with humidity and a rich scent of flowers and trees. The sounds were like something out of a movie, but were so real and seemed so close.
Jones stopped and checked his Hydra instrument. "According to the Hydra satellite," he looked more closely at the enemy console in his hand, "according to our SHIELD satellite - man, they got deep into us this time - we're only a couple miles from our intended L. That's good. The Hydra mansion that the first team infiltrated isn't far from here, either. That's better."
"Better? Why better? Don't we want to evade the Hydra?" Ben looked puzzled as he took a bite from a Hydra supply stick and chewed hungrily. Not bad.
"Yes, we want to evade `the Hydra.' But this tells me where to find our team."
"At the Hydra base?"
"Kid, we didn't tell you this because it's Need to Know only, but that team is led by Nick Fury himself. If Nick Fury has to spend a night in the jungle, he's gonna take his discomfort out on the enemy."
"But that would be crazy, Gabe." The two men got up and started walking again.
"Let me tell you something about Fury. He didn't get the top chair at SHIELD for being some kind of spy. He's not a bad spy, but the whole business goes against his nature."
"So what's he doing leading an outfit like SHIELD?"
"Fury is probably the best guy ever in the history of man at small unit tactics. Fury took a bunch of nobody dog-faces in The Big One and won some battles you wouldn't believe. Fury could lead a Girl Scout pack against an armored cav division and bring you back the empty tanks. He spies good, but he fights like nobody else."
"Is SHIELD really just a fighting outfit? I didn't sign up to be just a killer or something."
"SHIELD is a lot of things, but at the heart of it's Fury taking a few select commandos against an army. Hydra started out as Baron Strucker's private army. He had every corrupt government in the world funding his operation and supplying men. At the same time, we had a twitchy U.N. counting every penny they gave us. And we still broke them."
"So where are these guys coming from, Gabe?"
"I honestly don't know, kid. They got the money and the technology to be a first-rate threat. It remains to be seen if they have the manpower of the old Hydra. Ah, here." Gabe stopped at the mouth of a cave, invisible in the darkness and thick leaves. He pushed the leaves aside and looked in the cave. Four boxes, old wooden crates with a painted U.S. Army stencil on them were inside, all opened, all but one empty.
Gabe pulled an old M3 submachine gun from the case and checked it. There was a jam in the firing mechanism, and he couldn't clear it, so he placed it back in the box.
"Fury's been here. The Howlers stashed these crates of weapons here back in `43. Only Nick would go after it now. He'll assume we're wiped out after the attempted rescue, so he'll take his team and go after the Hydra base. That's where we're going to meet him."
They walked all night, only once encountering reptilian life and able to avoid contact with it. Near dawn they heard it.
An explosion shook Ben from his walking stupor. Gabe grabbed his arm and pulled him along. Another hundred yards and they were at the edge of a compound. Men were running confused all around. Gabe knelt carefully and took aim with his Maser. He started cutting down the surprised Hydra agents as they emerged from the elegant old mansion. There were other people in what seemed to be evening attire getting up from the ground, who seemed groggy, as though they had passed out in a stupor where they lay.
Ben did his best to pick out targets and fire, but he couldn't be sure what he was shooting at so he mostly held off. Finally, he saw a group of men sprint across the grass to the building.
"That's Fury!" Ben pointed excitedly. They got up and ran toward him, reaching him at a full run as they dashed into the now-quiet building.
"Where you been, Jones?" Fury was not what Ben had expected. A head taller than both of them, his kevlar tuxedo was shredded nearly off his back. He carried the WWII vintage submachine gun as though it were part of his hand. It struck Ben that Fury had never come home from the Second World War.
Ben followed the two legends into the building, past the huge TV screens and ornate furniture. They ran up a long staircase, followed now by other agents in torn dress clothes and carrying the old guns.
They burst into the main office at the top of the stairs. Inside, the room was the size of a basketball court, and a large desk sat at one end. Behind the desk sat a dead man. On the six foot television screen behind the desk was the smiling image of a man.
The face was chiseled as though the man spent too much time in the gym, and his blond hair was perfect. He was smiling.
"Welcome to the birth of the Seventh Decade of Hydra, Director Fury."
Fury gritted his teeth and swore under his breath. "Great. Just great."
Fury turned to Ben and Gabe and whispered in a deep growl: "That's Norge Hammerstrom, top Icelandic Hydra dirtbag. Gabe?"
"Gotcha, Colonel." Jones turned his back on Fury and took out his satellite uplink.
Fury turned back to the screen. "So, Hammerstrom, you finally got yerself a war. How do you like it?"
"Really, Director Fury, I am not going to converse with you now; it would waste too much of your valuable satellite time. And you do not have that much time left." The face flickered on the screen and disappeared, replaced by white snow.
"Did you get it, Gabe?"
"Yep."
"What's that?" Ben looked closely at the satellite feed displayed on Gabe's wrist.
"A signal tracker. He's using our hardware, so we need to find him to deliver the bill."
Gabe looked up at Ben, but quickly looked past him. "Nick! You okay?"
Fury looked down at himself, and saw that he was rapidly becoming transparent. "Tell Bridge to call Reed Richard..." And he was gone.
II
February 23, 1956
Fury sat motionless in the mud on the side of the river. He was half sunk and covered with leaves. The river stank of human waste and teeming algae and fish. The sun had gone down only a few minutes before, and there was still a glow of orange on the tops of the trees. The motor launch made slow headway upriver, only a few yards away.
The gunner at the 50-caliber mounted on the bow swept the gun slowly, professionally along the shore. Any move, a single sneeze would be deadly in front of the gunner. The lights of the boat were nearly out of sight before Fury slipped into the water and started to swim.
On the opposite bank he pulled himself up the muddy bank and froze again. A long green snake slipped past his face and continued through the reeds in search of prey.
Fury moved again, just as the patrol boat made a lazy turn on the river, moving toward the bank he climbed. A searchlight arced from the bow, tracing the fire zone of the machine gun. The light danced over and around him, but Fury remained motionless and the boat swept slowly past.
A hundred yards away in a mansion built with French money and Vietnamese labor, four men sat in leather chairs and drank a rare vintage of wine. They smoked cigarettes, taking long thoughtful draws before blowing the thick smoke into the air above them. Two of the men were Vietnamese and were quite comfortable speaking French. Two of the men were Westerners, but had trouble with their French and spoke haltingly, each in a different, thick-tongued accent. All wore exquisite Old World evening dress. Across the room a string quartet played on quietly.
A man entered the room from the kitchen door. He walked slowly from one of the sitting men to the next, offering wine and pouring each of them another glass. He carefully placed the decanter on the side bar, and cleared his throat. His American accent was vulgar to their ears but his French was quite good.
"Gentlemen." The four turned as one, and standing before them was a soaking Nick Fury, who took a cigarette from the wooden humidor and lit it, dragging deeply and looking at it with mild surprise. "Russian cigarettes? Are you trying to kill me?"
"How dare you enter my home uninvited!" The Vietnamese man in the white dinner jacket stood. "The Binh Xuyen will not tolerate such interference from you Americans."
"The Binh Xuyen are on their way out, that's why yer making a new deal with the Russians, right, Oleg?" The thick burly Russian nodded and smiled, toasting him with a glass of blood-red wine.
"I'm not here for any of you." Fury casually pulled out his machine pistol to cover them. "I'm here for Baron Reichsmann. We have unfinished business."
The other Westerner stood and bowed shortly to Fury. His bald head glinted in the candlelight and he stood three inches taller than the American. "You will forgive me if I do not take you up on your offer, Sergeant. The Third Decade Command happens to need me at the moment." The German accent was quite thick and his smile was chilling.
"It's Lieutenant, now. I don't suppose you got promoted to Kaiser or something?"
"Very droll, Lieutenant. You may come to regret those words when you are screaming in agony in my laboratory." Two doors opened to the adjoining rooms and men ran in, surrounding them all. They wore the uniforms of French Army Commandoes, and trained their assault rifles on Fury. "You may wish to take advantage of any suicide device you brought for such a moment as this," the German drawled, "I shan't stop you."
Fury smiled back and opened his mouth to speak, but no noise came out. He looked down and saw that his body had become translucent.
Seeing the same thing, the Baron shouted "Fire!" The French commandoes opened up and blew most of the wall behind Fury to bits. Fury's image was unchanged, and faded slowly until it was gone.
III
In the woods of Southern France, the Howling Commandoes stood staring, transfixed at the three figures that stood in front of them. As tall as buildings, they walked on two legs and seemed to sport firepower like tanks. Tanks were no new challenge to the Howlers, but these creatures seemed to blink in and out of focus in their eyes, seeming to be there one second and somewhere else the next. The colors were like nothing they'd seen before, a whole rainbow meshing and waving into new colors.
The sergeant didn't hesitate. Taking the gun from Major Beaudry to add to his own Thompson, he leapt at the closest thing, firing. The Howlers could hear the bullets ricochet off something hard, but couldn't follow with their eyes.
Sgt. Fury hit something with his body, though he couldn't judge his jump and hit hard with his shoulder. He crashed into the underbrush the wrong way, and rolled unpredictably to the side and down a steep hill into a thickly-wooded culvert, out of sight of the others.
The Howlers, taken by surprise and outgunned, were taken prisoner and led toward town, cursing under their breath and making their escape plans with each step. They tried not to look at the apparitions. Reb Ralston was flat-out scared, and had to be helped along by Dum Dum Dugan, who was three times his size.
A few minutes later, Fury got to his feet slowly and rubbed his eyes. He looked at the small shack and checked the two guns for ammo. The Frenchman and the Howlers were gone, but they would be sure Fury would be right behind them. They would plan accordingly, and Fury would be ready for them.
In the spot where the odd creatures had stood, the air became hazy and thick. It was as though two holes were being opened in the air. Fury got down on a knee and leveled his guns at the two humanoid figures that started to emerge from the air. Once they had appeared, he dropped his guns and walked toward them, open mouthed.
Sergeant Fury of 1943 faced Lieutenant Fury of 1956, who looked at Director Nick Fury of 1999. None of them spoke.
Next: Time in a Bottle
