INTERMISSION

The last mugger had fallen as quickly and as decisively as the first.  Everything was mechanical now, dodge-strike-duck-strike-flip-kick-roll. Because it didn’t really matter anymore.  She was gone.



Peter Parker had a penchant for loss.  First his parents, then Uncle Ben, and now Mary Jane.  In the end he hadn’t turned out to be much of a superhero.  Nothing ever seemed to come out right.  He knew he couldn’t stop being Spider-Man, but he also knew he couldn’t stop losing the ones he loved, either.  There wasn’t much of anyone left at this point, after Aunt May…



He looked down at the five thugs he had just dropped. Not too long ago he would have made some smart-ass comments first while he toyed with them, then he would have webbed them up, and then called the cops to come and collect the trash, all while he snapped away with the camera from a safe distance.  Not tonight, though.  He didn’t much care anymore.  These chumps could just lay in the alley and bleed, as far as he was concerned.



All of a sudden he heard a noise, and looked up to see a hooded figure standing silently at the end of the alley, watching him.  He realized it had been watching him for a while, unnoticed.  Strange.  His Spider-Sense didn’t normally let him down.  As they stood regarding each other, the figure began to move.  With blinding speed, it drew a metallic object from its belt as if to throw something at him.  As he reflexively dodged the flashing silver dart as it hissed by, he heard it thunk heavily into something behind him.

He turned and saw to his surprise that one of the muggers had stood back up and was preparing to shoot him in the back.  The dart had taken the punk down before he could pull the trigger.  The stranger at the end of the alley was one hell of a shot, he thought.  They had also saved his life.

Looking back to the end of the alley, he saw that the figure had already gone.



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The pleasing sound of crunching concrete and steel was music to her ears.  But why had this taken so long?  She’d had to put up with way too much bullshit while the general and his goons tried to interrogate her.  Any much more of it, and she might have actually broke.  She swore to herself that after this was over she would come back and shave that f***ing mustache right off Talbot’s face with a wooden spoon.



As the last resistance in the reinforced structure of her cell gave way, the wall to the outside collapsed in a cloud of dust and rubble.  Pale moonlight dimly illuminated the new entrance to her cozy little home, only darkening the room when a bulky figure stepped in through the breach.



“Did ya miss me, babe?” came an all too welcome voice.



Raven Darkholme jumped up from her cot and threw her arms around the dark blue, furry form of her liberator.



“Total beast mode,” she said to him, hugging him tight.  “Now get me the hell out of here!”



“No worries, the Blackbird’s hovering just outside” he said, slipping a pair of blasters into her hands as she pulled away from him.  They smiled adoringly at each other as she released the safety catches on her shiny new toys. “Thought you might like ta have a little fun, first.”



All of the alarms throughout the complex were blaring now on full alert, and she could hear the voices of Talbot’s commandos shouting as they mobilized just outside her cell.



Her rescuer grinned darkly in anticipation as her cell door blew inward.



“Time ta party!”

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“What do you mean, nurse?”



She looked back at him blankly.



“Did you say the subject just moved?”



“Yes doctor, I-“



“Ridiculous!  Patient HD-Zero has been heavily sedated for months.  His vitals have not fluctuated once since he was put under.”



He looked down at the prone form unconscious on the large gurney.  Nothing.  It was barely breathing.



He dismissed the nurse from the room without another thought, and prepared a series of syringes to begin extracting blood and other fluids from the test subject.  He then bent over the inert form and began his work, musing over recent events as he went.



The test subject had not so much as flickered an eyelid since it had been moved from containment once the S.H.I.E.L.D. facility had been assaulted.  As a former S.H.I.E.L.D. researcher himself, he knew exactly where to direct his superior’s strike team.  Garrett’s men had extracted this prize and delivered it to his new, remotely isolated facility.  It wasn’t exactly the same as his prior lab, but HYDRA had still set him up nicely.  He had been able to perform his experiments over the course of months without interruption, taking what he needed from the subject, altering and modifying, and putting it back in.  Everything was working, and his project was ahead of schedule.  It was too bad there wasn’t any memory data he could have transferred out of this host before he would dispose of the body once his work was completed.  It was a simple process, one that had been perfected years ago, beginning with the transfer of Arnim Zola’s consciousness and memories onto hard drive.  Oh, what might have been learned from this specimen!



But he knew the subject’s core memory had been completely wiped, despite the fact that it was never intended to be allowed to regain consciousness.  Fury was nothing if not cautious.  And ruthless.  He almost missed the bald, old bastard…  Interestingly, the wiping process had turned the subject’s hair silvery white, or at least had caused it to grow out that way.  Odd.  The wiping process had not done the same to the Winter Soldier, but then again, that one had always been put back on ice before anyone would have noticed the difference.



In any case, Mr. Whitehall would be impressed with the results of his work.  Although no S.H.I.E.L.D. (nor HYDRA!) scientist had been able to replicate either the Super-Soldier Formula, or the GH formula, he had done something better.  He had pure, concentrated blood from this test subject.  Purer than even the T.A.H.I.T.I. subject.  And he had refined the genetic code of the subject itself, so that it had produced something he had not even expected, in fact----



Little more than a gurgle escaped the scientist’s mouth as a powerful hand crushed his windpipe.  Subject HD-Zero squeezed until the fool had stopped moving, then tossed the broken body aside.  He sat upright on the gurney and tore away the tubes and wires connecting him to the various machines in the laboratory.



Everything was a haze, and he did not know where he was, but every instinct told him he needed to be somewhere else.



Swinging his legs over the side, he took his first steps in months, and made his way to the barred window looking out over the moonlit bay.  Taking hold of the bars in both hands, he ripped the security structure away from the wall and smashed out the windows.  He stepped out onto the sill as alarms began to sound somewhere behind him.





He dove headlong into the murky waters below and disappeared from sight.

(published October 19, 2014)