By the time General Thaddeus Ross's black sedan screamed to a halt at the Quantico command center, the base-wide invasion alarm had, for the second and final time, fallen silent. But the silence was a lie. It was not the silence of peace, but the tense, humming silence of a beehive that had just been kicked.
Ross stepped out of his car into a scene of controlled chaos. The command center was ablaze with lights, screens displaying live thermal feeds from helicopters sweeping over dense forests, and the air was thick with the bitter smell of failure.
He had lost face. They had all lost face. A lone intruder had not only waltzed into one of the most secure military installations on the planet, but had leveled a building, achieved his objective, and then vanished, leaving a trail of unconscious soldiers, dead bodies, and profound humiliation in his wake.
"What do you mean, 'lost track'?" a Lieutenant Colonel was roaring at a subordinate, his face red with fury.
"Sir, he vanished into the dense forest twenty kilometers south of the base. The trail went completely cold."
"Where are our goddamn helicopters?"
"At night, in that terrain, sir… they can't get a lock. Thermal is useless under the canopy."
"Shit!" The Colonel slammed his fist on a console. "Send out everyone! I want every Marine on this base combing that forest. Find this son of a bitch!"
Just as the adjutant scurried off to relay the order, a low, gravelly voice cut through the room from behind the Colonel. "One invader."
The Lieutenant Colonel jolted, instinctively spinning around. His blood ran cold as he found himself face-to-face with General Ross, whose expression was as dark and stormy as a thunderhead.
"Gen-General…"
"One invader," Ross repeated, his voice dangerously quiet, a fake, predatory smile twisting his lips. "And you managed to lose him. Impressive."
The Colonel opened his mouth, but no words came out. He gestured frantically to a technician. "Pull up the surveillance footage. From the Gamma Lab."
Ross's gaze snapped to the main viewscreen. He watched the replay. A figure, wreathed in smoke and the glare of searchlights, emerged from a crater of his own making. A hailstorm of bullets converged on him, and he moved like a phantom, untouched. Then, an impossible, gravity-defying leap, a graceful arc that carried him hundreds of meters into the darkness of the forest, where he simply disappeared.
Ross watched it once. Twice. A third time. His sharp, analytical mind was already breaking it down. Single target: Gamma Lab. Inhuman speed and evasion. Astonishing strength and leaping ability. This wasn't a terrorist. This was a weapon.
"Have other cameras captured the invader?" Ross asked, his voice sharp.
"The technical team is reviewing everything, sir."
"Has he been located?"
The Colonel glanced at his returning adjutant, who gave a slight, defeated shake of his head. He braced himself. "No, General. He disappeared. We are still searching."
Ross gave a slow, deliberate nod, his expression unreadable. He turned to leave. "Excavate the Gamma Building. I want to know what he took. Use the fastest equipment you have."
"Yes, sir!" the Colonel barked, standing at rigid attention.
Despite the order, the work was slow and grim. It was dawn before the heavy machinery had cleared enough rubble to begin recovering the bodies of the soldiers and scientists buried within. All night, helicopters had crisscrossed the Virginia wilderness, their advanced sensors finding nothing. As the sun rose, fresh pilots took over, the search expanding in an ever-widening circle.
General Ross did not sleep. He sat in the back of his car near the ruins, the glow of a tablet illuminating his grim features as he watched the footage of the leap on a continuous loop.
His adjutant, sitting in the driver's seat, answered a call on his encrypted phone. After a moment, he turned around. "General. It's the Director of S.H.I.E.L.D."
Ross slowly opened his eyes, a look of profound annoyance on his face. He took the phone. "This is Ross."
A smooth, infuriatingly amused voice answered from the other end. "General Ross. I hear Quantico was quite lively last night."
"Get to the point, Fury," Ross growled.
Nick Fury, sitting in his office at the Triskelion and enjoying the exact same footage on his own computer screen, chuckled. "Simple proposal. Joint operation. My resources, your jurisdiction. Let's find your ghost together."
"You're dreaming," Ross scoffed. "This is a United States military matter. I warn you, Fury, you and your circus of freaks will stay the hell out of it. And if I recall correctly, your operational authority has been on ice since your little alien invasion party in New York."
He hung up before Fury could reply, handing the phone back to his adjutant. He knew Fury wouldn't listen. This was now a race, not just against his quarry, but against a rival agency.
"Have you found his whereabouts?" he asked, already knowing the answer.
"No, Officer."
Ross just shook his head and gestured towards the ruins. "Is the building clear?"
"Excavation of the sublevels is almost complete, sir. Estimated ten more minutes."
"Let's go."
Ross stepped out of the car. The bodies of the fallen soldiers had been recovered and laid out in a neat, solemn row. Their deaths were varied and brutal, but the expressions on their faces were universally the same: frozen masks of shock, terror, and utter disbelief. Ross scanned the line of body bags, his jaw tight.
"Adjutant," he said, his voice low. "Have the base write up a report for the highest possible compensation for these men's families. I'll personally approve it."
Ten minutes later, the entrance to the buried passage was cleared. A team of research personnel, clad in hazmat suits, descended into the darkness. A short while later, their panicked, incredulous shouts echoed up from below.
"It's gone!"
"It's all gone! The walls are inert!"
"Unbelievable! Did he absorb everything?"
"Jesus Christ… but why didn't he turn into a monster? Where's the mutation? He should be another Hulk, another Abomination!"
Ross, standing at the edge of the pit, overheard the last question. His eyes, which had been dark with fury and frustration, suddenly lit up with a terrifying, predatory gleam.
He had been so focused on the security breach, on the humiliation. He hadn't seen the real truth. It wasn't about what was stolen. It was about who had stolen it.
All his life, he had seen gamma radiation as a force of uncontrollable destruction, creating monsters of pure rage. But this… this was different. This was someone who could seemingly absorb and control that same world-breaking power without losing their mind.
This wasn't another monster. This was the perfect super-soldier. The holy grail he had been chasing his entire career.
He turned to his adjutant, his voice now a low, intense command, filled with a new, absolute purpose.
"Find him. Find him at all costs."