Night had fallen. At the Triskelion in Washington, D.C., Nick Fury stood before the floor-to-ceiling window of his expansive office. Dressed in a black turtleneck and holding a cup of coffee, he gazed out at the city below.
A sea of neon lights filled his view.
Steam rose from the cup, blurring his face, which appeared faintly reflected in the glass illuminated by the city's glow.
Nick Fury's single eye remained calm.
He was thinking.
Over a month ago, Hawkeye—Clint—had followed his orders to travel to Saint Petersburg and assassinate the Black Widow. But that Black Widow had vanished without a trace.
S.H.I.E.L.D. had since poured significant resources into the search, yet they had not found even the slightest lead.
There was still no news.
According to Hawkeye, he had nearly frozen solid over there and hadn't found a damn thing.
Fury had already begun a covert internal investigation, and it had yielded just as little.
The only things uncovered were minor issues—embezzlent and falsified expense reports.
Fury didn't care about that in the slightest, because he himself was the biggest one skimming off the books in the entire organization.
Out of the more than 300 billion dollars in annual funding, he diverted around 30 billion each year to maintain private projects operating in the shadows.
And that was every single year.
If it ca to corruption, who could compare to him?
But Fury believed it was necessary. He had his reasons—everything he did was for maintaining world peace.
It was simply about leaving countless contingencies for himself and his future plans.
Of course, those were minor matters.
The real issue was that he increasingly felt sothing was very wrong within the organization.
It was too clean.
The internal investigation had only uncovered those "small problems" and nothing else. That very cleanliness was the biggest problem.
Fury understood all too well that greed and desire were unavoidable.
Conflicts of interest, gray-market dealings—these things could never truly be eliminated.
Even S.H.I.E.L.D., as tightly controlled as it was, could not avoid them.
Staring at his blurred reflection in the glass, Fury suddenly felt as though he could see shadows churning behind his own face.
A darkness suffocating enough to leave him uneasy.
Even powerless.
Fury began to doubt—doubt the entire organization. Every person he saw seed to be hiding a faint, knowing smile behind their face.
Who could he still trust?
Several nas flickered through his mind. After a long mont of thought, he drained his coffee in one gulp and returned to his desk.
He had to take action.
But it had to be covert. The fewer people who knew, the better—and those who did would have to be verified.
As for the Black Widow and the Red Room, they were no longer important.
…
St. Petersburg, Secret Underground Research Base.
Neagley, dressed in a thick down coat, hurried along the corridor deeper into the facility. The interior felt damp, though the bright overhead lights illuminated everything clearly.
At first glance, the base looked sowhat crude.
But Neagley knew that was only the surface. Sure enough, as she went deeper inside, the style changed abruptly.
Concrete walls gave way to tiled surfaces, and tightly controlled surveillance systems were everywhere. Even entry required fingerprint and retinal authentication.
The glass door opened, and she stepped into a sealed chamber less than five ters across, where disinfectant mist sprayed over her.
After the process was complete, she was finally allowed into the core area of the base.
Inside was an extrely spacious zone, roughly the size of a football field. It was arranged in a circular structure, filled with various instrunts that Neagley couldn't understand.
Around the periter were four or five passageways, each lined with adjacent or interconnected laboratories.
"Deputy Director." A middle-aged white man in a lab coat approached.
"Jamie. How is it?"
"It succeeded."
"Take there."
After the brief exchange, the man called Jamie led Neagley toward a passage on the left. The corridor was long—about two to three hundred ters.
At the end stood a massive iron door, guarded by four or five ard personnel.
Jamie took out an ID card. After one of the guards checked it, he gave a salute—whether to Jamie or to Neagley behind him was unclear.
The guard nodded to a companion, who imdiately turned and entered a string of codes into the panel by the door.
With a heavy clang, the iron door split apart and slowly opened to both sides.
Jamie and Neagley stepped inside.
It was another open area.
This was not a laboratory. What stood before them was a large one-way glass panel. Beyond it was a training room constructed from smooth composite materials.
Jack Reacher, Carla, Roscoe, Natasha Romanoff, lina, and the research base director Milson were all present.
"Reacher."
Neagley stepped in and greeted them. The others nodded in response, while Reacher simply lifted his chin slightly in acknowledgnt.
Neagley moved to stand beside Reacher and followed his gaze toward the glass.
From within ca heavy, forceful sounds cutting through the air.
Two people were locked in intense combat.
One was a young white man with short blond hair, his body strong yet well-proportioned, dressed in a black tank top and shorts.
The other was the Winter Soldier—Bucky Barnes—also wearing a training vest, though his tal left arm drew the most attention.
The two fought fiercely with strength and speed beyond normal human limits.
Every punch and kick carried violent force.
Each collision produced a dull, heavy impact.
Even for soone as battle-hardened as Neagley, watching it made her heart race. This didn't look like sparring—it felt like a true fight to the death.
If she imagined herself in their place, she knew that a single move—just one—would be enough to send her to et God.
"Wow… is this so kind of perk?" Neagley suppressed the stir in her emotions and joked.
Whether it was Bucky or the blond young man, both had top-tier physiques, presence, and looks—undeniably striking.
Especially as they fought, drenched in sweat, their raw masculine intensity on full display.
"They've been fighting for an hour," Reacher replied calmly with what seed like an unrelated remark, prompting Neagley to raise an eyebrow.
"An hour?"
"An hour."
Reacher confird it.
"So... this is just a spar?" Neagley asked uncertainly.
In a real life-and-death fight—especially between two soldiers of similar physical ability—the battle wouldn't last long, particularly in a completely enclosed space.
Fighting for an entire hour ant not only that their stamina had surpassed human limits, but also that neither side was going for the kill.
"Yes."
"Well then… so this is what a super soldier is like? Looks like all our efforts were worth it." Neagley grinned.
A wave of excitent surged in her chest.
"These are Gene's physical test results." Milson handed over a data tablet.
Neagley took it and glanced at it—then her eyes widened instantly.
[Gene Warren]
Height: 6 ft 1 in
Weight: 220 lbs
Body Fat: 8.1%
Punching Power: 6000 lbs
One-Hand Lift: 1200 lbs
Bench Press: 2000 lbs
...
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