It had been four days since the Battle of New York.
The news still rolled footage of the sky tearing open above Manhattan, of Iron Man falling through a wormhole, of Thor and Hulk smashing alien invaders in the streets. The public had named them heroes. Headlines called it a miracle. Children wore makeshift Captain America masks and plastic repulsor gauntlets. Murals of the Avengers began appearing on walls from Queens to Harlem.
But behind closed doors, something else was happening.
In a black site facility buried beneath SHIELD's European armory, a small group of analysts and engineers gathered around a steel table. At the center, encased in a containment field, lay the artifact recovered from the ruins—a pulsating alien core that had survived the portal's collapse. Its surface shimmered with strange light, runes constantly shifting like they were rewriting themselves.
"This wasn't part of the Chitauri design," one engineer murmured, his gloved hands hovering over a holoscreen.
A higher-ranking agent narrowed his eyes. "Then what is it?"
The artifact pulsed once. The lights flickered.
"We think it's a relay," the analyst whispered. "A beacon."
The room fell silent.
Somewhere along the Mediterranean coast, Alexander stood atop a rocky cliff overlooking the sea. The wind carried salt and silence. Below, waves crashed against jagged stone. He stood alone, but not in isolation.
A pair of shadows danced behind him—Vasili and Noctis, silent and watchful.
"They're starting to dig deeper," Vasili said. "Your name's been whispered in places that usually don't speak of ghosts."
Alexander didn't respond immediately. His eyes were fixed on a cargo ship in the distance, slowly making its way toward a private harbor. Seagulls circled overhead, their cries cutting through the quiet.
"Any word on the artifact?" he finally asked.
"SHIELD locked it down. But there are... rumors," Vasili replied, adjusting the rifle slung over his shoulder.
"What kind of rumors?"
"Hydra."
The name hung in the air like poison.
Alexander's jaw tightened. "I thought they were gone."
"They never left," Noctis said calmly. "They simply changed faces."
Alexander exhaled through his nose, cold and steady. "Then we start watching them back."
He turned away from the sea.
"Begin compiling names. Old faces. Dead names. Find out who's still moving in the shadows."
"Already done," Vasili said.
Noctis nodded. "We've also intercepted chatter—Berlin, Tunisia, coastal networks activating again."
"Then they're preparing for something."
Alexander's voice was quiet, but his presence was steel.
In Washington, D.C., Nick Fury walked briskly through a secure hallway deep inside the Triskelion. A familiar voice kept pace beside him—Alexander Pierce.
"You know the Council wants a full report," Pierce said. "They're asking questions about what wasn't shown on camera. The shadows. The unidentified combatant."
"I'm compiling the file," Fury said curtly.
Pierce tilted his head. "You believe he's a threat?"
"I believe he's unknown. And that makes him dangerous."
Pierce smiled faintly. "Or useful."
Fury didn't answer. They reached a sealed corridor, and Pierce split off without another word.
In his private office, Fury locked the door and inserted a keycard into a console hidden behind a bookshelf. A secondary screen lit up—encrypted feed from the European black site.
The artifact pulsed again.
And this time, it answered something.
A brief surge in the quantum frequency ripple—a response. Not from Earth.
Fury leaned forward, brow furrowed.
"Who the hell is listening?"
In a rural part of France, a lone SHIELD outpost received a burst transmission—code red clearance. The agent on duty frowned as he reviewed the incoming signal.
"Sir?" he called to his superior. "You need to see this."
They crowded around the monitor as the feed decrypted.
It showed a brief burst of cosmic radiation, a signature unlike anything they'd seen since New York. But it wasn't local.
It came from the edge of Earth's orbit.
Suddenly, the lights in the outpost dimmed.
All screens displayed one symbol.
A skull with tentacles.
Hydra.
"Shut it down!" the lead agent shouted.
"It's locking us out!" the technician yelled back. "Someone is piggybacking our network—internal reroute from inside SHIELD servers!"
The lights flickered again. Then everything went dark.
That night, in a safehouse on the outskirts of Budapest, Alexander sat at a candle-lit table. A map of the world lay before him—pins, strings, and marked photographs already connecting cities and names. He added a new pin, circling a point on the coast of Tunisia.
Behind him, Noctis appeared.
"We have movement," he said. "Encrypted communications out of Berlin. A sleeper cell just activated. Someone calling themselves Strucker is involved."
Alexander paused. That name had history.
"Is it confirmed?"
"No visuals yet. But we intercepted part of a data transfer. Files labeled as Phase Two. And something about experimentation."
Alexander's hand gripped the edge of the table.
"Then we move," he said. "No more waiting."
As he rose, the candlelight flickered.
In a deep underground vault somewhere else in the world, a mechanical eye opened—blinking once, twice. Its lens adjusted, scanning the darkness.
And then, it turned toward Earth.
End of Chapter 85
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