Daisy mulled it over. Contacting Nick Fury might smooth things out, but she'd rather eat kale than owe that one-eyed pirate a favor. So, she decided to dig her own path.
She cranked the gears in her brain, and an idea pinged into place. "Alright," she declared, "let's hit the big and medium-sized companies with some flashy marketing to boost our street cred."
"We'll design some slick brochures to showcase our data magic, but here's the twist: we coat the pages in fluorescent material. That way, they glow in the dark. Imagine an overworked exec shuffling home late at night, sees our glowing pamphlet sitting there like a sci-fi relic—curiosity alone would make him peek. Even if he's not buying now, we're living rent-free in his brain!"
Her little crew considered it. Crazy? Maybe. Clever? Definitely.
James Wesley, momentarily impressed, raised an eyebrow. "You came up with that? You've got a knack for psychological warfare."
Daisy took the praise with the grace of a queen. No way was she revealing this was inspired by a men's magazine gimmick from July 2011.
"Listen, we're building an empire of information. Every person, every choice—mapped and analyzed. This is the future. One day, we might even swing presidential elections."
The others politely pretended not to notice her megalomania and split up to get started.
David buried himself in optimizing code and shaving microseconds off the algorithm.
Wesley took on the external business setup—his mobster-turned-Madison-Avenue look was surprisingly effective.
Ms. Matsumoto reached out to print shops and chemical suppliers to get those glowing brochures approved. Legal red tape? No problem for someone who used to spar in Japanese courtrooms.
Daisy, in the meantime, made a personal visit to a local church school that had once supported her. She thanked them with a $10,000 donation—totally legal, totally heartfelt—and got the school to pull some strings for a quick product inspection. Nothing shady, just a little "expedited appreciation."
A week later, the glowing brochures landed in mailboxes across corporate America. Of the original $50,000 "private" donation from Fury, just over $10,000 had been used so far.
Three days later, their first client knocked.
A mid-sized fast food chain had recently rolled out a new menu combo and was knee-deep in old-school customer feedback surveys—clipboards, QR codes, the works.
Sky Data Analysis, on the other hand, hoovered up tweets, forum rants, and one-star reviews. Their algorithm sorted, calculated, and spat out a sharp report—complete with the top five gripes.
James, sharp-suited and silver-tongued, handed over the results. The exec nearly fell out of his ergonomic chair.
The rival agency hadn't even begun crunching numbers. Meanwhile, Sky Data's report matched the company's internal trends almost perfectly.
They made a few adjustments that very day, and sales bumped up by 3%. The exec canceled the contract with the other agency and happily handed over a cool $75,000.
The best part? Sky Data's expenses amounted to little more than electricity.
Two more contracts landed that week—worth $50,000 and $65,000. The gears were turning, the data flowing, and word of mouth was spreading among mid-tier businesses.
Naturally, the competition noticed. They didn't dispatch spies (too cheap for that), but they did start snooping. Daisy knew she'd need to up her game. Time to hit S.H.I.E.L.D. Academy.
Fury, ever the cryptic taskmaster, hadn't given her an address—just told her to "find it."
Spoiler alert: not hard.
The headquarters was on Theodore Roosevelt Island, smack in the middle of the Potomac. Densely wooded, with winding trails and a few towering buildings poking through the canopy, it wasn't exactly subtle. Officially, it was still the hilariously long-winded "National Land Strategic Defense Attack and Logistics Support Bureau."
Fury insisted on calling it S.H.I.E.L.D. A normal person could decipher that name from the acronym. Daisy, however, didn't need clues—she already knew.
That weekend, she threw on a plaid shirt, jeans, sneakers, sunglasses, and a backpack—standard issue undercover casual—and drove to D.C.
She gave a polite nod to the Washington Monument, the Capitol, and the White House, then promptly stopped caring. Those places had been blown up in so many movies they barely registered anymore.
Driving northeast past the Lincoln Memorial, she reached a checkpoint.
She flashed her S.H.I.E.L.D. magnetic card. After verifying her identity, the guard waved her through. Well, she could go in—the old Ford? Not so much.
No drama. She parked it in the lot, surrounded by sleek cars worth more than her apartment, and called Ms. Matsumoto to schedule a car sale. Fury promised a new ride anyway.
Backpack on, she crossed the bridge alone. Scanners, radars, and cameras all gave her a side-eye before shutting off, satisfied she wasn't a threat.
No cheerful senior to greet her. No helpful upperclassman to haul her bag. Just Daisy and the quiet of the island.
She wandered through the forested trails, twisting and turning for nearly an hour before the woods parted like a scene from a fantasy novel.
There it stood—a sprawling S-curved fortress rising three hundred meters high. From the middle, a team of lithe women descended in a perfectly choreographed leap. Daisy blinked.
"Yeah," she muttered to herself, "I'll stick to shockwaves."