Notes and Disclaimers
This story takes place before the events shown in Excalibur #24 and replaces all following continuity. Excalibur remains trapped in its Cross Time Caper for the forseeable future. Kitty Pryde, Nick Fury, S.H.I.E.L.D., and most of the other characters appearing in this fan-fiction belong to Marvel Comics and are used without permission. This is my first attempt at fan-fiction. Comments welcomed.
The room was pitch black, shrouded in darkness so thick and enveloping that, if they even knew to try, neither the cosmic sight of the celestial Watcher or the mystic 'all-seeing' eyes of Agamotto could have penetrated it.
Suddenly a small candle lit, seemingly by itself, casting a sickly yellow glow that did little to illuminate the room and gave only the barest indications of the table it sat upon and the forms standing around it.
"Well?" asked a calm, deep and cruel voice from out of the darkness.
"I must report that our plan to force SHIELD to abandon location Node 16... has failed," said another voice from the darkness, as cruel as the first, but far less calm.
"What!?" exclaimed a third voice.
"Impossible, you can't be correct!" shouted yet another.
"That's ridiculous!"
"SILENCE!!" shouted the first voice, hand slamming down upon the table, nearly knocking over the candle, and quieting the babble of voices from the other barely seen speakers.
"Better... Now, are you sure of this? Given all the effort we put into that particular scheme, I find it difficult to believe even the fools of Hydra could have failed to complete it."
"Unfortunately," replied the second voice, "I'm positive."
"The Hydra forces we manipulated for this project departed on schedule and secured the site."
"Then how could they have failed?" asked an impatient voice.
"I don't know! Due to our need to maintain absolute secrecy, my means of information gathering are severely limited at present. But what I can tell you is that SHIELD is still in possession of their 'listening post' and that the site is not radioactively contaminated."
"Then that means SHIELD is in possession of the device we gave those Hydra fools to destroy the reactor. My god, do you realize what that means?"
"They don't have it." replied the second voice. "I detected the signal it gave off just as it detonated."
"This is crazy. If it detonated it would have caused the reactor's nuclear material to react and begin to spew radiation levels beyond the ability of the reactor's shielding to contain. The whole area should be 'hotter' than Chernobyl."
"That's the part I don't understand. While it's remotely possible that SHIELD agents might have been able to seize control of the site, there should have been no way for them to stop the irradiation of the area."
"Damn right. I had a hand in building that 'bomb' and I put in more than enough failsafes. Even if they overcame enough of them to move it a short distance, once it was set they couldn't have gotten it more than one level away from the reactor and that wouldn't be far enough. The energy discharge was designed to easily penetrate the materials of the walls and floors SHIELD built there, and still cause the nuclear reactor material to fission."
"Damn it, it's ridiculous. They would have had to bury it in over twenty feet of solid rock, and I'm not sure that would even have worked. There's simply no way they could have done it!" exclaimed the exasperated voice.
"Yet they did do it," said the first voice, calm and unruffled. "And so we must deal with it. The first question is.. can they trace us through 'our' Hydra lackeys?"
"No, absolutely not," was the reply from another voice. "Everything went through standard Hydra communication methods. As far as those Hydra agents knew, they were receiving orders from Hydra supreme command. And we also picked one of the dimmer Hydra 'cells' out there. The men we used to deliver our bomb to the Hydra group were perfectly disguised.
"We've since had those men terminated even tho they had no idea who hired them to imitate Hydra 'delievery' agents. Better safe than sorry. We have left nothing that can be traced by either SHIELD or Hydra to us."
"Very well, I think -- for the moment anyway -- we can assume we are covered as far as Hydra goes," said the first voice. "As for the rest..."
"The rest is that SHIELD, which up to a few months ago didn't exist anymore, somehow undid our scheme... which should have been utterly impossible for them to do... unless..."
"Unless?" was the calm reply.
"Unless they knew what was going to happen. As we've already stated, it's simply impossible for them to have contained our bomb unless they had the means at hand to do it. And they shouldn't have!"
"I think you're overreacting."
"Indeed."
"Damn it," replied the voice angrily. "Fury was in London just over a week ago. And we know Fury was in England when our first plan went awry. That's a coincidence I refuse to ignore."
There was a moment of quiet, then the murmer of worry among the unseen speakers.
"You have raised a valid point, but, let me point out, we still have no solid proof Fury destroyed our first plan. We don't even know what went wrong."
"And that is why," continued the first voice calmly, "we have chosen to try again, on a 'smaller' scale."
"But if Fury...?!"
"If Fury knew we were about, he wouldn't be stopping our little schemes, he would be blasting through our front doors, backed up with every super hero he could get his hands on.
"No, events at N16 are unfortunate, but I refuse to believe they indicate Fury is aware of our plans."
"Perhaps you are right, but, if you're wrong, all of our efforts will be in vain and wasted, for no gain."
"He has a point."
"Indeed."
"Perhaps we should abandon this plan."
The babble of voices continued, growing louder, until the first speaker slammed his hand down again upon the table.
"Enough!"
Silence returned.
"One single mishap, one single problem," he continued, anger slipping through his calm, "and you all want to give up all the work we've done these past months!"
"But Fury..."
"Fury, Fury, Fury. You speak his name as if he was a god. He's not. He's just a man, a very mortal man. If needs be he can be eliminated. Easily.
"And before we entertain anymore thoughts about abandoning our plans, need I point out what our fates will be should we fail to secure what we must?"
The quiet was deafining and the fear in the room louder still.
"Much better. Nothing like the cold slap of reality to calm ruffled nerves. I think everyone here realizes that this plan is our last chance to avoid certain... unpleasantnesses."
"But, Fury..."
"If, and I stress, if Fury knows anything, it's most likely only the merest wisps of information or third hand rumor. Our security and secrecy have been so tight he couldn't possibly know anything more.
"And, if he is suspicious, any overt actions by us against him or his people at this time, would only serve as confirmation of his suspicions.
"No, we will continue as we have, but with even greater security. You," continued the calm voice, a barely seen hand pointing into the darkness, "you will continue to investigate what happened at N16. We will still be able to access the site even with a SHIELD installation sitting on top of it, it will just take that much more time and effort to do it without detection , but I don't want to begin until we are certain as to what happened.
"If it was just an unforunate happenstance, so much the better. But if the evidence indicates otherwise, then we will have to take steps to prevent any more interference, whatever the source, by whatever means."
He paused for a moment.
"Yes, the return of SHIELD did catch us by surprise, but, in truth, they are a minor annoyance. And need I remind anyone here that we have already expended a great deal of energy to 'remove' one of the major threats to our operations here?"
There were mumurs of agreement from the others.
"Things will be slightly delayed while we sort out this new problem, but the plan will continue. And it will succeed. After all..."
The candle went out, returning the room to total darkness.
"Who is there to stop us?"
End Book One, Kitty Pryde: Agent of SHIELD
Coming soon Book Two: Darkening Skies
Continuing Kitty's adventures in SHIELD
Thanks to everyone who's read and e-mailed me and special thanks to Luba
Kmetyk for archiving, advice, support and beta-reading (extra special
thanks for beta reading