One of the things about my transition to this universe that reassured me it was real was that so many things were so ridiculous, so unbelievably stupid, that they could not possibly be the product of a human mind imagining them. Fiction, as they say, has to be believable. For example, my brain could simply not compute for several minutes when Andromeda informed me that Hydra maintained a boarding school in Appalachia called, and this is not an exaggeration, the Hydra Preparatory Academy.

So, as I walked down the emblazoned hall and asked myself how much political capital had been wasted on faking their records so that it looked like they went to a normal boarding school when they could have just gone to a normal boarding school. All really, fundamentally, so that they could put the damn sigil on the wall. Maybe so they had fewer non-legacy students, but really that paperwork would've been simpler to fake than this paperwork had to be.

I walked into the classroom tossing a metal orb up and down.

"Hail Hydra!" I said, extending my arms outward into the double-fisted salute.

The classroom yelled back at an admirable volume, "Hail Hydra!"

"Welcome to my guest class," I said politely, looking over the class with dissatisfaction. Dressed in orderly prep school garb. Perfectly presentable little minions with their suit coats with red badges on their chest. "I am given to understand you are approaching your graduation. I'm here to aim you toward SWORD placement."

They looked at me like I was stupid for saying this, because they of course already knew.

"Ah, so I'm beset by geniuses. Tell me, what is the most important part of lying?"

Hands shot up, these were ambitious, driven kids, and I called on them one by one.

"You have to stay calm." - "It shouldn't be verifiable within the frame of the lie." - "You need to be consistent and unhesitant." - "Specific details are important." - "Suppressing facial tics." -

"Wow, it's like reading the textbook," I said, in a mock voice. "We have a bright future for the textbook writers in this classroom." The class seethed at that. They thought they were the future and I was insulting them. Hands shot back into the air. "There's no second chance at the right answer." I pointed at one of the young men in the middle row, "What's your name?"

"Alexander Mason," he said. He was a willowy pretty boy who clearly took a proper liking to his clothes. Even in uniform you could tell the difference between those who took pride in it and those who didn't.

"Mr. Mason, I have an important test for you. I want you to use your full faculties as a future member of Hydra's elite in this test, are you ready?" He nodded his head and I held up the ball, "Can you catch this?"

"Of course I can," he said, his voice dripping with acid.

"Good," I said and tossed it to him in the most lazily inaccurate way that gave him a viable chance of catching it. He nearly leaped out of his chair to get it, but he grabbed it. "Now examine it closely, please."

He leaned in and about three seconds later the timed response to my command the orb sprayed his whole suit with red paint. He cursed and dropped the ball. I walked up to the ball and picked up the ball. A few kids laughed cruelly, but most looked just as mad at their classmate's punishment. Devil with devil damned holding firm accord. "Can anybody else catch this? It's perfectly safe."

All the hands stayed down. I got a few glares that showed I might be accruing enemies.

"Remarkable, an entire class of Hydra's best and brightest who cannot catch a ball. Mr. Mason did something entirely natural to human beings and not particularly shameful. I, an authority figure widely trusted in his circles, asked something of him and he assumed, not unnaturally, that request would not bring him to harm or danger. He acted on that assumption and now he is covered in paint, but in an ordinary class with an ordinary teacher he might have received some acclaim. Yet now when I ask you if you want to catch the ball, you all balk. Is that because you are smarter than Mr. Mason? Are my facial tics different? Do I seem less calm? Have I been less specific? No. Even though you have my word, it is safe, you still won't catch the ball. That is because you are not braindead. This is the answer to the first question. The most important part of lying is trust. All the armaments in the liar's arsenal cannot protect one from distrust or a bad feeling. But it is true in reverse. No failure of technique will render a trustworthy person suspicious."

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The class was less angry now. They saw the use that Mason's suffering played and so they were putting aside their anger. That was good, you couldn't get far without being willing to cope with suffering.

"Today, SWORD's mission is the secular creed of the whole world. The world looks to us, trusts us, and listens to us when we say there is a threat. There are already laudatory documentaries airing about the Defense Team, not financed by Hydra." We were financing a few too, obviously, we're not stupid. "Because the Defense Team represents a force for the common defense of humanity, humanity puts its trust in it. Governments give us access to super-soldier serums and let us distribute it to whoever pleases us. I am allowed to research whatever interests me. All because the mission of SWORD and its evident commitment. That is why you should apply to SWORD and seek placement with us."

The classroom was nodding along.

"Sir," one of the students said, "What is your vision for Hydra?"

"Will you allow me to be a bit grandiose? I'm kidding, I don't need your permission. Think back to our memories and myths, the ones older than books, that tell of the founding of cities. Cain. Romulus. Both fratricides, both the founders of cities. The pleasant story we civilized people tell ourselves about civilization is that we brought order out of chaos. The truth is more complex. As the last ice age ended, humanity's food supply dwindled and there was mass starvation. But in places where the cereal grains could grow, people instead settled to cultivate their food full-time. Then people began to raid, extract, and steal that food. These thieves and bandits made the first cities off the surplus of the crops, wretched dens of violence and disease. That was the birth of the social organism we call the state."

The student looked uncomfortable.

"I am getting to my vision for Hydra. This is not a history class, I will not tell you the story of how those cities grew into empires and how those empires conquered the world. Suffice it to say, today, outside a few islands, desert tribes, and the deepest corners of the Amazon, those new social organisms now hold dominion over the whole world. But growing through strife and conquest is in that social organism's DNA, since the blood watered their first harvest ground to today. Hydra is the new social organism that will rise over those old forms and transform its nature. It was born within that order, but it holds chapters throughout the world. It will abandon the senseless superstition of its host organisms and embrace the true and natural interests of mankind - The sustaining of the planet, the mutual benefit of human society, and the rightful guidance of truth and reason. In the service of that new organism, I will wear Romulus' moniker and shed what blood I must. I am asking that those who join me at SWORD be similarly clear eyed - We will unite humanity against its natural enemies of ignorance, waste, and war and we will do what we must to do so."

It was a bit flowery for a speech about global conquest, but it got my point across.