The door to the van slid open and Skye startled. Stay cool Skye, she reminded herself.

"Hey, what's up?" Skye said to the red haired amazon and her dweeby but fit friend. Good job Skye. Solid gold. The Amazon looked like she might be a super-soldier from the Defense Team, but the membership rolls of that were classified, like a lot else with SWORD, and she hadn't yet found a way to hack their computers. They were surprisingly old-school for a global organization on the forefront of bioengineering and space travel.

"You sure this is the place?" Amazon Woman said to Dweeb. The inside of Skye's van was a little busy, especially with the sleeping bag rolled up under her desk. But that wasn't any reason to act like it wasn't acceptable.

"I mean, unless it's the cooks in the diner."

"If their hacking is comparable to their food? I don't think so."

"Don't talk about the cooks like that," Skye said. She paused when they gave her disbelieving looks. They gave her leftovers at the end of the night. "They're nice."

Dweeb and Amazon exchanged a long and then Amazon climbed into the back of Skye's van without asking permission and the dweeby guy followed her.

"Hey!" Skye said. "You can't just storm in here, this is-" my home "-my office!"

"Kinda small for an office," the Amazon said.

"Don't criticize Natasha, we're guests." Natasha. The Amazon's name was Natasha. Not a normal name for an American, so maybe not a member of the Defense Team after all. Or maybe a Russian member. But they didn't sound Russian.

"You're not guests, okay, you broke into my van and now you're just throwing your weight around."

"Sorry about that," the dweeb said, rubbing his hands together nervously. "We, uh, didn't want to talk outside. You never know who's listening."

"That's… true," Skye said. "So what brings you to my office?" No point fighting it. The woman could probably bench press her with one arm.

"You're part of the Rising Tide," Natasha said.

And there it was. "You don't have any proof of that."

Natasha raised and eyebrow and fished an audio player from her pocket. It was thin, but not one of the newer wizard ones that were always linked to the cloud. That was smart. Skye did not trust anything produced by the Pride and neither should anybody else. They practically screamed, 'cyberpunk cartel' with that name if nothing else. At least Stark thought about branding.

"Everybody knows, right?" Skye's voice said, "Everybody knows that this guy is conducting human experimentation without proper licensing. They know that he lies to them whenever he does an interview. They know he's got all sorts of government contracts. But they keep having him back on? I mean, I thought he was cool when he was breaking the law and the light speed barrier too, but this man is the definition of a corporate stooge. Everybody knows but nobody does anything!"

Skye scratched the back of her ear nervously. "I got a voice acting contract."

Dweeb shook his head, "I don't think so. You're very good, but it was definitely you uploading here."

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"The diner has free wifi," Skye said, "anybody could've come in and uploaded it."

"Right where you're living?" Dweeb asked.

"I don't live here…"

"Come on, you don't have to lie to us. We're friends."

"Lots of my friends break into my office," Skye said sarcastically.

"We're looking into Trent."

"Well, that's tough luck for you then," Skye said. That guy was paranoid like a mouse post-trap. "Because I don't know anything."

"Look," Dweeb said, "do you know who I am?"

"I have no clue who either of you are."

"This is Natasha Romanov, she's an operative with the Global Defense Team - American Division, and I'm Bruce Banner, you know be better when I'm big and green. And you are an expert hacker and a publicist for the hacktivist group the Rising Tide."

"I thought Bruce Banner was… skinnier." He did look like Banner, she realized now, but he was definitely less skinny than he used to

"I've filled out," he said. "Lots of rice and beans. I think you know something about that," he nodded toward her induction plate.

Skye reached over and did her best to calmly unplug her induction plate and stow it away. "It's a very calorically efficient meal. Cheap and healthy."

"I'm not here to criticize your life. Its yours, I'm glad you're living it how you want."

"He's being a nice guy," Romanov said. "It's sweet, but it's also a little off topic. We're here because we want to recruit you for a team we're organizing."

"A team?"

"Yeah, and it pays. We've swept some money off the books from SHIELD and we're going to use it to start looking into Trent and his allies."

"You mean half the Forbes Top Ten's list and the Times Man of the year for both '09 and '12?" And at this rate, Stark would win again with his recent Iron Man shenanigans.

Bruce nodded, "Yeah. That's who we mean. Are you interested?"

Skye considered herself an Enemy of the Man, a Freedom Fighter, someone Independent of the System. Taking money from SHIELD was almost the ultimate betrayal - At least SWORD was out in the open, SHIELD barely officially existed. A line item in the Congressional budget and an obviously fake code name. She wanted to say no, just on principle.

But there were a couple of reasons to go for it. One, money, which would be nice. Two, she'd be getting closer to SHIELD and the SHIELD database. Three, she'd get to finally look into Trent with something other than her own personal laptop and whatever she scrounge up from his local office besides rumors of doomsday weapons unactivated.

"Alright, say I'm interested, what does that look like?"

"You come work with us," Natasha said, "And we start going down the list of everyone Michael Trent has ever talked to, shaken hands with, or given money to and we start shaking till something comes loose."

"What she means is, there will be a lot of traveling and staying in nice hotels while sticking your nose where it doesn't belong and sticking it to the man. Are you interested?"

"I guess Agent Skye has a nice ring to it."