Although I do not have hard proof of this even now, I refuse to believe that anybody looks as good at eighty four as Abraham Erskine did the day I met him in the 1950s without enhancement. "Do you mind if I turn off the light to demonstrate something?"

"By all means," Erskine said indulgently, completely unafraid that I would succeed at persuading him to hand over the formula.

I turned off the lights and pointed my pen at the wall and images began to play of old news reels from my timeline's 1940s. "What I'm about to tell you is a dangerous secret for me to share and I hope you don't spread it," that was true. In an objective sense, actually persuading Erskine had been fairly low on my list of options - Telling him about time travel meant risking the SSR finding a way back to my time once they reached parallel with my own present. But the old man was paranoid and wily and had only become more so with time and opposition. "These are images from my past and what was once your future."

"Was once?"

"My technological prowess is less prowess and more theft. You see, I am from a future where you were murdered by Heinz Kruger in 1943. It took us a full extra year to win the war. Millions died. And only Steve Rodgers ever became an Enhancile." The SSR was very particular about that terminology. They'd spent the years since the dawn of the Korean War branded as servants of dangerous subversive super-soldiers. To be fair, they were servants of dangerous subversive super-soldiers. Senator Brandt's committee investigation into the SSR's engagement with the anti-war movement had uncovered the brute fact that they really had been opposing military action and subverting orders with regards to Korea.

Erskine hmm'd, watching the screen. "And you saved my life I suppose?"

I rolled the pen a little and began playing my interaction with Kruger before his death, thoughtfully edited to leave out my or Victor's face in the final footage. "The issue is primarily targeting. I shall endeavor to destroy Herr Erskine, the runt of a man, and hopefully some others, such as Herr Stark," the pen announced in low-audio quality.

"Well, I will not say I am not grateful. I am very grateful. Who would say no to another decade? But do not think I will give you my formula out of pure gratitude. Perhaps every huckster in the future has a time machine."

"Well, actually, the time machine is breaking down. I only have two more trips total and I'm the only one with a machine. But I'm not asking you to do it for me," I replied and rolled the pen again. The next scenes were concocted with the Thoth engine - A replication of the invasion of New York, but across dozens and dozens of cities throughout Earth.

Erskine looked increasingly grave as he saw Thanos' stormtroopers (as best I could remember them) clearing streets and dividing people in half and murdering them. "This is my earth, right now. Brutal subjugation of cities, one after another. Military alien overlords - Stronger than us, faster than us, and more technologically advanced than us. And we need help."

Erskine frowned.

"Look, I want to give you this tech upgrade stuff. But if I have to negotiate with Brandt instead for samples of Rebel Knight and his ilk, I absolutely will." Siding with the SSR wasn't exactly as easy a choice as it might seem - For all its faults, the United States government was legitimately elected (except for the Jim Crow South) and the SSR really was a cabal of super-soldiers. But I'd decided that siding with the SSR was the better choice - Why send justice to a vote?

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Erskine thought for a long, long time.

—

"I got the formula," I said, unclicking my helmet as we landed on the platform. And I'd only had to make a half dozen very false promises about how I would use it 'only to liberate earth' to get it.

"How long did it take?" Victor asked, looking at my unshaven face.

"Subjectively? About a month, including the post-war check in. Objectively? A little less than a decade."

"Good lord," he said. "Well, at least you got time to think about your engagement."

"It didn't help, but thanks." I said, showing him the sheet of paper that Erskine had written his formula on.

Victor smiled and shook his head. "Do we have a planned subject for this stuff?"

"I want Dale and Stacey to look at it more closely, see if I missed something about it."

"Then who will you give it to?"

"It depends," I said, stripping out of the damn Leapfrog and swearing it off for a few months at least. "Erskine proved it had a fairly broad range of potential subjects and I'm not sure, in full honesty, that he didn't take it himself. Or maybe a prototype version. He was seventy four in 43. But he was very selective about personalities and even so they managed to turn the SSR."

"Like Captain America did in your timeline," Victor said.

"One thing the Serum does not seem to do is imbue you with a sense of humility and a respect for the democratic process."

"Well, why would it? It's all a crock anyway."

My kingdom for just one person in this damn universe who believes in good government even in principle and likes me, "You know I'm running for Senate next year right?"

"Sure," he said. "It makes sense for you to run. You need the political power to be able to do the things that need doing. And that's just my point. Why should people like you and I have to scrimp and bow for people who don't understand the most basic principles of science or logic? My god, some of these 'elected officials' don't even believe in climate change. They can't see what's right in front of their face."

I wanted to argue, but I didn't have it sincerely in me. Brandt had been, well, I wouldn't characterize him as particularly bad for his era - He'd been a replacement level Senator in the forties. A bit bigoted, a bit of an imperialist, a glory hound, and an unreconstructed believer in American power and the cause of capitalism. He'd tried to have me taken into custody, yes, but I would have done the same - I was an invaluable resource. As far as I could tell, the modern array of senators were even emptier and more venal. Brandt had been shaped by the war, but this current crop were a bunch of late-imperials that could no more imagine sacrifice for any cause beyond their own personal advancement than they could the end of American hegemony.