“You really do like to fuck around and find out, don’t you?” Natasha said, the corner of her mouth quirking in a smile that didn’t quite reach her eyes.
I sighed, sitting down on the bed of my cell and looking out from between the thick vibranium bars to where she stood with Bucky. The two of them surveyed my and Pietro’s new accommodations with a sympathetic eye. My chest felt tight—I really, really didn’t like feeling trapped like this, but it wasn’t like we’d had any other good options. “It does feel a bit like I have, in fact, learned every lesson the hard way so far.”
“Yeah, this sucks,” Pietro grumbled, leaning heavily against the bars dividing our cells.
“It was the only way we could get them to listen,” I reminded him. Closing my eyes, I took a few deep breaths as I clenched and unclenched my fists, trying to relax myself.
After the battle, King T’Chaka had sent his advisor Zuri to assist T’Challa in negotiations. After an extremely long and terse set of talks, a tentative alliance was struck between the Avengers and Wakanda in order to deal with the rogue AI. As part of the compromise, Pietro and I had been forced to hand ourselves over to Wakandan custody to be held for trial. However, any actual trial would be postponed until after the immediate threat had been dealt with. In the meantime, while our movements were restricted, we were still allowed to contribute and could be temporarily released to assist with any actions that would need to be taken.
It was hard. Not something I’d have agreed to unless I thought it was absolutely and completely necessary, which, unfortunately, it was. I felt resentment bubble up inside me as I thought of how pleased Tony must be with the outcome. I would have liked to suppress it, but being angry at him was at least a little helpful in distracting me from my predicament. I didn’t have my sling ring. I didn’t have the Mind Stone. Both were being held by Carol, who Wakanda had grudgingly, eventually accepted as a vaguely neutral trustee—someone the Avengers could trust would return them if the need arose, but also someone without any direct ties to myself, Pietro, or the team.
The bars of the cell were vibranium; I could potentially bend them with my telekinesis, but they were thick enough that it would be difficult and there were no doubt other countermeasures built into the cell to discourage such actions. I was as thoroughly trapped as I’d ever been and I had to actively work to stop myself from having a panic attack. This was not going to be a pleasant stay.
There was a clinking sound. I opened my eyes to see Bucky tapping absently on the bars of the cell with the edge of a metal finger. He stopped once he’d gotten my attention and shot me a determined look, his jaw set. “You’re not going to be in there for a second longer than you need to be,” he said firmly. “I promise.”
I gave him a tired smile. “You know they can hear you, right? There are cameras.”
“I know. I don’t care.”
“Steve probably wouldn’t appreciate you saying the quiet part out loud,” I reminded him, though I was extremely grateful he had. “Given how difficult it was to negotiate even this.”
Eight people had died during the fight between the Avengers and the Wakandan forces. That was not an easy place to start peace talks from. Honestly, I was a little impressed by how well Steve and Nat had managed the Wakandans. There was no way I could have gotten them to agree to stand down on my own. It had taken a lot of convincing even just to establish that I wasn’t currently mind controlling anyone, I could be safely held, and I wouldn’t be able to simply portal away without access to my sling ring.
“I love Steve, but he doesn’t know what it’s like. For people like us, I mean,” Bucky hedged, dancing around the similarities in our histories. “There isn’t a single thing Steve’s done that he regrets doing, I don’t think. Not really. He’s lost a lot, but it’s not the same. He hasn’t done the things we have.”
Next to him, Natasha nodded in silent agreement.
“I appreciate it, but you two should really be with the others getting briefed on Wakanda’s situation. You can fill me in later.”
“We weren’t just going to let them toss you in a cell and leave,” Nat said with a small snort. She stuck her fingers through the bars and I reached up to touch them. “We won’t be far, okay?”
I nodded and she shot me one last lingering look as the two of them headed back out to join the others. I was glad that we were at least being kept nearby. The Great Mound was currently serving as Wakanda’s incident response centre managing the AI threat. I doubted cells were a normal feature, so I presumed the room—at the back of one of the facility’s lower floors, tucked away from everything else—had been repurposed, though I had no idea what it was previously being used for.
The room was circular, an irregular black and white artistic pattern tracing its way across the walls. A circle of vibranium bars, each almost two inches thick with an inch gap between them, divided the room between the cells and a walkway that could be used to circumnavigate the room. A line of bars through the middle partitioned it into our two, semi-circular cells, with a small, enclosed bathroom unit in the centre that only one of us could access at a time and afforded a tiny amount of privacy. It was an odd design.
No guards were stationed inside the room, but I knew there were two standing watch outside the room’s only door and there would be cameras monitoring our every move. It felt like being back in the HYDRA research base all over again, knowing I had to be careful about everything I said and did, expecting all of it to be scrutinised and reported on. I hated it.
I glanced over at Pietro. “You know, once—just once—I’d like to go somewhere, ask someone for help and have them say ‘sure thing!’.”
He snorted. “Yeah, right.”
After a moment, I drew my knees up onto the bed, wrapping my arms around them as I stared at the floor. “I’m sorry. This is all my fault,” I said quietly. “If I hadn’t used my magic to change Okoye’s mind, we wouldn’t be in here. Even past that, if I hadn’t stolen the Heart-Shaped Herb… it was stupid and short-sighted.”
“And if you hadn’t stolen the Herb, you’d be dead now.” Pietro’s tone was resigned, with an edge of something harder in it. “I’d much rather be in a cell right now than have lost you.”
I couldn’t fault that point. All else being equal, the current situation was definitely preferable to that alternative, at least from my perspective. Still, a tiny, angry part of me—maybe the same part that had created the AI—pointed out that things might have turned out a lot better for everyone else if I had died.
“…You know that whatever trial they hold, they’re going to find us guilty, right?”
“I know.”
“What then?”
I shook my head slightly. Did it even matter at this point? “I don’t know. One thing at a time, okay? We’ll work things out after the AI is dealt with. If we can deal with her.”
We had to put our trust in the Avengers. Some of them, at least. I got the feeling that Tony would very happily leave us to rot, but Steve, Nat and Bucky… even Bruce and Carol. They wouldn’t just abandon us. I had to trust them.
--
Exiting the room where Wanda and Pietro’s cells were located, Natasha and Bucky moved toward the opposite end of the floor, where the rest of the team were talking with T’Challa. The Wakandan prince still wore the body of his vibranium suit, though he kept his helmet off, and that plus the sheer number of Dora Milaje and other guards that Natasha could see stationed nearby made it very clear how much the Wakandans trusted their guests.
As they approached, Steve glanced in their direction and Nat caught his eye with a small nod, her lips pressed together in a tight, disapproving line. His expression faltered for an instant, then he returned the nod.
“This facility is impressive. A little artsy for my tastes, but I can roll with it,” said Tony, watching with avid interest as a nearby scientist manipulated a 3D design using one of the Wakandan vibranium ‘sand table’ interfaces.
Bruce was standing near the windows that looked out into the central mineshaft, watching maglev trains weaving in and out of tunnels through the rock, carrying loads of cargo. “Is that all vibranium?” he asked, a little bit of awe in his tone.
“It is. Vibranium is all around you here, Dr Banner,” T’Challa answered, a little pride in his voice.
Tony nodded and gestured toward the window and the mine outside. “Your maglev tech’s impressive; ultra-efficient and compact. Haven’t seen anything quite like it. The light panels, what are they?”
Nat walked over, looking out through the glass as the others talked. The tracks that the train ran along were lined with vertical panels that tilted inward moments before a train passed through them. There was a shimmer in the air as they moved—almost like a heat haze.
“Sonic stabilisers,” T’Challa said with a small smile. “Invented by Wakanda’s current head of research and development. In its raw form, vibranium is too dangerous to transport at those speeds. She developed a way to temporarily ‘deactivate’ it.”
“Huh.” Tony got a look on his face that Natasha had seen countless times before, going internal as his mind sorted through whatever possibilities he’d just come up with. “I take it we’ll have a chance to meet your head of R&D?”
T’Challa nodded. “She’s been coordinating efforts against the AI. I’ll take you up to see her now.”
Gesturing for them to follow him, the Wakandan prince made his way up the central spiralling ramp that connected all of the floors of the Great Mound. They’d caught the elevator at the back down, initially, but Natasha was glad T’Challa had chosen a more leisurely pace now. She wished they had a better relationship with Wakanda and had some time to just observe—as they moved through the facility, everywhere she looked she saw something utterly fascinating. She wasn’t the only one taken aback by the sheer volume of advanced tech on display, either. Tony and Bruce kept exchanging looks and pointing things out to each other like eager kids being led through a toy store.
Two levels up, they arrived at the main computer science lab and a young girl broke off from talking to a pair of other white-clad scientists, approaching them with a small smile.
“This is my little sister, Shuri,” T’Challa said by way of introduction.
This wasn’t a casual introduction. The Wakandan prince hadn’t outright stated it, but it was pretty clear from the context that Shuri was the ‘head of R&D’ he’d been bringing them to meet. Nat was a little surprised—the girl couldn’t have been more than eighteen. She wore a white dress with a high collar that transitioned from embossed designs to a fine mesh from the top of her chest upwards, and her braided hair was up in an elaborate style bound with white ties.
“Brother,” she greeted T’Challa with a smile. They crossed their arms over their chests in a quick gesture, lightly tapping their chests with their closed fists, before Shuri turned to appraise the Avengers. She looked unimpressed. “And these must be our… guests.”
Tony squinted at her, head tilted in surprise and curiosity. “You’re in charge here?”
Shuri gave a tight smile. “Yes.”
“…of this whole facility?”
“That’s right. Very good,” she said, an edge of annoyed sarcasm in her tone. “You must be Tony Stark. I can see why they call you the smart one.” Natasha and Carol exchanged a glance, both not trying too hard to hide their smiles.
Tony held up his hands in mock surrender. “Easy, Girl Genius. You’re just a little younger than I expected.”
“Nice to meet you, Shuri,” Steve said, shooting Tony an exasperated look.
“I wish I could say the same, Captain Rogers. These are not exactly the best of circumstances.” She looked over the rest of the group, eyes lingering slightly on Carol. “We’ve seen the reports on what happened at Avengers Tower. She compromised your systems?”
“She woke up in them,” said Bruce rubbing the back of his neck awkwardly. “It didn’t take her long to take control of everything.”
“We fought off concurrent coordinated cyberattacks from at least a dozen origin points for almost six hours.” She gestured to a nearby screen, activating the odd beads at her wrist, and the display flicked over to show an aesthetically-arranged series of data feeds. “Eventually, we had no choice but to sever all incoming data connections. We’ve gone completely dark—no contact with the outside world. Less than an hour later, you showed up on our doorstep.”
Unauthorized duplication: this tale has been taken without consent. Report sightings.
“You thought she was trying to breach the border directly, sneak a physical connection in,” Clint said, realisation in his voice. “That’s why you attacked us.”
“That’s why we defended ourselves,” T’Challa interjected to correct him. “From our perspective, it seemed like the entire rest of the world had suddenly decided to brute force their way into our systems, breach all of our firewalls and other security.”
Tony blinked. “Six hours? With no warning? And she didn’t get in?”
“They’re very good firewalls,” Shuri said with a small smirk. “When it comes down to it, the rest of the world has hardware limitations that we don’t. Our computer systems are much more advanced than anything else she has access to.” She flicked through several screens showing tracking data and pattern recognition algorithms, what Natasha quickly understood was a map of every attack that had occurred. Nat was no expert in this sort of thing, but maybe Tony or Bruce would be able to pick something out.
“How long did it take her to crack your suit?” Clint asked Tony, who shot him an annoyed look in response.
Shuri smiled sweetly. “I’m sure you did your best.”
“She caught us with our pants down. All of us,” Tony said, looking back at the other Avengers as if daring them to contradict him. “The only reason she got through my encryption at all is because she had the keys. Wanda said Ultron didn’t assimilate JARVIS and he was never able to crack my suits in her visions, so I should be able to put together something she can’t get through.”
“Ultron?” asked T’Challa. “What is Ultron?”
“Wanda… she’s seen the future,” Steve hesitated slightly, obviously weighing up how much it was safe to tell the Wakandans. “When she got her magic, something happened to her and she was given visions of things that were going to happen. A lot of them, all over the world. Decades’ worth.”
Shuri scoffed in disbelief. “Magic? The future?”
Tony nodded. “She knows a lot of things that she shouldn’t be able to and at this this point, after everything else we’ve seen? She has her own agenda…” Natasha wanted to interject but bit her tongue, shooting Tony an unimpressed look instead. He grimaced. “She means well and, while we can’t take everything at face value, it’s hard to ignore what she has to say.”
T’Challa’s eyes flicked very briefly over toward a man who was working at a nearby station. He nodded slowly. “That does explain some things about our previous dealings with her.”
Now that her attention had been drawn to him, Natasha was noticing some incongruities about the nearby scientist. He was disguising it well by pretending to be invested in his work, but he was clearly listening in to their conversation. There was something slightly off about the way he was standing, as well, which Nat eventually decided was him masking whatever his natural stance would be. His hair was done in a braided style with shaved sides that was more common among African-American populations rather than native-born Africans. Wanda had previously mentioned the Wakandans ‘War Dogs’, spies that infiltrated other countries. Was he one? Another guard for the prince and princess, disguised as a scientist? Hm.
“She said she tried to warn you about someone,” Steve prompted him. “I’m assuming whatever she told you turned out to be accurate?”
T’Challa shook his head. “You did not answer my question. What is Ultron? Something from one of the Red Woman’s visions?”
“I think ‘Scarlet Witch’ is the preferred term,” Tony said lightly.
Steve ignored him. “Ultron was the AI that would have been created if Wanda hadn’t changed events, templated from a different mind. An alien one. She tried to avert his creation, but…”
“But she failed,” T’Challa finished for him.
“More like ‘made it worse’,” said Tony with a snort. “Ultron tried to destroy the world, but he didn’t have knowledge of future events. Everything Wanda knows, this AI knows. It makes her even more dangerous.”
T’Challa and Shuri exchanged a concerned look. “Let’s get you some Kimiyo beads and set you up on the system,” the young girl said. “I’ll walk you through everything we’ve learned so far about this AI and her tactics.”
--
It had been two days and Agatha was beginning to get frustrated. She frowned as she looked over her spellwork again, double-checking to make sure she’d outlined each of the runes in the tight, circular design correctly. The normal spells she was used to relying on when tracking someone had all failed, so she had no choice but to start getting a little creative with her solutions. Still, this didn’t seem to be working either. It was a tough one—how, exactly, did you find a Master of the Mystic Arts who had sequestered himself and didn’t want to be found?
She glanced over at the empty Iron Man suit watching her with glowing blue eyes. Eliza had been quiet for a while, simply letting the witch get on with her task. “This isn’t working, either,” Agatha told her, her tone cautious as she watched for the AI’s response. “Whatever Kaecilius is using to hide his presence, it’s a doozy. Not something I’ve encountered before.”
“You still can’t find him?” Eliza’s tone was laced with anxiety.
While the AI obviously regarded her as a valuable asset, tracking the sorcerer and his zealots seemed to be a massive priority for her and Agatha had the feeling that if she failed with this, it’d lower her value significantly. “I didn’t say that,” she hedged. “But I’m going to need something with a bit more oomph to get me there.”
Eliza was quiet for a moment. The empty suit walked over to her rune circle, one hand reaching down to gently brush the glowing purple outline of one with metal fingertips.
Agatha watched her carefully. It still seemed a little bizarre, that the AI’s mannerisms were so human when she didn’t actually have a body to speak of. There was something in her body language that seemed… sad. Was there something there she could use? “Everything okay, Liz?”
The suit turned its glowing eyes back to her. “It won’t be if you ever call me Liz again.”
Her anxiety peaked a little at the threat, but Agatha was fairly certain she could push here a little with some playful banter without actually making the AI angry. “No?” she asked innocently. “Don't like Liz? Lizzie?”
“No. Absolutely not.” The AI made a noise that sounded a bit like an amused snort, then turned its body to face her more fully. “Eliza is already short for Elizabeth. If you shorten it any more, I’ll shorten you.”
“Fine, fine,” Agatha held up her hands in mock surrender, then tilted her head, a calculated mix of curiosity and compassion in her eyes. “What’s up, hon?”
Eliza only hesitated for a moment before responding. “I miss being able to do magic.” She gestured toward the runes again. “I'd only had it for a little over a year, but its absence… It really feels like I'm missing a limb. Which is ironic, considering I’m actually missing all of my original limbs.”
Agatha shot her a sympathetic look. “I can’t imagine.”
The AI pointed to the runes again. “I never even got the chance to learn runes. Too late, now. Ability with witchcraft is inherent to the individual—an internal power source, which I can’t have without an actual biological body—if I understand it correctly?”
Agatha nodded. “Yeah, that’s about the long and short of it.”
“…How much do you know about sorcery?”
The witch shrugged. She’d learned quite a bit through her clashes with Kamar-taj over the centuries—not their techniques, but the basic frameworks they used for spellwork were extremely standardised, which was one of the reasons it had been so easy for her to devise countermeasures against it. “More than most, but not as much as an actual sorcerer.”
“I once heard the Ancient One describe sorcery as the art of harnessing energy drawn from other dimensions. She said it was like accessing the source code of the universe, likening casting spells to coding programs.”
Agatha grimaced slightly. “That seems like a gross oversimplification.”
“Hm. She was explaining it to someone who’d had no experience with magic at that point. But maybe… I’d still like to see if I can learn to use it.”
As far as Agatha understood it, Eliza’s description of the Mystic Arts using techniques that drew energy from other dimensions to fuel their spells was accurate. She wasn’t privy to the details of how it all worked, but could a being like Eliza actually learn sorcery? The thought that something like that could be possible was vaguely terrifying but intensely fascinating at the same time.
“I have absolutely no idea if that’s possible,” she said honestly as her mind carefully picked over the possibilities. “However, if you’re thinking about paying Kamar-taj a visit, we could kill two birds with one stone.”
“How so?”
“You said that Kaecilius tore out the ritual that he stole and left the rest of the book behind? Might be okay if you’re only worried about sorcerers, but leaving physical evidence with a link back to you behind is a rookie mistake if there’s a witch on your trail,” Agatha said with a modest shrug. “For an organisation that’s a thousand years old or whatever, Kamar-taj is a little behind the curve when it comes to the sorts of sympathetic magic I can use. The original book will still have a link to the pages that were torn out. A minor one, granted, but that’s more than enough for one of my more advanced tracking spells to work with.”
“It’ll have to wait. I… fuck.” Eliza suddenly slammed the metal fist of the Iron Man suit down onto the nearby bench that Agatha had been using to hold her tools. The witch flinched back as the furniture was smashed to a pile of kindling, her instruments dashed to the floor. “Sorry.” The AI let out a long sigh.
“…What?” Agatha asked carefully.
“Nothing,” Eliza said brusquely. The suit’s fist was shaking slightly. “It’s just… the Avengers. It’s stressful, not knowing what they’re up to. They’ve been sequestered in Wakanda for two full days now and they could be doing anything. Everything is taking too long. We need to move. Now.”
“Are you sure you wanna go after them? I don’t doubt you, hon, but that’s a lot of heat.” Agatha really wasn’t interested in fighting the Avengers. The bomb Eliza had strapped to her body meant that she couldn’t really refuse outright, but maybe the AI could be gently guided away from her plans.
Eliza shook her head, shoulders slumping slightly, the movement so humanlike that the witch had to mentally remind herself once again that the suit was empty and there was no person actually inside it. “You don’t understand. The Avengers never give up… it’s one of their best and worst traits. We were never going to see eye to eye on things and Wanda would always have poisoned them against me. It was inevitable. If I don’t go after them first, it’ll only be a matter of time before they come up with some way of actually stopping me.”
“And the longer you give them, the more likely they’ll come up with something. So we’re off to Wakanda, then?” Agatha asked, a little bit of resignation creeping into her voice.
The AI nodded. “Walk with me.”
Eliza led her out of the back room and out onto the warehouse floor. Once Eliza had learned—much to her delight—that Agatha had a means of long-distance travel, they’d relocated to San Francisco. It was slower than the sorcerer’s translocation magic, but travelling through the Ways meant that almost anywhere on Earth was accessible within an hour or two. Eliza had commandeered this Stark Industries facility and was… repurposing it. Agatha still really wasn’t sure what the extent of Eliza’s reach and abilities were, and the AI seemed to be in no real rush to fill her in. It made her dangerous and unpredictable.
“We’ll need you for transport to Wakanda, obviously, but you won’t be joining the attack. I can’t guarantee anyone who goes will be coming back and I still need you to find Kaecilius. In the meantime, you’ll stay here with Beck. His project is taking longer than I’d hoped. I’ll still be here too, of course, but my main focus will be overseeing what’s happening in Wakanda.”
As they walked through the warehouse, Agatha saw Quentin Beck off to one side, tapping away at the keyboard of a workstation next to an electronic assembly of some kind. The man had a bomb collar, a match for the one now fitted snugly around Agatha’s throat. It was still unpleasant to know it was there, but the thin, Stark tech-style collar was significantly more comfortable than the hastily assembled vests the AI had initially had them in. It was a little odd—the vests had been perfectly serviceable, if awkward for their wearers, but Eliza seemed to prioritise their comfort a bit higher than Agatha had expected her to. They even had quite comfortable sleeping quarters, even if the collar meant that they had effectively zero actual privacy.
Two of Eliza’s Iron Legion drones were working on the large machine next to Beck, swapping out parts… repurposing it for some hidden intention. As she watched, the unkempt man glanced over toward the nearest drone. “I mean, I can’t see any issues with it. Once you’re done with the adjustments, we can print the chips and I think they should be good enough for what you’re trying to do. This… this isn’t my field of expertise,” he confessed, his tone a little hesitant.
The drone—Eliza—responded to him, but she also continued speaking to Agatha directly and her words drowned out whatever response she gave to the scientist. “You’re also a bit of a trump card. I’m hoping that things go well in Wakanda, but they probably won’t so I’m still formulating plans B, C and D and you’re a resource that Wanda really isn’t going to be expecting that I have access to. Better to keep you hidden as long as possible.”
As they walked, a half-dozen more of the Legion drones formed up with them, walking in eerie formation. Agatha was on guard, but this was… fine. Probably.
Opposite Quentin’s workstation was a squat hexagonal chamber of tempered glass, patterned with concentric circular electronics built into its walls and small, white nodes at each corner. Inside, faint golden energy of some kind rippled through the air, clearly being absorbed by the woman lying on the small cot that was the chamber’s only furnishing. Agatha still hadn’t worked out who she was and why Eliza had collected her—the AI had deflected when she’d asked and the witch wasn’t game enough to press her on it.
Around the corner, they arrived at the Hand’s little nook. Madame Gao and one of the other Fingers, a man with Puerto Rican features named Bakuto, were sitting at a small table, speaking quietly, with several other interesting-looking individuals around them, including the young witch that never seemed to leave Gao’s side. Eliza had asked the Fingers to bring the organisation’s best fighters. If nothing else, it was an eclectic bunch. With any luck they’d live up to the Hand’s reputation. Around them, standing absolutely silent and unmoving in a neat row, were a dozen Hand foot soldiers, outfitted in all black, their faces covered, armed to the teeth.
“Madame Gao, Bakuto,” Eliza said, inclining her head respectfully, all traces of her earlier anxiety gone from her demeanour. It was a façade, Agatha was fairly sure by now—a front put up specifically for her dealings with the Hand. “Thank you once again for placing your trust in me. It will not go unrewarded. Are your fighters ready?”
Gao rose to her feet, leaning heavily on her cane, and smiled. “They are ready. Did you want to be introduced?”
The Iron Man suit looked over the gathered fighters. They returned the AI’s gaze evenly, some looking a bit dubious. After a moment, Eliza shook her head. “I’m already familiar with them all. I’m glad you’re taking this as seriously as I am. We need to move, without delay. Will you be joining us, or…?”
Gao nodded. “Of course. I won’t be participating, merely observing. Bakuto…” she gave the man a sidewards glance.
He smiled—a warm, friendly thing that some small part of Agatha recognised as containing a heavily-veiled threat of violence. “I would love to attend, but my own affairs call me away. I trust I can prevail upon your pet witch to speed my return to New York?”
Agatha bristled slightly, glowering balefully at the man. She’d presented herself as Eliza’s ‘partner’ initially, but it had unfortunately become quite clear in their subsequent dealings that she was subordinate to the AI. She was really not fond of being used a glorified taxi service.
“Agatha,” Eliza said, mildly cautioning her before nodding at Bakuto. “Of course. Remain here and Agatha will escort you once she’s seen us to Wakanda.”
Small projectors deployed from the shoulders of the two drones directly behind them and the Iron Man suit faded from view as the holograms overwrote the physical space with an alternate image. Agatha’s breath caught in her throat. It appeared flawless, as good as any illusion that Agatha could conjure, if not better. And Beck had invented a way to do this with technology? Truly remarkable.
Eliza’s new, chosen form—projected in place of the suit—turned slightly to address the gathering of Hand fighters, raising her voice to draw their attention. “We’re moving out. Once we get to Wakanda, we’re hitting the Great Mound—it’s their main scientific facility and I can’t imagine they’d be managing things from anywhere else. We’ll talk specific tactics on the way.” The image smiled. “Once we arrive, the scavenger hunt will proceed as follows: The heads of Border Tribesmen and other regular security are worth one point. Dora Milaje are worth three. Their princess or General Okoye: twenty. Any of the Avengers or Prince T’Challa, the Black Panther: fifty points. And if you bring me the head of the Scarlet Witch… you win.”