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Interlude VIII.I

Technomancer in MCU

New York

–Alie Brieson–

He had been doing his homework when he was alerted by the shouts of his family downstairs. He rolled his eyes as they had been doing the same for the past hour or so as the news kept coming in about the death of some or the other famous person dying in an accident or being killed by some armed forces of some sort.

He was following it as well, it was being played on his iPad nearby. The only interesting tidbit he had heard so far was the existence of soldiers with superpowers who were carrying out these assassinations and that was what they were.

Assassinations done in broad daylight. Plain and simple.

He had looked into some of the people who were killed and had come to the simple conclusion that almost all of them were some of the most disgusting human beings to ever grace the planet Earth. Murder, Rape, Child Rape, extortion, human trafficking, smuggling, corruption, the list went on and on.

There was never a reason to worry about the deaths of scum like these people. The reason most people were in an uproar was due to the fact that they were being done mostly randomly since he could see that not all corrupt people were being killed so he could not figure out the pattern yet. Although, running an algorithm would be terribly easy.

And there he was, again losing sight of his studies and getting distracted easily.

He tried to. He really did but the news coming out of the Triskelion was really interesting and as such, he was not able to contain his curiosity and ended up firing up his PC to start poking around for news.

While he was not good enough for the hacker collective Rising Tide, he had dabbled enough in the borderline criminal branch of computer science to know where to look for information about secret events that was not being shared with the public at large.

Opening up one of the links, he was instead redirected to one of the live streams that were being piggybacked off the government spy cameras present on site. He could see the wreckage of the building nearby as one of the carriers had crashed into it, utterly destroying the structure.

The smoking wreckage of the six helicarriers was also visible, as were the people who had just destroyed the HQ of the largest spy agency in the world.

Well, it was final then. Somebody was trying to destroy S.H.I.E.L.D and they were being utterly focused and precise in their endeavour.

A metaphorical light bulb lit up in his head as he went back to the list of the people who were confirmed dead and cross-referenced the data and somehow the picture became even clearer. The people that had been offed by those magnificent suit wearing bastards were interconnected through a single link – S.H.I.E.L.D.

One way or another, these people were determined to destroy S.H.I.E.L.D once and for all, it would seem. Going after ministers and billionaires seemed a bit far for him but what did he know about international politics and spy wars?

Finding out more and more about their targets helped draw a clearer picture as he began unearthing more and more links between the targets until he had compiled a significant document that showed incriminating links between these people, S.H.I.E.L.D and some other group that was shrouded in secrecy.

“Alie!” he heard his mom shout for him from downstairs.

“Coming,” he shouted while pressing send on the upload document forum to send the evidence that he had gathered but halfway through, an old man in a butler cosplay appeared on his cosplay and wagged his finger at him disappointingly.

Then he disappeared, leaving his computer screen spic and span, wiping out any progress he had made on the chase. He would have tried more but he recognized the person who had appeared on his screen and it was none other than the legendary Alfred who had also appeared on screen during the destruction of the carriers.

Leaving the room, he stomped down the stairs into the hall, “What is it, Mom? And It better not be another conspiracy theorist.”

He received no reply but once he saw what was being broadcasted on TV, it became clear as to why the entire family was silent.

This story has been stolen from Royal Road. If you read it on Amazon, please report it

Mom and Dad were sitting on the sofa with their jaws agape in shock and Grandpa, Grandpa was crying angry tears while looking at the reporter speaking.

“…it has been uncovered that the spy organization known as S.H.I.E.L.D had been infiltrated by H.Y.D.R.A, yes, the same H.Y.D.R.A that everyone thought Captain America had destroyed but apparently, we were all wrong. They had used Operation Paperclip to infiltrate all levels of government and the heinous crimes they had committed while enjoying the highest levels of authority throughout the globe are too many to list. Experts suggest that there might be even more evidence to uncover that could further implicate S.H.I.E.L.D and H.Y.D.R.A. It has also been confirmed that all the people who have been hunted down and killed across the globe are confirmed members of H.Y.D.R.A. Stay tuned as we deliver the highest quality news…”

He realized why Grandpa was crying now.

“It was all in vain. I knew something was wrong when everybody started dying randomly. It was them, Ben, they killed all my friends.” He had never seen Grandpa this vulnerable before. He was usually the rock of the family, the stereotypical retired military grandpa. He hugged his Grandpa to comfort him in the only way he knew how.

“They killed them all, Alie. They killed all my friends.” He kept repeating the same thing, breaking his heart in the process. Eventually, the tears dried up and he was taken to his room to give him his meds to calm him down.

With Dad and Mom going with Grandpa, he sat down on the sofa and unmuted the TV, hoping to get any more news since his PC had been wiped clean of everything by Lord Alfred himself and from what he had heard from leaks on online chat boards, Alfred was a fully sentient AI and he had no chance in hell taking him on so he just browsed the different news channels to find out more about the incident that had happened.

Last he heard, Ed and his people had called a UN emergency assembly, and unsurprisingly, every single country had accepted and they were all sending their representatives to the meeting that was scheduled to happen in a few hours.

It was understandable after the display these guys were done destroying the literal pinnacle of weaponry that the United States could muster after literally burning money every step of the way.

The three carriers floating above them made a very intimidating sight as expected and the way they were used during the invasion of New York was not something that anybody on the planet could forget and from the looks of it, these carriers were the same formation that was used to generate a barrier that held off a fucking nuclear blast in them.

Just as he was about to head back to his PC, he saw the members of the military had finally broken through the barricade around the triskelion and reached the hangar area where the rubble of the helicarrier was being inspected by the members of Ed’s teams.

He leaned forward in anticipation of what the military would do, what the military could do to Ed and the people with him. Because last he remembered, Ed and the others had access to suits that were far more advanced than even Stark’s, and the dumbasses in the military would be hard-pressed to deal with Stark, let alone the likes of Ed who probably walked around with more firepower than a small army base on a regular day.

But Ed spoiled all his mood as they all just disappeared and the carriers soon followed them. He watched that with raised eyebrows as while he could digest the fact that Ed and his team members disappeared but the carriers disappearing from the area near instantly was a little hard to swallow. He knew that they had not just gone into stealth mode and actually left the area because not a moment later, the fighter jets that had been circling the carriers sent flares in the area the carriers were in and the flares just passed through that area without hitting anything.

With nothing to do and unwilling to risk the wrath of Lord Alfred, he just hung out in the living room, switching between different TV channels to see the reactions of different tv news hosts as they dramatised the events of today.

Soon, the time of the conference came and while the press was not allowed in the assembly hall due to special circumstances, it did not stop them from seeing the arrivals and departures from the UN Headquarters.

The most interesting arrival, after the fact that all five heads of state of the permanent security council members had arrived, was the arrival of Tony Stark and Bruce Banner. On the screen, he could see the media trying to ask questions to Stark who seemed to take it all in stride, and Banner who seemed extremely nervous to be there but with Stark's personal security along with UN security, they were soon escorted into the building.

Whatever happened in the building was being leaked in real time to chat groups on the internet that were being banned one after the other but the gist of it was that the group that was responsible for saving New York was called Ascendancy and not only did they have ways of creating super soldiers that would eat the super soldiers of old for breakfast, they also had allies in the form of an ancient subset of humanity that literal blue aliens had experimented on and they had gotten genetic level superpowers as a result.

How cool was that!

They had also announced some sort of website where they had a chatbot that would answer everybody’s questions.

Stumbling on his way to his room, he slammed the door open and started his computer, surprised to find the web browser open and the same website open on his desktop with a small Alfred emoji winking at him from the corner.

Damn, it was as if he was a mind reader. For all he knew, he very well could be one.

Oh, he was going to have so much fun with the website.

First things first, he needed to know if he could also get superpowers.

________________________________________________________________

Word Count - 1848

If you guys would like to read ahead, you can head onto my P-atreon. It is the same name as my username.

You know you want to, why resist?

I already have up to 15 extra chapters uploaded there.

To be continued…

A/N - [Well, what can I say? Except Enjoy the filler, I guess.]