Chereads / Baldur Odinson: God of Light / Chapter 142 - Chapter 129 - Project Insight Part 5

Chapter 142 - Chapter 129 - Project Insight Part 5

POV: Amora.

Abandoned Dam, Unknown Location, Washington, D.C.

Four Hours Before the Start of Project Insight.

Seems like the damn spy has a resilience akin to that of a cockroach. Afterward, he told us how he used a drug to slow down his heart rate to feign death and then come back into play—a clever move; Hydra surely bought into his death.

After this unexpected encounter, we all gathered around a table where we sat down, and Natasha began to recount the events that had transpired up to this point. The news of Pierce's involvement truly caught Fury off guard.

"This man declined a Nobel Peace Prize. He said peace isn't an achievement; it's a responsibility," he said, holding a photo, looking at it with a grim expression.

"See, things like this shake my trust," he continues.

"We have to stop the launch," Natasha said, seated beside me at this makeshift meeting table.

"I don't believe the council will heed my calls," Fury says, opening a briefcase containing three cards.

"What's this?" the Rookie asks, standing beside Fury.

"As soon as the Helicarriers reach 900 meters, they'll triangulate with internal satellites and become weapons. We have to infiltrate these Carriers and replace their targeting chips with ours. One or two won't do; we have to link all three Carriers for this to work because if one of the ships keeps operating, many people will die," Hill explains, showing the data on her computer.

"We have to assume that whoever is inside is with Hydra. We have to get past them, insert the chips, and maybe, just maybe, save something," Fury continued.

"We're not just saving anything; we're not only destroying the Carriers, we're also taking down S.H.I.E.L.D.," the team leader spoke up. For the first time, I agree with Rogers.

"We have nothing to do with this," Fury said, trying to protect what little remained of his realm.

"You gave me the mission, and this is how it ends. S.H.I.E.L.D has been compromised, you said it yourself. They were here, and nobody noticed," Rogers counters.

"How many paid the price before you noticed?" Finally, Rogers presents an argument that shuts up the one-eyed man, and I take the opportunity to drive another nail in.

"Do you want to go back to your cushy office as if nothing happened afterward? Your organization is rotten from within; the only thing you can do as its former leader is to cleanse it with fire," I say.

Fury looks at me angrily; he doesn't like my presence here. Men like him, if they can even be called that, only feel comfortable when they have total control over the situation, and even if he lives for thousands of years, he will never have control over me.

The idea of S.H.I.E.L.D continuing after these events is unthinkable. Not only will it lose all credibility when these events are exposed, but also no one will know whom to trust. Who knows how many Hydra agents are still lurking undiscovered?

"So it's settled; both S.H.I.E.L.D and Hydra will disappear," Steve says, receiving support from Natasha, who has also been unhappy since she discovered that the organization she works for was rotten from within. Surprisingly, Hill also agrees with Steve's plan, and Fury looks back at the Rookie.

"Don't look at me. I do everything he does, just slower," the Rookie responds.

"Well, it looks like you're the one calling the shots now, Captain," Fury reluctantly accepts.

Rogers finally seems to relax a bit, to the point where he sits in front of Fury, and Sam, being a good Rookie, follows his leader and sits on the other side of Fury.

"First, I think you need to inform us of a few things," Steve tells Fury.

"Such as?" Fury asks, unenthusiastically.

"Who is the woman in armor who attacked Amora?"

Fury clearly becomes even more uncomfortable now; he's clearly hiding something.

"I'm unaware of the identity of the woman in the armor, but the suit itself was one of the projects created by me," he says.

"I thought Stark's technology was years ahead of the current world's knowledge," Steve continues. It's no surprise that S.H.I.E.L.D is trying to recreate Stark's technology.

"And it is. But Stark is too careless; we managed to salvage remnants of the armors destroyed during Ivan Vanko's attack and tried our best to salvage them. But the science division informed me that it was an impossible task. Clearly, it was a lie," Fury explains.

"The armor isn't important," I say after Fury.

"How so?" Natasha asks.

"The armor is undoubtedly as advanced as Stark's, but the sword is much more dangerous," I say to her.

"Your wounds!" Natasha immediately understands why the armor is dangerous.

"What about her wounds?" the Rookie asks.

"As far as I know, Asgardians heal much faster than ordinary humans; I have a fraction of their powers. If I had received a shoulder wound like hers, I would have stopped bleeding within minutes; she, using magic, should have been healed in seconds," Natasha explains to everyone.

"They have a weapon to kill all of us!" Steve exclaims.

"I couldn't figure out what that weapon is made of, but I can say with certainty that it's not magic," I finish my report.

"Magic? Seriously?" The Rookie clearly has no contact with mystical arts. But no one has the patience at the moment to explain it to him.

"The metal of the sword is called carbonadium."

(Why am I not surprised that this one-eyed man knows about the metal that can harm me?)

"Carbonadium was created as a response to Adamantium by the Soviet Union. It's much stronger than steel and much more malleable; it's also much cheaper to produce compared to Adamantium."

"And how does it manage to inhibit accelerated healing?" I ask.

"It emits a certain type of radiation that can hinder accelerated healing factors."

"And how did S.H.I.E.L.D get their hands on something that should be a well-guarded secret of the Soviet Union?"

With my question, I back Fury into a corner; I want him to speak up.

"We recreated it ourselves, that after many years and several attempts."

"Ohh. So why did you guys bother? From what I understand, even though it's cheaper to produce, its resilience doesn't compare to that of Adamantium. Or was the reason for the research always the spatial property of the metal?"

"Of course, it was!" Fury replied, raising his voice.

"To kill us, right?"

I ask, injecting a bit of charm into my voice to "help" Fury tell the truth.

"We spent decades searching for ways to kill powerful beings like your husband, but we never had a viable plan. Carbonadium gave us some progress in that plan, but even with all our resources, it's a ridiculous idea to arm all our men with carbonadium bullets."

"True, but a smart man like you should have another idea of how to use the metal, am I right?"

Still using my charm on him, he's sure to respond.

"We decided to go all in, use all the metal produced in various projectiles that are now all loaded on the Helicarriers."

Then the plan unfolds. The ammunition made of that metal will cause serious damage to any superhuman it hits. Even Baldur, or the Hulk, could die if hit head-on.

"So this is the contingency plan the bald guy mentioned before? The reason they're confident in putting the project online now?" my interrogation continued.

"I think they have another motive as well."

It seems Fury only has theories on this matter. Even if they manage to kill Baldur using all their luck, and that of their ancestors to help them. They would have to face a great retaliation from Genosha. If the king is killed, it's certain that the whole country will become a sea of flames.

"Tell me then, what's your reasoning, Fury?"

"After my 'death,' I started scouring the documents for information. Luckily, I was prepared in case such a situation arose, and I had another access to the system that no one knew about. Looking at everything with fresh eyes, I discovered another obscure project with no defined purpose. But I'm sure it's vital to Hydra's victory."

"Let me guess, there are few details about the project."

"Correct."

Then my interrogation ends, I remove the charm from Fury, making him silent, pondering why he revealed all that. This charm wasn't as powerful as the one I used on the bald guy, it was something more subtle. He knows I did something to him, but he'll never be able to prove it, or anyone sitting here noticed anything different about him.

"There are many variables we still don't know, we need to get more help," Natasha said.

"Fury, do you have any information about the Avengers Base?" Steve asked.

"We don't have access to the resources we had before, but one of ours managed to regain control of a satellite. All we know is that currently, the Avengers Base is slowly coming toward Earth."

"But one of your countermeasures against the Avengers?" I asked the paranoid spy.

"Correct. The Avengers Base to me is like a sword pointed at us; we had to put countermeasures in case we needed them."

"Your distrust for your allies blinded you to the actions of your enemies," I replied to him.

"Is there anything we can do to help them?" Steve asked, looking at me.

Without relying on S.H.I.E.L.D.'s resources to go into space, he can only count on a form of magical assistance for the task.

"I can't teleport myself to the Base, Baldur protected it against that. I can simply fly to them and enter the Base, then return the same way," I proposed to them.

"I don't recommend doing that," Fury interjected, before Rogers could agree with my plan.

"Why not, one-eyed?" I asked him, which furrowed his eyebrows for being called one-eyed.

"The countermeasure we created to deal with the Avengers Base is the total deactivation of the power sources and life support, but now they're floating toward Earth. Even Hydra isn't insane enough to allow that thing to fall from the sky; they clearly want Stark and Bruce to stay out of everything until the Helicarriers are in the air. But if they realize our attempt to help, things could spiral out of control."

We remained silent for a few more seconds; no one here wanted to agree with Fury, but everyone did. I, on the other hand, don't care about the two lost in space; one is a fool who possesses power that puts him on the level of a god but doesn't use it correctly out of simple fear. The other is an unpleasant, arrogant little man who thinks he's the center of the universe. As far as I'm concerned, they can both die.

"I contacted Clint," Natasha said.

"He agreed to help us, but he won't reach us before the launch begins."

"So, we only need Baldur," Rogers said, looking at me.

"If you want a way to talk to my husband, you'll have a better chance of doing that with the one-eyed."

"How so?" he asked.

"He has a device that has a direct line to him, for emergency cases."

"I really do, but it's in my safe in my old office," the spy replied.

"Don't worry about that; there are few things on Earth that man doesn't know. He'll show up at the right time, as always."

Then we started discussing the invasion plan; in my opinion, a direct approach is always the best, but of course, they created a rather elaborate plan to win, and everyone got their roles in the plan. I agreed to this plan only because it would put me against the woman in the green armor once again; I have to settle the score with her.

support me at patreon.com/Lonely_Translator and read chapters in advance