"This must be the first time in your life you've made a twenty-something-year-old girl cry, Nick Fury. That's not something that happens every day."
"You little punk, don't underestimate me! Back in the day—" The former S.H.I.E.L.D. director started to retort, but then let out a long sigh. "I swear to you, the S.H.I.E.L.D. agents who were in Sokovia at the time were there to protect the mineral deposits," he said with resignation. "But you know as well as I do, I can't even tell who was S.H.I.E.L.D. and who was Hydra anymore. Once the leak happened, the U.S. government accelerated the coup. Do you really think S.H.I.E.L.D. could stand up to the U.S. government?"
"Oh? And what about the nuclear radiation human trials that came afterward…"
"That was a Harvard project. Had nothing to do with S.H.I.E.L.D. I can only promise you that the loyal S.H.I.E.L.D. agents weren't involved. As for whether Alexander Pierce had anything to do with it—I don't know. If I did, do you think I'd be sitting here in this miserable state?" Nick Fury glanced at the one-way glass. He'd already figured Victoria Hand was probably behind it.
"Fair enough," Solomon nodded solemnly. "But I'm sure you know even more than you're letting on. And I'm equally sure Frank Castle will manage to extract something else from you."
"Do prisoners have the right to ask questions?"
"Go ahead."
"The Skrulls…"
"I modeled our interrogation methods on the CIA's black sites, Nick Fury. I'm sure you're quite familiar with those. But don't worry—I won't be invading any countries on the basis of a test tube of laundry detergent," the spellcaster replied with a grin. His constant, effortless sarcasm gave Fury a headache. Even Frank Castle's interrogation hadn't been this insufferable. He'd originally thought about telling Solomon that he'd tried to stop the Iraq invasion—but now he couldn't bring himself to say it. Because even with a single toe, he could guess what would happen next: Solomon would drag out something from the Vietnam War and use it to mock him.
"They'll spill everything they know, I guarantee it. I'll track down every Skrull walking freely through human society. So stop worrying about them and start thinking about yourself. Whether you walk out of this cell depends on whether you can give me something I find interesting."
Solomon was telling the truth—but not the whole truth.
Some Skrulls had already died under torture, unable to endure it any longer. This gave Maya Hansen's biogenetics lab a few new specimens. Along with secrets Solomon had unearthed when S.H.I.E.L.D. collapsed, Eternal City now had two Skrull corpses for research. Maya Hansen was trying to discover a way for humans to freely shift their appearance like the Skrulls. The more samples she had, the closer she got to success.
It was essentially reverse-engineering the Celestials' ancient genetic experiments—just as the Kree had once tried to decipher the secrets of their own progenitors. It was the kind of tech only accessible to those with vast knowledge of genetic engineering. Solomon had obtained that knowledge through costly trades and passed it on to Maya Hansen. The Honor Guard was a crystallization of that knowledge—a prototype, a living experiment in the pursuit of human genetic potential and extremity. Now, Solomon was planning to apply Maya's yet-unfinished methods to his assassins. Agents who could change into anyone would be perfect for impossible infiltration and assassination missions—essential survival tools for Eternal City in the harsh days ahead.
"About Frank Castle…"
"I handed him the culprit—a senior CIA official. I think you know exactly who that person was. Castle thought so too. After that, I sent him to lead a team targeting the U.S. drug trade in Afghanistan, rather than sending him back to Hell's Kitchen to slaughter petty thugs. Honestly, I thought he wouldn't touch U.S. soldiers. Turns out I was wrong." A flicker of emotion passed across Solomon's face, making him appear almost lively. "You wouldn't want to see what was left of that poor bastard after Castle got through with him. In fact, I didn't want to see it either."
"And the Langley attack? Aren't you afraid of becoming the world's enemy?"
"You think I care about that?" Solomon countered. "Based on my intel, there's currently an alien fleet headed for the solar system—includes the Chitauri pirate bio-fleet. This isn't some play battle like the Battle of New York, where their forces had to squeeze through a little portal. This is a full-scale invasion. Even if I hadn't taken your orbital station, you and the Skrulls wouldn't last long under an assault like that."
"You plan to fight an alien fleet?" Fury swallowed that sudden shift in conversation hard.
"Someone has to—once all those idiots who dream of coexisting with aliens are dead. Once humanity truly understands its own insignificance. Otherwise, extreme individualist liberalism will only lead to our destruction." Solomon stood from the interrogation table, casually shutting off the blinding desk lamp and the freezing air conditioner. "I need to go comfort my apprentice. Your intel was a good test for her. I hope she makes it through, and walks further down the path of magic. I know, I'm a good teacher. Thanks for the compliment."
"I didn't say a damn thing!"
"Come in!" Wanda Maximoff sniffled and shouted hoarsely through her thick nasal voice. Whoever was outside the door had clearly been waiting eagerly—Solomon peeked his head in immediately. He saw Wanda still wiping her tears with a towel. He wanted to remind her not to use the same towel for both her tears and her nose, but now didn't feel like the right time.
The spellcaster tiptoed in and closed the office door behind him.
"Here you go. Extra sugar," he said, handing her a perfectly warm cup of tea. "Drink up—otherwise, when we get home, Bayonetta will kill me if she sees you like this. You don't want me dead, right?"
"I don't know," Wanda sniffled again. Her answer sent a chill down Solomon's spine, but then he realized he had misunderstood her. "Maybe I shouldn't have learned these things. Pietro and I used to get milk from the U.S. military when we were kids! I nearly got him killed!"
"Now you know the milk had radioactive material in it," Solomon said flatly.
He was referring to a Harvard and MIT project that had run from 1946 to 1956. At Florida's state schools and the Fernald State School in Waltham, Massachusetts, children with developmental disabilities were subjected to nutritional radiation experiments under the Atomic Energy Commission. Breakfast cereals laced with radioactive tracers were used to study calcium and mineral absorption. But the parents were never informed their children were being exposed to radioactive substances. In the name of science, club members were fed cereals mixed with radioactive milk and given digestive supplements—exposing them to the equivalent of at least fifty chest X-rays in radiation.
The details of this experiment were exposed in 1993 by a Boston Globe reporter. It came to be known as the Fernald School Experiment. Perhaps due to mounting public pressure, Harvard and MIT later transferred parts of the project to other countries outside the U.S.—Sokovia had merely been one of them.
"Now let me tell you why I hold those ideals—why I dream of uniting the world's people." Solomon gently patted Wanda on the shoulder. "It's a cause that will likely bury me, but I won't regret it."
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