The freight train clattered deep into the twilight. Adam Brashear crouched low between two cargo crates, each rattle of the tracks echoing through his battered body. The sun had dipped beyond the desert, leaving only the faintest warmth in the air and the weight of everything he had escaped.
His fingers trembled against the cold steel. Bruised ribs made every breath a calculation. The wounds weren't just physical—they whispered doubt and guilt. The train groaned like a wounded beast as it carried him away from the ruin he left behind.
He didn't sleep. Couldn't. Every screech of the wheels on the rail was another reminder that he was being hunted — not just by agents, but by memories. Flashes of the lab explosion, the screaming, the flash of red before everything turned to smoke—it clung to his mind like oil. And beneath it all, the quiet fear that maybe—just maybe—he hadn't done enough.
When the train began to slow near the edge of a freight yard outside New York, Adam took his chance. He leapt off, landing in a tumble beside rusted fencing. His body ached. But he kept moving. He had to. The moment his boots hit the gravel, he was on his feet again, limping toward the dim glow of a distant service road.
By nightfall, he was navigating a forgotten section of subway infrastructure — half-abandoned tunnels, obsolete service routes, and pitch-black corridors. He passed graffiti that hadn't seen light in years — twisted symbols, angry scrawls, and faded murals that spoke of lives long buried beneath the city. Vermin scattered at his footsteps, but he barely noticed. Water trickled along the edges of the cracked concrete floor, the air thick with mildew and silence.
He descended iron staircases and crossed dripping corridors, guided only by fragments of memory and a vague hum of electromagnetic static from deeper below. He stopped only once—to breathe, to think, to check his surroundings. He had used these tunnels long ago, in a life that felt like someone else's. Now, they were the only place that felt honest.
Eventually, he reached a rusted steel door beneath an old substation. A faded S.H.I.E.L.D. emblem, scratched out long ago, still lingered beneath layers of grime. He hesitated just a moment, memories crashing in like waves.
He knocked. Three short, two long, one short.
A pause.
A small viewing slot opened. Tired eyes studied him.
"You look like crap," said a dry voice.
Adam managed a weak smile, lips cracked. "You should see the other guy."
The door opened with a screech, and warm air spilled out.
Inside stood Eliza Thomas. Once a top S.H.I.E.L.D. biophysicist. Now a ghost with a medical lab hidden beneath the city. Her hair was tied back hastily, streaked with grey at the temples, and her eyes burned with a mix of intelligence and exhaustion.
"I thought you said you'd never come crawling back," she muttered, already reaching for a scanner.
"Didn't think I would either," Adam said, his voice low. "But here I am."
She studied him for a moment longer, her jaw tight, then motioned him in. "Sit. You're bleeding on my floor."
He stumbled in, the warmth of the room a shock after the tunnels. The walls were lined with patched-up equipment, old medpods, diagnostic tools, and makeshift generators humming softly. She'd built her own world here — one piece of salvage at a time. A map of the old S.H.I.E.L.D. transit tunnels hung crookedly on one wall.
Adam collapsed into a chair, breath ragged. Eliza unzipped his shirt and gave a quiet whistle at the sight of the damage — bruises like storm clouds, a half-melted containment patch, and a deep shoulder wound still leaking blood.
"Seriously, Adam. What the hell did you get into?"
"Something big," he replied. "Too big for me to handle alone."
She raised an eyebrow as she pulled out the forceps. "That's new. You usually tried to play the lone wolf."
He groaned as she worked. "Yeah, well. The pack might've had a point."
"No kidding. You've got microfractures in your ribs, and this gash... this isn't just from falling."
He winced. "It was a drone. The kind buried deep in black budgets."
She paused briefly, then resumed. "So you've officially pissed off the worst kind of people."
Her lab was a cluttered but functional mess — salvaged tech, scavenged gear, walls lined with improvised insulation and old maps of the sewer grids. Two backup batteries blinked weakly in the corner. A pot of half-cooled coffee sat on a stack of old SHIELD crates. A small photograph, faded and tucked into the side of a monitor, showed a younger Eliza standing beside a man in a lab coat—Adam, decades ago.
"You've really gone underground," Adam murmured, half-conscious.
She shrugged without looking at him. "After SHIELD fell apart? People like me didn't exactly get severance packages. I did what I had to. Disappeared. Figured you had too."
"I tried," he said, voice quieter. "Didn't stick."
She removed a long shard from his shoulder and dropped it into a tray. A faint metal clink echoed. Then she froze.
"That's not just metal," she muttered, eyes narrowing. She picked it up with tongs and slid it beneath a handheld scanner. The screen pulsed.
"What do you mean?" Adam asked, suddenly more alert.
Her eyes darted to a blinking console nearby. "It's active. Some kind of transmitter. Encrypted. Military-grade."
He stiffened, pulse racing. "You've got to be kidding me."
"It's pinging something — likely a satellite. Government-level stuff. Whoever embedded this in your suit wanted to track you down to the inch."
Adam pushed himself upright despite the ache in his bones. "Can you jam it?"
"I can try, but the signal's already out. It only had to ping once."
They both fell into silence. Adam's eyes moved to the ventilation shaft above.
Then came the sound.
Muffled movement above. Tires rolling across concrete. The crunch of gravel. The echo of pursuit.
Boots.
Eliza's expression darkened as she looked up. "Tell me you didn't lead them here."
Adam grabbed his jacket, lips tight. "No. I lost them hours ago."
"Then how—?"
He reached for the shard again. "They didn't follow me. They followed that."
A red dot blinked on the console. Then another.
And another.
[To Be Continued]
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