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Chapter 112: Even The Narrator Is Full Of Bullshit!!
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"Fine. But I have questions. And I need answers." He manipulated something off-screen, connecting a third party whom he introduced, "This is Alexander Pierce, Undersecretary of the World Security Council."
The screen split. A new face appeared; older, with a statesman's calm and sharp, intelligent eyes. Alexander Pierce.
"Mr. Cypher," He said, his voice polished. "The Council is very interested in what you have to say."
Adam's smile didn't waver. "Considering we're now partners, I don't see why I'd hide much."
Fury cut to the chase. "Demons and aliens. You mentioned them at the conference. What do you know?"
The truth was, Adam had mentioned demons to 'Natalie' weeks ago. Fury had the intel but couldn't act on it without burning his best spy. Now, Adam had given him the public opening.
"Demons and aliens?" Adam mused. "Yeah. Demons exist. I'm the target of one; Mephisto, if you're taking notes. For some reason, they can't just waltz in and start a barbecue. Something's keeping them on a leash."
He feigned surprise. "I thought you guys were the bouncers. Guess there's a third party on the door."
"Aliens… less concrete. No smoking saucer for me. But I'm fairly certain they're out there. Mostly hearsay. Intel from… other sources."
The demon confirmation was insanity given form, but the mention of "other sources" instantly hooked Pierce. "Hydra," Pierce stated, his interest laser-focused. "How do you know so much about them? Beyond what you… experienced."
Adam chuckled, a low, amused sound. He looked directly at Fury. "Really? Do I have to spell it out? You're intelligent. You've already guessed, right?"
He shrugged. "Yeah. I have a couple of people in Hydra. Not high enough to get me the juicy stuff, like primary base locations. But they're helpful."
Fury had expected something like this, but hearing it confirmed was still a seismic shock.
It explained so much; the pre-emptive strikes, the data leaks. How he's always outplayed Hydra and been their bane of existence.
But How?
Hydra agents were famously, fanatically loyal. How do you turn a fanatic? Charisma alone shouldn't cut it.
"I assume you won't share your sources," Fury said, a statement, not a question.
"Naturally," Adam replied. "But I have a plan to bait out a major Hydra cluster. I'll need S.H.I.E.L.D.'s resources for the clean-up. I'll inform you when it's time."
It was exactly what Fury wanted to hear: actionable intel, a path to strike back.
But Pierce pressed, his tone carrying the weight of the Council. "The World Council will need that information to establish trust, Mr. Cypher."
Adam merely smiled, a bland, impenetrable expression. He said nothing, but that in itself said everything; he will not tell.
Pierce frowned, his expression hardening. It seems that he really needs the intel.
Fury smoothly defused the tension.
"One more thing. Is that also how you knew about the Starks? Their deaths? What Howard left behind?"
Adam wasn't surprised Fury had connected the dots. "Indeed. Hydra knows and has done too much."
He sighed theatrically. "Though I must admit, they've been plenty helpful to the cause. Quite the charitable organization, in their own twisted way."
On his end of the call, Alexander Pierce's perfectly controlled mask developed a minuscule twitch.
He was, after all, Hydra's top operative within the U.S. government. The Bogotá incident had shattered his faith in diplomacy, and Hydra's vision had resonated better with him.
The man on the screen; this grinning, white-haired menace; was Hydra's single greatest setback in decades.
The leaked files were a catastrophe. And now, to sit here and listen to him casually mention having Hydra informants… It took every ounce of Pierce's discipline not to react.
Worse was the galling knowledge that Adam's data dump was laced with outrageous lies; atrocities Hydra hadn't committed pinned to their name.
He couldn't refute them without raising suspicion. It was a masterstroke of psychological warfare, and Pierce was forced to swallow it.
As the call ended, Adam's projection winking out, Pierce's mind was already racing.
Recruiting Adam into the Initiative was damage control. It brought the unpredictable variable into an observable framework.
And now he had critical intelligence; Cypher has assets inside Hydra. He is planning an operation against a base cluster.
He immediately began drafting encrypted messages. The inner circle needed to be warned.
For Christ's sake, the entirety of Hydra needs to experience a thorough cleanup to wipe out the snakes, and it doesn't matter if they make mistakes.
If a bunch of loyal operatives had to be sacrificed to clean the mess, then so be it.
But the situation still left him seething. Hydra had lost so much. To try to deal with him, they had to expose so many of their agents, and that bastard Fury always lunges at them like a bitch in heat. Fuck!
What's even worse is that Hydra, as a collective, is extremely successful in its approach, and it has always served them well, keeping the depths of the organization hidden for so long.
Therefore, a while ago, Hydra cleaned up the chief of the Hydra facility that previously held Adam before his escape.
The circumstances surrounding Adam's escape and what followed were too suspicious, so Hydra preemptively cleaned him out of this world, just in case.
Yet what did he hear today? The bastard still had people amidst their ranks! How the fuck?
Pierce was failing to wrap his head around how it all happened, but the thing he was most sure of was that Hydra needed a deep cleaning.
And as far as he was concerned, his tactic is now already showing its invaluability, bringing Adam into the initiative had already bore fruit.
Novice Trickster ++
[What in Hydra??!]
[I smell so much fucking bullshit it's disgusting!]
[Tf? And Pierce is falling for it? Hydra's fucked.]
[Adam's "charitable organization" line must have boiled Pierce's blood.]
[Hydra has no choice but to believe he has moles in their ranks; how else can they explain all the information he has?]
[Why the fuck is he a novice trickster?]
[In the grand scheme of Marvel, he's a novice.]
[Bullshit! The narrator must just be fucking with us!]
[Damn! Even The Narrator Is Full Of Bullshit!!]
Adam let out a brighter, more genuine chuckle, retracting the projection. He turned his attention to the man who had silently entered the room during the call.
Sebastian Shaw. The Black King. He was a man of substantial, powerful build, with dark hair and a beard, dressed in an impeccably tailored suit that cost more than most cars.
He radiated an aura of effortless, consuming authority. The receding hairline, however, did some damage to his aura.
"I see you've made yourself comfortable," Shaw said, his voice a deep, resonant rumble.
Adam remained lounging in the White King's chair. "Emma has been a very good host."
Shaw wasn't offended by the casual insolence. He took his own seat; the Black King's throne.
"Emma told me you'd be a valuable addition. That you deserved this seat. I thought she was letting her… appreciations cloud her judgment."
"It seems I was mistaken." His dark eyes assessed Adam. "I have to ask. I just heard you speak to them, but how close is your relation to S.H.I.E.L.D.?"
Adam took a deliberate bite of a chocolate truffle, savoring it. "Very close," He said after swallowing. "Closer than they even know."
A spark of understanding lit in Shaw's eyes. Ah. Not an agent. A user. This man was like him. Ambitious. Unbound by loyalty to any system except his own.
He's a threat, certainly. But in the Hellfire Club, threats were assets if correctly positioned.
Sebastian Shaw was a mutant. His power was the ability to absorb kinetic energy; any impact, any blow; and convert it into raw physical strength and vitality, making him virtually invulnerable and ever-stronger in a fight.
But his true power was his mind. He was a capitalist predator, a master strategist who believed in a brutal, social Darwinist hierarchy.
Mutants, with their innate advantages, were the natural inheritors of the world.
The Hellfire Club was his instrument to accelerate that inheritance, to amass the wealth and influence to shape the coming age.
He saw in Adam a similar drive, a similar disregard for the old rules, and a terrifying new variable; vast public influence.
"Then, let's be direct," Shaw said, leaning forward. "What is your view on mutants' place in society?"
Adam didn't hesitate. He knew Shaw wanted to hear a manifesto on mutant supremacy. He gave him something else. "It depends on the mutant."
Shaw's eyes narrowed slightly.
"I don't believe mutants are inherently unique enough to deserve the top of the hierarchy by default," Adam continued, sipping his tea.
"I value intelligence, vision, and capability above genetic lottery tickets. A human with a mind that can bend reality with a thought is more 'superior' than a mutant who can just glow in the dark."
"It's not a conversation worth having in broad strokes. Demons exist. Aliens exist. Non-mutant superhumans exist. The playing field is stranger than your ideology."
He set his cup down. "So, it depends on the specific mutant. Magneto? A force of nature, but ideologically rigid. The Professor? A psychic titan with the patience of a saint. You? killer business sense. Me?"
He smiled. "I'm still figuring out the extent of just how much fucking better I'm than everyone else. But I know I'm not joining a club just to be part of someone else's 'master race' fantasy."