At a small restaurant by the street, Wei Xiuming wore a modified gas mask and intently studied a book on human anatomy. A basic introductory reference, it was detailed, concise, and well-organized, with color illustrations. At $81.40, it was excellent value for money.
Aside from Wei Xiuming, the restaurant was empty. Men in black suits and sunglasses guarded both entrances, their unapproachable demeanor making it clear from a distance that the place was off-limits for the time being.
Even the servers and cooks had been sent to the kitchen, where someone was keeping an eye on them to make sure they didn't hear anything they shouldn't. A mild-mannered middle-aged man was in charge of them. Unlike the fearsome-looking guards at the doors, he was exceptionally affable. A few words were all it took to put everyone at ease, and soon he was chatting and laughing with them. The chef even made him a special breakfast.
"Jingle."
The door opened, setting off the bell above it, and a tall, bald Black man walked in. He was an absolute devotee of black, wearing a black skintight combat suit beneath a black leather coat. Even the patch over his left eye was black.
The man walked straight over and sat opposite Wei Xiuming. Glancing at the book cover, he said, "Reading that kind of book before a meal? You have some unusual hobbies."
"The knowledge in my brain is too advanced. I need to start with the basics to sort through it. Besides, the atmospheric conditions in my time are very different from those in this era. That's changed the human body's physiology, so even I need a specially made breathing mask to breathe normally." Wei Xiuming closed the book, then held out his hand to the man. "My name is Clark Kent. My experiment subject code is X-03-01B. I came to this era as part of Project X, which aims to save the universe and humanity."
"I'm a Gene-Modded Human. I developed in an Artificial Amniotic Membrane, was forcibly accelerated to maturity with drugs, and have a body and learning ability superior to those of ordinary people. After mastering the necessary technology and information, I was sent by Time Machine to various points in time, where I used my strength or knowledge to save Humanity's Reason..."
After arriving on Earth, Wei Xiuming used his advanced technology to find traces of S.H.I.E.L.D. online, then followed its secret network and made contact with Nick Fury, the agency's current director.
After all, as an outsider, he had no tax or medical records whatsoever. His expertise spanned the research and development of computers, communications, human genetics, and weapons. He shouldn't have been some unknown nobody. If he wanted to make his mark, he needed the support of a reliable organization.
He had the original owner's background and those Skrulls to thank for that. The original owner's superpower had given him the strength to capture their ship, and he'd even managed to swipe a USB Drive from the Infinite Flow Male Protagonist.
That USB Drive contained a wealth of information. Besides the X Gene research data stolen from the base, it also held things the other party had collected from various points in time, such as the Mechanical Exoskeleton and Nanobots technology from G.I. Joe. Most of it couldn't be used because the rules of the universe were different, but the ideas it offered were very useful.
With his neural responses enhanced, Wei Xiuming's ability to learn and understand had also improved several times over. In this state, he could learn in a single day what had taken him a year to study at university before he traveled through time.
With this cheat, all the Skrulls' technology, along with what they'd plundered from other civilizations, had fallen into his hands. He'd applied their research into higher dimensions to the Skrulls, and that was how the bugs had come into being.
The Skrulls' mimicry talent was astonishing. They had only one spaceship, yet its database stored technology from multiple civilizations. This was the foundation on which the Skrulls, as interstellar refugees, had built their civilization.
Different civilizations developed technology in different ways. Differences in their starting points in fundamental physics led to vastly different results, so much so that people from different civilizations might not even understand one another. The Skrulls had relied on their racial talents to learn from the strengths of different civilizations and develop their own technology. That was how they'd avoided total extinction. One particularly powerful faction had even developed a weapon capable of defeating Galactus in his weakened state.
As for his own identity, as long as the story held together logically, he could make up whatever he wanted. Nick Fury had no way to travel to the future and verify it anyway.
Nick Fury ignored Wei Xiuming's outstretched hand. "I admit your computer and network skills are remarkable. You broke through our network defenses and made the word 'HELLO' appear on a computer in my office. But that doesn't prove anything else you've said. S.H.I.E.L.D.'s job is to protect the world. If there really were an organization that inherited the Third Reich's legacy, we couldn't possibly have failed to find any trace of it."
In truth, Nick Fury had concealed some details. When Wei Xiuming first contacted him, he hadn't just sent that greeting and a message hinting at Hydra. He'd also sent another passage:
"In the S.H.I.E.L.D. files from my time, there are two accounts of Nick Fury losing sight in his left eye. The first says he was a Vietnam War soldier, injured by a grenade. He lost 95 percent of his vision in that eye, which was surgically removed and replaced with a bionic eye. The second says a cat scratched him blind in the left eye while he was playing with it."
That passage was what had led to their meeting today. Otherwise, why would the King of Agents deign to see some nobody without even a legal identity? The idea that a protagonist in a fanfic would show off a little superpower and draw the attention of Coulson, Black Widow, and, with a small chance, Agent May was just wishful thinking.
Would a global organization really send an eighth-level agent because some unknown person had a power he shouldn't possess?
"Sacred Hegemony of the Realm of Cyclical Evolution," Wei Xiuming said, withdrawing his hand. "You can just call them Shocker, the same way the National Land Defense, Counterattack and Logistics Support Bureau can be called S.H.I.E.L.D."
Wei Xiuming picked up the pencil and order pad the server had left on the table and quickly sketched a badge: a great eagle with its wings spread, its talons clutching the Earth.
It was Shocker's insignia, and a variation on the Third Reich's national emblem. The blatant symbolism made Nick Fury's expression grow serious—though the badge itself was a little slapdash, like something a villain in a low-budget movie would use.
The Führer had been rejected by the Vienna Academy of Fine Arts twice, but he'd still studied art. He would probably have been furious enough to rise from the dead if the people who inherited his legacy chose something like this.
"Shocker was an organization founded on the legacy of the Third Reich. Its specialty was human modification technology—in a sense, a kind of Super Soldier," Wei Xiuming said. "Using what was almost godlike technology at the time, they could mix the traits of plants and animals into human cells, then brainwash and control the results. That let them create monsters as powerful as tanks."
"But the Führer was a stubborn man. Just as he would only accept an assault rifle if it was called a submachine gun, not an assault rifle, he refused to use Super Soldiers who would lose their human form, even as his empire neared its end. That left the technology to those who came after him."
"That possibility is extremely unlikely!" Nick Fury interrupted. As someone with more contact with the hidden world than anyone else, he knew more than the public could imagine.
The most mature human enhancement technology in the world was the Super Soldier Serum. The only successful test subject was Captain America. Red Skull could just about be counted as another. But both had been enhanced using technology from Dr. Erskine. There was no chance that a second method with a higher success rate existed.
Besides, Nick Fury put himself in Hitler's shoes. If this technology had really existed, Hitler would never have hesitated to mass-produce these Super Soldiers after being defeated at Stalingrad. Even if they couldn't turn the tide of the war, they could at least make life miserable for the enemy.
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