S.H.I.E.L.D. This was the office of Director Nick Fury at Trident Headquarters, the organization's famous base in the United States.
The famous one-eyed, bald Black man, the head of S.H.I.E.L.D., Director Nick Fury, sat behind his desk, silently holding a document in his left hand. His expression shifted between light and dark as he struggled to make up his mind. His right index finger tapped the desktop unconsciously. The document in his hand obscured half his dark face. No one knew what he saw—or what he thought—through his one remaining eye.
Just then, two short, rhythmic knocks sounded at the door. The people he'd been waiting for had arrived! Nick Fury looked up and breathed a sigh of relief. He snapped the document shut, tossed it onto the desk, then swiveled his chair to face the door before saying, "Come in."
The door opened with two soft clicks, then closed gently behind the newcomers.
A man and a woman, both sharp-looking agents, stood before the director's desk. The man wore a black suit, dress shoes, and a tie, looking every bit the successful businessman. He was S.H.I.E.L.D.'s Level 6 Agent, Phil Coulson! The woman wore a tight black combat suit and training shoes. She was Melinda May, one rank above Coulson and a Level 7 Agent of S.H.I.E.L.D.
They were both Director Nick Fury's trusted, capable subordinates—in other words, the director's lackeys.
"I called you here to handle a tricky assignment together. Especially you, Melinda—you've dealt with something similar before. So..." Nick Fury trailed off and paused to think. In the end, he looked firmly at Agent Melinda.
Even Nick Fury felt that assigning this kind of task to Melinda again was a little heartless. But he had no choice. S.H.I.E.L.D. didn't have many suitable candidates right now.
Besides, they'd chosen to become agents. Sometimes, that meant having no choice! Agents were, after all, special staff—or special workers. And workers could only take orders from the boss. If you wanted to pick and choose your assignments, you might as well become the boss yourself!
"Especially me? So what's the assignment?" Melinda asked, puzzled. There were so many agents in the organization, and only she was suitable? That hardly made sense! For some reason, the director's words gave her a bad feeling.
"Fine. Take a look at the file first." Nick Fury didn't bother explaining further. He picked up the file he'd tossed onto the desk and dropped it with a smack near the two agents.
"Of course, Director." Coulson picked it up and opened it, studying it closely with Melinda, who had leaned in beside him.
The file was only three pages long. The first page showed three surveillance stills, each with a red circle highlighting a little girl of about seven or eight. She wore a red princess dress and a little red hood. The pictures showed her playing with different children in three different places in a park at different times. Small letters beneath each image identified the location: Central Park in New York.
After looking over the first page, Coulson and Melinda glanced up at their director, confused about what he wanted them to see.
These were obviously ordinary photos of a little girl. Was she the daughter of some wealthy businessman or government official? Had she been kidnapped, and did they have to rescue her? But that wasn't S.H.I.E.L.D.'s job! They should go to the FBI or the New York Police Department. S.H.I.E.L.D. was an international defense organization; it didn't handle kidnappings! If anything, they'd kidnapped plenty of people themselves—and none of those they'd abducted and imprisoned had been ordinary.
When Coulson looked up at him, Director Nick Fury offered no explanation. He only gestured for them to keep reading. The rest of the file made everything clear, and he couldn't be bothered to say more.
Hill had originally been assigned the file. Fury had happened to pass by when he saw it. Even he didn't know why he'd taken it over on a whim. He'd simply felt, on instinct, that he needed to handle this himself. Otherwise, something bad was sure to happen!
This wasn't the kind of assignment that normally required the director's personal attention. But he trusted his instincts. Maybe they came from the keen sense he'd developed over years as an agent. For now, that was the only explanation he could come up with.
Still confused, the two agents turned to the second page. This one was much more interesting. It contained five stills. In the first, the little girl sat alone on a swing in the park after dusk.
In the second, three Black thugs surrounded the girl as she swung. One of them held out a lollipop to her. It was a tired old trick for luring children, but such cheap tactics worked well enough on ordinary little girls.
In the third, the girl was about to turn and run, while the three thugs revealed their true intentions and closed in around her.
In the fourth, the little girl held out her small hand toward the three thugs.
The fifth picture was... Coulson blinked, checking that he'd seen it right. He had! The little girl was shooting a huge burst of fire from her hand! The flames seemed to burn the three scumbags into a heap. The surveillance still was blurry, but by then, Coulson had a rough idea of what was going on.
He immediately turned to the third page. It showed the little girl inside a shop, eagerly eating ice cream. Clearly, this wasn't a surveillance still. An agent watching from outside had snapped it through the shop's floor-to-ceiling window using high-definition equipment.
"So, Director, is this little girl a Mutant? Can she control or release fire?" Coulson and Melinda looked at Director Nick Fury together, hoping he could give them more useful information to help them with the next steps.
"Based on what we know so far, maybe. But we haven't confirmed it. Perhaps she's using some kind of special device." Nick Fury thought for a moment, then added:
"Most importantly, our database has no information on this little girl at all! No birth certificate. No school records. No medical records. No insurance. No electronic or paper files of any kind! It's as if she appeared out of nowhere! That's clearly unreasonable. I need you to make contact with the target and, ideally, find out more about her. That's why I'm sending you two together!" Nick Fury's one eye rested on the pair before him, then settled on Melinda.
"So, Melinda! You've had experience with this sort of thing. The target hasn't shown any signs of losing control of her emotions or her abilities, or of threatening public safety. But if things become unpredictable, you can adapt as necessary!"
"Adapt as necessary? You want me to shoot this little girl? Like the little girl on Bahrain?" Melinda's voice wavered, as if the director's words had stirred up a painful memory—the girl on Bahrain whom she'd had no choice but to take down!
"I'm afraid so." The director's one eye remained fixed on Melinda. "You know that, when necessary, we have to do it. It's the only thing we can do."
"All right, Director. I think we have a general idea of what to do." Coulson reluctantly closed the file and tugged at Melinda, signaling that they should leave before she angered the director. "So, should we start by finding out more about the target? Her abilities? Her background? Then, well, adapt as necessary?"
"Fine! I'll take the assignment. But, Director, when it's over, I want you to agree to sign my request to transfer out of the field team!" Melinda wrenched her hand free of Coulson's and glared bitterly at Director Nick Fury. She'd almost managed to forget what happened. But now this bastard had ripped open the wound in her heart all over again!
"Of course. No problem at all." The director took the file Coulson handed back and sat in silence for a moment before nodding. She deserved it, so that was that.
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