The pale fluorescent tubes were coated in a thin layer of dust. Box after box of paper files had been hauled out of the hand-cranked filing cabinets, and the white tiled floor was covered in gray-black dusty shoeprints. The stale smell of old paper and dust was unpleasant. This was one step in the White House's review of S.H.I.E.L.D.'s past records. Politicians were trying to find evidence here, while researchers from the Pentagon and defense contractors were trying to find technology. Their efforts only made Nick Fury want to laugh, because he knew everyone else would find nothing here. He had bet that his past work had been thorough enough that the base commander would fail to complete the task, and the facts proved him right.
He had already thoroughly purged this archive, removing the recruitment and flight records of a certain female pilot, Howard Stark's preliminary research on the Tesseract, and so on. All that remained were fanciful notes, densely written ledgers, Project Pegasus management manuals, and baffling experimental data. He had come here because he remembered that he might have left behind some information—something that could help him understand the target's motives, something once regarded as pure fantasy: "speculations" about hyperspace travel.
As agreed, two soldiers would stand guard outside the archive room. Nick Fury had to find something among these yellowed papers that would satisfy the Pentagon generals who had never set foot on a battlefield and the greedy politicians in Congress. In return, he would be allowed to take some inspected documents away with him.
"I suspect the moment I hand over the documents, they'll point their guns at me. That wouldn't be surprising..." Nick Fury expressionlessly turned the filing cabinet's handle and found Dr. Wendy Lawson's effects. He stepped into the deep, oppressive aisles between