Rising Tide 2.0

Azu ignored her astonishment and elegantly squeezed inside, his tall frame making the entire van feel cramped.

"So..." Skye still could not process any of this. "You, Homelander, Anthony Starr, the big boss of Vought Group... came to my 'doghouse'... why? To experience life?"

"I came to find you, Skye." Azu got straight to the point. "I read your Rising Tide Manifesto."

"We will rise up and fight those who hide the truth..." He recited it word by word. "Well written. Very passionate."

"Ha." Skye laughed at herself. "So? Are you here to arrest me? Or give me a ticket? I don't have money to pay it."

"I'm here to offer you... a bigger stage."

Azu stood up, his X-Ray Vision sweeping across the van's interior.

"You're very talented, Skye. With this pile of... scrap metal, you've managed to give S.H.I.E.L.D. a massive headache. You're a genius."

"But you're only one person."

"And them..." Azu's voice lowered. "They're an empire... an empire built on lies and secrets. You can't beat them."

"This has nothing to do with you." Skye watched him warily. "You're on their side, aren't you? You... government mascot."

"Mascot?"

Azu smiled.

He reached out and gently pressed a hand onto Skye's seventeen-inch laptop.

Bzzzt—

Before Skye could react, the laptop, along with every hard drive inside it, was instantly crushed into a flat slab of metal.

"Oh, shit! My computer!!" Skye screamed. "You asshole! It had all my..."

"All your... what? Evidence?" Azu withdrew his hand, and the smile vanished from his handsome face.

"Skye, you have no idea who you're playing games with."

He switched into "award-winning actor" mode, his voice turning low.

"I want to say this, Skye... you're right."

Skye froze.

"What do you think I am?" Azu gave a "self-mocking" smile. "A clown packaged by capital? A... government lapdog?"

"..." Skye said nothing, but her expression said exactly that.

"That's how they see me too." Wu Yanzu wore a "sorrowful" expression. "S.H.I.E.L.D... Nick Fury... they don't trust me. They fear me."

"They fear me, just like they fear you, Skye."

"They sent agents to pull out my hair, scrape my skin, collect everything they could."

"They want to study me, Skye."

"They want to find my weakness! Put a collar on me! Lock me in a cage!"

"They..." Wu Yanzu looked at her with "grief and indignation." "They're afraid of me. Just like they're... afraid of you."

"I..." Skye was stunned into silence.

"What do you think S.H.I.E.L.D. is? A partner of justice?" Wu Yanzu sneered. "They're parasites, Skye. They're the biggest lie in this country."

"They monitor everyone. They monitor you, monitor me, monitor the president!"

"Haven't you been investigating your own past, Skye?"

Those words struck Skye like lightning.

"You... how did you know?!"

"I know far more than you imagine." Wu Yanzu began his "empathetic" performance.

"I know you're an orphan, that you drifted from place to place growing up. I know why you're so desperate to dig out the truth... because you're also searching for... your own truth."

"You..." Skye's eyes reddened.

"S.H.I.E.L.D. knows." Wu Yanzu dangled the fatal bait. "They have your file, Skye. They know who your parents are. They know why you were abandoned. But they... will never tell you."

"Because to them... you're just a threat too. A superhuman who needs to be monitored..."

"No... that's impossible..." Skye's voice trembled.

"Nothing is impossible." Wu Yanzu crouched down and looked directly into her eyes, his voice full of persuasion.

"You and I, Skye, are the same kind of people."

"We're both freaks who were abandoned. They use us, and they guard against us."

"And I..." He smiled. "I'm fucking... sick of it."

"..."

"Join me, Skye." Wu Yanzu held out his hand.

"Vought... my company. I can give you the fastest servers in the world. I can give you a military-grade satellite network. I can give you... a real stage."

"Don't you want to know the truth?"

"I'll help you. You help me."

"Together... we'll rip this damned S.H.I.E.L.D. out by the roots. Everything they've hidden in the dark... every dirty secret... we'll expose it all to the public."

"You..." Skye looked at his outstretched hand, then at his "sincere" eyes.

Did she hate S.H.I.E.L.D.? She did.

Did she want to know the truth? She wanted it so badly she was going crazy.

And the man before her... was handing her the C4 to blow everything up.

"...Why?" Skye suddenly looked up. "Why are you doing this? You're... Homelander. You're a billionaire. You have everything."

"Because..."

Wu Yanzu stepped forward and gently patted her shoulder.

"The world... needs the truth, doesn't it?"

She was silent for three seconds.

"...Fuck! I'm in!"

"But I'm not doing this for you, or for Vought."

"I'm doing it for... the truth."

"Of course." Wu Yanzu smiled. "We're... on the side of justice, aren't we?"

He elegantly opened a bottle of Vought energy drink from the van, adding inwardly, I'm fucking justice!

"Ding! Special Popularity Points gained +10000"

The next day, Vought International, Los Angeles branch.

Skye was invited into an office more luxurious than every place she had lived in combined.

Wu Yanzu pressed a button on his desk.

The office wall slowly opened, revealing the most outrageous "war room" Skye had ever seen in her life.

An entire wall of servers, hundreds of monitors, and a holographic projection table.

"Your van... is very retro. I like retro." Wu Yanzu's tone was full of temptation.

"But this... is Vought's global data center, protected by quantum encryption. Here... you are a god."

Skye's breathing quickened.

She walked toward it uncontrollably, as if making a pilgrimage.

Over the next seventy-two hours, S.H.I.E.L.D.'s entire intelligence system... went insane.

A hacker group calling itself "Rising Tide 2.0" began dumping data onto the internet.