If you want to hide a dead leaf, throw it into the woods in late autumn.
To weave a colossal lie that can deceive the world, one must use ninety-nine truths to create the single illusion.
Vought International Joint Control Room.
Ada Wong leaned against the black control panel, the liquid in her hand swirling, reflecting her exquisite yet dangerous face.
"Network cleaning progress?"
Ada took a sip of the liquor, the spicy liquid sliding down her throat.
"Negative keyword removal rate: 99.8%."
Nina Williams stood in front of the holographic projection, her blonde hair piled up behind her head, toying with a butterfly knife no bigger than the palm of her hand, the Blade flashing between her fingers.
Rumors about 'tracing the origins of Shocker technology' have already spread across the dark web.
"The current narrative is consistent: Shocker is an ' Abyss Division ' of Hydra that wasn't destroyed during World War II, and it possesses a biochemical legacy known as the ' G-virus.' Conspiracy theorists firmly believe this, after all, they always thought Hitler had a base in Antarctica."
"Well done."
Ada raised her glass in a toast.
"The director of S.H.I.E.L.D.. is inherently suspicious. If you put the truth directly on his desk, he'll think it's poison coated in sugar. You have to make him dig it up himself, rummage through the trash, and piece it together."
People always blindly believe in what they've worked hard for, even if it's shit.
A heavy sigh came from the workstation on the side.
Chloe O'Brien had her head buried between two monitors, her fingers clattering on the keyboard.
The former senior analyst at CTU looked utterly exasperated.
"Your request is practically torture for someone with OCD."
Chloe grabbed a handful of her messy hair.
"You expect me to create underlying data noise that looks like it's been aged for fifty years on a fake document that was only generated this week? What's the difference between that and using a 3D printer to fake cracks in Yuan blue and white porcelain?"
"You can do it, darling."
Ada smiled, even with a hint of amusement at watching the spectacle.
"Nick Fury doesn't need perfection. If a document is flawless, that's the biggest flaw. Only incomplete, blurry, even garbled garbage is treasure in his paranoid brain."
The screen flickered.
A stream of green data converges to form the outline of a woman's face.
Tali Zola.
"I don't understand humanity's morbid obsession with 'imperfection,' but I have completed my task of 'filling in the gaps in history.'"
"I hacked into the abandoned communications frequency bands of the East German Stasi secret police from the Cold War era. In the past 72 hours, I sent 4,000 invalid data packets to that 'fake outpost' in Budapest."
The screen changes.
It is the log code for a Nebula.
"At the same time, I modified the logs of thirteen global meteorological satellites from 1989 to 2000. I implanted weak Shocker signatures into the clutter that was originally considered 'background noise.'"
Tali Zola paused.
Even if S.H.I.E.L.D..'s top technicians dismantled the servers, they could only conclude one thing: these signals have always existed; they were just previously submerged in the background radiation of Sunspot activity.
Did you hear that?
Ada put down her wine glass, her high heels clicking on the polished floor.
That's what you call professionalism.
Chloe rolled her eyes, grabbed a flat can of cola from the side, and took a swig.
"Fine, since the minister has already distorted history, I'll take responsibility for breaking the door lock."
She pressed the Enter key.
A red line on the screen suddenly snapped.
"I added a 'self-destruct inducer' to the hard drive's encryption layer. It simulates a 'forced write interruption due to power failure' effect."
Chloe pointed to the simulated scene.
"A Hydra agent attempting to destroy evidence was shot and his skull was ripped open a second before he could press the delete key; his brains and blood splattered onto the keyboard, causing a short circuit."
"Very vivid imagery."
Ada was very satisfied.
This is the effect she wanted.
There's no need to tell Fury that " Shocker is Hydra affiliate."
He needs to use his brilliant mind to deduce this conclusion himself from these fragments.
Nothing is more unbreakable than "what one believes to be the truth".
"What about Budapest?"
Ada turned to look at Nina.
The safe house was located beneath an abandoned Slaughterhouse on the banks of the Danube.
Nina sheathed Blade butterfly knife with a click.
"The three corpses were all recently deceased gangsters, but I dressed them in old Hydra uniforms and even stuffed a microfilm roll into the stomach of one of the corpses."
"As for that hard drive, it was thrown into the stinkiest pile of sludge in the sewer."
Nina glanced at her watch.
" S.H.I.E.L.D.. agents will be there in about half an hour, tracking down the 'abnormal energy fluctuation.' That fluctuation was deliberately leaked by me."
Ada raised her glass again and toasted the void.
"Let's start fishing then."
Chloe typed the final command.
"The bait is in place."
Washington, Triskelion.
The agents in the corridor hurried along, their faces etched with anxiety and exhaustion from lack of sleep.
The door to the director's office was violently pushed open.
They didn't even knock on the door.
There's only one person who would dare to do that.
Maria Hill was holding a tablet computer and walking briskly.
"Gotcha!"
His voice was filled with barely suppressed excitement.
Nick Fury was standing at the window looking at the gloomy sky.
He turned around.
"What?"
"While scanning for anomalous energy residue globally, we detected a strange set of signal frequencies. The technical department compared them three times, and this set of frequencies has a 97% overlap with the energy fluctuations emanating from the Shocker Riders in Geneva!"
Hill handed the tablet over.
Budapest, Hungary.
Hill swiped his finger across the screen to bring up satellite thermal imaging.
"But three minutes ago, the signal suddenly disappeared. That's a characteristic of a forced power cut, not natural attenuation."
Fury stared at the coordinates that had turned gray.
He rubbed his thumb against the stubble on his chin.
Budapest.
That awful place always hides secrets.
If it's a fake signal, it will last longer, and might even deliberately lure them there.
But the signal only appeared for a moment; a mouse hiding in the gutter accidentally stepped on its own tail and, in a panic, cut off the clue.
"They're cleaning house; it seems our actions have alarmed them. Even these lunatics aren't a monolithic group."
He raised his head, a cold glint in his eyes.
Who's around there?
" Agent Barton."
Hill answered quickly.
" Hawkeye is less than 200 kilometers away; I've already had him change course."
Tell Barton.
Fury placed his hands on the table and leaned forward.
"Bring back whatever you see. Even if it's just a screw, I want its serial number. I need to know who created these monsters that crawled out of hell."
"Yes!"
Two hours later.
Budapest, on the banks of the Danube.
There are no romantic waltzes here, only the lingering stench of decay from the abandoned Slaughterhouse.
"Cough... cough cough."
A violent coughing sound came through the communication channel.
Clint Barton was half-submerged in foul-smelling groundwater.
This is the underground drainage system of the Slaughterhouse.
The walls were covered with slippery moss and some kind of unidentified brown grime.
"Chief, I think you should give me a raise."
Barton's voice echoed, punctuated by obvious panting.
He turned on the searchlight on his tactical helmet.
A beam of light pierced the darkness.
An encrypted video link was established in Fury's office.
The image is shaking violently and has a lot of noise.
Fury could see the mess all over the place.
"This place is a Slaughterhouse, literally."
Barton kicks away a piece of gravel at his feet, and the camera pans down.
Three corpses.
He was wearing an old-fashioned gray combat uniform, and the badge that should have been the skull on his chest had been roughly torn off, leaving only a few loose threads.
"Three targets, all dead. The wounds indicate they were inflicted by friendly fire. Shot in the back, executed at close range."
Barton crouched down and turned a corpse over with his gloved hands.
"Those crazy Shocker guys wanted to blow this place up before they left. The walls were covered in C4 explosives, but the fuses malfunctioned, and only half of it collapsed."
Barton stood up and walked towards a pile of rubble in the corner of the room.
There was a server rack there, completely burned beyond recognition.
It's still emitting black smoke.
I found this under the rack.
Barton bent down and dug a dark metal box out of a puddle of mud mixed with engine oil and blood.
He waved his hand at the camera.
That was half a hard drive.
The outer casing was severely deformed, and there were even burn marks at the joints.
It was covered in black mud and looked absolutely disgusting.
"Only this thing is relatively intact. Those guys wanted to burn it, but the water underneath saved it."
Barton wiped away the mud with his fingers, revealing a line of blurry German numbers.
"Director, is it possible for the technical department to fix it? Or at least recover even a single byte from it?"
Fury stared intently at the screen.
Staring at that dirty, broken hard drive, stained with blood and feces.
Things that are too perfect are not to be trusted.
If the documents are neatly arranged on the table, that's a trap.
If it's a perfectly intact data disk, then it's bait.
But this part...
It was almost destroyed.
It was a piece of trash that survived by sheer luck.
In the intelligence community, garbage often equals the truth.
Fury's tense shoulders relaxed.
That long-standing unease finally subsided when I saw this broken hard drive.
This is not a ghost.
Ghosts don't make mistakes, ghosts don't fight amongst themselves, and ghosts don't leave behind such dirty traces.
This is a physical organization.
Every human being bleeds.
As long as it bleeds, it can be killed.