Keeping His Deeds and Name Hidden

The waters of the Potomac River were still bone-chilling, but that cold was just enough to suppress the restless heat in Zhao Fan's body from overusing the [Extremis Virus].

He and Old Dog lay limp in the mud on the riverbank for a brief rest, like two corpses washed ashore. In the distance, three enormous Helicarriers lay like fallen Titans, their wreckage strewn across the river and the ruins of the Triskelion. Billowing smoke blotted out Washington's midday sun. Sirens, the roar of helicopters, and occasional secondary explosions in the distance wove together into a dirge for the collapse of the old order.

"Cough, cough... Fan." Old Dog rolled onto his back, his face covered in grease and mud. "If I could have a smoke right now, I'd give up a year of my life."

"Deal with it." Zhao Fan wiped his face. His hands trembled slightly, not from fear, but from the weakness of pushing his body far beyond its limits.

He closed his eyes and sank his consciousness deep into his mind. The newly unlocked [System Space] hovered quietly within his awareness. In the center of that hazy, one-cubic-meter space, the "next-generation repulsion engine core" hung motionless, emitting a faint blue glow like a heart frozen in time.

As long as he had this thing, all the risks had been worth it.

Beep-

The communicator on Zhao Fan's wrist sounded. It was the emergency frequency Benjamin had encrypted.

"Boss! Old Dog! Are you still alive?" Benjamin's anxious voice came through. "S.H.I.E.L.D.'s internal network has completely blown up. The whole world is looking for the wreckage of those three crashed carriers."

"We're alive. Probably." Zhao Fan propped himself up, feeling every bone in his body protest. "Where's Evelyn?"

"I'm here." Evelyn's voice joined the channel. Though she retained her characteristic calm, the noisy static in the background betrayed how unsettled her situation was. "I'm in the underground shelter at the processing station. Things are bad outside. The National Guard has taken over this area, and they're sealing off the site. You need to reach the B4 extraction point I marked on your terminals within half an hour. I got a truck marked 'Hazardous Chemical Disposal.'"

"Half an hour..." Zhao Fan glanced at Old Dog, who was still panting heavily. "No problem. Ben, send the extraction route to my terminal. Avoid all surveillance and personnel."

"Roger, boss. But you'd better be careful. Right now, even a rat passing through Washington, D.C. would have three rifles aimed at it."

Zhao Fan ended the call and nudged Old Dog's boot with his foot.

"Up and at it, Old Dog. We need to meet up with the she-devil, then get our 'spoils' home."

Old Dog groaned as he got up and picked up his waterlogged shotgun, which might or might not still fire. "Seriously, Fan, I want my cut in cash this time. All used bills. I'm going to spread them over my bed and sleep on them."

Trading jokes, the two slipped toward the designated extraction point under the cover of the thick bushes along the riverbank.

The sights along the way were horrifying. Countless bodies of S.H.I.E.L.D. agents-now impossible to distinguish as loyalists or Hydra-lay scattered among the ruins. Zhao Fan did not linger, but he did not waste this rare opportunity either.

He kept [Weak Energy Perception] active the entire time.

Whenever they passed bodies that looked like senior officers or specialist troops, Zhao Fan would move closer without drawing attention.

[Analysis of F-rank remnant: damaged S.H.I.E.L.D. tactical eyepiece.]

[Analysis of E-rank remnant: fragment of a Hydra encrypted communications terminal.]

Though they were all small, broken objects, and the results of his analysis were mostly useless, even a mosquito's leg was meat. More importantly, doing this reassured Zhao Fan-he could feel himself constantly growing stronger.

Finally, after passing through a collapsed underground drainage channel, they saw the yellow truck parked in the shadows.

Evelyn paced beside the truck's cargo compartment. When she saw the two mud-covered men looking as though they had crawled out of hell, a trace of relief appeared for the first time in her usually icy gray-blue eyes.

"Get in." She wasted no words as she opened the cargo door. "Ben's in the cab. We need to get out before the National Guard completes its encirclement."

Zhao Fan and Old Dog climbed into the cargo compartment, which reeked of disinfectant.

With a roar of its engine, the truck slowly pulled away and entered the chaotic traffic.

Zhao Fan leaned against the compartment wall, watching the ruins of the Triskelion recede through a gap. An era lay buried there, along with countless secrets.

"Is it over?" Old Dog pulled a soggy cigar from inside his clothes and put it in his mouth to satisfy the craving without lighting it.

"No." Zhao Fan tapped his knee lightly, feeling the [Extremis Virus] slowly repair his damaged body. "For Captain America, it's over. But for us..."

"For us, the feast has only just begun."

In the driver's seat, Benjamin worked the gearshift and accelerator. The truck roared, belched a plume of black smoke, and disappeared into the shadows of dawn.

Inside the cargo compartment, the atmosphere was heavy and oppressive.

It was piled with lead-sealed drums used as camouflage, which clanged together as the truck jolted along. Zhao Fan leaned in a corner, gulping from a bottle of mineral water. The water washed the smoky grit from his throat, making him truly feel alive again.

He looked at Evelyn, who sat opposite him. The woman was opening the small box Old Dog had handed her, checking the Hydra core data drive and master key inside.

"The data is intact." She let out a long breath, closed the case, and looked up at Zhao Fan. "Did you get what you wanted?"

Zhao Fan said nothing and merely extended his right hand.

With a thought, he willed it.

The "next-generation repulsion engine core" appeared out of thin air in his palm.

Its deep blue light instantly illuminated the entire dim compartment, shining on Evelyn's shocked face. Those pure, stable, immense energy fluctuations made the top scientist hold her breath.

"Spatial folding technology..." Evelyn murmured. Rather than touch the core, she stared fixedly at Zhao Fan's hand. "I thought that was a rumor, or some theoretical model of quantum mechanics... You've actually mastered this technology?"

Zhao Fan turned his palm over, and the core vanished into thin air again, as though it had never existed. "Everyone has secrets, Evelyn. Just as you never told me what inhibitor you put in the 'Extremis Virus' to keep me from going off like a bomb."

Evelyn's eyes flickered before she returned to normal. "That was for your safety. Uncontrollable power is a disaster. Only controllable power is evolution."

Evelyn fell silent for a moment, then changed the subject, a smile suddenly curling her lips.

"I'm getting more and more interested in you, Zhao Fan." She leaned against the compartment wall, looking somewhat tired but extraordinarily energized. "Hydra is finished, and so is S.H.I.E.L.D. The world is one enormous vacuum now."

"And we're perfectly positioned to fill it," Zhao Fan picked up.

"Exactly." Ambition gleamed in Evelyn's eyes. "D.O.D.C. was originally just a marginal department responsible for cleaning up messes, constrained by S.H.I.E.L.D. and Stark Industries. But now Pierce is dead, Fury is 'dead,' and Stark is busy dealing with pressure from the military and public opinion. This is our chance."

"You want to rise to the top?"

"Not just rise to the top." Evelyn looked at Zhao Fan. "I want complete control of D.O.D.C. I want to turn it into a truly independent agency, with its own armed forces, research, and intelligence systems. And you, Zhao Fan-your S.C.U. will be the sharpest edge of that sword."

"Deal." Zhao Fan raised his mineral water bottle in a toast. "To the new order."

"To the new order." Evelyn raised her hand as well, though both her hands were empty.

Old Dog and Ben then joined in.

Just then, the system's settlement screen appeared on Zhao Fan's retina.

[S-rank mission "Throne in the Ruins" completed.]

[Distributing rewards...]

[1. Ability enhancement: Kinetic Repulsion (advanced). Your repulsion release is no longer limited to simple pushing. You can now perform "Repulsion Shaping."]

[2. System Space expanded to 1 cubic meter (issued in advance).]

As Zhao Fan looked at the string of rewards, his heart pounded.

That "Repulsion Shaping"...

Zhao Fan extended a finger and willed it.

Without a sound, the air above his fingertip suddenly distorted, and a faint, transparent membrane appeared, almost invisible to the naked eye. He lightly drew it across the lead-sealed drum beside him.

Hiss-

A neat slit opened in the hard lead sheeting as easily as if it were tofu.

An invisible blade.

"What are you doing?" Evelyn keenly noticed the anomaly.

"Nothing." Zhao Fan withdrew his hand, and the fluctuation instantly vanished. "Just testing my new toy. Looks like this trip to Washington paid for itself."

Evelyn frowned, then said, "Don't activate your abilities at random. We'll inspect and test them in a professional facility when we get back. I'll give you a thorough examination while we're at it."

"All right, all right. You're in charge." Zhao Fan waved a hand, then leaned back and closed his eyes to rest.

Silence fell over the compartment again. Only the occasional siren outside reminded them that they were not completely out of danger yet. But Zhao Fan closed his eyes and, inside this tin can filled with the smell of radioactive waste, felt a trace of peace for the first time in a long while.

He had grown stronger.

In this Marvel Universe overrun with monsters, that was the only thing that could put him at ease.

After several hours of jolting travel and avoiding countless checkpoints, the unremarkable waste disposal truck finally pulled into an obscure abandoned construction site late the following night.

This was a secret D.O.D.C. transfer station, as well as a safe house Evelyn had arranged long ago.

The moment the doors opened, fresh, cold air flooded their lungs, and they all felt as though they had been given a new lease on life.

"I swear, I'm never riding in a truck like this again." Benjamin helped Old Dog out. His arm had taken an impact during the fall earlier, and although it had been given a simple splint, it was still swollen to the size of a thigh. "My old back's about to snap."

"Oh, come on. We're on the run. Where are we supposed to find a nice ride?" Benjamin grumbled, but his face was also full of exhaustion and excitement.

"Is this place safe?" Zhao Fan surveyed their surroundings.

"Absolutely." Evelyn emerged from the shadows, having already regained her brisk, capable demeanor. "All surveillance footage and records here have been erased. I've also arranged a private plane. It flies directly to New York in an hour."

She turned and looked at the trio before her.

A "super soldier" with mysterious powers, a greedy but experienced veteran, and a genius hacker who could break into S.H.I.E.L.D.

It was a strange combination, but a powerful one as well.

"Once we return to New York, everything will change," Evelyn said. "I'll use the fallout from 'Project Insight' to restructure D.O.D.C. Together with the core data drive you brought out, which I'll release bit by bit, I'll use it to purge my opponents. Your identities will become those of the 'unsung heroes' of this crisis."

"Forget being heroes." Zhao Fan waved a hand. "That's worthless, and it gets you killed faster. I only care whether the promises made to me have been fulfilled."

"Don't worry." Evelyn pointed at a nearby warehouse. "Everything you asked for is in there. Also, starting today, S.C.U. will be separated from D.O.D.C.'s regular organization and report directly to me. You'll have a new base and a new budget."

"Sounds good." Zhao Fan nodded.

He glanced toward Washington. The smoke and flames there had died out, but a new storm was brewing.

S.H.I.E.L.D. had fallen. The Avengers would go underground or operate independently. This crisis would give Tony Stark the idea of creating "Ultron." Baron Strucker, one of Hydra's remnants, was still in Sokovia researching the scepter and the twins...

The world had become even more chaotic.

Zhao Fan narrowed his eyes. He needed to make some preparations in advance.

"Let's go." Zhao Fan patted Old Dog and Ben on the shoulders. "Let's go home."