Bab 6: 06 - Project Purple
??? POV
Nick Fury cursed under his breath as he moved down the long hallway with a foul expression. His one-eyed glare perpetually menacing every agent and employee unfortunate enough to cross his path.
He could deal with a raging monster born from radiation—some playboy genius dressed up in a robot suit was also fine.
He could deal with it.
The world was entering the dawn of a new era, this was a fact that every one in power knew—scratch that, even the common citizen could deduce this fact if they made the right connections in their minds.
The first 'extraordinary individual' had appeared long ago; Captain America, the Super Soldier.
It was explainable science, people were amazed, but it was still within the realm of possibility.
Then came the Mutants, those who were naturally gifted with extraordinary power by the right of their extraordinary genes.
Humans were starting to naturally evolve into becoming their own Captain Americas—this was the consensus at the time.
But SHIELD and other such hidden groups had always known better.
After all, it was their job to protect the mundane world from the extraordinary individuals.
Forget about Super Soldiers, Mutants had existed even before man started recording history.
Those legendary heroes of myth and legend, aside from pure fiction, what else could they have been?
Of course, they were Mutants.
If not that, then they were those extraordinary individuals that wielded the unexplainable power of Magic.
And Magic was real, very much so—only by the efforts of SHIELD and other similar organizations that preceeded them did the mundane world consider those extraordinary individuals as fiction.
Simply put, humans could not advance much in technology if they knew such mysterious people like the Mutants and Magicians truly held unexplainable power.
They would all want that power instead of advancements in tech.
Man's stone age lasted for millions of years. The ages after that lasted for much shorter periods of time—but only after the extraordinary individuals were deemed fiction and hid from the world did humanity finally start rapidly advancing.
The industrial revolution, the advent of electricity, the birth of nuclear power.
All took place in such a short amount of time. It was proof that man could live better when they were ignorant of the higher powers.
At least, that was the case until humanity developed their own extraordinary individuals and had strong enough technology to combat them.
Only then, after organizations like SHIELD saw the positive reaction to Steve Roger's existence did they feel more comfortable slowly introducing more of the extraordinary world.
That's how the Mutants suddenly appeared in the public eye as if they had just evolved—even though they had always been there the entire time.
However, the public reception of the Mutants had been way worse than expected, extremely so.
For this reason, the Magicians logically chose to not reveal themselves as their powers were even more mysterious than the Mutants.
Not that they cared much about the plights of the common man, but everyone preferred not to randomly get stabbed.
This has been the status quo for many years, with stronger and stronger Mutants crawling out the wood works to further solidify their people's standing in the world.
SHIELD was fine with that—in fact, they even helped some of the Mutants to establish safe sanctuaries for their people.
After all, their jobs would be a lot easier if everyone was on the same page about the existence of extraordinary individuals...
But that was only the case with slow introductions—if people were still on the fence about humans that can breath fire or turn to rock, how would their reactions be if they encountered genuine aliens?
The first true aliens that made their appeareance on planet Earth in recent history was on 1988, when a spacecraft housing various unidentified lifeforms suddenly made their descent to American soil.
No one knew much about them, and they only remained very briefly in the state of Missouri for unknown reasons before departing back to outer space.
Not even a trace of them was left, no one knew what they were doing on Missouri, and that fact had greatly disturbed the American Goverment so much that they had started prioritizing SHIELD on alien research.
Just a few months after that on the same year, a group of unidentified flying objects crashed onto the State of Kansas, all of them containing nothing inside aside from the advanced alien technology.
There was no apparent purpose to these UFO's, a fact that made many scientist endlessly theorize about what they were. But they were still quite grateful considering the alien tech that they got to research.
Still, those ships had been concluded to be a kind of escape pod, but the fact that they contained no 'escapee' raised even more questions than answers.
Was it just a diversion? Did the real 'escapee' sucessfully escaped and now walked among us?
It was quite the unsettling dilemma.
The third instance was on 1995 and much less mysterious than the first and second, but Fury really did not want to bother his brain by thinking of the can of worms that had been his experience with Miss Marvel.
But all those instances had been manageable. After all, only the hidden organizations were actually aware of what occured—the common populace remained blissfully ignorant.
That all changed when a giant saucer the size of the Titanic appeared over the pyramid of Giza.
That UFO had travelled at mind boggling speeds, reaching the Amazon rainforest in a matter of mere seconds.
And then it flew to Japan, London, Paris...
Nevermind surpressing news, that shit became the new headlines even before Fury could finish his coffee.
And then it just upped and dissapeared as if it hadn't just caused an international world-wide panic.
Fucking North Korea claimed to have shot it down or something...
Bullshit that even the Minotaur wouldn't buy.
"What have you found out so far?" The One-Eyed Fury asked with a brisk tone as he entered a room with many monitors hung up on the wall.
"Not much...Director." The assistant in question, Donald Ferguson, answered as he handed a paper file to the Director of SHIELD. "Here's all what we've gathered on 'em."
Nick Fury nodded as he took the file and quickly opened it before continuing to walk, reading the report inside with a heavy expression.
Not good.
There's all the shit he had already expected, super strength, flight, durable enough to be bullet proof.
But what is this, he can detect cancer? One of his top agents even got spotted as if he was playing Where's Waldo...
The good thing was that they had managed to get a DNA sample from the alien—yes, they had already made the connection between the UFO and the sudden debut of the new 'hero', it wasn't exactly hard to figure out.
Especially considering Scion openly admitted to being an alien.
They couldn't exactly interview Garfield Logan, the child that went viral because of what Superman did...
All the media attention was on that boy, after all.
But with bits and pieces gathered from other witnesses; primarily, Dr Joe Bart and that BB Burger employee, as well as CCTV footage, SHIELD had already created an in-depth profile on the foreign newcomer.
The Scion.
It was definitely an esoteric name, the word itself meaning 'offspring', but the offspring of what remained unclear.
The prevailing theory spreading through the ears and mouths of SHIELD's agents were that there were more aliens up in that saucer and that the Scion was simply the youngest of them, perhaps the child of the leader.
"What the hell?" Fury stopped as he glanced to his right, where Donald had followed him. "Is this correct? His DNA is...human?"
"Mostly, yeah." The assistant nodded. "I was confused too, but Scion's genetic makeup is very simillar to a human's—if it underwent an additional half-a-million years of evolution..." Donald scratched the back of his buzz cut. "The science comittee's words, not mine."
"Hmm..." Fury frowned at the revelation, but decided to continue reading instead of making any further comments.
That was a concerning fact, one that made more questions than it did answers.
The DNA sample in question had been the leftover trace of Scion's saliva that had stuck to the plates of food left in his wake, particularly in that burger chain.
There was the miniscule posibility that some of the cook's DNA had mixed in during the food preperation, but even if that was the case, it wouldn't suddenly erase the foreign DNA of Scion...
And reading the report further, Scion's DNA proved to be quite the anomalous thing. Any attempt at altering it beyond simple observation had 100% of the time resulted in the complete destruction of the DNA sample.
The DNA would simply 'implode' in on itself with all of the biological information getting messed up beyond recognizition.
It was as if the damn thing was installed with a self-destruct button...
However, there was still something that brought results other than complete DNA degeneration.
When exposed to an external set of genomes belonging to anything other than Scion himself—the DNA would somehow 'corrupt' and 'infect' the information contained in the external genes and turn it into copycats of itself.
That's straight up sounded like Sci-Fi, damned zombie genes—the Director thought to himself with a grimace.
The good thing about this genetical feature was that they very had a method of acquiring more of Scion's DNA without actually needing to take something from him. Though, whether this was viable or not remains to be seen considering how slow the convertion rate was.
"Oh...?" Fury hummed as he read over the proposal that one of the scientists wrote on the report.
It was a proposal on trying to test the effects of Scion's DNA on living subjects.
If the DNA could corrupt the genomes of living creatures and infect them into having Scion's genes...
Nick Fury did not hesitate to rip that specific piece of the paper right off before throwing it into the garbage.
Yeah, as if that was a good idea. Whichever scientist thought of that, he'll have that guy fired by lunch.
The Director was smart enough to know that it wouldn't be that easy.
Scion was an alien that possessed technology potentially dozens of centuries into the future—how stupid would his people be if they had not thought of that?
Considering a 'genius' biologist from bumfuck America just did this morning, they probably have had that idea long ago.
And of course, there must have been countermeasures against such things.
If SHIELD had tried to inject Scion's DNA into one of their agents to try on making a new Super Solider—the Director was confident that there would be a 95% chance of that guy spontaneously combusting or something.
Sure, there was the possibility that it might actually work, but Nicholas Fury wasn't too keen on poking a sleeping volcano with a dynamite anytime soon.
—SLAP!
"Huh?" Fury glanced to the right, raising his eyebrow at his assistant.
"Sorry, annoying bug." Donald responded as a tiny, glossy winged insect buzzed in front of him—it looked like a mosquito, but slightly larger than average.
—CLAP!
Donald continued trying to execute the little insect, but the slippery bastard was far too agile for the assistant's hands.
Fury shook his head as he ignored Donald's antics, he didn't have the time for this trivial bullshit.
"Sir Director." An intern quickly walked up to him. "We have a call, it's from the DOD..."
"Great." The Director looked like he wanted to spit sulfuric acid. "Get them on the big screen."
"Of course." The intern nodded as Fury sighed and placed the file on a table before he looked up at the 'big screen'.
Well, it was the biggest screen in this room, so just people just called it the big screen.
The monitor flickered as a woman with a neutral expression appeared on the screen.
"How's the current situation?" Fury asked as his eyes flickered to the hectic scenes transmitted on the smaller screens.
Protests and demonstrations—this was one of the cons of having the masses be ignorant.
They tended to not have nice reactions after finding out what the Goverment has been hiding from them, especially when it came to such a hot-debated topic like aliens.
"I'm sure you have already seen for yourself, Director." The woman answered with concealed tired eyes, but Fury could see through it. "...We have managed to locate the UFO."
"That's great." He nodded as he smacked his lips. "But how'd you do it? Wasn't it completely untraceable yesterday?"
Even SHIELD was helpless in that matter. The only ones who should have a viable way of tracking the saucer would be those hidden Magic guys.
But of course, they'd never want to help SHIELD, much less the US Goverment in general.
"The UFO had started to abduct animals from all over the world, you already know, right?" She said, to which Fury nodded.
It had started 7 hours ago, a zebra from a zoo in Florida suddenly started to float up and vanish in bright blue light.
Then a monkey in New Jersey, an otter from North Dakota, and various other animals.
Fury had seen one of the videos that captured a poor parot get beamed up before disappearing, it looked a bit unsettling.
"Well, there's a pattern to these abductions. If the UFO can only abduct animals that are generally near it, which is probably the case, then the UFO is moving from one state to the one immediately next to it. The last abduction was on Louisiana, and the one before it was on Mississippi." She explained.
So that meant the UFO was probably going to either Oklahoma or Arkansas next...
Fury suppossed it was better than nothing.
Knowing the general area of where the UFO was should at least be useful.
"How is it on your end?" The woman asked, reverting to her usual neutral face.
"Hmm..." Fury started to quickly explain the facts of the matter at hand.
What SHIELD has figured out regarding the UFO wasn't much, but their primary focus had been on the Scion himself, so it was understandable.
"Human DNA?" The woman looked stupified. "Is it like All Tomorrows...? Huh, probably not." Fury heard the woman mutter to herself.
What the hell is All Tomorrows? Eh, probably just some book or something.
"What about Project Purple?" The woman continued to ask after she snapped out of it. Ah, right. Project Purple—the contingency plan that the US Goverment cooked up in the event that a superhuman threat too powerful to handle were to appear.
It was originally meant for Superman. After all, even the US Goverment wasn't sure they could deal with the blue boy scout if he went rogue without resorting to anything drastic like several nuclear warheads.
But after 2 years of evident proof that Superman legitimately just wanted to help old grandmas cross the street, they would no longer mind using it on another.
In this case, the Scion—an extraordinary individual of great power that has been classified as an extreme risk to national safety.
From all the recording they had of him, to the personal eye-witness accounts—America's best psyche analysts have concluded one thing about the new 'hero'.
He wasn't at all a second Superman.
Although Scion's exact motivations and intentions remained unclear, it was rather obvious that he wasn't as easily predictable as the Man of Steel.
Therefore, a dangerous existence to the Goverment's interests.
Superman just wanted to save people, what did Scion want? Entertainment? Wealth?
The fact that Superman seemed to trust him for some reason did ease some of the worries, but Scion could very well be a wolf in sheep's clothing.
In fact, he most likely was.
"About that..." Nick Fury started. "It's good, he's barely functioning anymore." He stated with some distaste.
Project Purple, what was it really?
Amongst those extraordinary individuals that have popped up recently, one amongst them had caught the Goverment's sight.
Codename Killgrave.
Fury had little sympathy to that bastard. The moment that he had developed his powers, Killgrave immediately used it to fulfil his own dark desires.
Be it middle-aged mothers, young brides, and even little girls...
He could control them like they were drones, use them like toys—and use them he did.
Fortunately, his mind controlling powers weren't actually telepathic or anything esoteric.
They were based on tiny microoranisms constantly emitted by Killgrave's body that served to parasitize the victim through their nervous system.
A tricky thing if you didn't have the equipment to deal with such volatile biohazards—something that SHIELD wasn't short on, fortunately.
Now Killgrave remained contained in the same exact facility that Fury now stood in.
He didn't intially like the idea of being in the same room as that bastard, but there are still currently 0 prisons that could properly contain Killgrave's stank aside from the few cells here.
Killgrave himself was kept in a solitary confinement cell that could only be called a torture room to the mind.
Completely white and odourless, with no furniture aside from a bed and a toilet that had very clear, almost white water.
Yeah, he deserved it—at least, his body could now serve a great cause for the country.
Of course, they weren't let him out or something when that time comes. Instead, SHIELD has been patiently harvesting those mind-controlling pheremones of his for their own use.
The mental torture was necessary for that to be effective since Killgrave emitted much more pheromones when he became stressed.
There was the problem of how they should control the victim without Killgrave himself, but that has already been resolved.
After all, they only needed his voice—and after a few good weeks on solitary confinement, the man became much more obedient and happily provided the necessary voice recordings, all for the chance of being able to talk to someone other than himself.
How ironic.
It would have probably brought a smile to Fury's face had it not been a stressful month for him—scratch that, it was a stressful year!
"Good." The woman said with a relieved tone. "That's all for now, I have a meeting in 10 minutes."
Nick Fury smiled grimly. "Me too."
And with that the transmission cut off.
—STRIKE!
"Could you stop that?" The Director asked with an annoyed expression as he glared at his assistant.
"Sorry, Director! This little guy's just too tenacious." This whole time Donald had been occupied on that suppossedly annoying bug.
Really, it was him that was annoying the Director.
—SLAP!
"Buzz...!" The insect released a buzzing sound as it very easily avoided the hand.
"Ugh." Donald groaned as he wanted to try again.
But it looked like the insect was having enough of it and simply flew off, slipping into the ventilation up above in order to escape the murderous humans.
"Look, even he's annoyed of you." The Director lampooned as Donald sported a sheepish look.
"Hmm, sorry." The assistant apologized. "There has just been so many of those bugs recently, I feel like the HQ is infested with them, Director."
"It's probably because of the summer." Fury shrugged it off.
"Yeah, but..."
It couldn't hear much more as it's form efficiently flew through the ventilation system.
It had already achieved it's goal, and now it was heading to the next task on the list.
The insect slid out of the ventilation once again as it entered a completely white room.
It buzzed at it moved closer, landing on the nose of the currently sleeping Killgrave.
Without hesitation, it stung the man.
He didn't even stir in his sleep as it pumped the invasive serum into the Terran's bloodstream.
Lifting itself up back into the sky, it once again stared down at the sleeping Killgrave.
It had only been a second, yet it was enough for the effects to kick in as purplish veins appeared below the man's skin, convulsing as he slowly and gradually started to...grow.
Truly, he was going to actually become purple now...
"What a decrepit monkey." A voice suddenly said.
But aside from the sleeping man, there was no one there.
...No one aside from the insect.
But it wasn't an insect.
It wasn't even alive.
No, it was a drone—a tiny one disguised as a mere bug.
The drone released a buzzing laughter as it crawled back into the vents.
...Mission accomplished.
Status Power Mingguan
-- Peringkat
Power 
-- Power
stone