Capítulo 5: Chapter 5
October, 1995 (9 Years Old)
Hydra Facility, Siberia
The Wyvern looked out the window as the helicopter roared across the desolate Siberian wastes. She knew the snowy forests of the Québec facility, and the bitter streets around the Red Room, but this was a new kind of winter she had never witnessed. Ice crystals tore along the snow-laden rock, borne on screeching winds. It was a monochrome world, black rock and white snow, where no human would think to set foot.
The Program Leader had just read her words to her, and the Wyvern's body was motionless, ready to comply.
The helicopter descended on the near-invisible bunker, just a few satellite poles and half-buried metal hatches on the summit of a frozen rock. When they landed, the Wyvern and her handlers strode across the icy ground to a metal slab door hidden in the rock. Two guards in green camouflage and hats nodded to the newcomers, and one of them pressed a keycode into the pad by the door to allow them in.
The bunker was made of concrete slabs and metal reinforcements. It was a cold place, that reminded the Wyvern of the Québec facility. They had wiped her consistently in the Red Room, but they didn't take the memories of her time in Québec. She didn't know what they were wiping when they put her in the machine, but it must have been nonessential for the mission.
"Ah, Karpov!" the Program Leader called to a soldier wearing the camouflage uniform of the Russian Armed Forces. His red hat marked him out as a Colonel. "How wonderful to see you again."
"General-yekh Petrov," ["Ex-General Petrov,"] Karpov spat, his mouth pursed. A bald man with a severe stare stood to his left.
"Ah, you're half right. I go by Peters, now."
Finding that unworthy of a response, Karpov turned to one of his men. "Gotovy li aktiv?" ["Is the asset ready?"] His accent was heavy.
"Da, Polkovnik." ["Yes, Colonel."]
"You think he will be fighting fit after being frozen in a box?" The Project Leader asked, falling into step beside Karpov as they moved toward an elevator. The bald man walked beside the Wyvern, glaring at her.
"He has been for the past seventy years," Karpov replied.
"And I can't help but notice that you said aktiv. Is my Wyvern only to face one of your assets?" The Project Leader's voice was light.
As they waited for the elevator cage, Karpov's face darkened. "Do not taunt me with a question you already know the answer to."
The Project Leader turned to the bald man, taking in his heavy glare. "And you must be one of the Batal'on smerti," ["death squad,"] he said. "You ought to be thankful for the Wyvern. If she hadn't been assigned that serum, you'd be frozen with the rest of your comrades."
The man simply levelled the Project Leader with a deeper glare.
"Your project denied Borya his chance at greatness," Karpov said, his tone acid. "You ought to show more respect."
The Project Leader shrugged.
Karpov, Borya, the Project Leader, the Wyvern, and soldiers from both projects entered the elevator. It was an uncomfortable fit. The Wyvern ended up wedged between Karpov and the Project Leader. She was half their size, and the press of bodies made her sweat.
As the elevator rattled down, Karpov looked down his nose at her. The Wyvern stared straight ahead, pretending not to notice his disdainful inspection.
"At least the Soldat is not a child that requires years of training. He is always ready, for whatever HYDRA needs."
The elevator opened. The Project Leader straightened his jacket, then gestured for Karpov and the glaring Borya to exit first. "Well, we shall have to see, won't we?"
The room they had been brought to was like a long, low warehouse, with a cage in the centre. The cage was made of black metal bars, which looked like they might hold up to even the Wyvern's strength.
There was a man waiting for them. In actuality there were several men in the room, but the Wyvern knew there was only one who could be the Soldat.
He stood motionless in black leather and Kevlar armour, his blank gaze fixed on the door. His arm gleamed silver in the hanging lights, highlighting the red star. He was the sole occupant of the cage.
The Wyvern felt a chill run down her back at the sight of the man. Her instincts, drilled into her over four years of training, screamed that this was a dangerous enemy. She recognised something in him that was inside her – the emptiness, maybe. She saw something in his gaze shift when he spotted her, and a furrow creased his brow. But it was gone as soon as it appeared, and then he was just as blank as her. The Wyvern fell into parade rest and waited for an order.
The Project Leader turned to the Wyvern. "Defeat the Soldier." She heard Karpov pass on similar instructions to the Soldier.
One of Karpov's men opened the door to the cage. The Soldier didn't move.
Rolling her shoulders, the Wyvern paced past the Project Leader, past Karpov, past the man at the door to the cage. She stepped inside, and the door slammed behind her.
There was silence in the room. There had to be twenty men surrounding the cage, but none of them made a sound. The Soldier certainly didn't speak. He was still blank, but she could feel the entirety of his focus trained on her, on her small size and her seemingly breakable limbs. Certainly, he could break some of them, but she was stronger than these men knew.
She didn't move either.
She scanned her opponent: his armour looked tough, all thick Kevlar and buckles. Her armour was made of a lighter material, but could resist blades. She wouldn't put it past Karpov to arm his Soldier.
The only flesh the Soldier bared was his right hand and his face. His metal arm was loose by his side, but she didn't let that fool her – he looked like a fast man, and she knew better than to underestimate him.
She met the Soldier's eyes. They were a clear grey-blue, slightly shrouded by his long, unclean hair. She had never seen a look like his in an enemy before: she was used to being underestimated and appraised by her teachers, used to being hated by the girls at the Red Room. In the Soldier's eyes she only saw that he knew he must fight her. She wondered what her eyes showed him.
Without anyone having to tell them to, the Wyvern and the Winter Soldier stalked toward one another. He swung first, a brutal downward punch with the metal arm, but the Wyvern slid between his legs and kicked at the back of his knees – he was ready for it, spinning away and aiming another punch at her on the ground. She rolled away from the metal fist. She sprang up to fly at his face but he leaned back, so she landed the punch against his gut. It only knocked him back a step, making him grunt, but the glimpse she caught of his eyes told her that he was re-evaluating her as he fought. They swung and ducked around each other, the Wyvern using her size to evade his metal arm, aiming blows at his legs and groin.
She was using every bit of training she had ever learned – she knew she'd never faced an enemy like this, so fast and so strong. She could tell the Soldier was also surprised by her: he didn't underestimate her, not for a second, but he kept adapting his fighting style to try to outmanoeuvre her, using his bulk one moment and striking fast as a snake in the next. They were both silent fighters, letting out only the occasional grunt or growl. They were both precise; thinking moves ahead, pressing forward and stepping back in an instant.
He had backed her up against the edge of the cage, so the Wyvern leapt up, sprang off one of the metal bars and spun in the air, bringing her heel – reinforced by Adamantium – across the Soldier's face. His head cracked to the side and he stumbled, his hair flying across his face.
The Wyvern's ears picked up the sharp intake of breath through Karpov's nostrils, and the Project Leader's low chuckle.
The Wyvern did not let the Soldier catch his breath. She ran after him, pressing her advantage, and saw when he turned to defend himself that a gash had opened along his cheek. She felt a bitter satisfaction at the sight of his blood, then wondered at herself for having such a feeling in a fight. She'd only ever been cold, precise.
This hesitation gave the Soldier enough time to swing his right fist down at her head. The Wyvern caught it just in time, startled at his strength, but her enhanced strength and the Adamantium reinforcing her spine gave her the power to absorb the punch, and to twist him into a takedown. He anticipated the move, locking her in her turn and throwing his metal fist between her shoulder blades.
A metallic clang echoed through the room, and the Wyvern held steady. In her position the Wyvern could see Karpov and the Project Leader beyond the cage. Karpov's eyes widened, and he turned to look at the Project Leader.
He can't break my back, the Wyvern thought, as she flipped up in the Soldier's hold and twisted her legs around his neck. He can't break it, regardless of how hard he hits or how much flesh comes away. She tried to squeeze the life out of his throat with her calves, but he got a better angle on her, seizing her by the upper arm and throwing her against the edge of the cage.
The Wyvern didn't even register the metal clang of her spine and hips as she collided with the bars. His grip on her arm had shaken something loose in her; a memory of fire and tears and pain. She shook her head, but the memory remained. She looked up at the Soldier as he stalked toward her, long hair shrouding his blank gaze, and a well of fury erupted in her chest.
My mission.
The Wyvern flew at the Soldier, raining down punches and kicks, ignoring the blows he landed on her in return. She wanted to punch past his armour, to reach right into his chest and pull out his heart.
But her fury blinded her. The Soldier was able to fend off her hailstorm of blows and pin her against the cage with his metal arm. She pulled at the arm, muscles straining, but she was still too small. She could crush a man's bones, but she couldn't pry the Soldier's arm away from her sternum.
She glared into his eyes, feeling that surely everyone in the room could see the fire burning inside her. But all they saw was a child trapped against metal bars by a man twice her size.
The Soldier saw it, though. She could see in his eyes that he recognised her, in some shape or form. He searched her gaze for a moment, his face loosening. But then he reached up with his other hand, lightning fast, and slammed her head against the bar.
The Wyvern dropped to the floor, stunned. She tried to get her arms under her, but they shook and gave out, and she slumped against the floor. Out of the corner of her eye, she saw the Soldier's combat boots. He didn't walk away.
With her face pressed against the cool concrete, the Wyvern heard Karpov speak: "No matter what you have put in her, she is still a weak child. A failed imitation of the Soldat."
The Project Leader gave no response.
The cage opened, and soldiers pulled the Wyvern to her feet.
"Walk," the Project Leader told her, and she complied. She staggered out of the cage after him and the rest of his men, her head reeling.
"I will be seeing you soon, Karpov!" the Project Leader called as he left the room. The Wyvern looked over her shoulder and saw the Winter Soldier standing where she'd left him, only now his flesh hand was trembling. Squinting past the growing pain reverberating in her skull, the Wyvern saw the Winter Soldier's eyes darting back and forth frantically, as if searching for something.
"Wipe him and put him away," she heard Karpov say, and then she left the room.
The Project Leader made the Wyvern walk back to the helicopter, despite her stumbling. The bump on the back of her head was aching, and the hanging lights of the bunker made her wince. Her left eye had closed up, and there were bruises on her shoulders and chest from the Winter Soldier's blows.
The blast of cold air above the bunker was a relief, cooling her overheated face and soothing her stinging wounds. Abruptly, the Wyvern doubled over and threw up outside the metal door. The two guards stepped back, making disgusted noises.
"Concussion, sir," she heard Sanders tell the Project Leader.
"I can see that," he replied, voice clipped. "Follow, Wyvern."
She complied.
On the helicopter, the Wyvern leaned into her seat with her eyes pressed shut, concentrating on not throwing up. But in the darkness behind her eyelids, odd images flickered across her mind. The Soldier's arms under her, carrying her to the ocean. His footsteps crunching across the shadowy ground. A flaming wreck of a car, with three bodies inside.
Tony…
Unbeknownst to the Wyvern, she had said that last thought out loud. Lost in her aching head, she didn't notice how the occupants of the helicopter froze, glancing at one another.
The Project Leader shot a look at Sanders. "Do you have the…"
"Yes." Sanders pulled a vial from her bag, drew it into a syringe with expert fingers, and injected the substance into the Wyvern's arm. The Wyvern Project leaders watched as the Wyvern's fevered muttering and fidgeting stilled, and they breathed a collective sigh of relief.
"It'll keep her still until we return," Sanders muttered, putting away her equipment. "We'll wipe her as soon as we get back."
"I thought the cognitive recalibration worked," the Project Leader hissed. "Of all the places to have a relapse-"
"It did work, sir. The blow to her head must have shaken some latent memories loose."
Eyeing his Chief Scientist a moment longer, the Project Leader relaxed into his seat. "Today was a failure, Sanders. The Wyvern showed promise, but… there is clearly more room for improvement. We'll move on to Stage Three as soon as we return."
"Of course, sir."
HYDRA Facility, Québec
The Wyvern stood in the central lab of the facility, flanked by the senior mechanics, engineers, and scientists. They were waiting.
The Wyvern was favoring her left side, due to wounds along her right chest and shoulder. Her eye was still half-shut with a bruise. Her head ached more than usual after a wipe, and she had discovered an egg-shaped lump on the back of her scalp, under her shaggy brown hair. Her handlers had not given a reason for these injuries, and the Wyvern had not asked. She stood at parade rest in the lab, staring into the middle distance.
After a few minutes, the Project Leader strode into the lab and the technicians all stood to attention. He smoothed down his black suit, leaving them waiting in silence.
Finally, he spoke. "We all know that the project isn't complete." He eyed each of the technicians, finally landing on the weedy Marino. "Since its conception, the Wyvern Project has been about creating the ultimate weapon – fast, smart, strong, lethal. And with advantages that no other weapon has had before." The Project Leader strode toward the Wyvern, footsteps ringing out on the concrete floor, until he stood over her, looking down at her bruised face. "The Wyvern is a blade, but still the forging is not complete."
The Project Leader stepped back again. "Colonel Karpov's weapon is a soldier, a man bound to the frozen earth. But the Wyvern – our Wyvern – was never meant for the ground."
After another long silence, he pressed his hands together. "Begin Stage Three. The Wyvern will help."
"Yes, sir!" cried the technicians, scurrying to their work benches. The Wyvern stood still a moment longer, watching the Project Leader's back as he left the room. Then she turned to the nearest mechanic and stared at him until he gave her a task.
Stage Three was a feat of engineering, mechanics, computer science and cybernetics, combined with Marino's work on Adamantium. It brought the non-combatants of the facility together for the better part of a year, collaborating and theorising and building.
The Wyvern was in the thick of it. She tweaked designs, carved moulds, spent hours on intricate wiring and welding. She calculated weight distribution and cybernetic neural connections. She designed and built smaller, more efficient precision jet engines, the size of a water bottle with the output of a much larger engine. She found herself turning over designs in her mind while she walked the facility's corridors, while she ate her perfectly kilojoule-balanced meals, while she lay in her cot at night.
She mostly worked with Marino, as she was best able to understand the molecular programming involved with Adamantium. The scientist had huge round glasses and buck teeth, and the Wyvern often noticed him looking at her with a furrowed brow. She would look up, silently asking what the problem was, but he would shake his head and mutter something about alloy manipulation or thermodynamics. Sometimes he asked her what she thought about her work, and he once asked her if she enjoyed it. The Wyvern did not have the programming to answer these questions, beyond repeating "ready to comply".
The Wyvern's mind was brilliant, capable of solving problems in ways that the scientists hadn't even considered. But she never decided to fix a problem on her own, and never suggested an aspect of the design that hadn't been suggested before. The technicians knew they had to order her to attend to a certain problem, or design a certain machine part. She was creative when ordered to be.
The Wyvern knew what she and the technicians were building. She knew it was for her, and she knew what would happen to her, but she did it anyway.
Sometimes, when monitoring computer simulations, the Wyvern felt an odd tingling in her diaphragm. Once, after managing to weld a particularly tricky section of carbon fibre webbing to an adamantium rod, she found herself smiling. The Wyvern quickly wiped the expression away, startled, but did not inform her handlers. She was enjoying building Stage Three. And the prospect of the completed project only made the tingling in her stomach more intense.
She didn't tell her handlers about her malfunction, but she was wiped the next day anyway.
In the meantime, the Wyvern's regular training continued. She honed her combat, weapons and intelligence skills, and was given extra training in engineering and computer science. HYDRA operatives continued to cycle in and out of the base, forging the Wyvern's skills. She worked with two HYDRA weapons developers for four months, and some of her designs ended up being produced for agents.
In addition to regular training, the Wyvern started flight training. In the dead of night they flew over the island in a stealth jet, and the Wyvern would parachute into the forest, navigating the way the air currents shifted around her body, and learning how to descend unseen. She was also taught to fly various helicopters and planes – she was mostly given the specifications and manuals of the different aircraft and taught in a flight simulator, but the Project Leader also permitted the Wyvern to fly a few of the facility's helicopters and stealth jets. She was provided with an early design for an aircraft called a Quinjet, and memorized its flight capabilities.
The Wyvern was also sent on missions. She'd begun her career as an assassin at the Red Room, and now the Project Leader clearly believed she was ready. She stalked a man down the streets of Winnipeg before slipping a knife into his heart, and vanished before anyone realised why the man had stumbled. She laced a retired Michigan politician's air conditioning with sarin gas. She broke a woman's fingers while another HYDRA operative shouted questions at her.
The Wyvern was usually wiped after a mission, but often they didn't bother. She was rarely told why she had to do the things she was sent to do, and she had no one to tell. She was mostly used for stealth assassinations, though her skills were also utilised for intelligence recovery, hacking, and on a few occasions she stood in as security for a non-combatant HYDRA operative.
It was about this time that the Wyvern was briefed on S.H.I.E.L.D., and HYDRA's role within it. The Project Leader did not anticipate the Wyvern ever coming into contact with S.H.I.E.L.D., but had decided it was important for HYDRA's greatest weapon to be aware of HYDRA's oldest enemy. S.H.I.E.L.D.'s vision of the world as a peaceful and equal place is a fallacy, he told the Wyvern as she scanned the S.H.I.E.L.D. folder. HYDRA is going to correct the imbalance in the world. You are a tool in our arsenal.
Yes, sir.
When Stage Three was near to the date of implementation, the Wyvern was prepped for new enhancements. Marino asked the Project Leader, a few days before the procedure date, if it was necessary to make Stage Three so invasive.
The Project Leader levelled him with a look of disdain. "You would weaken the weapon, Marino?"
Marino shrunk into himself. "No sir."
"Then we will proceed as planned."
The Wyvern thought she was used to pain – the ongoing experimentation on her body, the brutal training. But she'd forgotten the excruciating fire of being cut open and having Adamantium built into her skeleton. They had wiped the memory of it away, but the moment the scalpel touched her bare skin it came rushing back.
She screamed again this time, and tried to fight them. But they'd reinforced the metal restraints as she grew, resisting her enhanced strength, and the Project Leader was there reciting her words to keep her mind small and obedient. She gripped the table, feeling the metal crumple and groan under her fingers. Her face was pressed into the hole in the table so she could only see the concrete ground, and her blood dripping onto it.
Marino and three other technicians worked on her exposed spine; reinforcing, building, installing. Marino's voice shook but his hands were steady. When they began welding, the Wyvern actually passed out from the pain. That had never happened to her before.
When she woke, they were gluing her skin around the new objects in her back. She let out a long moan, gritted between her teeth, and sensed Marino pause.
"Marino?" the Project Leader muttered.
"Just finishing up now, sir." Marino's gloved hands returned to the Wyvern's spine, ensuring the closest contact between skin and mechanics.
When they finished their work, the restraints hissed open and the technicians backed away from the table, peeling off their gloves. The Wyvern relaxed imperceptibly into the table, squeezing her eyes shut and trying to concentrate on anything other than the spikes of pain stabbing into her back.
"Well?" asked the Project Leader.
Marino's voice was still shaky. "The procedure appears to be successful, sir. The moorings are in place, supported by the Adamantium structuring. The skin and muscles should integrate with the moorings over the next day or so. I'd recommend that the Wyvern doesn't move until then."
There was a long pause.
"Very well," said the Project Leader.
The Wyvern didn't move for twenty-seven hours, her bare back open to the cold air as she waited for her shuddering body to accept the new enhancements. They cleaned away her blood, so the only thing she had to look at was the hard, grey concrete floor.
They tested the enhancements at the end of the twenty-seven hours. The Wyvern didn't actually see the final result until a week later, when she caught a glimpse of her naked back in a lab window. The skin had already mostly healed, leaving a large red welt around two open, round holes in her back. The holes were each about the diameter of an apple, two and a half inches across. The holes were Adamantium sockets. They were fused to her spine and rib-cage, offering significant support and weight distribution. From what she could see – and from what she could remember from the designs – the holes weren't very deep, but they would always remain open. She knew they were water resistant, but it still made her queasy to see herself made so vulnerable.
That night, lying on her front in her narrow bunk, the Wyvern reached behind her and ran a finger over the metal moorings. The Adamantium was cool, soothing the raw, red skin of her back. The Wyvern slipped a finger into the mooring and jolted – the touch had echoed throughout the Adamantium in her body, resonating along her bones from her neck to her heels. Pulling her hand away, the Wyvern closed her eyes and slept.
Testing the enhancements involved a lot of tools and parts being inserted into the moorings on the Wyvern's back, at first making her wince in pain, and then shudder at the alien sensations. The technicians seemed uneasy at such displays of emotion from the project, but all of her training couldn't keep her from reacting. She could feel the moorings, could feel the cybernetic linkup that the technicians had so painstakingly wired into her body. It was like nothing she'd ever experienced before, and she knew it would take a while to grow used to having more of herself. As the Stage Three implementation date approached, the tingling in the Wyvern's diaphragm grew ever more prominent, despite the times she was put in the machine.
Finally, the day came. The Wyvern was motionless in a chair, after yet another test performed on the neural sensitivity of her moorings, when the Project Leader walked into the lab. Sanders, Marino and three other senior technicians looked up as he approached.
"Well?" He asked, cocking an eyebrow.
The technicians looked to Sanders. The bald scientist leaned back in her chair.
"Stage Three is ready, sir. We are ready for the first test."
The Project Leader looked across the lab at the Wyvern, who stared at the floor.
"Is the project ready? Does she understand what the testing involves?"
Sanders shrugged. "I don't know, sir. But the Wyvern will do what we ask her. So, yes. She's ready."
Status de energia semanal
-- Ranking de
Poder 
-- Pedra de
Poder