Ten miles north of Novi Grad, deep inside the snow-covered mountains, an underground bunker hummed with heavy electrical generators.
Inside the main control room, banks of green monitors cast a pale glow over the face of Dr. List. He tapped a button on the metal console as a red alert flashed across the screen.
"Baron," List said, stepping back from the terminal. "The regional energy monitor just picked up a strange signature in the city."
Baron Wolfgang von Strucker walked over, his boots clicking sharply on the polished concrete. A monocle sat over his right eye, catching the light as he leaned down to look at the graph.
"A power surge?" Strucker asked, his tone flat.
"Not from the city grid," List replied, pointing a finger at two overlapping spikes on the screen. "The first was a localized biological frequency vibrating at extreme speed. The second was an uncataloged thermal spike that bent regional probability. Both came from the southern rail depot."
Strucker straightened his coat. "The local police will only get in the way. Send Team Six. No loud weapons. Bag whatever is making that noise and bring it to the lab before morning."
"Understood," List said.
At two in the morning, the yellow floodlights outside the southern rail depot suddenly died.
Adrian opened his eyes in the dark.
He didn't need an alarm. His telepathic senses were spread across the whole yard like a spiderweb. The moment the chain-link fence was cut, six cold, trained minds entered the perimeter. They moved in total radio silence, hearts beating at a steady, professional rhythm.
Adrian swung his legs out of bed, grabbed his canvas coat, and walked down the hallway.
He didn't even have to knock. Pietro was already standing near the doorway in his boots, shivering with nervous energy. Wanda stepped out of her bedroom behind him, her dark eyes alert.
"Someone cut the power lines," Pietro whispered, his fists clenching. "Militia?"
"Not militia," Adrian said quietly. "Six men. Body armor, thermal night goggles, suppressed submachine guns, and neurotoxin darts. They move together like wolves."
Pietro's jaw tightened. "Who are they?"
"People who think we belong in cages," Adrian replied. He looked between the two of them, keeping his voice low and firm. "Listen carefully. Pietro, the second the door opens, you move. Don't punch them. Just take their weapons and drop them in the far corner. Half-speed, keep your footing clean."
Pietro nodded quickly. "Got it."
"Wanda, you stand behind the brick archway. If any of them try to shoot or run out the door, throw up a hex shield and lock the frame."
"What about you?" Wanda asked.
"I'll handle the command link," Adrian said, walking toward the stairs. "No noise. Let's make this quick."
They moved downstairs into the wide, dark warehouse floor.
Outside the heavy iron service door, a faint chemical hiss signaled a silent thermite torch melting the bolt. A second later, the steel lock gave out with a dull thump.
The door swung inward.
Six black-clad operators flooded into the room, their suppressed submachine guns raised, night-vision lenses glowing faint green in the dark.
"Clear right—" the point-man started to whisper into his throat mic.
A silver streak tore through the doorway.
WHOOSH.
A blast of wind blew through the opening, rustling the gear of the entire squad. Before the point-man could pull his trigger, the submachine gun was ripped cleanly out of his gloved hands.
Across the line, holsters snapped open and magazines flew free. In less than two seconds, Pietro skidded to a halt on the far side of the room, dumping four heavy tactical rifles and six sidearms onto the floor in a loud clattering pile.
"Contact! Target is—" the squad leader shouted, reaching for a backup combat knife.
The two rear operators panicked, pulling secondary handguns from ankle holsters and firing blindly into the shadows.
Pffft! Pffft!
Wanda stepped out from behind the brick pillar, her hands raised.
Her eyes flashed bright scarlet. Thin ribbons of red energy burst from her fingers, forming a glowing, circular barrier in the air. The two heavy lead bullets struck the scarlet field, stopped dead in mid-air, and dropped to the concrete floor like useless pebbles.
The operators froze, their night-vision goggles reflecting the red glow.
Before they could turn around to run, Adrian stepped straight through the solid brick wall behind them.
His body solidified from thin air like smoke turning into stone.
Adrian didn't draw a gun. He looked at the five flanking operators and simply closed his fist.
Using Cassandra Nova's telepathy, he sent a sharp, sweeping pulse straight into their nervous systems. With the mental ease of flipping five light switches, he temporarily shut down their motor cortexes.
All five men went limp at the exact same instant. Their knees buckled, and they dropped to the floor like empty sacks of flour, completely unconscious before their heads hit the concrete.
The squad commander was the only one left standing. He spun around, pulling a knife from his chest rig, but he never got to swing it.
An invisible telekinetic grip locked around his throat and chest, lifting his boots two feet off the floor and slamming his back against the brick wall.
The commander's jaw worked frantically, trying to crush a fake tooth at the back of his mouth.
"Don't bother," Adrian said, stepping closer. With a flick of his wrist, telekinetic force forced the man's jaw wide open, popping the tiny glass poison capsule out of his molar and catching it in his palm.
Adrian tossed the blue pill onto the floor and crushed it under his boot.
He locked his dark eyes onto the commander's pupils.
"Let's see who pays your bills," Adrian murmured.
He pushed straight into the commander's mind. The man's military conditioning tried to lock down his thoughts, but to Cassandra Nova's template, that resistance felt like wet paper. Adrian tore through the soldier's memories, ripping out every useful scrap of data:
Target location: Rail depot biological anomaly.
Base of operations: Castle overlooking the northern ridge.
Commanders: Dr. List. Baron Wolfgang von Strucker.
Funding: Swiss shadow accounts, millions in gold bars, and regional extortion rackets.
Adrian pulled his mind back, the information cataloged and organized.
He didn't snap the commander's neck. Instead, Adrian reached back into the man's thoughts and rewrote the last two hours. He changed the memories of all six men with smooth, surgical precision.
To their minds, they had searched the empty depot, found only a broken transformer that had sparked in the fog, and confirmed zero biological presence.
Adrian dropped the commander to the floor. The soldier gasped for air, his eyes blank and glassy as the new memories took root.
"Pietro," Adrian said, turning around. "Strip their night-vision goggles, their satellite radios, and the foreign cash in their pockets. Leave them their boots and sidearms."
Pietro didn't ask questions. He was a blur across the floor, stripping the tactical vests and emptying pouches in seconds. He dumped three satellite radios, six thermal monoculars, and two thick stacks of Swiss francs onto a wooden crate.
Adrian planted a delayed mental command into the squad leader's head: In five minutes, wake up, load your men into the transport truck, and drive back to the mountain base to report a false alarm.
"Come on," Adrian said, waving Pietro and Wanda back toward the stairs. "Upstairs."
They walked back into the warm second-floor living quarters.
Pietro tossed one of the encrypted satellite radios onto the pine table, his breath coming in fast bursts. His face was flushed with adrenaline.
"They had military gear from the West," Pietro said, staring at the radio. "Suppressors, night-vision, encrypted channels. Who the hell sends people like that to a broken train yard in Sokovia?"
"HYDRA," Adrian said calmly.
He walked over to the corkboard on the wall and pulled out the red pencil. He dragged the tip across the map, tracing past the city streets and up into the jagged peaks of the northern mountains, tapping a single stone castle marked in the woods.
Wanda stepped up beside him, crossing her arms. The faint red static around her fingers drifted away into thin air.
"What do they want with us?" she asked.
"They wanted two lab rats to cut open," Adrian answered, turning around with a cold, sharp grin. "They have an underground fortress, automated weapons, and more stolen money in European vaults than the entire Sokovian government."
He picked up the encrypted satellite radio from the table and tossed it lightly in his hand.
"They came here looking for weapons," Adrian said. "Instead, they're going to fund our entire state budget. Get your coats. Tomorrow, we go hunting."