In a base this eerie, arguing about what counts as "crazy" with people who look patently abnormal already felt… crazy.
Natasha and Melinda said nothing, but their taut shoulders and pin-prick pupils betrayed the storm inside.
They'd seen oceans of blood and cruelty, handled crises that could level cities. Yet never—never—had anyone floated the word nuclear as casually as a housekeeping tool.
What was this "Foundation," really?
What kind of power did they wield to treat nukes like flyswatters?
Whatever secret lay buried beneath this desert was far deeper—and darker—than Coulson had imagined.
Dr. A167 seemed oblivious to the trio's shock. He simply watched Felix for the final order, as if he'd just proposed ordering takeout, not launching a warhead.
Felix's expression didn't ripple. He was about to nod.
That was when the statue-still 6547 rumbled, anger suppressed but audible.
"Which unit?!"
He was glaring at the tactical wrist terminal. On its thermal scan of the valley rim, several red heat blooms—human signatures—had appeared and were pushing inward fast.
"Unauthorized entry into a Class-A pre-containment zone—violation of Wartime Ordinance, Article One! Do they want a court-martial?!"
Rage roughened 6547's voice. In the Foundation, discipline was oxygen. Disobedience wasn't just sloppy—it was a boot through the spine of the entire machine.
He assumed it was some clone squad gone cowboy.
He zoomed in for unit IDs.
The sound died in his throat.
A rare expression—stiff, almost embarrassed—froze on his face.
Those silhouettes, that loadout, that assault diamond—not their doctrine.
Intruders.
The fury guttered out, replaced by the sour pinch of a disrupted op. He looked up to Felix, tone flipping to a crisp request.
"Sir, external personnel have entered the valley."
Felix's eyes fell to the feed.
One glance, and he knew the cut of those men.
American SOF plate carriers. The unmistakable lines of M4 carbines. A textbook rhombus push.
S.H.I.E.L.D. task force.
Coulson's people.
Felix's gaze went glacial.
S.H.I.E.L.D.—a sieve riddled with HYDRA wormholes. And now, maybe-HYDRA operators had walked straight onto SCP-307's dinner plate.
Warm-blooded biomass.
A feast.
If 307 fed, the outcome wasn't up for debate.
He would not allow it.
Felix didn't hesitate—didn't even spare Coulson a look—before issuing the order to A167.
"A167, execute. Launch now."
"Yes, sir!" A167's fingers blurred across the console.
"Launch sequence initiated, codes confirmed, target locked… T-minus thirty seconds."
A chill countdown rolled through the room.
"Wait!"
Coulson finally snapped into motion. Watching those red dots march toward a meat grinder, his stomach fell through the floor.
His team. C-Squad, the recon he'd just dispatched.
"Abort! Abort now!" His voice broke hoarse. "Those could be my people! It's a mistake!"
He lunged for the console.
A figure moved faster.
6547 slid in, a wall of flesh and armor, clamping Coulson's forearm in an iron vise.
"Let go! They're S.H.I.E.L.D.—they're ours!" Coulson shouted past clenched teeth, eyes on the screen as 10 flipped to 9.
He could see it: his agents, loyal to the bone, about to be vaporized by a falling sun.
Helplessness carved him hollow.
Natasha and Melinda snapped to combat stances. Nobody had expected the cliff to crumble this fast.
Felix stood motionless, not even turning his head.
The launch was a foregone conclusion.
"'Ours'?"
Felix finally turned. He regarded the agent pinned under 6547's grip, voice as flat as a readout.
"Men who ignore orders and act on impulse aren't 'ours.'"
A beat.
"They're liabilities to be cleared."
The words hit like liquid nitrogen.
Ruthless. Resolute. Inhuman.
It was a chasm from the "clean, harmless" young man in their dossiers to the abyss they were actually facing.
They had been wrong from the start.
This was no civilian swept into the supernatural. This was something worse than any foe they'd met—deeper, darker, unfathomable.
"Sir!"
In that knife-edge second, Dr. A167 cried out—panic rippling the clinical calm.
"Too late—launch abort! Look at the screen!"
All eyes snapped to the main feed.
The valley writhed.
Those faintly violet vines erupted, geysering from soil and stone fissures—a purple tide—and crashed toward the infiltrators like sharks scenting blood.
The operators reacted fast.
They raked the surge with automatic fire—sparks, no stopping power.
One snapped a incendiary into an arc.
WHUMP.
Flames blossomed, engulfing a swath of ivy.
And then the wrong thing happened.
In the firelight the vines twisted and writhed, not charred but enraged—a storm of serpents doubling their fury.
"Useless," A167's voice trembled. "Per the reports, it shows extreme resistance to direct flame projection."
(End of Chapter)
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