11. | HYDRA

STEVE WOULD HAVE recognized the camp from a mile away. When he saw the run down dilapidated camp that had recreated him, he barely needed to blink. Being in the camp's presence brought back all sorts of memories.

Steve's throat tightened, and he glanced over at Christina as she walked in front of the truck to join him, their eyes shifted up toward the tattered fence and the building behind it, which seemed to be in worse conditions.

"This is it," Steve said as he adjusted his shield's straps on his forearm.

"The file came from these coordinates."

"So did I," Steve replied.

"Camp Lehigh," Christina said, as her blue eyes looked up toward the sign post onto the metal wiring of the fence that had the camp's name stamped across the top in bold white letter, that were now a dingy shade of yellow.

Steve remained silent, but he moved toward the fence. He hadn't remembered the fence being there before, but maybe it had. There were some things Steve remembered with shocked clarity, and then other memories were slightly foggy. Steve lifted his shield and broke the lock on the fence. Silently, Steve and Christina walking into the place that had once offered the opportunity of a lifetime for Steve.

"This camp is where I was trained," Steve said finally after a few long, quiet moments of carefully walking around, both Steve and Christina's eyes, ears, and senses were on high alert. Steve looked over to his right and saw Christina using some kind of tracking device that would beep every few seconds.

"Change much?" Christina asked as she roamed around, trying to catch a lead.

"A little," Steve replied. He glanced around, still trying to get over the fact that he was standing in the place that completely changed his life. The back of his mind tingled painfully, as the drill sergeant's shouting voice echoed through his memories.

Pick up the pace, ladies! Let's go! Let's go!

If Steve tried hard enough, he could see misty images of his fellow soldiers running right in front of him, their shoulders slumped with the weight of the equipment and the thick, heavy fabric of their daily uniforms. He could hastily see the faces of the men he'd known and trained with.

Double time! Come on, Rogers, move it!

Steve could picture pre-serum Steve stopping and staring at him with familiar blue eyes that didn't look as though they quite fit his face.

Come on, fall in! Rogers! I said fall in!

"This is a dead end. Zero heat signatures, zero waves, not even radio." Christina informed and she then shoved the tracking device in the back pocket of her jeans. "Whoever wrote the file must have used a router to throw people off." Christina glanced over at Steve and saw him staring intently at a building behind her. "What is it?"

"Army regulations forbid storing munitions within five-hundred yards of the barracks. This building's in the wrong place," Steve said as the both of them walked toward the large building that had caught Steve's eye.

Steve reared his left arm back before firing it forward and smashed the lock the exact same way he'd done at the wire gate only moments earlier. Steve pushed the ragged doors open, the doors screeched painfully until they were fully open and they started walking into the heart of the building.

The two moved slowly into the center of the room, and the lightly began to flicker on. On the wall directly in front of them, was the S.H.I.E.L.D. emblem painted in bold black and blue on the cement wall.

"This is S.H.I.E.L.D.," Christina said.

"Maybe where it started."

They entered into a closed room in the back; it was basically empty, save for a few dated pictures on the wall that Steve instantly recognized. Steve's heart skipped a beat when his eyes registered Peggy Carter staring back at him. The pictures showed them exactly as he remembered them. As they should be, Steve thought.

"And there's Stark's father," Christina said as she nodded her head at the picture. "Of course he's handsome. I expected nothing less."

"Howard."

"Who's the girl?" Christina asked, staring at the picture of the beautiful brunette woman in front of them. She knew who the woman was, she wanted to see if Steve would even acknowledge his first love.

Steve didn't answer Christina's stinging question, instead he turned away from her and walked to the left, toward a wall of built in shelves. Steve's eyes squinted when he noticed between two specific shelves, the cobwebs moved swiftly—like there was a draft.

"If you're already working in a secret office..." his voice trailed off as he looked for a place to find good leverage. He put his hand on the shelf and began to push. He used about half of his strength to get the shelf to slide open. Behind the shelf, was a set of silver doors—elevator doors, "why do you need to hide the elevator?"

Christina started pulling out her cell phone to run one of her programs on the keypad, the program would show the oil of peoples' fingerprints and display which numbers where pressed the most and in what order. Christina grinned despite herself and typed in the numbers 8-5-3-9.

Christina stepped into the elevator first, and Steve followed her suit. Effortlessly, the elevator descended. When the elevator came to a stop, a ding sounded and the doors slid open, the two Avengers were faced with darkness. Steve squinted his eyes at the thick blackness for any sign of danger, but he couldn't pick up any.

Christina shrugged her shoulders and stepped into the darkness. Steve followed closely behind - on high alert of anything and everything. They were about halfway into the immense room when the lights switched on to reveal an ancient computer system in front of them.

"This can't be the data point. This technology's ancient," Christina said in confusion as her blue eyes surveyed over each piece of equipment.

Christina's shoulders slumped forward when she noticed an attachable USB drive. The only modern thing in this out-of-date hellhole, Christina thought. Steve followed her stare and crossed over toward her as Christina slowly pulled out the data drive and plugged it into the USB port.

After a few seconds of silence, the machines started to whir and come to life, the slightly larger screen in the middle blinked on—displaying a message that read: INITIATE SYSTEM?

The letters flashed across the screen as a computerized voice read them aloud. Christina walked toward the computer's dusty keyboard and placed her fingers on the keys.

"Y-E-S spells yes," Christina mumbled. "'Shall we play a game?'" she joked. "It's from a movie that was really pop—"

"I know, I saw it."

Realization crossed Christina's angelic features. "Ah, yes. We watched that together, now I remember."

The computer screen flickered, and Steve and Christina were instantly drawn towards it. A green digital face appeared, still slightly flickering, as a computerized, though familiar, accent voice began to speak.

"Rogers, Steven, born 1918. Sitma, Christabel Dawn, born 1989." The voice said.

"It's some kind of recording," Christina muttered with confusion, a disturbed and unsettling frown on her face. How does it know my real name? Christina thought.

"I am not a recording, fräulein," the computer insisted sternly. "I may not be the man I was when the Captain took me prisoner in 1945, but I am..." on the screen to the right a picture of a man came up, and Steve instantly recognized him.

"You know this thing?" Christina asked.

"Arnim Zola was a German scientist who worked for the Red Skull." Steve said as he walked toward the other side of the platform he was previously standing on to look around. "He's been dead for years."

"First correction, I am Swiss. Second, look around you. I have never been more alive."

Christina felt a chill run down her spine like, wet slippery spiders—not because the scientist's tone was unnervingly creepy and unsettling but because the words were uncannily true.

"In 1972, I received a terminal diagnosis. Science could not save my body. My mind, however, that was worth saving, on two-hundred-thousand feet of databanks. You are standing in my brain."

"How did you get here?" Steve asked as he made his way back to the platform next to Christina.

"Invited," Zola replied quickly.

"It was Operation Paperclip after World War II. S.H.I.E.L.D. recruited German scientists with...strategic value." Christina said as she chose her words carefully as her eyebrows tightly drew together in a confused frown.

"They thought I could help their cause," Zola said. "I also helped my own."

"Hydra died with the Red Skull," Steve pointed out, his confusion deepening. He felt Christina's blue eyes turn toward him.

"Cut off one head, two more shall take its place," Zola explained as his digital face faded into a green digital Hydra emblem that sent more chills down Christina's spine. "Sitma should know, she was supposed to be the one to lead Hydra after being injected with the serum HYDRA created. But the scientists were informed that the serum had killed her—I guess they were wrong."

"Prove it."

"Accessing archive," Zola announced.

Additional computer screens began displaying images of Johan Schmidt. "Hydra was founded on the belief that humanity could not be trust with its own freedom. What we did not realize was that if you try to take that freedom, they resist."

Steve swallowed thickly as images flashed across the screens of him as 1940's Captain America fight during World War II.

"The war taught us much. Humanity needed to surrender its freedom willingly. After the war, S.H.I.E.L.D. was founded, and I was recruited. The new Hydra grew. A beautiful parasite inside S.H.I.E.L.D. For seventy years, Hydra has been secretly feeding crisis, reaping war, and when history did not cooperate, history was changed."

"That's impossible. S.H.I.E.L.D. would have stopped you." Christina said breathlessly through gritted teeth. Steve looked over at her. Her face was covered with shock and horror—disgust. She looked as though she were going to be sick.

"Accidents will happen," Zola said as pictures of a headline detailing Howard and Maria Stark's deaths came on the screen. Then Nick Fury's pictures with the word: DECEASED stamped across it in red blocked letters.

A picture of Christina Sitma flashed on the screen, but instead of it being recent, it was a photo of when she was toddler. She was lying motionless on the ground, an overturned car was smoking behind her, as police officers ran to the scene. She had blood seeping out of her forehead, and you could see her dead parents inside the smoking car. A sob escaped Christina's mouth before she could stop it, and she placed a shaky hand over her mouth, taking in the horrific picture. But, what was most disturbing about the picture, was that a man with a metal arm was leaning over her, a syringe in hand: The Winter Soldier. Realization settled into Christina, everything began to make sense.

Now Steve thought he was going to be sick.

"The Winter Soldier, did this to me?" Christina spat angrily at the computer screen.

"Hydra was hoping to use the strengths the serum would give you, against Captain America and the rest of S.H.I.E.L.D. We created you to fulfill Hydra's destiny." Zola stated, as Christina's stomach churned restlessly. "Hydra did numerous of test trials, but they all ended with the same result: death. Their red and white blood cells would just kill each other off until there was no longer any blood left in their bodies. We decided to take blood samples from members of HYDRA, seeing if their blood would react the way it had with all of the test trials." Zola said, Christina took a step toward the computer, curious. "The only two members' blood that cooperated with the serum, were your parents."

"No, my parents were S.H.I.E.L.D. agents," Christina said, her stomach jolting.

"Hydra spies, Miss Sitma. And they were brilliant scientists—helped develop the serum we used on you." Zola corrected happily. "Adriana and Gabrielle Sitma were faithful members of Hydra, they were born into their positions."

"They why did you need me? Why didn't Hydra just use them for the experiment?"

"We predicted that if we used Adriana's unborn child, at the time, its blood would be twice as strong then Adriana and Gabrielle's individually. I guess we were right." Zola's voice sounded amused, he was proud.

"Then why did you have them killed?" Steve asked suddenly, moving to stand right next to Christina in front of the computer screen.

"Once Adriana found out that Hydra was planning on using her child to test their theory, she convinced Gabrielle that they needed to leave. So, they fled to Italy and successfully lived off the radar for two years. Hydra wanted retaliation for their treachery, and they used the Winter Soldier to fulfill that task." Zola explained.

"How does Hydra plan on using S.H.I.E.L.D.?" Christina asked, finally being able to find her voice and form words.

"Hydra created a world so chaotic that humanity is finally ready to sacrifice its freedom to gain its security. Once a purification process is complete, Hydra's new world order will arise." Zola continued.

Images of Project Insight flashed across the screens. "We won, Captain. Your death amounts the same as your life." Images of headlines and magazines about the disappearance and reappearance of Captain America. "A zero sum."

Suddenly, with a quick gesture, Steve lashed out and punched the screen of the computer in front of him, shattering the screen and silencing the Swiss scientist. Rage coursed through Steve's veins.

"As I was saying," Zola's face appeared on another screen.

"What's on the drive?" Steve demanded.

"Project Insight, requires insight. So I wrote an algorithm." Zola explained.

"What kind of algorithm? What does it do?" Christina spat out hurriedly.

"The answer to your question is fascinating. Unfortunately, you shall be too dead to hear it," Zola said calmly. Steel doors began to shut in front of the elevator, Steve flung his shield in attempt to wedge it between the closing doors, but Steve wasn't quick enough—the doors had slammed shut.

"Steve," Christina called out as she stared down at the tracking device in shock and horror. "We got a bogey. Short range ballistic. Thirty seconds tops."

"Who fired it?" Steve asked incredulously. Christina looked up from her tracker, the device beeped wildly in her hand as the bogey approached.

"S.H.I.E.L.D."

"I am afraid I have been stalling, Captain." Zola explained. Christina removed the data drive from the USB port and ran over to Steve. "Admit it. It's better this way. We are, both of us...out of time."

Suddenly, he caught sight of the grate on the floor, and he lunged towards it, yanking the metal slats up to reveal an air duct of some sort down below that was big enough to fit him and Christina. Steve wrapped his arm around Christina and right as they leapt towards the gaping hole, the room exploded.

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