#9
Late March 2001
Prelude to Change
by Toby Kernan
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#9 Late March 2001 |
Prelude to Change by Toby Kernan |
"It is not a problem, Oliver," said Forge absentmindedly, as he looked out at the clouds floating in the air beside them, "I had considered helping Henry and Ben* build whatever gadget they were working on, but this sounded more appealing. I have never been to Diabloverde before. I have heard that the jungles are very lush and beautiful, and teaming with exotic wildlife. Why are we going there?"
*(Ben is Benjamin Foster is Head Director of Science and Technology for SHIELD. Henry is Henry Pym, adventurer. Both Henry Pym and Forge have come to SHIELD headquarters in New York after the events in their own SHIELD Spotlight issues and Agents of SHIELD #8)
"Chasing bad guys, of course," Oliver smiled, "General Hazda is a real nasty war criminal out of Vlatavia. He is into ‘genetic cleansing' and all that nasty crap. Well, his army finally lost the war in Vlatavia, and rather be caught, and placed on trial for war crimes by the United Nations, he ran. We chased he, and a handful of his fellow criminals all over Europe-Lisbon, Paris, Athens, you name it. Finally, he ended up crossing the Atlantic and in Diabloverde. According to Agent Mark Shaw, he and his men are going to Azul Sol."
"Blue sun?" asked Forge, finding the name odd for a location in the middle of a desert.
"Apparently," replied Oliver, unaware that his friend knew Spanish, "the area has quite a history. The Aztecs had a temple there, and many sacrifices were made atop the temple's highest altar. Then the Spanish came, stole all the riches, and wiped out all of the Aztec from the area, but not before their leader placed a ‘blood curse' on the land and all who would attempt to inhabit it.
"The area basically went uninhabited for hundreds of years, the Diabloverdians claimed it was cursed and none would settle on it. Then, in the early 1980's, with Diabloverde desperate for cash, a joint team of historians and archaeologists from the United States and Mexico were allowed to enter the area. They found the temple. They also found a cave, which housed some of the biggest blue diamonds the world has ever seen. Soon the area had new inhabitant, the Ruiz Drug Cartel.
"In the late eighties Diabloverde was a ‘friend' of the United States, so they asked for their help in ‘extracting' the Ruiz family, so they could have their diamonds back. Enter Taskforce X, and their Suicide Squad. Mama Waller sent in Commando, Copycat, Snapdragon, Karma, Sledge, and Johnny Double. Apparently, Their story was that the leaders of the Ruiz family were now members of the ‘undead', and that in fact the diamonds had become possessed by the spirits of the dead Aztecs. They managed to blow the temple to smithereens, but not before every member of the team was dead except Commando and Copycat."
Forge looked puzzled, as he absorbed the information, then bit his upper lip in frustration, "Why is Hazda going there?"
"Good question," said Oliver as he shrugged his shoulders. "Maybe he isn't afraid of ghosts and figures he can bolster his piggy bank with some blue diamonds. Or maybe, he is looking for a hideout that nobody would think of going to? The Diabloverdians stay as far away from Azul Sol as possible, and apparently, the drug runners haven't been seen there in many years. It is a non-extradition country, and we are apparently the only people crazy enough to chase Hazda and his boys there."
Oliver crinkled his nose, made a survey of his troops, and pulled closer to his friend Forge, almost whispering, "This crew I am not sure of. Agents Chase Lawler and Elizabeth Lockhart are practically rookies, and I don't think have a single jungle mission between them. Duchess is extremely dependable, but there is something about her that bothers me, she is so damn powerful, and too damn secretive. That leaves you and Ben that I know I can trust, and Agent Shaw, whenever we find him."
"Is he missing?" inquired Forge.
"Not sure what is going on with him," said Oliver, a tone of annoyance creeping into his voice. "He is suppose to be keeping me informed. I haven't heard from him in almost a week. The Universal Locator he is wearing allows us to pinpoint his location, but thanks to dense jungle cover and some type of solar-flair crap at the SHIELD satellite, we can't get any other type of readings on the area below. We are walking in blind, and I don't like it one bit.
Oliver made a quick inspection of his team. Forge seemed almost jubilant, ready for a hiking exploration. Oliver knew his friend was an avid outdoorsman, and was sure he could not only keep up with, but probably outpace, Oliver's SHIELD Agents. Duchess was oblivious to her surroundings, decided instead to polish the heavy, homemade rifle she was accustomed to carrying. Ben Turner was sitting, cross-legged, eyes closed on the ground, meditating. Oliver smiled. Ben was always so calm, cool, and collected, he felt lucky to have him by his side.
Then there were his two ‘rookies'. Agent Lawler was eager to go, Oliver could tell. He was very fidgety, looking everywhere, and had made more than one comment about how he was ready to go and "kick Hazda and his cronies' butts". Agent Lockhart appeared to be in the opposite condition. She was sitting still, not moving, and being very silent. Oliver could see, in her eyes, that she was unsure of the mission. Oliver knew she had never been in a jungle before, and seemed uncomfortable going into the dense tropical forest.
Oliver noticed Forge get up and go to speak with the newly arrived guides. After several minutes, Forge left them and came to speak with Oliver.
"They know which path Hazda and his men took?" inquired Oliver. He knew some Spanish, but Forge seemed to be entirely more fluent than he was.
"Yes," replied Forge, as he adjusted his backpack, "they said there is only one very good path up to Azul Sol, and the large group including Hazda took it. He said his cousin was the one who led their party. He also said he is worried, because his cousin and the other scouts should have returned by now."
"Well, guess we'll find out what happened to them," shrugged Oliver, then he turned to his Agents, "Alright kids, the sun is coming up, lets pack it up, we are out of here!"
"Sir, look," said Agent Lawler as he pushed his way to the front of the group, and pointed towards a thicket of trees to the left. Something caught Oliver's eye. At first, he thought it was a large python, dangling down from a tree. Then he noticed human arms and legs, swigging. It was a human, hung from the tree.
Oliver and his team prepared their weapons as they left their guides behind to make a closer inspection. There, hanging in the tree, was a native. Judging from his muscular build, Oliver suspected he must have been one of the mercenaries Hazda had hired. As Oliver looked around, he found a second body, this one stabbed multiple times and strapped to a nearby tree with vines. Chase called out, and Oliver's attention was drawn to a third body, this one shot full of holes and left slumping against another tree nearby. About two feet from this third body, Lawler discovered a large rock with words inscribed in blood. Oliver recognized the language as Vlatavian, but was unable to discern their meaning.
"'Thieves and traitors,'" said Agent Lockhart as she made her way over to the rock. "That is what it says sir."
Oliver grimaced in disgust. These people hadn't just been killed, they had been killed in a messy fashion, probably as a show of force to the remaining Diabloverdians with Hazda's troupe. Oliver frowned in disgust, he hated Hazda and his bloody style, and his reign of terror must be put to a halt. Oliver turned to the guides and asked what the proper way to deal with the dead. After he was informed it was cremation, Oliver had to tell them they would have to wait, because that would give their location and presence to Hazda, if he was paying attention to such things. The guides seemed to have no problem with that, and seemed to find the whole idea of dealing with the dead unpleasant, so the team gathered their composure, and pressed onward.
"My god," whispered Agent Lockhart as she evaluated the devastation.
While almost everybody in the SHIELD group seemed to be in a state of horror and shock, Duchess came forward to inspect the scene and bodies, apparently unfazed by the scene of carnage.
"This boss," Duchess replied coldly to Oliver, "appears to all be self-done. The attack marks are from knives and guns and hands, and from what I am seeing, it would appear that they simply turned on each other like a savage pack of hellhounds."
"This guy," Duchess picked up a man who had a gaping hole in his chest, "apparently stabbed this guy," she pointed to another nearby, "and was then shot by him in return. This is ugly, vicious stuff."
Forge bit his lip as he inspected the scene, "Jungle madness maybe?"
Oliver was equally perplexed, "Seems like a rather extreme case to me."
As the guides viewed the carnage, which included obviously their friends and relatives, they could take no more. Oliver turned to make a comment, but it was too late, and all of them ran back off into the forest, screaming and yelling.
"Oliver."
Oliver turned from the fleeing guides spectacle to Ben Turner, who was crouched at the far end of the massacre. As he went over to his friend, he noticed Agent Turner was pointing to a thin trail of blood that seemed to lead off into the original direction that they had been headed. Oliver decided that this bore investigating. He gave orders for all of the team, except he, Agent Turner, and Forge, remain here and try to make some sense of this carnage. Meanwhile they would go and investigate the trail.
The trio followed the blood and the locator around the temple and down a small path, which led to a nearby cave. As the team considered whether to enter, they noticed that there were in fact torches hung at equal paces along the wall, and lit the cave quite brilliantly. The men took this as a sign of occupancy, and decided that they would take a chance and journey inside.
About fifty feet into the cave, they found a sight most unexpected. There, sitting on a make-shift throne of bone and bodies, was General Hazda. Oliver noticed that his skin was a sickly grey and that his eyes seemed to stare off absently into space. Oliver thought he must be dead, as several fingers of his left hand were gone and he had a number of bullet holes. Oliver also noticed beside, him, huddled on the ground, in a fetal position, was the form of Agent Lawler.
Oliver made a move towards Lawler, when the form of Hazda twitched. Then moved its head slowly, and seemed stare right into Ollie's eye. He felt a cold and nasty chill slide down his spine.
"Beware," said the corpse of Hazda, in a harsh and grainy voice. "The curse of Montezuzaca still reigns supreme. Outsiders will not be tolerated on our sacred home. I do not smell the stench of evil upon you, and you will be allowed to depart. Immediately. Choose this, or you will die like the this evil creature and his minions." It's speech, completed, the creature slumped back into it's throne, and the body of General Hazda was dead.
"Good riddance," replied Oliver as he ran to the fetal form of Agent Mark Shaw. Much to Oliver's amazement, Shaw still seemed to be alive, barely. Oliver looked into his face as blood sputtered from his lips, and he weakly looked at Oliver and tried to speak.
"Damn," mumbled Shaw, almost incoherently, "it wasn't suppose to be like this. Then they turned on each other, full of rage and evil. It was horrible, and I didn't know what to do. Then Hazda found me. Everything is wrong. It is too early. Too early…"
As Shaw seemed to pass out, Oliver noticed the forms of Forge and Ben beside him. 'Damn,' he thought to himself, 'Don't die Shaw, not now.' Oliver was disgusted more than sad. He was tired of losing good Agents. He couldn't stand to loose another.
"What the hell…" Oliver heard Ben say, and he looked up at his friend, then followed his line of vision. It led to Shaw's leg, or what was left of it. It had been severed, below the knee, but that wasn't what had shocked Ben. There was no bone or muscle where the cut had occurred. Instead, under the blood, was plastic wiring and metallic ‘bones'. The leg wasn't human at all, but robotic in origin.
"Shaw," Oliver asked in complete awe, unable to comprehend the discovery.
"What the hell are you?"
Oliver and his agents, along with their backpacks full of supplies, and their weapons, prepared to head out of Verde City. The hike to Azul Sol was almost twenty miles, and there were no roads that could harbor anything larger or more sophisticated then a pack animal. Oliver and Forge had managed to ply, with a ridiculous amount of money, a pair of guilds to show them the way. The two appeared very apprehensive, and said that they would not take them all the way to the ancient ruins, but since the money they were supplied was probably more than they made in entire year, they would take them as far as they could.
The team had hiked for about twelve miles through the dense forest when the first signs of trouble became clear. Luckily, the trail wasn't very difficult to follow. Hazda and his men had made no attempt to hide their trail, and had in fact cut a wide swath right through the forest. Oliver and his crew came to a large clearing, which, from the abandoned debris and woodpiles appeared to have been Hazda's resting stop for a night.
After about three miles more of hiking, an even more extreme version of violence and death was exposed to the SHIELD Agents. Here, it appeared, hell had broken loose amongst all of Hazda's troupe. Supplies were strewn everywhere. The pack animals were all dead, their bodies mutilated. There were human body's everywhere, and they all appeared to have died in bloody and gruesome manners. The bodies weren't just off natives this time either, but included at least six of Hazda's men that had come with him from Vlatavia as well.
About a mile up the trail, the trio of men came upon the remains of the temple at Azul Sol. Oliver was sure, at one time, it had indeed been most beautiful, as pieces of intricate carving still lay scattered all around. Absentminded due to all the blood and carnage, Oliver remember that he had the portable universal locator in his pocket, honed on Agent Shaw's signal. He pulled it out and read the locator, which seemed to be consistent with the small, but steady stream of blood that they had followed through the jungle.
Get ready, because in Agents of SHIELD #10, the Manhunter Agenda begins. Featuring tie-ins all over the DCM universe.