The descent
“If you think this is a good idea-“ You debate cutting the communication of your earpiece, the small metal disk held onto your ear via a small piece of silicone that hand around the shell of your ear. For a moment you debate cutting her off and carrying on without your partner giving you sarcastic and falsified hope.
“-then you have lost your mind.” There is a moment where you think about rolling your eyes as she gives you her attempt at sound advice but instead of giving in to the urge, you carry on and concentrate on the glass that’s crunching under your boots. You focus on the landscape of twisted metal that was meant to be a deterrent for anyone who dared to try and locate the places of myths. If it wasn’t for the twisted metal and the overgrown fauna that truly made this place seem a wonder of old, you had wondered if more people like you wouldn’t have wandered over to these abandoned buildings.
“You don’t have to be a part of this.” You scuff your boot against a cement pillar and hiss at the sound of the worn material catching on a particularly rough edge. You know how daunting navigating these kinds of places can be, and yet even you wonder if it isn’t made more treacherous for a reason.
“The risk isn’t worth the reward.” Your partner’s communication device is crackling, the connection dwindling from overuse on her end and you know it won’t be long before she heads to the ScrapYard for another device.
“You don’t know that.” You approach a particularly bent piece of metal obscuring your path and you hesitate, your attention faltering to the holds in the metal that had once been part of a device meant to scale walls. It’s faded, more rusted and ragged than not, but still, you can see the indentation of a symbol that was carved into the metal all those years before.
“It’s a HYDRA facility, abandoned long before Stark and his endless reign of terror.” Your partner’s voice never rises above the level of mildly interested and she makes her mood known yet again with a weary sigh and long-winded mutter under her breath.
“You’re not helping anyways.” You tap the comm in your ear and end the communication stream, then wait for half a beat before your fingers hover above the device. “Little help.”
The device pulses softly and then projects the light you need, the soft blue glow washing over the rusted metal and a hologram appearing to your left. It’s showing you what you need to know, the information you were hoping for was correct. There is nothing on the other side of the metal to prevent you from going forward and the process to remove the object should be simple however you doubt you are going to be able to move it on your own.
“Okay POGO-“ You reach behind you and slip your hand into the reinforced canvas bag you brought with you, fingers nimbly grabbing one of the tools you had rebuilt and reinvigorated to help you.
“Personal Operating Geo-“ The little robotic creature you had rebuilt a while ago had come to life on its own and scurried toward the metal object you needed to be moved, and stood before the ragged and jarred materials.
“I just need it moved enough to get through,” at your instruction, the little robotic creature, resembling a marmoset monkey, with its small yet wide eyes and cute angular nose made of metal and fibres so tightly wound together it looked like real fur, “can you help me?”
“Help?” it tilted its head, and you knew it was screwing with you as a playful little jaunt. “Did you forget manners?”
“Did you forget who fixed you?” You mumbled under your breath and then exhaled slowly. “Fine, please would you be so kind as to help me?”
“POGO lives to help.” Your little robotic friend, the one you had found in an abandoned facility not completely unlike this one, had curled its metal and fibre toes around the solid bottom of the heap of crap you were trying to go through and raised its small arms, bracing its human-like hand against the top edge of the climbing structure.
It hadn’t needed to use much power, given the strength that was wound tightly in the fibres of his construction and the kind of metal channels that you had found to piece him together. POGO, your sometimes irritating marmoset monkey companion was stronger than you were.
“Thank you, POGO.” you tightened the clasps of your toolkits and started to climb the surface to step through the opening, hesitating when you had seen the slight drop. There was nothing on the other side to get through yet there was a slight drop that had you steadying your footing.
“You could slide down.” Your artificial monkey companion stated, holding the opening steady. “I would suggest using an anchor.”
“Thanks, P.” Your right hand dug into one of your pockets to grasp the hook and tie you had for occasions such as this and upon pulling it out of your pocket, you threw the hook toward a deep hold waiting until it had caught.
You yanked on the tie twice, trusting the cable and its strength before you started to ease yourself down the drop until both feet had been steadied on the ground again. As you touched bottom, you were further thrown into the cavernous setting that had led to the opening of the abandoned HYDRA building, the steady descent you were making was a stark and drastic change from what the area once had been.
It was as if the building itself was plummeted deeper into the surface of the earth than intended. The front entrance was long gone, long absorbed by dust and clay, black tarnished earth that surrounded the original structure in a cacophonous density of natural substances. You had gauged the trip as best as you could from a distance, using your drone to give you some kind of layout and it was only after hours of studying the best way, that you discovered the truth about the state of the building.
The top two floors were all that had appeared out of the earth, the rest were driven deep into the earth. Perhaps it was a purposeful action done by HYDRA themselves, whatever or whoever they had been, to hide secrets of their past. Or maybe it was simpler than that, maybe it was the Earth’s way of reclaiming what space was originally hers.
“I know you cut me off, but I see you’re approaching the entrance of the building. I’ve been doing some digging,” your partner’s voice had come back through the comm, the device against your ear vibrating slightly with the approach of the jagged metal that led to the opening you sought out.
“And..?” You questioned her, steadily encroaching on the top of the building while hearing nothing but the subtle sounds of nature, POGO and her voice.
Everything else was quiet, eerily so.
“There are a whole number of floors and corridors but some are blocked off. The bottom floors look the most promising in what used to be the basement. It’s a long stretch down, it’ll take every inch of your tether system.”
“Head for the basement got it.” You stepped forward, encroaching on the edge of the structure and slowly leaned over, peering down at the hole in the roof that would lead you down. The same archetypical jagged metal and broken beams that had been chaotically thrown together on the premise were visible in the building. It was a clear shot down like your partner had said, yet it wouldn’t be an easy descent.
“You can always change your mind.” POGO chimed, chirping as he climbed up your leg to your shoulders, and balanced on you, his tiny fingers grasping the material of your coat.
“Hang on, PO.” You replaced the hook you had used earlier for a large and longer grappling device, the steady metal and strong points would suit you well as you tried to descend. You rolled your shoulders back and inhaled slowly, filling your lungs with clean air before you threw the hook at the other side of the opening, hearing and watching it get caught on a sturdy ledge.
With the rope set in your hands, you stepped toward the teetering edge and leaped. Air rushed from you as you began descending, the feather and the hook holding strong.
You were going steady, descending depths that might not have been seen in decades or half-centuries even, the ruins of old agencies and people who had come before were now your scavenging sight.
“You good, PO?” Your monkey friend had chirped like a physical animal, a sign of his acknowledgement and understanding translating to a vocalized yes.
“Good.” You clung to the tether, your aged gloves keeping your hands from rope burns while the hook held you and POGO safe as long as you didn’t let go.
Every floor you passed was another flashback to the past, the years before and the people that ran the organization called HYDRA had crumbled, their empire and legacy kept only in the shells of marred metal.
“Approaching ground floor.” An autonomous voice chirped in your device, a warning before you had felt the earth below your boots. You stepped down and let go of the tether, dusting your hands off and doing a slow look around the area.
It was dark, dusty and decrepit. The technologies of the past were spared slightly from the torrential weather that would have inflicted the top levels, and you were sure undoubtedly that there would be pumps to drain any residual water but for the most part, the area you could see was dry.
You raised your hand and tapped your fingers against the device, a hologram server appearing before your eyes. You worked quickly, without much thought as you tapped into the electrical systems that were still in place, albeit anciently resting.
“I can only get emergency lights.” You communicated with PO, your partner long silenced. “PO-“
“I’ll find something.” He jumped from your shoulders and scurried off, and you in return had reached into your bag for a small metal orb, fingers grazing the slightly raised edges of the metal grooves carved into it.
“I’ll send the drone ahead.” You pulled your orb out of your bag and gently flexed your fingers around the edges before you had thrown it up into the air, waiting for the tentative moment when it would come to life. It was a beat, maybe half, before the orb started to glow and a pair of ultralight yet sturdy wings had appeared from the grooves in the side, an almost silent hum from the drone reactive to your command as you willed it to start taking a look around.
With a soft blue glow, the drone started to take off, moving from the place you were in further into the building, going beyond the open area you were in. The light of the drone faded as it had flown away from you, and you had returned to your task of scavenging the area as you had intended. You were looking for Relics, pieces of old that could be used in bartering, trading or for ornamental purposes.
You had tools in your bag to strip all that you could of everything you could find that would be valuable.
It was a task for a person such as yourself, the class and designation you’d been awarded when you defied his orders and made yourself into an enemy. He had stripped you down to the lowest class in his hierarchy, debilitating your abilities to that of a plover bird picking from the teeth of crocodiles.
Or, at least that was according to his words.
“Life detected.” The autonomous voice of your drone had come through your comm with the holographic image of two ancient and out-of-date cryogenic chambers that were still, miraculously, frozen. The faces were obscured yet there was a heart rate picked up on, and the brainwave patterns of the two men who had been frozen in time, forgotten about.
“Life detected.” Your drone commented again. “Life detected-“
“Ability to unlock and reverse the frozen state?” You questioned, dropping everything to follow the path the drone set out for you.
“Approximate time to reverse the cryogenic freezing: two hours.” You tore into the room at the back and skidded to a stop in front of the chambers.
Your eyes had widened immensely, your breath bating in your chest as the stats, the records of the men were accessed through the database and directed to your comm.
“Two hours,” you tapped your device twice, bringing up the first of the files on the men, “who exactly are you, Steve Rogers and Bucky Barnes?”