19128/Brotherhood of the Chosen: Secrets Underground

Brotherhood of the Chosen: Secrets Underground
Date of Scene:	20 October 2024
Location:	Rural Texas
Synopsis:	A successful gathering of intel leaves the team with just as many questions, but with a better picture of just how much of a threat they could be facing with The Brotherhood of the Chosen. Are they connected to HYDRA? Time will tell. Either way, they need to be eliminated before their plans go any further.
Cast of Characters:	James Barnes, Natasha Romanoff, Camille Russo, Cinque Evers

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James Barnes has posed:
An abandoned hospital in a sleepy little down in Texas. The population of the town likely didn't even top 500 - evidence of a more prosperous time was still clinging to the are like old ghosts. Boarded up storefronts, gas stations long robbed of their pumps, an old school with nothing left to teach and an old abandoned hospital long ago a victim of the elements and the local wildlife.

It was beneath that hospital where a small laboratory was found. It was a quick in and out - the handful of guards and scientist on duty at such a late hour were none the wiser.

But they got what they needed - evidence that this the whole thing is just an extension of The Brotherhood of the Chosen. Why leave it there? Why not just tear it all apart? To do so might send the entire organization running into the ground before enough intel was found to bring them down for good.

Why choose that site? It seems they're planning on turning that little town into a booming little down once more, rebuilding it into something that will play a larger part in their plans.

Back in a run down little hotel room - he's rented four for the night - Bucky shrugs off the heaviest bits of his tactical gear.

Their haul for the night is another thumb-drive and a few hard copy files.

All of which set on the small rickety desk at the corner of the room. If Bucky were *normal* he might have suggested at least finding a drive-thru somewhere for an early breakfast - but he's not so he didn't.

He runs a hand through his long-ish hair and grumbles, "I'm hittin' the shower."

He's still not overly fit for human consumption. In fact, he's been less and less fit with each passing day. It doesn't seem as if he's ready to turn on everyone and kill them in their sleep - no it's more that he's so hyper focused on the missions that everyone and everything else can suck it. Not unlike the 'dog with a bone' that The Winter Soldier used to be - the motivations are just different now.

Natasha Romanoff has posed:
It means that he'll keep going until the mission objectives are fulfilled, no matter the cost. Not if it breaks him. He's too skilled to fail at it and even if he breaks he will have contingencies in place to make sure that it is done. Natasha is here with a comrade, not exactly a friend.. But to help make sure that a useful asset does not break himself in the process. There is also perhaps a sense of debt, in a twisted way. Natasha is a monster. She has long since accepted that. She does not particularly care anymore. There are lines that others prevent her from crossing, but she has been forged as weapon.
    The least she can do now for Bucky is to be there to ensure tht he does not become the monstrocity that she is. She will not be his conscience; tht is for Steve, that is for Clint. but she will be there to ensure that he doesn't do something that he will be unble to ever take his eyes away from the mirror and look at himself with damnation and guilt in them. That he will forever judge himself for and those that he cares about will.
    Natasha is here not because he needs her for this, for assistance or support. He can handle this on his own. She is there to ensure that he keeps what little bit of soul he has left in the process.

    Unlike her.

    She's setup something to automatically work at decrypting the files and uploading them to several different locations in the cloud, and making physical backups that they can stash and scatter in event of an emergency.

Camille Russo has posed:
Bucky might not've thought about food, but Camille does. She drops everyone off, then goes in search of food. She knows even small towns are usually near enough a bigger city or interstate for there to be a 24-hour something, even in places like Texas. Not always, given the way Texas sprawls, but since they aren't quite in the less forgiving deserts of east Texas it's not too long before she comes across the mecca that is Buc-ee's to load up on savory and sweet kolache, jerky, and a variety of drinks.

Haul acquired, she heads back to the hotel, everything in a tote bag under her arm as she makes her way to his room. "Just me," she says quietly as she opens the door, locking it securely behind her. "I come bearing gifts of food and drink... he been in the shower since I dropped y'all off?" Her eyes seek Natasha's over the area the redhead's working from as she unpacks the tote, laying everything out with quiet efficiency.

Cinque Evers has posed:
Cinque had spent most of this mission in his role as the "human recorder," meticulously cataloging every detail he observed. He understood the importance of retaining information; you never knew when a seemingly insignificant piece of intel: like a name on a security badge or an a barely visible footprint, could be the key to unraveling a larger puzzle.

Now, with the mission winding down, he sat cross-legged in a quiet corner, performing maintenance on his gear. He methodically checked each piece, ensuring everything was in working order while his mind drifted to what how did the serum work with nanites.

James Barnes has posed:
Random strings of numbers and letters flicker over the screen of the laptop Natasha's using. They're moving too quickly to try and read or track, but that's par for the course, it's just the decryption program running. Boring stuff really.

Until there's a single BEEP.

Information decrypted, but that's just the first obstacle.

The rapid fire scrolling letters and numbers stop. The display is now home to a white backdrop behind the purple and black image of a skull with six tentacle arms and the words: Project I.N.V.A.D.E. (Inhibitory Nanotech Vector for Advanced Disruption and Elimination.)

... Please Enter Password -

Front door or back door access? While entering the password and walking through the front could raise alarms elsewhere - going in through the back always takes more time.

Indeed, he's been in the shower since Camille left. The water must be cold by now. Bucky doesn't mind the cold, he never has. It's helping to wash away the frustration from the evening. Holding back, keeping himself from tearing that laboratory apart and putting a swift end to everyone in it wasn't easy. It's the cold that helps clear his head, helps him stay focused on the mission and the means to get to the end of it. The means tonight had to be quiet - they had to be invisible. The cold has always helped him keep to the plan.

When he finally steps out of the bathroom, Bucky is wearing a simple pair of blue jeans and a white tank top, his feet are bare, hair towel dried just to the 'not dripping' state. He almost looks like any other man on the planet - almost. It's the remnants of the grease paint around his ice blue eyes and the metal arm he's reattaching even as he steps through the door that ruin the illusion.

"Where are we? Have anything yet?"

He doesn't seem to have noticed the food ... yet. He's still 'mind on the mission'.

Natasha Romanoff has posed:
Natasha Romanova would turn over to the others and speak, "The initial decryption has finished. THe system is doing another check to see if there are any hidden viruses present." And that was why there was a Farraday cage setup just to be on the safe side amongst everything temporarily as they'd made backups before decryptiona nd if the data flashed as clean they would do after.
    "It seems ready for review shortly." Then they'll do a quick scan of it, scatter the backups around and go to follow up on leads from it. As it goes to move to enter the password, Natasha pauses thoughtfully..
    And then turns over to Cinque and Camille. "Do either of you have a particular sense of intution on this?" Passwords could be brute forced, but that rarely tended to work. The data probably had failsafes in place, and they couldn't make dozens of backups to test variations to break through it. And a more thorough decryption designed to bypass, like reading ions off the drive took highly specialized equipment, laboratory facilities, and experts.

Camille Russo has posed:
Cam taps her fingers on the tabletop in thought, then grimaces. "There's always the old standard. Password1, capital P to start it. People are horribly uncreative about work passwords, especially if there are other steps for authentication or they have to frequently type it in. Not my specialty, but it's always an issue. Most places block words directly related to what they're doing, same as why your password at SHIELD can't contain your own first or last name or any of the division acronyms or the words that make them up." Whether HYDRA did was anyone's guess, and certainly beyond her. "If it gets locked out, come eat and give it time to reset, we can try again."

Cinque Evers has posed:
As Cinque rapidly recalls all the data he has on previously used Hydras and their cybersecurity protocols, the information floods his mind like a cascading stream. The details of the decipher program flash across his memory, each line of code and data point crystallizing into focus. For most, it would be overwhelming, but for Cinque, it felt like watching a turtle cross a street coated in molasses, slow but deliberate, with every detail etched clearly in his mind.

He weighed this against his encounters with scientists, remembering a critical detail: the tape on the back of one of the security badges. He turned to Camille with a slight nod in agreement to her previous comment, "Another thing people do is put reminders or even the actual password on their person."

His fingers danced over the keyboard as he accessed the data, his enhanced intuition guiding him. "It wasn?t the password itself, but a reminder of it." He pulled up a series of items that had been in view during their earlier investigation, numbers and symbols aligning with what he had seen.

With a steady breath, he went to hit enter.

James Barnes has posed:
"Really? Not your area of expertise?" There might have been just the smallest hint of a grin there, just a tiny one. "I never would have guessed." Hacking isn't quite so simple as all that Solnyshko. "We're no longer connected to their server, I wouldn't think. The password is simply to access the files not the server? Make sure there's no connection to the internet and run the program if you have one. We'll see if getting access to the server is needed to access the files."

He takes a few strides across the room to pick up the hard copy files from the desk. His tone is soft, distracted when he asks, "Nat, do you have software with you that can mine for the password?"

It's really just two folders, things grabbed hastily and almost as an afterthought. The first one, Bucky just skims through - nothing much of interest there. It's about four pages into the second one that his eyebrows shoot up. "Natasha..." One by one, he holds up pages from that file. Each one is contains an image and a brief bio of the person in the picture. TARGET - along with a number - is typed ominously at the top of each page.

Steven Rogers.
Natasha Romanova.
Yelena Blova.
James Barnes.

The names aren't listed - but with the pictures there's no need. There are more in the file - more faces, some maybe recognized, some not. But if they're anything like the first four? Each of them has been enhanced by the Super Soldier Serum or one of its bastard cousins.

BEEP.

Access granted.

Seems Cinque was the only software needed.

Natasha Romanoff has posed:
She's well aware of the light tease. But it's also good to let the others do something. And just in case there is some sort of trap inherent. She's good, but she's no technopath when it comes to these sorts of things. Then again if they had a technopath they could just download over into their brains.

She would glance down over it thoughtfully. "Hmm." She goes to tap over at her cheek and scans over the list, looking up and down the pictures thoughtfully, matching up names and pictures, and instantly recalling data from files on ones she had not encountered.

"This is thorough of those that have gone through variants of the Erskine treatment." 'Variants' was a vast understaement given how many different iterinations and dozens, if not hundreds of attempts at recreating it throughout the decades. "I did not expect Hydra's intelligence and medical sciences branch to be so thorough."

Camille Russo has posed:
Camille nods in agreement to Cinque's words, giving him a smile as he gets into the files before raising an eyebrow at James. "Are you sassin me, JB?" She's amused by it, happy to see him thawing enough to crack a little bit of a joke, though the smile falls off her face as she sees the contents laid out. "In some ways you'd think they would have to be, but then you add in the paranoia and the power plays..." She squeezes past James, giving him a quick side-hug as she takes a seat on the bed to better see the files. "You would want the details of your failures and successes to know what to avoid, but most of what I can think of that we've found - well, what I've got the clearance to access, admittedly not that much - the files are usually encrypted by each scientist that's worked on these projects. That paranoia coming into play, not wanting someone else to take the lead and the glory for finding the solution to what they've been set."

Cinque Evers has posed:
Cinque Evers raises his right eyebrow as he peers at the information pouring on the screen. Cinque wraps his arms across his chest and asks the others, "Are we still going to play this off the books. This is an extensive program that has a lot of money, manpower, etc seems to be invested in, and now they are in the endgame. "

Cinque walks away from the computer and back to working on his gear, "We came in and are starting to ruin their decades of planning, ...." Cinque tweaks his mini infrared binocalurs as he talks, "How far are we going to go keep covering our tails on this one?" Cinque adds, "Before joining SHIELD, I always weighed how much death and desctruction I had to do to cover my tracks.

James Barnes has posed:
"No, not at all, Solnyshko." For the Russian speaking in the room - seems Camille has been dubbed 'little sun' or 'sunshine'. It does take a little sun to melt the ice of Winter, does it not?

Bucky's attention returns to the pictures in the folder. He studies one picture and then the next and the next - so it continues. He spends time on each one, paying attention to every detail of every face before he murmurs, "Most of these are Widows, Natasha," in Russian. It's news to be shared only with the Widow in the room, until she decides otherwise. All Widows? He would know, he likely trained more than a handful of them.

Could whoever's spearheading these new projects be connected to the Red Room?

"We need to see if we can find a connection between HYDRA and La Confrerie des Elus," he pulls the French pronunciation of the 'Brotherhood of the Chosen' off as if he's a native speaker. "Is Coulteir's group working *with* HYDRA or outside their purview?"

Is the latter or the former the lesser of the two evils?

Should anyone go rummaging through the information on the thumb-drive, much of it is scientific mumbo-jumbo that would sail over the typical person's head. A few concepts might stand out, perhaps just enough of to get the gist of it. Project I.N.V.A.D.E. is aimed at using nanotech to induce an immune response that causes the body to reject cells altered by the serums. The end result would, at the very least, mean loss of their super abilities - and at worst, death.

Is it getting too big for Bucky and those he's handpicked for this? The answer to that is a resounding yes. But...

Bucky's lost Steve - he's still reeling from that loss but he's managed to surround himself with people that seem to accept him just as he is. To the people he's chosen, he's not Bright Eyed Young Bucky Barnes and he's not The Winter Soldier Boogey Man. To them he's exactly what he is, something in between and they seem okay with it. Is he ready to burst the bubble he's built around himself? Turn this over the organization that's been assigned to 'babysit' him since he was brought in from the cold?

Maybe not just yet.

"I'll take it to Fury after I find out more about Armand Lefevre. If Yaro was right and he's the brains behind this, I want to know more about him before..." He doesn't finish the thought - but it's likely to have ended with something like - SHIELD takes control and regulates me to the back seat again.

Natasha Romanoff has posed:
Natasha Romanova would nod, "There's a possibility." To the question of whether there's a connection to the Red Room. "THe cells themselves have scattered. Those that remain have gone to ground and become mercenary. If I had to guess this is someone that was in leadership or administration that took the files and ran before the organization had it's latest collapse and sold it to whomever would pay the most. They likely took the money and went to ground and tracing them would.. Take considerable effort." Someone with decades going up the leadership ranks of the Red Room with a massive amount ofmoney would be hard to track, evne with magic and alien technology.

She translates it over to her head thoughtfully while grasping 'take away enhanced abilities'. "This appears to be rather broad in nature." She would note after some small analysis. "Many of these serums have litlte in common beyond physical enhancement of the subject. On a theoretical level this seems to be capable of neutralizing a vast array of them." The Russian variant of the SUper Soldier serum was quite different from the Red Room one. The Red Room version had been refined throughoutt he decades. Yelena would have had a different one than Natasha.

"If you take this to Fury then it will be reverse engineered and then experimented with, and used on captives." As in supervillains. "Then when it is doscovered SHIELD has it, a number of other groups will in turn retrieve samples and reverse engineer it, and make them far broader in exposure." There were a great many insane, twisted biogeneticists out there.

Camille Russo has posed:
She's pleased at the nickname, she thinks. It sounds affectionate instead of annoyed, for one, but her Russian's limited to some polite phrases, her rank, serial number, and some less polite phrases. Written, she can add a bit on directions, but nothing else. Survival words. "The government would want it," Camille adds quietly. What better way to try and control then by ensuring you held the collars and chains for the enhanced communities? "The ability to weaponize it when there's such a big threat coming, or just after when everyone is still reeling? Assuming we're still here to be reeling after that." That, of course, is Galactus. Somehow she doesn't think this serum would work on a planet-eater. "Tracing them would be hard, but slipping those traces into some of the HYDRA stuff we've already got analysts tracing might not be the worst idea." She looks over at Bucky, knowing he's the one to sell it on. "Let the financial trace be on the books, looking for those connections. In the meantime, we'll try to get more information ourselves."

Cinque Evers has posed:
"Understand, we still play this tight to the vest and it is best that all records of the serum disappear when we are done. Cinque glanced at Bucky and Natasha, a smirk tugging at the corners of his mouth. "Well, both of you have way more experience with these high-level operations than I do. I?ll trust your judgment and continue to help in any way I can." He leaned back slightly, arms crossed. "Besides, I?d probably join any mission that lets me use my Colts over those Icers."

He walked towards the. "Just let me know what you need me to do." As he turned to head toward the bathroom, he added with a playful tone, "I got next on the shower."

James Barnes has posed:
But if the nanobots are programmed to target 'altered cells', then which serum altered them would be irrelevant.

Natasha's there making all good points - but Bucky's particularly pleased to hear the last one that she makes. It gives him a reason to stay his path, to go this alone with only those he's already put his trust in - or will trust in the future.

Does how the information was obtained by their enemies matter much? What's important is that they have it - that each person who has a picture in that file is in danger. "They're going to have to test it Nat, if they aren't already." The former means they'll be trying to take as many from that file as they can alive, the latter means they may already have some of them. Perhaps they can find out what stage the experiments are at when they've had more time to go over the information on the thumb-drive.

"Natasha, do you have *any* contacts left that you can reach out to and try to find out if there are even rumors of others going missing recently? I'll do the same - those left in my black book are few and one of them nearly died in front of me, but I'll dig where I can."

Bucky puts that little stack of pictures back into a stack, in order - it leaves Steve's picture on the top. He lets his fingers trace over that picture for just a moment before he shuts the file quickly. Ice blues are just a little too bright when he looks back up again. Could be he very nearly shed a tear or two - before he drew on the cold to push them aside. Will it never stop hurting? Will that void left by Steve's death ever stop feeling so wide and deep?

"It's not a bad plan, Solnyshko, but what do we tell SHIELD we're looking for? We don't even know if Coulteir's group is directly connected to HYDRA. First we need to figure out if HYDRA is even part of this equation, tracing their financials won't get us anywhere if they're not."

There's still so much they don't know.

ICERs were never Bucky's favorite either. Even if shooting just to incapacitate, it's always much more fun to see them drop when their knee is shattered into pieces by an actual bullet - ah, the screams of the enemy in the dark - no sweeter music.

Finally the pangs of hunger start nagging at Bucky, making it harder to think. Someone made sure that wouldn't be a problem for long, didn't they? There's not likely to be much in the way of food left when he's finished.

"SHIELD stays out of it for now. Natasha and I will work what contacts we have left. Cinque, Camille, we need to copy that thumb drive so each of you can look at the files with different eyes. You need to look for *anything* that might tie this new threat back to HYDRA."

HYDRA has always been a thorn in Bucky's side. HYDRA will likely *always* be a thorn in Bucky's side. But if this *is* a new head sprung from the monster, one more head of the beast? Well, James Barnes will have no problem unleashing the monster they created, The Winter Soldier back onto them to chop this one right off.

Natasha Romanoff has posed:
Natasha Romanova would shake her head, "No, I do not. Most of the Red Room had already gone mercenary the last two decades. Leadership changed hands and it began operating essentially as a guerilla cell. Some of the larger cells consumed smaller ones. Once there was a substantial enough presence to be known in a region, it would be crushed or coopted. The group still exists but is fragmented. Most still in operation are doing so as individuals and have gone to ground or are purely mercenary."

The Red Room down to the barest remnants is supposed to be destroyed. She was there for the last gasps fo it. What was supposed to be the final few fragments. That she saw crush it with her own eyes. That there was nothing left. Natasha is a pragmatist.

She doesn't let things like fickle hope get in the way of reality. It was too useful a thing. It exiseed too long. There will always be a few out there continuing with it in some way or another. Because that is the way reality works. "You're going to have to go outside of your networks and likely mine as well. Most of my.. Unofficial long term contacts are peripherally aware of who I am and who I work for. The remaining ones I have interacted with via alias and I do not have sufficient.. Investment in for them to trust me with such a thing even if purely in renumeration." Monely only went so far after all with conspiracies and super soldiers and wanting world domination.

Camille Russo has posed:
"Ye of little faith," she murmurs at JB's question. "Tracing what we can with the finances might be able to highlight some of those connections," Camille points out. "And... those tentacle arms are a bit of a tell, non? If they are not working with HYDRA, they are bold to be using it. If nothing else, it implies a connection at some level. Defector, financier, splinter group with other aims." Her head tips back as she thinks, letting things move into place like pieces of a puzzle. "If they're a splinter group or some sort of defectors, we might be able to trace back to the split, and what information they had access to."

Cinque Evers has posed:
Cinque comes out of the bathroom, wearing a fresh hoodie and jeans. He quickly catches up. Cinque agrees with Camille and adds, "Agreed, finaces will be a good place to start." Cinque taps his foot, "I can also track down some of the origins of the equipment that we saw. It has been experience most people do not build thier own equipment on site. The transfer of equipment always leaves a trace." Cinque says, "I can start there."

James Barnes has posed:
"I'll get with Yelena." She's a Widow much more recently 'liberated' and Bucky's few contacts are much like Yaro, big fish and small that managed to liberate themselves - some before Bucky found his own freedom and some after. Amid the latter of that group, at least one or two might even owe their own freedom to James Barnes.

He circles back to something Camille mentioned before. "We'll still be here, Solnyshko. Much of the human race is like cockroaches - we always find a way to survive." Even planet eating aliens or whatever Galactus might be. It's a jaded way of looking at hope for survival - but he's not wrong and what they've discovered so far of The Brotherhood of the chosen is proof of it. Cockroaches. "Yaro mentioned that Couteir was always a 'fan' of HYDRA, it *could* be nothing more than a zealot offering up the best form of flattery - imitation, but you could be right. If we can find a reason to slip it in without the analysts suspecting something bigger's behind it, then we'll do it. If there's any risk of Fury catching wind of us working outside of SHIELD's control ..." Control, it's an odd word choice, but isn't that what SHEILD's always been tasked to do in regards to Bucky? Control a potentially dangerous asset and put him down if that control faltered? "... then we don't do it."

He's an 'asset', a *thing* of value to the organization.

'That's not true, Buck, you're more than that'. The little voice in his head sounds a lot like Steve these days. But Steve's gone, he's done listening to that voice.

"Either way, see if you can find a connection in those files on the thumb drive, equipment origins - just anything that links the two of it's there. I'm going to take a walk."

He snatches up his leather jacket and shrugs it on, making sure to pull the leather gloves tucked into a pocket on as well, and he's out the door before anyone can stop him.

It's time to let the cold slip away, if only for a little bit. It's time to let himself feel it - let himself feel *something* lest he be lost to Winter forever. Bucky does his best 'feeling' alone.