Aberration | Bucky Barnes

xvi. target

CHAPTER TWELVE

"So Miss Lancaster, what will it be?"

Zola's words hung in the air as Eloise weighed her options. If she worked willingly with Hydra, she could get answers and a more in depth idea of what was going on, but that would mean working with the same men that had been torturing her relentlessly for months. It was the path of least resistance, the path with the least pain involved, but it sounded a bit too much like selling her soul to the devil for her liking. 

"If I were to work with you, how would I be able to save the world?"

Zola smiled, but the gesture was the opposite of comforting; there was a wicked glint in his eyes that turned Eloise's stomach sour and told her ahead of time that she wasn't going to like the answer. 

"We simply need you to eliminate certain targets that are fueling the war. With them out of the way, the rest of us will be able to put an end to the ridiculous fighting that currently plagues the Earth."

"And by eliminate, you mean kill." She said cautiously.

Zola nodded and Eloise swallowed the lump that was forming in her throat. "How will more killing bring about the end of the war and not just make it bloodier?"

"I am glad that you asked, we assumed you would. We would not be sending you to slaughter whole camps of men, I hope that was clear. We would send you to take down top priority military and political leaders; men that are stoking the flames of the war. You would be bringing down men that thrive off the chaos they create. You would be freeing the world of horrifying monsters dressed like princes and kings."

She was beginning to consider his words, she was starting to realize he was actually making sense, when she had a horrible epiphany. "I would be fighting against my own country, wouldn't I?"

Zola folded his hands together and smiled again. The same twisted malice returning to his face. "I understand why you would think that. A German organization sending you to fight against the Americans would make sense, but that is not the case. We are not fighting for our homeland, we are fighting for the world. You would be sent to eliminate dangerous men from all around the globe, starting right here, in Germany."

A battle was raging on inside of Eloise's mind while Zola spoke. The part of her that was still a Brooklyn born girl, the girl that had been beaten and tortured and knew that the man before her was up to no good, begged her to tell the doctor to go to hell. The part of her that was enlightened by whatever the scientists had put in her, the woman who had already killed more men than she could've ever dreamed of, was telling her to take the deal. 

When the war in her head was over, she relaxed in the chair and cast her eyes back to the ceiling. 

"When do I start?"

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The guards on either side of Eloise hung back as she moved silently across the stone floor. She had been given her first target and they were on their way to meet him. She knew it was a test to see what she would do, and she had to force herself to stay calm. Hydra wasn't comfortable with letting her leave the compound yet, so they had brought the man she was ordered to kill to the base for her. 

The soldiers accompanying her were there in case the job went south, or at least that's what she was supposed to believe. She knew they were just there to make sure she didn't try anything Hydra didn't approve of, which she had no intention of doing. Eloise knew she had to gain their trust before she could even think about attempting to escape, even if it meant killing for them. 

The hallways were long and confusing, the floor plan designed to disorient any enemy that made it through the front door. She knew she would have to figure them out and memorize them eventually if she ever wanted to be free of the German's control, so she payed close attention while she walked. Focusing on the floor and the walls around her also helped distract her from the knowledge that she was going to have to murder someone when she reached her destination.

After a while they finally made it to the room her target was waiting in, and she braced herself before bursting through the door. She had been briefed on how to go about killing him, and she followed the guidelines set for her perfectly. The man she was ordered to terminate was the leader of a military base set up a few miles from the compound, and he had been invited in to discuss a weapons trade, unaware of the fact that he was walking into a trap and straight towards his death.

Eloise walked lightly as she approached him. He was accompanied by four other men, but she wasn't worried about them. While the soldiers behind her were ordered to keep her in line, it was also their job to take out the rest of the threats. 

She wasn't given a gun, so she had to take him down with her bare hands. By using a combination of the techniques that were already hardwired into her brain and the ones she had been taught in the short window of time between agreeing to be Hyrda's assassin and being given her first target, she was left standing over the Sargent's dead body in a matter of minutes.  

It would have been easier for Hydra to just kill the man with a single blast from their newly developed guns, but their asset needed conditioning; she needed to be groomed correctly if she was ever going to become the brainwashed killer they desired. She needed to be trained before she could fulfill her true purpose, so Shmidt planned to send her on dozens of essentially meaningless missions before he began to give her targets that actually mattered. 

By the end of the year he was confident he would have the perfect weapon to use against the super soldier the Americans were attempting to create.