Man Out of Time - A Captain America / Avengers Fanfiction

Chapter 25

Before the ball begins, a little side trip back into the other story that's woven into this fan fiction (lest anybody forget there are aliens trying to seize control of Earth while our two protagonists awkwardly stumble over their own lack of social grace).

Thanks for reading!

X

Chapter 25

"What's he doing?" Steve asked.

The S.H.I.E.L.D. guard glanced at the grey-skinned alien locked in the enormous circular glass jail cell like a fish in a fishbowl.

"Who the hell knows, Sir," the guard said. "He keeps acting as though he's trying to tell us something, but even JARVIS couldn't decipher a pattern. If you ask me, it's just some dumb animal they jacked up with a control collar to make it bite. Like one of those dog collars that zaps the dog to make it do what you want it to do."

Steve recalled the smooth way the aliens had fought and ease with which they handled the alien gliders. Their repertoire of skills had appeared to be formidable, but limited. Glider-riding aliens had been unable to fight once knocked off a glider, while ground-troop aliens had faltered whenever they'd encountered an unconventional battle situation. This alien, however, had tried to save its own life, not simply dropped dead like the other Chitauri when Tony Stark had nuked the mothership.

All of the compromised Chitauri technology had self-destructed the moment the signal from the mother ship had been lost, a failsafe device to make sure their technology didn't fall into enemy hands. What the Avengers were having trouble wrapping their brains around was the fact the Chitauri had bred and trained living soldier drones to be the same way. Even without the moral implications of breeding troops who were expendable, training and housing soldiers took time and considerable resources. It wasn't as though you could just put them on a shelf and…

"Oh. Crap."

The empty room full of maintenance beds, only the six weakest potential soldiers left behind. Steve smacked himself in the forehead. Talk about thick! Although at least this time, he wasn't the only one who was acting clueless. Grabbing the ridiculously small cell phone they made him carry, he fumbled with the tiny buttons, his fingers too large to hit the right numbers. His phone blinked with dozens of unanswered text messages, it taking him too long to wade through them and text back answers. All of the Avengers had learned the best way to convey information to him was in person.

There was no answer. A mechanical voice came on the line and suggested he leave a message. Steve hated speaking into the recording equipment people took for granted these days, preferring to keep calling back until he got a real person on the other end of the line, but this was important.

"Banner," Steve spoke into the voice mail system at the other end of the phone. "We've got to get those kids back and take a look inside their brains. They might be rigged to … I don't know … self-destruct or something. Like happened to the drones we took out over New York. I think that steel ring and wires they had running into their brains were some type of failsafe device."

He stared at the tiny keypad, trying to remember which button made the conversation end. He gave up, opting to close the cell phone instead, glad they'd let him get rid of the flat pad that had no way to close it. The phone chimed, reminding him he had dozens of text messages to answer. He stuck the phone in his pocket, turning to stare once more at the alien soldier who had come up to stand in front of the glass, watching him as much as he was watching it.

"I don't suppose you could just come out and tell me what you're trying to say?" Steve said aloud. The alien just stood there, its grey eyes watching him with curiosity. "No. I didn't think so."