Coffee, Courage and a Captain

Chapter Sixteen: The Second Change

Erskine picked up the microphone that fed right into the booth and tapped it.

"Can you hear me? Is this on?" Erskine asked, staring at the microphone as if it were about to come alive and bite him, and the men in the observation room turned.

"Ladies and gentlemen," Erskine began. "Today, we take not another step toward annihilation, but the first step on the path to peace."

Howard thought he heard Charlotte whimper as the pads containing the needles were locked into place over Steve's body. The blank stern expression on her face didn't waver once, however.

The pair watched as the serum vials were placed in the port reservoir, and Erskine continued with his speech.

"We begin a series of micro-injections, into the subject's major muscle groups. The serum infusion will cause immediate cellular change. And then, to stimulate growth, the subject will be saturated with Vita-Rays."

Judging from Steve's expression, he hadn't been told in full what was going to happen, and Charlotte caught his eyes again, smiling at him before motioning for him to take a deep breath.

Howard caught her doing so, and frowned.

One of the nurse technicians injected the penicillin to help fight off any problem bacteria into Steve's upper arm, and he grimaced. "Well, that wasn't so bad."

Erskine held Steve's gaze. "That was penicillin," he deadpanned, seeing the panic-stricken look on Steve's face. "Serum infusion beginning in five. Four. Three."

Steve locked eyes with Charlotte again, who smiled at him reassuringly.

"Two. One." Erskine placed his hand on Steve's shoulder, and pushed the lever to start the injection sequence.

Steve let out a muffled groan through his teeth, and Erskine looked over at where Charlotte and Howard stood uneasily.

"Now, Miss Red, Mr Stark."

Charlotte took a deep breath before nodding at Howard, and they turned their activation keys at the same time, allowing a lever to pop out of the panelling. Howard flipped it, and the whir and humming of the capsule's mechanics began, as it tilted forward and closed over to shield the occupants of the lab from the radiation Steve was about to be drenched in.

It finished moving with a final, resounding clunk, and Howard glanced over at Charlotte as if to ask if she was going to be okay. She nodded.

Erskine approached the capsule, tapping on the glass plate at the front. "Steven? Can you hear me?"

"It's probably too late to go to the bathroom, right?" Steve's muffled reply made Charlotte grin.

Satisfied with his response, Erskine nodded to the technician behind the capsule- the man having just secured the hose that would carry the Vita-Rays to the pod. He glanced down at Charlotte and Howard and nodded. "We will proceed."

Charlotte and Howard began working in sync, turning dials and flipping switches. The pair picked up their matching sunglasses, grinning at each other's appearance as Howard began turning the wheel that would allow for the incremental dosages of radiation. Radiation designated to soak into Steve and act as a catalyst for further activation of the serum.

"That's ten percent," Charlotte read off the gauge for Erskine. "Twenty percent. Thirty."

Light began to stream out of the capsule, the people who weren't wearing glasses shielding their eyes from the bright white.

"That's forty."

A lab technician looked up from the readout of Steve's biological feedback, and glanced over at Charlotte for confirmation at what he was seeing- a strong heartbeat and normal brain activity. "Vital signs are normal," he stated, seeing her face relax a little.