As Lex and Sharon returned to the penthouse, Lex unlocked the front door and stepped inside. The hall was completely dark, illuminated only by the faint glow of city lights filtering through the windows.
“Hi, Nick,” Sharon said casually as she glanced toward a dark corner of the living room.
Lex followed her gaze and immediately sighed.
“Seriously? You couldn't even turn on the lights? It's not like you'd be paying the electricity bill.”
Reaching over, he flicked the switch.
The room brightened instantly, revealing Nick Fury sitting comfortably on the sofa as if he owned the place. One leg rested atop the other while his single eye calmly studied the two of them.
“I suppose introductions aren't necessary,” Fury remarked as he stood.
“Nope,” Lex replied. “So you're here because of Sharon. Did you bring Steve?”
“Of course not,” Fury said immediately. “I haven't confirmed anything yet. The last thing I need is Rogers crashing through a wall because somebody mentioned his name.”
“Aww.” Sharon looked genuinely disappointed. “Do you have any idea how long we've been waiting for you to take the bait?”
Fury narrowed his eye.
“Interesting. From my perspective, I'm the one who's been waiting here all night.”
“Come on,” Lex said. “You arrived at exactly 5:09 AM. That's forty-seven minutes ago.”
For the briefest moment Fury stared at him.
Then he sighed.
“Wonderful. Here I thought disabling every camera in the building was a good start.”
“It was,” Lex assured him. “The cameras are disabled.”
“Then how—”
“For about half a second.”
“That's somehow more concerning.”
Sharon failed to suppress a laugh.
Fury ignored both of them and slowly turned his attention toward her. The amusement faded from his expression, replaced by the look he usually reserved for classified briefings and potential global disasters.
“Alright then, Miss Sharon Rogers. Let's start with the obvious question.”
His gaze lingered on her face.
“What exactly are you?”
Before Sharon could answer, Lex spoke.
“Before we start disclosing state secrets, I'd strongly recommend purging HYDRA from SHIELD.”
The room instantly became quieter.
Fury's expression barely changed, but Sharon noticed the subtle tension that entered his posture.
“What?” Fury asked calmly. “And why exactly would I believe that?”
Despite the calm tone, his mind was already moving at full speed. Fury had survived this long by taking impossible claims seriously enough to investigate them. The possibility was already being examined the moment the words left Lex's mouth.
“Cortana,” Lex said casually. “Show the man some evidence.”
For a moment nothing happened.
Then a blue hologram suddenly materialized in the center of the living room.
Fury's hand moved instinctively toward a weapon before stopping halfway.
The woman who appeared looked almost human, though her body consisted entirely of shimmering blue light. Dark shoulder-length hair framed a face that carried a faintly amused expression, while intricate glowing patterns resembling a dress flowed across her form.
“Good morning, Director Fury,” the hologram said pleasantly. “Would you prefer the short version of HYDRA's infiltration, the detailed version, or the version likely to induce an aneurysm?”
For the first time since entering the apartment, Fury looked genuinely concerned.
Before he could even answer, large holographic screens materialized throughout the living room. Information that should have been buried beneath layers of classification began appearing one file after another. Most of it required Level Ten clearance, some of it should have been inaccessible even to Fury himself, yet Cortana displayed everything as casually as someone scrolling through a news feed.
What made the information dangerous wasn't any individual file. Most of it was circumstantial. A suspicious transfer here, an unusual communication there, a promotion that didn't quite make sense. Taken separately, each piece could be dismissed as coincidence.
Taken together, the number of coincidences became impossible to ignore.
And then Cortana made things worse.
Until now, she had only been using SHIELD's own records. Soon information from external databases began appearing alongside them. Financial records, private communications, military archives, corporate transactions, intelligence reports from organizations that definitely had not given SHIELD access to them. The more information she layered together, the clearer the picture became.
HYDRA wasn't simply hiding inside SHIELD.
HYDRA had become part of SHIELD.
Trying to remove it would be like attempting surgery on a patient whose organs had already fused together.
Fury slowly sat back down on the sofa.
His gaze lingered on one particular file.
Alexander Pierce.
One of the few people he genuinely trusted.
One of the few people he would have trusted with almost anything.
HYDRA.
The thought alone was enough to make him feel tired.
Of course, Nick Fury wasn't the sort of man who accepted information blindly no matter how convincing it appeared. If anything, the evidence only guaranteed that he would investigate it personally. By the time Cortana finished her presentation, the reason he had originally come here had been completely overshadowed by a much larger problem.
Without another word, he stood up and left.
The moment the door closed behind him, Cortana turned toward Lex.
“What a genius plan. Give away all our advantages for free.”
After meeting Cortana, Lex had actually developed a greater appreciation for Raphael.
Raphael helped silently.
Cortana helped loudly.
Usually while explaining why he was being an idiot.
“Just forget about it,” Lex replied. “Sharon worked for SHIELD in her world. Giving Fury some information is basic courtesy.”
“Courtesy is rarely an optimal strategy.”
“It's not like SHIELD could give us anything useful at this point. Their biggest advantage is information and you've already stolen most of that.”
“You are the leader, I suppose.”
“You two need to stop arguing,” Sharon interrupted, sounding less like a super soldier and more like someone trying to stop two teenagers from fighting. “Anyway, where's Donna?”
“She texted me earlier. Apparently she went to Harriman State Park to get some shots of the sky.”
“Miss Donna is currently driving back toward the penthouse and is approximately eighteen kilometers away,” Cortana added helpfully.
“Well, I'm exhausted,” Sharon said as she stretched. “I'm going to get some sleep.”
Nobody argued with that.
After everything that had happened over the last few days, she had more than earned the rest.
Once Sharon disappeared into her room, Lex informed Cortana that he would be heading out before leaving the penthouse himself.
The moment he stepped outside and the door closed behind him, he spoke quietly.
“Well, your plan seems to be working. How exactly are we removing the recorder without revealing that we knew about it from the beginning?”
<It is advised to destroy it at exactly 12:00 AM. This will create the impression that Cortana performed a routine security scan, discovered the device, and removed it naturally.>
“Good enough.”
As it turned out, much of the conversation with Fury had been carefully planned. The objective had never been to simply provide information about HYDRA. The real goal was to make Fury gradually accept another possibility.
That Sharon Rogers came from another timeline.
Once Fury reached that conclusion on his own, convincing Steve Rogers that Sharon was his daughter—or more accurately the daughter of another version of himself—would become significantly easier.
Making his way toward another property he owned, Lex eventually arrived at the mansion that had originally been intended for one of his secret identities. Unfortunately, with that identity now compromised, its original purpose had become somewhat questionable.
At least the construction was finished.
Money couldn't solve every problem.
It could, however, make most people work considerably faster.
After entering the mansion, the first thing Lex did was install Cortana.
The process was almost laughably simple.
The Gacha had provided a device that looked no more impressive than an ordinary router. Once activated, however, it immediately integrated Cortana into the entire facility. The truly ridiculous part was that this wasn't even her primary server. Her actual server remained safely stored inside Lex's Gacha Storage.
As long as Lex remained on the same planet, Cortana could operate almost perfectly regardless of where the main server was located.
For his next objective, however, information and infrastructure weren't enough.
He needed firepower.
Serious firepower.
Which meant it was finally time to summon.
Taking out both the Character Card and the Background Creation Card, Lex activated them simultaneously.
Reality distorted for a brief moment.
Then a woman appeared.
She looked to be somewhere in her late twenties or early thirties, wearing a white superhero costume that immediately caught Lex's attention.
Specifically because of the rather noticeable window cut into the chest area.
Lex stared.
The costume certainly wasn't subtle.
“If you've had your fill of gawking at my boobs, would you like to get tested for your immortality?” the woman asked, tilting her head slightly.
“Ahm... I'm sorry about that. It's just...”
Lex paused.
Whatever he had originally intended to say completely vanished from his mind.
The woman stared at him for a second before suddenly laughing.
“Relax, man. If I didn't like people staring, I wouldn't wear it.”
“Oh.”
Lex coughed awkwardly.
“Well... you look beautiful.”
“Oh?” She raised an eyebrow. “I would've preferred sexy, but I'll accept beautiful.”
Before Lex could recover from that exchange, a familiar blue hologram suddenly appeared nearby.
The newcomer blinked in surprise.
“Oh right.” Lex quickly gestured between them. “Kara, this is Cortana. She's basically our AI assistant. If you ever need information or help with something, you can ask her.”
Then he pointed the other way.
“Cortana, this is Kara. She's from the same world as Donna and she's... well, a superhero.”
“I was quite curious whether observing the summoning process would reveal anything useful,” Cortana stated immediately, paying very little attention to Kara herself. “Unfortunately, I was unable to detect anything.”
Kara looked from Cortana to Lex and then back to Cortana.
“She looks pretty real to me. You sure she's not going to go rogue or something?” Kara said as she recalled Brother Eye.
“Rogue?”
“Yeah.” Kara shrugged. “I just saw something like that happen not too long ago.”
Cortana looked mildly offended.
“I have been active and helpful for this team since my arrival.”
“No offense but that doesn't prove anything.”
Lex suddenly found himself with the distinct feeling that introducing the two of them might become a problem later.