Bucky's Diary

September 1, 2001

Shades Of Gray – Ruelle
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Dearest Diary,

I missed the beginning of a new millennium, but it's not like I can go back in time and ask HYDRA to wake me up on December 31, 1999, right?

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By the time I was de-thawed, I realized we weren't in Siberia anymore, but I wasn't sure where I was at all. It was like I'd never been here before.

"Если можно, где мы, сэр (If I may, where are we, sir)?" I asked quietly and as politely as I could.

The guard, who had been facing away from me, spun around and slapped me in my face. "We are in the United States, soldier,  you know better than to speak Russian here."

"My apologies, sir," I immediately replied, keeping my head down and eyes out of contact with his.

"Do you know why you are here?" he questioned.

"No, sir," I answered.

He grabbed my face and tilted my gaze up to his. "Look at me when I'm speaking to you, damn it!" he yelled, pushing my face down.

I nodded and remained seated on the floor as I awaited his further instruction.

"We are to remain in the state of New Jersey, at our HYDRA base here, for the remainder of the month," he explained, walking over to a board that had been hung on the wall opposite of us. He pointed at New York City. "This is why."

"I'm not sure I understand, sir," I replied. "What's happening in New York City this month that I- or HYDRA, is involved in? I only just woke up moment ago, sir, and I have yet to be informed of any mission plans."

He scoffed at me. "No, you misunderstand me. I swear, it's that damn cryofreeze device they're using, Christ, you'd think they'd listen to me when I tell them that their prehistoric technology kills braincells," he mumbled to himself. "Neither HYDRA nor you are involved in anything this month. You are only here for protection purposes."

"Protection from what?" I wondered. "From whom, sir?"

He sighed. "Well, as much as we've tried to destabilize Al-Qaeda, they refuse to listen to reason. They've lost their senses completely, and we have no way of stopping the inevitable."

"Who is that, if I may?" I near-interrupted him as if we were equals having a conversation.

"Al-Qaeda is a militant Sunni Islamist multi-national terrorist organization founded in 1988 by Osama bin Laden, Abdullah Azzam, and several other Arab volunteers during the Soviet–Afghan War," he started. "Al-Qaeda operates as a network of Islamic extremists and Salafist jihadists that, characteristically, organize attacks which include suicide attacks and the simultaneous bombing of several targets. They want the removal of all foreign influences in Muslim countries and, additionally, their members believe a Christian–Jewish alliance is conspiring to destroy Islam."

"Is any of that true?" I wanted to know.

He shook his head at me and turned around, looking at the board. "HYDRA seeks control of world leaders. In other words, we want domination from the inside," he went on, completely ignoring me as if I wasn't there. He acted like I was just ears so he could talk out the issues in his own head. "We have our soldiers infiltrate organizations such as what we've been doing with S.H.I.E.L.D., assassinate world leaders who will not cooperate with us like you've done with, for example, Adolf Hitler and Benito Mussolini, and destabilize governments and groups that refuse to work alongside us such as what we've attempted to do with Al-Qaeda. They don't want anything to do with us, that's what they said verbatim. HYDRA was stuck because we're almost never in a situation like this."

"What's the plan, then?" I questioned.

"That's the issue, soldier, we don't have a plan and they've already gone and threatened us."

"In what sense?" I went on.

"They know the biggest step HYDRA could make would be to take over the United States, they know this would greatly help us in our goals- so they're willing to do whatever it takes to get in our way," he paced back and forth. "There's an imminent threat on various locations across the U.S. right now. No, HYDRA isn't the only reason Osama bin Laden ordered the attack, but we certainly are one of the major issues in their eyes."

"What sort of attack is it? And, how am I supposed to help?" I stood and asked.

"You can't help, we just want you here at the New Jersey HYDRA base in case they try to come to us directly, which we doubt will happen, but you never know," he turned away from me. "They're planning on sending around twenty members to the States to hijack four airplanes en-route to California and use these planes as weapons. This has never been seen before and this is insane, soldier; they're planning to crash the planes into the North and South buildings of the World Trade Center, known as the Twin Towers, as well as the Pentagon and The White House."

I felt my eyes grow wide. "Is HYDRA doing anything about this?"

"Well, there are many, many flights heading to California throughout the day as well as throughout the month of September. The issue is, we don't know any specifics on times, dates, starting locations or even airlines," he explained. "There's nothing we can do, despite the fact that HYDRA does not support this sort of behavior."

I wondered how a murderous group of individuals such as HYDRA themselves could possibly be so hypocritical as to think that their actions are 'okay' compared to the imminent acts of Al-Qaeda. Surely neither of them are right, and surely they both need to be stopped, but I'm certainly not the one to say anything of the sort- unless I want to end up dead. So, I kept my mouth shut and let him blabber on.

"What about the others?" I tried to drag the conversation to a more bearable region wherein I didn't have to hear about the hundreds of thousands of innocent people who were going to die later in the month.

"The other soldiers?" he sounded surprised I had asked. "Well, they're all still in cryo."

"Oh, okay," I answered, seriously shocked that they'd remained frozen since 1985, not to mention the fact that HYDRA simply never found a solution to their lack of rule-following.

Shortly after that conversation ended, I was stationed in a new room where I'd be staying until after this terrible attack was over.

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I seriously hope this group of enemies HYDRA has made for themselves was bluffing on the attack, because I can barely handle killing bad people like Hitler- I can't imagine killing hundreds of innocent people at once.

I hope HYDRA never asks me to do something like that, I don't know if I could, even with all the brainwashing in the world.

~ soldier 3255-7038