Astral Lovers

CHAPTER 11

Philiph McTavish POV

GENEVA - Switzerland

I find myself looking at the monitors from the security room.
Standing, with my hands folded behind my back, I try to figure out how to get out of this situation.
I feel one step away from being able to find the solution to my problem but in the end something is always missing.
I need the Space Stone.
Hydra needs it.
I'm running out of time.
If so far I have been feared and respected, now from the upper floors they have let me know that my time is running out, 10 years is too long and their patience is now at the limit.
They need the Stone now.
I take off my glasses and with the flap of my smock I clean the lenses, I observe them against the light.
I mirror myself in their reflection and the image they return to me makes me angry.
Dark circles around my tired gray eyes.
I don't have time to rest.
I have to find a solution.
If I fail I will lose my prominent place, maybe I'll end up serving as a servant to the subjects we keep in this facility and that would be one of the best guesses after all.
For what is at stake, I would find myself paying for failure with my own life.
Hydra does not forgive.
"Oh Sophia with your death you took away the only secret I was ever interested in..."
I whisper to myself.
When I was given this assignment I did not believe it was that long term, an assignment that culminated in a marriage and a daughter.
Maybe there was a moment when I really loved that woman, with the birth of Elisabeth I almost believed I could be happy.
To be able to devote my life to my family but the importance of my mission ultimately took priority.
We are fighting for the greater good, Hydra needs to return to power.
Destroy the S.H.I.E.L.D. and any other stupid organization that dares to get in the way.
Like the Avengers.
I think back to Dr. Avery's words and sigh.
Finding something she loves to bend her to our will.
Everything that Elisabeth loved was her mother and she is gone.
The mental prison where we closed her is totally different from reality, created so that she would not struggle to return to us.
It took nearly a decade of cryogenesis.
The Project T.A.H.I.T.I. it took some time for it to work.
Agent Coulson worked on his guinea pigs and then on himself.
With the results we had on the same experience as him we decided to try.
So some of our infiltrators stole projects and data and we scientists loyal to Hydra have thought of everything else.
Putting new memories into Elisabeth's mind was definitely not a walk in the park but it worked in the end.
By obscuring her memory and inserting a new story for her life, a sad and monotonous story that kept her chained to the perennial sleep that we would soon impose on her.
As soon as everything was ready she was thawed and sedated and she was induced into a pharmacological coma.
We monitored it and in just over 3 months the situation precipitated.
The Stone is consuming her being and the only solution not to lose her would be to wake her up.
I sigh again but this time in frustration.
I turn to the only window in this room.
It's snowing outside, Geneva is really freezing in December.
Snowflakes swirl in the gray sky, the branches of the trees bend weighted down by the thick blanket of snow that fell tonight.
Suddenly a red light in the room turns on, flashing non-stop and a high-pitched alarm begins to sound throughout the building.
I run up to the monitors and what I see leaves me breathless.
I open the door and begin to run out of breath along the corridor, overwhelming everything and everyone who comes within range.
I am overtaken by dozens of armed men.
"Stop!Stop!"
I cry out of breath but they can't hear me in the midst of all that din.
"Don't shoot idiots!Do not shoot!"
I arrive in front of the door of her room and the scene in front is surreal.
There are about ten guards lying on the floor of the room, they seem to have lost consciousness.
As many guards have encircled the bed in the center of the room, I push forward badly pushing the gunmen.
"Stop!Do not shoot!"
At the foot of the bed is Dr. Avery, stained with blood as if he had hit something with his own face.
All the machinery in the room is scattered across the floor.
And then there is her.
Elisabeth.
She is standing next to the bed that she has hosted her for the past 3 months.
She has her arms outstretched, in a defensive position.
A small creature wrapped in a hospital gown too big for her, her black curls fall messily on her face.
God!
She is the same as her mother.
Her arms are crossed by what appear to be electric discharges, but they are blue.
The Stone is active, showing its power.
Her eyes are bewildered, confused.
Her chest rises and falls frantically.
She looks like a trapped animal.
Dr. Avery keeps telling her to calm down, that nobody wants to hurt her.
What a big lie.
As soon as her eyes meet mine she winces, she seems to relax a little but her hands continue to reverberate with that strange and fascinating energy.
"You?"
"Hi Elisabeth.You finally woke up.I was so worried"
I have to play my part as a worried father at my best.
She looks at me, her big onyx eyes seem to peer into me.
"What am I doing here?Where I am?" she asks me suspiciously.
I will opt for a half truth.
"You are in an old fortress that the people I work for have converted into a private clinic.We are in Geneva, Switzerland.You've been here for 10 years now.You went into a coma after a bad accident in Brookville.The same incident where my poor Sophia, your mother, lost her life.I've been waiting for so long for you to open your eyes again, I've never lost hope"
She doesn't seem to believe me.
Damn!
"I understand you may feel confused now but it's okay.You are safe here"
I try to tell her in a strong and confident voice.
"Why the armed guards?" her voice is scratchy from her decade of inactivity.
"They..." I tell her pointing with my hand before her at the guards and then Dr. Avery "They are only here to protect you"
"Protect me from what exactly" she asks me sharpening her eyes.
Too many questions.
That's no good.
I approach slowly, palms facing up to make her understand that I have only peaceful intentions.
Almost.
But this she cannot know.
As I pass a trolley with medical equipment I see what appears to be a syringe full of sedative, I grab it unnoticed and hide it in the sleeve of my lab coat.
"I defend you from the world my child.Out there is full of people who want to hurt you because of your abilities" so saying I point to her hands still traversed by those electric shocks.
I get even closer.
Now a few steps separate us.
She continues to remain on the defensive, opens and closes her fists as if weighing the immensity of that power.
She raises a hand forward, the guards immediately cock their rifles at her.
"Firm idiots.Put those damn weapons down!" I scream with all the breath in my throat.
The agents look at each other confused but obey.
They are forced to do it.
Elisabeth's arm is now stretched out in front of her, it looks like she's focusing on one of the monitors in front of her.
She then gestures with her hand, as if she is chasing away a fly and at the same time as her movement the monitor rises into the air and crashes into the wall behind me.
The monitor barely touches my face but I try to stay calm.
"Bullshits!" she screams, flames of anger dance in her eyes.
"You are evil.You Doctor Ross or should I say Doctor McTavish?"
I remain petrified.
How the hell does she know?
This is classified information.
Even her mother never knew who I really was, at least until shortly before her death.
She smiles at me bitterly and keeps talking.
"You killed my mother"
"It was an accident Lily"
I call her with the diminutive who her mother loved so much trying to sweeten her.
"I know it was an accident but if you hadn't deceived her, you hadn't married her just because she was a guardian of one of the Infinity Stones, we wouldn't have been there that day.And she would still be alive"
I can't hide my shocked face, it's not possible that she knows all these things.
It is absolutely not possible.
"How the hell do you..." I'm about to ask her but her crystalline laugh interrupts me.
" Jesus Christ Philiph you should see your face right now.Know that you will not get what you want so much.I'd rather die than help you son of a bitch!"
She walks up to me, chest to chest.
The agents behind me fidget, I signal them not to move.
She is challenging me.
And for the first time I am blown away, I don't know how to react.
She stands up on her toes and whispers in my ear "Oh so you know you are not my father" she pulls her face away from mine.
"But you already knew this, didn't you?Or at least you've always suspected it"
Now she smiles at me with satisfaction.
I raise a corner of my lips.
"I thought so" I admit.
"But that's okay, it'll be easier to get rid of you"
So saying I quickly raise my hand and stick the syringe full of sedative into her neck.
She collapses immediately in my arms, tries feebly to rebel.
"Quiet Elisabeth.At the end of all this you will be free and happy.Because in the end you will hug your mother again"