Loki Laufeyson - The Experiment {1}

Chapter Fifty Two - New Base

"B12?" Asked a voice in Russian, which I recognised as Strucker's voice. I rolled over and swallowed a groan of pain as pain rippled through my body. I managed to sit up right, everything spinning around me as my stomach churned with nausea. I blinked rapidly to try and clear some of the blurriness of my eyes, making out several shapes of people around me. Strucker was the clearest, standing in a ray of sunlight, illuminating the harsh lines of his face. I noticed Zola standing not far away from Strucker, his face worried as he looked out a window, which was when I realised that we were in a large helicopter with no seats.

Sitting next to me was the Soldier and I noticed a needle in his non-metal arm, drawing blood into a bag, wchih had another tube, connected to a needle into my arm. I blinked blearily and moved my tingling leg slightly to see one of my pant legs completely cut off, revealing a thickly bandaged calf. Blood still speckled the tigh bandages, but it was nowhere near the amoung I faintly remembered gushing out before.

I racked my brain to try and rememebr what had happened, I could only see very faint flashes of mamoeries. I remembered being shot and a whole lot of blood, but after there it was blurry. I remembered someone holding me and then the Soldier dragging me away. That was the extend of my memories.

"What happened?" I asked Strucker, who was still watching me with an not all impressed expression.

"There was an attack." He replied through what sounded like gritted teeth.

I knew better than to ask anymore questions and straightend out my wounded leg more, feeling it begin to tingle again. I strained my neck to try and see out of the window, and I briefly saw what looked mountains, but it was a little hard to tell. I lent back against whatever was behind me and shifted my arm that the blood from Bucky was going into.

I reached down and carefully pulled out the needle, pressing on the small hole in my veins to stop any bleeding. I stood up and walked over to the helicopter window, feeling Strucker watching me closely. The helicopter lurched to the side slightly and I stumbled, stepping backwards a couple of steps only to walk into the Soldier as he stood up, pulling the needle out of his arm. He shoved me off him, gently, and I reached up to the bag racks above the helicopter window holding on tightly.

"Shouldn't she be resting?" Winter asked, speakng to Strucker as though I wasn't even there.

"I'm fine." I remained looking through the window. I could feel a slight niggle in my leg, but that was it.

"She's been inhanced." Strucker replied, looking out the window with me. "Her healing process is quicker and she doesn't feel pain as much anymore."

We fell into a comfortable silence and I lent slightly against the helicopter window to take the pressure off my healing leg, the tingles easing slightly.

"Where are we going?" I asked, trying to make sense of all of the surroundings outside the helicopter.

"To a different station ." Strucker replied. "It's a training compound, Hopefully the location of this one will remain unknown."

"How was the locaiton of the last one known?" I asked, rubbing the dried blood from goodness knows who off my hand. Strucker paused for a moement and I looked up at him.

"There was some old... equipment that was able to be traced." He replied eventually. "A pair of old bracelets."

I had no clue what he was talking about and stayed silent, rolling my ankle to flex the nerves in my leg. Strucker moved away from the window and disappeared into cockpit of the helicopter, the Soldier taking his spot as Zola watched us carefully, still swiping through the tablet in his hand. The Soldier grasped the overhanging back racks and we both watched as a large grey building hidden in a pine forest at the base of mountains slowly came into view. From our view, it seemed like it was completely abandon, but I knew better.

The helicopter landed on the roof of the compound, the whole machine jolting slightly and causing me to loose my footing a little, but I kept a strong grip on the bag racks. The Soldier opened up the door as soon as the blades began to turn off and jumped down onto the wind blown grass, his messy brown hair being tussled by the wind. As I stepped out, I immediately noticed the drop in temperature, the slowly spinning blades causing cool wind to nip at my cheeks.

Strucker and Zola followed close behind us, along with several HYDRA agents that must have been the piolets of the helicopter.

As the Soldier and I walked towards the new base, I noticed several other black helicopters that I didn't even know had been tailing us landing around the perimeter of the base. As their doors opened up, more HYDRA agents flooded out, carrying large heavy black boxes. Clearly the attack on the old base had been bad enough to warrant a complete evacuation.

Strucker stepped in front of us as we approached the new base and put his face in front of a small retinal scanner next to the pair of large frosted glass doors in front of us. They slid open and Strucker walked forward, and although I noticed that the format was more open than the last base, Strucker didn't allow us to look around more.

Being around 3am, it wasn't busy, but anybody that was roaming around the base immediately scrambled out of our way and watched us walk by with wide eyes. They all looked extremely young, mostly all teenagers, and I smirked at the effect we had on them all, keeping my head held high.

Strucker stepped into a lift, leaving the Soldier and myself to follow, Zola darting in too. I lent against the railing of the lift and looked down at the bandage on my leg, which was soaked with more blood now. Clearly, they hadn't bothered to stitch it up, because the amount of blood that was on the bandage was slightly concerning. I couldn't feel any pain from whatever enhanced genetics Strucker had been talking about, but I did feel a little lightheaded.

As the lift opened again, I looked over at the panel of buttons to see that we were on level 6. There were a couple more of the young agents sitting in front of a TV in the middle of the level and they looked over at us as soon as they heard the lift ping. Immediately, they jumped up and scattered across the level, darting down hallways and opening up doors that covered the walls. The TV continued to play and I looked over at it to see it playing some sort of movie.

"B12, this is your room." Strucker's voice dragged my eyes away from the TV and I looked over to see him opening up a door with his ID card. "The Soldier will be next door to you."

I gave Strucker a nod and walked into the room before he shut the door behind me. I walked into the dark room, not bothering to turn on the lights as my eyes adjusted to the dark. I quickly looked around before my eyes fell on a cupboard full of clothes. I stripped out of my ruined uniform and slipped on a pair of flowing grey pants and a white top. I rolled up the leg of the pants and unwrapped the soaked bandage on my leg, the bullet wound swollen and an angry red. I walked into the bathroom, glad I couldn't feel any pain from it Maybe it was the adrenaline blocking all of the pain, or maybe I had hit my head.

I searched through all of the drawers for a needle and thread to stitch it up myself. When I didn't find any, I walked into the kitchen, cursing at the blood dripping down my calf, and searched through all of the drawers in there, but there was still no thread. I leant against the kitchen bench and breathed deeply as I felt myself become dizzy.

Suddenly, without even realizing it, the world tipped to the side and I fell to the floor, hitting myhead on the wooden floorboards with impact.