July, 30th 2025
"Give me a full body scan," Shuri said, looking at the screen in front of her. The system complied, scanning the woman's body that lay in front of her.
"The guy has nearly no record either," Sam muttered as he was looking over what they had for the body in Romania. "No passport, ID, driving records, not even dental records."
Shuri leaned over and slid the file of the man, alongside scans of what Bucky had retrieved from his person, onto the screen. "Project Eclipse," Bucky read from the file. "Mission Diagnostics, 1991, 1986, 1975, and 1962." He read outloud from the picture in the notebook of the man. That was the only thing written inside it, and effectively so on his part.
They were all standing in Shuri's main lab, with every report and file of the mission on screen and the woman on a stretcher beside them.
"Whoever he was," Shuri mused out loud, "he knew what he was doing. His blood has no matches in any country. His face is unrecognizable in every single database. Whoever hired him really wanted him to stay gone."
"But why would he end up killing himself?" Bucky asked. "Clearly, he was there for her; why stop there?"
Shuri hummed as she looked at the report of the scan of the woman. She'd been cleaned up and had been on recovery for the last several hours, and they were only now analyzing the mission. They at least had something on her, which was surprisingly more on the man than anything. Bucky reread the woman's info log, which was retrieved from German records.
Lauren Sonrail, age 28, was born in 1964 in Kassel, Germany.
Bucky was confused and impressed that the file included her school records, medical records, and legal records. It shouldn't be such an obvious find considering she was from an abandoned HYDRA facility, let alone in Romania.
"Wow." Shuri sighed.
Bucky turned and moved over to what Shuri was looking at. Shifting the information on the main screen, Bucky leaned back to view the screen.
"She's got vibranium on her spine." The scan was incredibly accurate as Bucky looked over the skeletal x-ray of the woman.
"Vibranium?" Bucky asked, peering at the report.
"There's so many," Shuri whispered, in awe and horror, as she realized what it must've taken to get her bones lined with the metal. "Nineteen out of thirty-thirty of her bones were worked on. Separately. Each one was put in separately. Meaning she was under surgery nineteen different times to get them done."
Bucky cursed under his breath, all of them sharing a look.
Sam let out a breath, "That's definitely not on her records." Bucky nodded; he knew what they'd retrieved was too welcoming to be right.
The screen began flashing with red lights as the scan finished at her head. Shuri pulled the report onto a tablet and began pacing, reviewing the information. "And her nerves are completely intact with the metallic bones. Not only that, her brain waves are clear off the charts." Shuri's brows furrowed as she read the information.
"What does it mean?" Sam asked, looking at the face of the woman.
"Her brain looks a bit like yours, Bucky." She said, looking up at him. "Like a super soldier."
"Oh, I knew it." Sam laughed.
"But," Shuri continued to Bucky, throwing the report back on screen. "Her blood and nerves have traces of what's in your system, but it's slightly off. Not quite the same. So, no, not a super soldier. But definitely not human."
"So, this woman we're looking at, Lauran Sonrail, this isn't her file?" Bucky asked, reviewing the report again.
"I doubt it, seeing that her medical records missed the part that she's got vibranium on her bones. Where on Earth did they get vibranium?"
"So is this 'Project Eclipse'? Could this be what this guy was looking for?" Sam asked, crossing his arms.
"Yeah, that's what was printed on the cryptosis chamber in Romania," Bucky responded, looking at the woman's face. Cleaned up, she looked even paler than before, though less on the dead side after hours of treatment. "She was a HYDRA experiment." He concluded.
"But why leave her there?" Shuri thought out loud.
Each of them stared at the files on the screen. The lie that they'd pulled based on the woman's tests. Bucky wondered if what the man had on him was to deter them to a dry lead.
"Where did the radio signal go off?" Sam asked suddenly, "Who received it first?"
"Bucharest," Shuri replied, now ignored by the woman's scan.
"Why didn't they send one of their teams out to check the signals?" Sam asked.
"Because they knew it had been HYDRA's, and Romania wanted nothing to do with what's left of HYDRA, so they called me," Shuri told him.
"So if she had the wrong file," Bucky wondered, "How do her blood scans and records match her person? You'd have to retrace through the entire country's database to change her records to show this."
"Unless the records are accurate, maybe they just forgot to add her medical records." Sam reminded him.
"No," Shuri read from her screen, then put it on the screen in front of them. "Her brain is a lot older than twenty-eight if she really was born in 1964. Like yours, Bucky. She's been in there for a lot longer than what the file says. What was on the cryostasis chamber?"
"Project Eclipse, DC 17499, 1938." Shuri stood still in thought. "Could that be when she was put in there? 1938?" Bucky asked.
Shuri shook her head. "No, they weren't developed then. The machine itself isn't that old."
"So when is she gonna wake up?" Sam interrupted.
"Give her another couple of days," Shuri answered. "Hopefully, she doesn't slip into a coma."
"Right, when she does wake up, she'd need to be strapped down, probably till we figure out who and what she really is." Sam checked his phone. "I doubt I'll be able to be here for it; I've got to be in New York by tonight."
"You take your position too seriously." Shuri chanted, setting down her tools and crossing her arms.
"What? Being Captain America? I think I do just fine."
Bucky huffed a laugh, "Keep telling yourself that." Sam rolled his eyes before leaving the room, likely to go to New York. Bucky turned back to look at the screen in front of them. "So if she isn't a super soldier, what is she? And why keep her in there?"
Shuri shrugged. "HYDRA had really gone out when doing their work. If she worked with them, do you think you'd know her?" Bucky considered the question. "Like if by chance you'd been in the same facility or something."
"No," he finally spoke, the answer a bit hesitant. "I don't think I'd know her. I remember everything from my past, and she is in no way a part of it."
"That really is something different. You would think someone would have uncovered literally any trace of her existence before now. Makes you wonder if the same people that got rid of the guy from Romania are the same people who got rid of this 'Lauren Sonrail'."
"Yeah," Bucky pondered. "Makes you wonder."
The room went silent, and Bucky sighed. He was worried a headache would show up if he kept worrying about the woman. Knowing it would be an issue for another day, he left the lab, opting to prioritize missions, leaving all thoughts of the woman behind him.
YOU ARE READING
Eclipse (Born at Dusk - Book 1)
Fanfiction"It doesn't matter if you believe me or not, but our lives were created together within HYDRA's walls. They can't unmake us." To her, he was a ghost; to him, she was a stranger. Bucky is the only super soldier left, he'd checked himself. However...
