8-1-0-9

Chpt. 1

– 2024 –

My fingers closed around the door handle like an iron vice had replaced my grip. I could feel the familiar itch of freedom under my skin, a buzz whispering in my ear to turn the handle, but also that underlying sense of lingering uncertainty. I wanted to continue whatever this was, to follow Karli's tender, freckled smile and bouncy red curls once more, but I couldn't help but wonder what her real motive was after all this time knowing her. I gripped the metal a little tighter, the temperature an odd warmth than the cold I first felt. She eased me on with a gentle hand to my back and soft accented words of encouragement, persuading me to enter what she called the 'home of new hope', the 'beginning of the return of peace'.

Ever since my partner and I were sent after Captain America in Twenty-fourteen, I could never find him since. The last words he spoke to me I knew he couldn't even believe himself, but was determined enough to go against our mission. I remember belittling him, throwing a punch to knock some sense into him as water sprayed out from my drenched gear. But he had easily deflected and cussed me out, telling me to go back to where I came from and claiming I was only good for them, having been born directly into Hydra's greedy, power-hungry hands.

If it wasn't for the silvery bracelet-like things that were woven into and around my suit, he would've felt my whole wrath come down on his head. Gusts of wind would have blown him away, or perhaps I would've suffocate him. Maybe forcibly crushed his lungs. Either way, he'd be dead before he could regret speaking back to me.

Being born within the jaws of death itself, you'd think I'd know everything and everyone, the cheat-codes to bending the rules enough to not get punished. But then you'd be mistaken. Hydra had been my life since day one, I know, as they had made it a reoccurring habit of reminding me each time I was released from the mind blender. It was enough to wipe out previous missions, any memories of joy and faces of people, but not enough to get rid of my conditioning. You'd think, that being born in Hydra, that they wouldn't need to give my brain verbal conditioning. But it's moments like back then — the disobeying ones — that pushed them to ingrain a series of words into my subconscious like the vipers they are.

Eight-one-'o' — zero — nine. By now I've come to terms that that's just my serial number on a subject list. According to Hydra, I was one out of five of the born children to have survived as long as I have. But I don't even know when I was born.

Though, I did know who my mother was. My surrogate mother. I might have been the most obedient one, but that couldn't stop me from loathing my makers. She might've been my mother — the wretched, evil, and insane woman that she was — but she could never be my mom. I'd been referring to her in my head as Sergei, a similar sound of the term 'surrogate', because that's all she was and ever will be to me. And I could care even less for my father, who I assume was one of the many idiots who signed up for Hydra. I'm sure he was the old measly guy who I watched age over time, yet I stayed a young adult. I never understood why, until I'd watched them put the Winter Soldier into the cryogenic chamber. That moment made me really question my age.

I was beaten beyond recognition that night, and if it wasn't for the super-solider serum I had received in my early stages of life, whenever that was, I would be dead or in critical condition. I became the ultimate failure that day — the one thing I was made to overcome. Not only had I not killed our intended target and failed to keep Project Insight in motion, but I had also come back as one instead of two, leaving my icy boy buddy to make a run for his mind instead of dragging him by his hair to Hydra.

And where had that brought me?

Well, let's have a little more backstory. After my not-first-ever near-death experience that day, I was sent back out into the field in search of Hydra's beloved toy. And each time I came back to base within my time limit empty-handed, the beatings and brainwashing would intensify. I was deliberately avoiding finding him, much to their lack of knowledge. I knew exactly where the man was after some searching, but was too conflicted to actually bring him in, especially as Hydra began to disintegrate with all their intel being leaked. A few agents contacted me directly to get their information off the internet, and I only got a handful done until my mind took me back to the Winter Soldier. Even through the tortures I endured from his absence, they hadn't wiped my memory — to remind me of the failure I'd become.