December, 23rd 2025
Kate regained her balance the moment she stepped into the threshold of the facility. The wind was still whipping at her back as she turned and scanned the blinding snow behind her; she knew they weren't being followed, but old habits die hard.
She turned forward again to walk behind Bucky, matching his position and gait. "Someone has already been here. Maybe a couple days ago." Bucky murmured through her helmet.
"When was the last time you were here?" Kate asked as he quickly swept the room on their left while she moved to the right.
"Bout a month ago. We'd asked the nearby countries to keep to themselves so it wasn't any of them."
"You're narrowing them down too quickly, we don't even know why they were here." Kate reminded him.
She could almost see the smile as he chuckled, "so figure it out then if you know so much."
Kate left the room she searched and stepped into the hall, right up next to Bucky. She looked into the reflection on his visor, a mirror of himself, both of them clad in full gear. "Where are we at on scans?" Kate asked as they both looked down between them.
Their guns reflected a hollowed out layout of the cliffside building, their tracking dots overlapping one another just at the edge of the scans.
Kate became all too aware of how close they were standing. The memory of stabbing him was likely still fresh in his mind, the tension blooming from the incident. Her own mind ran circles, fighting between violent glimpses of his torture, and the distinctive memory of his head between her legs. His visor only reflected herself, a blank slate, a soldier.
"You cover the north side, I'll do the south." Bucky informed, taking a slight step back from her and readjusting his grip on his gun. "Sweep the edges to build along the outline. Work your way inwards, up and down the floors. Call in if you get anything."
"What am I supposed to be looking for?" Kate asked, also stepping away to ease the tension between them. Instinct was itching her fingers to play with the gun in her hands, but she knew it'd only end badly.
Bucky shrugged, his massive build taking up the stuffy air in the hallway. "Anything that might give us an idea of why they brought you here. If you said you were supposed to be in Russia?"
"Yes." Kate confirmed.
"Then any indication that something was tampered with. Looks suspicious, call in."
Kate nodded, adjusting the gun in her hand. Bucky walked further down the hall, taking a turning left to cover the south side. Kate didn't exactly know the layout, but she did the same but took a right going Northbound.
Looking through her infrareds, the scans quickly gave her a layout of the dozen yards around her. She made her way north until she hit the edge of the facility, traveling around the edges.
Kate tried to focus on what she was actually seeing: abandoned equipment, disheveled and searched spaces, and broken pallets, glass and metal. Slowly, she searched corner by corner, room by room, for the next three hours.
Bucky startled Kate mid flight of stairs with a heavy sigh. "Guess this goes a bit deeper than I thought. It's going to be a couple more levels." Kate paused and checked the scanner, looking at the area they'd both covered, they weren't even a third of the way finished. "How's it on your end?"
Kate sighed, knowing it'd take a while longer before they'd get actual progress. "Same as you. I can go from where I am and work to you. Then we can go up and down."
YOU ARE READING
Eclipse - Book 1 (Born at Dusk)
Fiksi Penggemar"We're not who you think we are. We're helping you." "I don't care." She turned the gun from Shuri and pressed the barrel beneath her chin and fired. To her, he was a ghost; to him, she was a stranger. There were no more super soldiers. It was a we...
