I am C.A.T.E

Chapter 1: Escape

 ~ONE YEAR LATER~

Training was grueling, they had me on an around-the-clock-schedule; wake up, daily diagnostics and testing, weapons training, tech and engineering classes, practice powers, and hand-to-hand combat, then I have free-time and then 'sleep', which is when I recharge my power core. I can't say that I know how they gave me my abilities. They keep those files from me. They managed to give me Thor's control of lightning, some of the Hulk's strength, the ability to control all magnetic metals, and accelerated healing.

About 4 months ago I started questioning my programmed objective of eliminating the Avengers. They didn't try to twist the facts of their encounters with Shield for they believed that I have no consciousness or emotions of any sort. But 4 months ago I started to feel things that I should not have the ability to feel. Not quite horror at Hydra's actions, but more like a vague discomfort with their methods of dealing with them. Of course I kept these feelings to myself, if I told anyone about them I knew I would be swiftly deactivated and reprogramed. Strangely enough I did not wish this to happen for it would mean the end of my existence. I didn't want to destroy Shield anymore. My prime directive had changed from eliminating them to escaping the Hydra base.

During my usual bout of diagnostics and testing, I was thinking of possible ways I could escape, but I was ripped from my thoughts by one of the higher-ups bursting through the door. His tousled brown hair blew back from the speed at which he ran, his rumpled suit hung loosely on his slender frame and blew around slightly as he moved. His collar was drenched in nervous sweat, probably from all the stress his bosses were putting on him to get this 'extremely important project' finished. After all, to fail in Hydra means that you've lost your usefulness, and will be...disposed of. He immediately started demanding answers from Jeff as to why there aren't more subjects like me.

"Unfortunately, sir, we have not been able to replicate Cate. Nothing we have tried has been successful." he sighed and began to explain, "All of the other subjects have had serious glitches and bugs, as well as mental and physical problems. We don't know why Cate was successful and the others are not. We believe the problem lies in how the Asgardian's DNA bonds to the Hulk's mutated DNA." Jeff said nervously.

"I WANT RESULTS, I DON'T CARE WHAT IT TAKES." The nervous man shouted. He strode out of the room while muttering to himself worriedly.

All of a sudden alarms started blaring. Over the speakers a voice said, "Please evacuate the building and remove all vital documents from the premises. Shield has breached the building defenses. This is not a drill." It repeated one more time before ending.

"Well now, Virus, looks like you get your chance to go up against Shield. Maybe you can prove you aren't a useless hunk of metal." Curly sneered at me.

"No she can't," Jeff said, saving me from having to blow my secret by refusing to fight Shield, "She is too valuable. We can't risk shield getting their hands on her and figuring out what we are capable of creating. Quick, go and wipe the hard drives. I'll grab the backups." Their frantic running about the room gave the effect that they were squirrels storing away nuts for the winter. They hurried me out into a secret garage and loaded me into a heavily armored army truck. The engine started up and we were off. It was just me, Jeff, and Curly in the back. Now was my chance, I might never get an opportunity where they are this distracted again. I reached over and quickly snapped Curly's neck with a harsh flick of my wrists. Jeff looked shocked, horrified, and confused all at once.

"I'm sorry" I said just before I did the same to him, arranging the bodies to seem like they were asleep. Before I jumped out of the truck, I rifled through their pockets and bags, and fried the research-full hard drives that I found with my electricity. I jumped and found myself rolling on the hard packed ground as the truck kept on driving like nothing had happened. This was the first time I had been outside and it was absolutely lovely. I knew from previously poking around in the Hydra database that I was located in a place in China commonly referred to as 'Hell's Heaven', but known to the rest of the world as Shanxi. I then started walking in the direction of the closest cluster of technology I sensed, which was approximately 5 miles away, almost exceeding my search range of 6 miles.

As I was walking along, avoiding the roads in case any Hydra or Shield cars drove by, on my way to what I geographically assumed to be Jinzhong. I knew I would need to obtain civilian clothing, as I would appear strange to them because I had on my lab clothes that consisted of white medical scrubs. I paused in my strides to ponder how I would go about this, for I had no money. Then I realized I could simply 'borrow' some money from a random bank account, but only enough for clothes and a small hotel room. I resumed walking, happy I'd resolved that problem. My ambient speed reached only a peak of 5mph so I estimated my travel to take about another 50 minutes, factoring in the distance I covered while in the Hydra truck. 47 minutes later I reached the edge of town. I closed my eyes and stretched my senses out, searching for the closest ATM station.

Upon opening them again I took in the sight of the small city, with its buildings, temples, and structures I knew there would be no shortage of hotels for me to hideout in and take a shower to get the dirt off my skin. I walked to the nearest ATM, all the while getting strange looks from the locals. Once I found one it was easy enough for me to hack into their systems. Their security was no match for a living supercomputer. I pulled a few hundred Yuan (¥) from multiple sources so as to not attract any suspicion from the account-holders.

It took a bit of searching, but eventually I found a clothing shop. It was a small, musty place with clothes packed tightly into racks, it looked to be an old thrift store. I bought 2 pairs of faded jeans and some old worn out T-shirts. In this instance I felt lucky that Jeff and Curly had decided to give me the means to speak a variety of languages, including mandarin. As I was leaving the store, I felt a small twinge of regret for having to kill Jeff. He had been kind to me from the day I woke up to the day I killed him. I had absolutely no problems with killing Curly, he had only ever been mean and snarky with me. The store had a small curtained off area where I changed into my new clothes so as to not attract even more attention to my societal abnormalities, such as the fact that there are no redheads in China other than tourists, but they're only in the bigger cities.

Upon exiting the little shop, I immediately noticed their odd fascination with me. It wasn't hard to find a cheap hotel to stay the night in. The room was very small and packed with storage boxes of old mildewy blankets. Sitting on the old, hard bed I thought of where I should go to not stand out so much, and my first thought was somewhere in Europe. Ireland or Scotland would do nicely. I have the red hair and pale skin to look like a native. I decided to travel to Ireland. The only question now would be how do I get there? I connected with someone's nearby Wi-Fi and looked up possible route to Ireland. It seems like I could take a train to the nearest airport and grab an indirect flight to Ireland, stopping in the Los Angeles International Airport in the United States. I hacked both the train and airport computer systems and booked my tickets. I would leave for the train tomorrow, then get on the flight a day after that.

I powered down for the night. When my systems turned on in the morning, I immediately reconnected to the internet. A news article caught my eye, it was about what appeared to be a military convoy that had been blown up. It looked like the Hydra convoy that I escaped from had been blown to smithereens by Shield. Although, the newspapers had no idea that that was the case. I exited the small hotel and made my way through the town towards the train station. My train was scheduled to depart at 5:15 in the morning, so the station was virtually empty. I went over to a terminal and printed out my ticket. Five minutes later I was on the train and ten minutes after that I was on my way to the airport and eventually Ireland.