Project Ultron

Sixteen.exe

Owen Eversley seemed to be a seasoned agent. I assumed he had been a part of S.H.I.E.L.D. before. He couldn't be over his mid-forties but he definitely wasn't under thirty either. He was fit, even though he wasn't very broad, but I could tell he was in shape. We had been running for too long for him not to be.

I remembered his continuous insistence on getting me to run on that damned treadmill. Now I was actually glad I had endured that.

Agent Eversley guided me through the forest that surrounded the base with an orientation ability worthy of a bloodhound. Even in the dark, he could tell if we were deviating from the path by a mere meter. Maybe the moon or the stars gave him an indicator of where we should run.

He held a gun with both hands, ready to shoot on sight if he needed to. Maria Hill had informed us that they had turned off the movement and heat sensors so Ultron couldn't detect us, but he wanted to be sure.

"We're almost there," he said at some point. I had no idea how he knew but, sure enough, in a couple of minutes, I could see the power center. It was a small room in the middle of a clear. It was surrounded by a fence, surely electrified.

Agent Eversley got even more alert. He made a sign so I would stop, and I stood close behind him.

The moon was the only light that showed us our surroundings. On the treeline, we were safe, covered by the thickness of the forest. But we knew that the second we decided to set foot outside, we would be completely exposed. And there was a light inside the power center, someone was inside.

"Maybe it's a worker," I suggested.

"A Saturday night in a place that needs none whatsoever?" he questioned. "I don't think so."

"Did the scan show robots here?" I asked.

"The scan couldn't reach this far," he said.

"Great."

"C'mon," he said moving towards the hut.

As silently as we could manage, we jumped over the fence. Agent Eversley threw his jacket to the top so we wouldn't get hurt with the razors, and we rushed to take cover under the window. He took a peek and squatted again. He looked stern, maybe even confused.

"What's wrong?" I whispered.

He licked his lips and looked at me. "It's empty."

I frowned. If it was empty, why was the light on? Someone could have forgotten to switch it off, sure, but the whole situation made me feel weary.

"Should we go in?" I asked.

He took a second to answer me but ended up nodding. He stayed close to the ground, walked cautiously to the door, and opened it.

He made me stay back and he went in. I listened closely. He didn't make any noise. A minute went by and my heart started to pound faster. I was committed to staying put until he told me to. For once in my life I wanted to do what I was told. This wasn't a situation I could fuck around with.

"Kira," he called from inside in a low whisper that carried, "Come in. It's clear."

I stood up and walked in, still alert of corners and windows. It was a small room, one desk at the beginning of the room welcomed me, that was where the guard must have sat when there were people working. The room was divided then by a stack of servers, their cables organized by a chaotic mind, separated by colors sometimes and others by thickness. I walked behind the servers. There were some terminals there; those were the ones where the program I was supposed to crack was. Agent Eversley was in front of one of the terminals, starting to code something but as far as I had gathered during our training sessions, his skills with the computer didn't go beyond playing Spider.