Masquerading as a man with a reason- Characters: Nick Fury, Pete Wisdom Setting: Fury's office Content: Nick Fury. Summary: Nick finally looks over Wisdom's report. Nick is not pleased, so he calls Wisdom in to discuss it. Notes:: The report was written by Pinky.
It was almost time for Fury to head out for the day, or rather for Fury to go have dinner with Jessica then probably come back to deal with whatever new disasters sprung up. He took one last look at his email, and was about the log off, when something paused him and he got a nagging feeling and took another look at his desk. There it was, peeking out of a stack of papers, the report from Pete Wisdom, as yet unread by Fury. He'd only bothered Wisdom about it because he didn't particularly like him, not because he actually cared what he'd done when he was MIA. He figured if anything, the surly Englishman had fucked off and spent his time in Rio getting drunk and unruly. There'd been some news from below of some lab equipment and intel Wisdom had turned in, but it was being analyzed and as yet, nothing was conclusive. So now, as Fury picked up the single sheet of paper, meticulously hammered out on a type writer, he was expecting something along the lines of 'Raided a laboratory, went to Rio, fuck you Robot-Pirate-Fascist' or something equally charming. With a sigh and ready for the worst, Nick settled back in his chair to read it over.
According to intel the search for the group behind the rumored fourth strain of the Legacy virus began in the rain forests of Brazil. Locals claimed a man they called Fantasma Vermelho or Red Ghost, was going to the small villages offering jobs to men and women. The villagers would leave with the man, but despite promises to send money or visit, were never heard from again. I tracked his movements through several villages before his trail went cold. A source of mine said that the man returned to the original village only to find that someone had been asking about the missing people. It took me a week to get back to the village and what I found was complete devastation. Every villager was dead, clearly at the hands of a mutant. I continued to search Brazil, though the train had turned cold. There was no luck at any of the bordering countries, no one had heard of anyone unusual crossing the border, nor had any more villagers gone missing.
Colombia was my next stop, while there had been no word on the Fantasma Vermelho, the number of missing people had doubled in recent months. Though I guessed it had to do with increased drug trafficking, I deemed it worthy to investigate. When I first arrived it appeared that a small revolution was taking place and I almost turned back, but then I heard a man say something about Fantasmales Diablo. I thought it too much of a coincidence to ignore. Further investigation proved fruitful. I slipped into the woods, to the so-called revolutionaries camp. They spoke in hushed tones about Fantasmales Diablo, that there were rumors in the neighboring villages of a man who was buying people who would then disappear never to be seen or heard from again. Some claimed he was an evil spirit, others felt that he was a Gringo, looking for slaves, but I knew it was the man I was looking for. Again I searched the villages, this time closer then I was in Brazil. I was only one or two villages behind him, before he disappeared again.
This time it took a month before the trail picked up again. I had my sources listening for anything that might pertain to the man I was tracking. It was Moira MacTaggert that brought the first true break. She had been monitoring ports in South America, and a tale came out of one describing a short fat man looking for a ship that would take him and several scientists to the remote islands of Chile. She forwarded the information as there is nothing on those islands, they are inhabitable. I made my way to Chile, the closer I got, the rumors started to pick up again. Missing people, women, children, sometimes entire families were gone. And then a new story caught my attention. According to the story there was a remote village where people would appear, different faces, dialects, languages. And within a week they were sangrado fantasmas. Bleeding ghosts. It took days to get a general location, even longer still to find a guide to take me through the forest. When we found the village it was clear the rumors were true, though all evidence was gone, the village had been burned to the ground. But from the amount of burned bodies, it was not possible I was in the wrong spot, unfortunately the trail again went cold. No one lived to tell of the man who destroyed the village.
The first three paragraphs all contained background info and Nick stopped his reading to pull up S.H.I.E.L.D.'s file on Fantasma Vermelho and read it over before he continued. Everything Wisdom found out matched what S.H.I.E.L.D. already new about the man, and Fury added notes to the database from Fury's report, surprised and pleased that it was actually proving to be somewhat useful. That most of Wisdom's time was now accounted for doing actual work was also kind of a shock. Nick had assigned him something to get him out of the way and Wisdom had actually had success with it- or so Nick thought until he read the end of the report.
However it was clear that I needed to stay in Chile. While in other countries the stories were isolated to a particular region, the story of El Diabo was everywhere, along with another story. Rumors were swirling of a settlement on Isla San Ambrosio. I borrowed a boat and went to the island immediately and what I found there was what we had all feared. The village, if you could call it that, was small and set up to appear as if it was a real settlement. However there were out buildings, clearly used for research, but now abandoned. The people were suffering, and those that weren’t only had a matter of time before the disease ravaged their bodies. It was obvious the people in charge were gone and I took advantage of that. With the help of a researcher that was left behind I was able to extract as much information as I could from the damaged computers that were left behind, as well as any papers that hadn’t been completely destroyed. There was only one thing left to do and that was addressing the disease itself. Being an airborne contagion it was too risky to leave the village as it was. The only thing to do was to eliminate the issue and burn what was left behind. When I returned to the mainland no one would speak of El Diabo and would run when asked or claim ignorance. It was at this time I deemed it prudent to return to headquarters.
It took four more rereadings of the final paragraph before Nick laid the report down on his desk. He sighed and shook his head, slowly, pressing his eye with his fingertips. There were so many breaches of protocol, he didn't even know where to begin. Well, clearly, the best place to start would be by verbally ripping Wisdom a new asshole, and then working from there. He leaned over to press his intercom and asked Sheila to send up Agent Wisdom, immediately.