2014.01.01 - Trail of Blood: Addendum

Place: Dr. Arnim Zola's Lab, HYDRA Base - North Atlantic Ocean

Time: 2200 - Tuesday

The laboratory of a man who has the dubious distinction of being both Nazi Germany's and HYDRA's least ethical scientist is bound to be full of horrors under even normal circumstances. But for the members of HYDRA, and more specifically those under the command of the Red Skull, the past few months have been anything but normal. Reckless suicide missions, squandering of resources, and frequent executions have filled the rank and file with feelings of almost incalculable dread.

But the question that terrifies everyone the most, the question that the operatives and officers have to push to the back of their mind in order to get through the day is simply this: "What is going on in Arnim Zola's lab?"

The unusually turbulent circumstances are reflected in the chaotic disarray of Zola's normally immaculate laboratory. Extra guards are stationed on either side of the doors. Extra scientists and medical personnel fill the lab. Extra equipment has been hurriedly set up. And all to facilitate the care of a man who should have died quite some time ago.

On a table, situated prominently in the lab, the cadaver-like body of the Red Skull is being carefully observed by a team of extremely expensive doctors. His condition has not improved since he was medevaced after his disastrous final mission. His drug-induced state keeps him from tearing at the bandages around the scabbed stump that used to be an arm, but the drugs don't keep him from constantly murmuring horrible things in German. Some of the more sensitive doctors have had to leave the room after hearing some of the Skull's choicer rants.

Sin has stepped it up, because she has had to. She had repeatedly requests wanting updates on her Father, but it is never good news. She has been working to handle the work load that her Father normally does, with little experience. She did it solo for a bit, until she finally put a call in to Mother Midnight for some advice to keep it together...practical advice on balancing the chain of command, and keeping the minions alive so her temper didn't leave none left.

But in either case, after doing yet more work, Sin has arrived in the med-bay to check on her Father. She looks tired, but the last person to mention it was shot and killed, so people know better. The girl actually cares about this evil son of a bitch on the table. Not her fault, she was raised that Red Skull was the only thing she should care about.

Sin moves in closer to her Father, touching the shoulder of his good arm gently, "Father," she says quietly, though not softly. She wants to ask him how it he is doing, but the responses are surely quite...vivid...so she asks a different question today strangely enough, "Some of your files on planned missions are secured against my access. I need to get into them to make sure everything is handled properly until you are back on your feet." She hasn't once indicated that she expects her Father to die.

<<... when I catch you I'm going to publicly debase you so thoroughly that your country won't even let you return. You ridiculous flag-wearing...>>

His eyes are half closed and he is obviously groggy, but Red Skull's mouth keeps moving as if he were conversing with someone in the room. Perhaps he's imagining a conversation he'd always wanted to have, or possibly remembering conversations he had decades ago. Neither prospect is indicative of a particularly good prognosis.

Still, he's not completely wrapped up in his thoughts. His arm twitches as he is touched, and his face registers discomfort. <> But as his blinking eyes begin to focus, he apparently registers the face of his daughter. He doesn't apologize, though it's likely he doesn't even remember the last sentence he said. In fact, his demeanor changes only slightly. <>

His head slumps backward, and his eyes close again. But while the Skull loses consciousness, a man who can't sleep pulls up to the sick bed with all the grace of a walking tractor. Indeed, that's almost what he appears to be, a metal body with a boxy camera for a head, and a screen across his chest upon which to project the image of his face. From an unseen speaker somewhere on his metal body, Zola speaks "It's no use child, I've pumped him so full of drugs that it wouldn't be surprising if he thought he was a contestant on Dancing with the Stars. You'll have to wait until he's recovered to ask your questions, I'm afraid."

Sin has gotten mostly used to hiding the hurt very well. He is bad on a good day, and on a bad day like so many lately? Well...she is sadly getting used to it. She scowls over at Zola, "Well, he isn't recovering," she snaps at the doctor, fuse being cut even shorter after her Father's words. "Were you able to open the locked case, to at least find out what his mission was all about that was worth risking his life for?"

"Please. I'm Arnim Zola. I already knew what was in the case. I was the one who put it in the case in the first place. Walk with me."

Zola leaves the bedside, and begins walking toward the other end of the almost warehouse-sized laboratory that HYDRA has kept him set up with. There are bits of old projects lying around, but most of the space seems to have been repurposed exclusively for the Red Skull project. Most of the monitors in the place seem to be displaying scans of Skull's body, or various charts displaying his vitals.

"I knew that Erskine was an idiot from the moment I met him. Never trusted his serum. I warned your father about this, of course. But, well, you know how your father gets when he has an idea. Despite my objections he demanded to be the first to undergo the process. And even though the serum didn't really work the way that he or Erskine would have hoped, I think we can all agree that Red Skull's... side effects have been good for his and HYDRA's image."

Zola walks past several groups of scientists, studying things in Petri dishes and looking at freshly-grown organs and whatnot. "But I took precautions. Just in case something went wrong."

Zola doesn't appear to be in any hurry to get to the point.

Sin grumbles something beneath her breath about egotists, but it's barely legible. She goes to follow after Zola, keeping the worse of her temper reigned in after one last look at her Father. "True, though he apparently perfected it for the damn Americans. I heard that general story." But she frowns as Zola continues to speak. "Get on with it Zola. I'm not science brilliant, but I'm not a moron either. Is it something to fix the flaws of the serum, to fix why his body is not healing like it should be?"

"You kids these days. No appreciation for the art of conversation. Or... a monologue in this case, I suppose."

Zola reaches the far end of the lab finally, and swipes the access panel for the door beyond. The boxy robotic camera that serves as his head rotates and the camera lens visibly adjusts to record Sin, and possibly to do some sort of creepy scan. Apparently satisfied, he opens the door.

"There are lots of ways to cheat death, the robotic body that I use is only one of them. For my purposes, it works excellently. But your father wouldn't hear of having his consciousness downloaded into one of my constructs, and I think he might be right in that regard. His human body is awkward, inefficient, and... inelegant by comparison, but it's become a source of strength, and an inspiration to his devoted followers. No, we can't take the easy way out. In order to keep him with us, we'll need to be a bit more creative in our attempts to thwart the Reaper."

"Technically, there's nothing 'wrong' with the way his body is healing. He's simply old. I've given him various treatments to help him gain a few years, but it's always been an exercise in delaying the inevitable."

The door opens into a wide corridor, which Zola traverses, the floor resounding with the 'klunk' of his heavy metal feet. "He needs a new body, that much is clear. But the serum has made soup out of his genes, cloning him would be almost impossible. I've tried. It's amazing that you were able to be born with so few defects, honestly. Your father would never admit it, but breeding with that mutt was probably the only way his genes could have been passed on the normal way. The serum did massive structural damage to virtually every cell in his body. He really should have died."

"You have one creepy aspect on inefficient and inelegant Zola, but to each their own I suppose. I will agree it works out well for you, but hell no for my Father," Sin states. She snorts, "Captain America is still damn fine health wise. Sure, he slept in ice or some shit, but his body didn't age, and he's still fighting like he was in World War II, though I wasn't alive then obvious, I remember the stories, and I fought him myself," Sin states. She stole his youth, then he regained it while she unfortunately regained hers too.

"Damn it," about the cloning not working, cause that is what suddenly jumped into her mind when Zola mentioned 'new body'. "And go to hell Zola, /after/ you save my Father. I have no damn defects. I'm strong, intelligent, and damn good working. Get your camera lenses cleaned. I'll get the spray bottle and a cloth for you if you want baby," the tone definitely sarcastic. Yep, she has quite a mouth on her, different from her Father's mouth though.

"And come on! I'm German, there is no damn mutt about me. Bloody hell...I'm going to start breaking things in a moment," Sin growls threateningly at Zola. But she certainly has her Father's temper, least she warned him before she lashed out, that was nice of her. "And Father is too strong to just damn well die. Cause I'll swear, if he dies on me, I'll killing him!" A pause. "And /YES/, I know that isn't logical," she snaps at the end. "Just get to the damn point Zola! You wore my patience thin already. I get the damn point. He needs a new body, we can't fix the one he has due to genetic damage that began from a defective serum at the very beginning, and it's allllll thanks to you that Father is alive to this point."

"That's the difference: Captain America spent more than sixty years in suspended animation. He'll eventually be just as worn down as your father is now."

Zola nears the end of the corridor, and once again opens a security door. The room inside is completely dark, but Zola goes in anyway. Apparently his camera lens isn't bothered by a little bit of pitch blackness.

"We'd hit a wall, a new body just wasn't possible. What we needed was a sample of your father's DNA from 'before' he underwent the process that changed him to the... colorful person he is today. As I mentioned, I'd taken precautions before the experiment, and had several vials of his blood stored just in case. Over the course of the War, most of them were destroyed, but one of them was taken by Allied forces and hidden away. The Invaders unwittingly saved the one thing that would allow their greatest foe to return as strong as ever."

"And a few weeks ago, you and your father liberated it from a S.H.I.E.L.D. facility. Most of the sample was useless after so long, obviously, but I'm Arnim Zola, I made it work."

He claps his hands, and the lighting in the room turns on, albeit dimly. There, in the center of the room, is a tank in which an embryo floats. "I'd like you to meet your father. Cute little guy, isn't he?"

Sin curses, "It's called a light Zola. Do you think the dark will stop me from shooting you? You are way too noisy." Maybe she can throw him in the ocean? That would be nice. With sharks. No, no...he's metal, won't make a difference. She follows him based on his noise, careful of her steps though she is careful not to fall behind.

"Holy shit, seriously?!" Alright, that result surprised Sin. She then lets out a bit of a scream. "AHHHH!" She then coughs into her hand, "That wasn't funny Zola, and it's ugly...is that seriously going to become my Father?" Maybe she needs a talking to about 'the cycle of life'. Na, she just thinks it's ugly. Her eyes narrow at it, "How did you make it work anyway?"

"Right. I've got both the time and patience it would require to explain to you the intricacies of human cloning. You stick to stabbing people over and over, and I'll stick to performing scientific feats that border on miraculous." Nothing like being made of metal and being an irreplaceable resource to make a guy mouthy.

"You don't really even have clearance to be here, but I want you to know what's in the works. There's a shot, however slim, that even my godlike intelligence won't be enough to pull this off. I'm incubating the clone, and accelerating its growth as quickly as I can safely. But the Red Skull is fading fast, and it's going to take everything my medical team has to keep him alive long enough to finish cooking this turkey."

"So here's what you can do: Run the damn show. Let my doctors do their jobs, you're going to have your plate full doing the Red Skull's. As of now, the lab is officially a No Sin area. Your place is the Command Center. I'll bring him back. You make sure he has something to come back to."

"You got speakers? I'm totally going to duck tape them. Try to pull THAT off with your metal fingers," grumbles Sin. She is soooo going to find duck tape on this damn underwater headquarters! Just you wait and see Zola!!! Still, on to more important business than petty revenge. She frowns and steps toward the glass, placing her hand up against it as she stares at the...THING forming in there. It's so....SMALL! Her brow wrinkles in deep thought.

Guess she will have to wait till afterwards to duck tape his speakers. Sin sighs softly, "Just...bring him back alright? I missed out on too many years with Father, I...finally have my chance. I'll keep the organization afloat, and if I find anything that could be of use to you and my Father, I'll obtain it. He is still top priority, even if he is too moronic at times to realize there are more important things than gender."

"Will do. Now, if you'll excuse me, I'm going to stare at this embryo for a while and see if I can't speed up the process a bit. I trust you know how to find your way out."

And with that bit of unceremonious-ness, Zola dismisses the girl who's just a few heartbeats away from being his boss. His massive, but somehow still functional hands begin clacking away at a computer monitor, as he searches for ways to ensure the survival of a monster.