I stepped out of the Council Chambers and let the glass doors close behind me. The hallway was completely empty. The security teams were either unconscious downstairs or scrambling to contain the massive data leak I had triggered.
Through the floor-to-ceiling windows of the corridor, I saw the Potomac River start to boil.
The water churned violently as the underground bay doors began to open. A deep, mechanical groan vibrated through the floorboards of the Triskelion. Pierce might have surrendered in that room, but the HYDRA loyalists in the launch bays were panicking. They were exposed. Every intelligence agency in the world was currently reading their files. Getting the Helicarriers in the air and linking them to the targeting satellites was their only remaining play.
I took the maintenance stairs up to the roof.
The morning air was incredibly loud. News helicopters hovered a mile out, their cameras focused on the river. Below them, the water parted, making way for three dark ships.
The Project Insight Helicarriers.
They were massive. Stark's upgraded repulsor engines glowed a blinding blue as they spun up, pushing millions of gallons of water aside. The thrust created a localized windstorm that whipped across the Triskelion's helipad. I walked toward the edge, feeling the concrete vibrate under my boots.
Somewhere down in that mess, Steve was fighting his way across the catwalks. He and Sam Wilson were sticking to Fury's plan, trying to physically reach the server blades and swap the targeting chips. It was a desperate plan that relied on timing.
I watched the first Helicarrier break the surface. Water cascaded off its armored deck in heavy sheets. The long-range cannons began to swivel, running through their automated calibration sequences. The second and third ships followed, their engines running as they lifted their massive weight out of the docks.
They just needed to reach three thousand feet to lock onto the satellite grid. Once they hit that altitude, millions of people would die in a matter of minutes.
I stepped right up to the edge of the helipad. The wind tore at my coat.
Three ships rising out of the river. All that show, all that firepower.
I raised my right hand, palm facing the river.
For a moment I simply watched them climb.
Then I reached out with my presence and locked onto the spatial pressure surrounding the three rising ships.
Sovereign Authority: Gravity Well.
The air over the river folded. The atmosphere compressed into a solid, suffocating weight directly above the three Helicarriers.
The lead ship hit the invisible barrier first and stopped dead. The massive repulsor engines struggled. They glowed a blinding, unstable white, trying to push tons of steel against an immovable force.
I closed my hand into a loose fist and pushed downward.
The flight deck of the first carrier buckled inward. Thick armored plating started breaking. The heavy gun batteries flattened against the hull, and the sheer gravitational pressure crushed the control tower into scrap metal.
The other two ships halted mid-ascent. Their engines struggled as the same crushing weight folded down over their hulls. Structural supports snapped. Turbines twisted apart under the sudden strain.
I only needed to break their ability to fly. I kept the pressure focused strictly on the external hulls and the engines, leaving the internal corridors intact enough for Steve and Sam to survive the collapse.
The repulsors failed. The bright blue glow sputtered and died, replaced by the deep, echoing shriek of tearing metal frame.
The three Helicarriers dropped.
They slammed back into the underground docks with a force that shook the foundation of the Triskelion. A massive wave of displaced water surged up the banks of the Potomac, flooding the launch bays and sweeping away the debris.
The news helicopters caught all of it.
Across the river, the pilots hovered in stunned silence, their cameras fixed on the wreckage below.
The water slowly began to settle. Sirens echoed across the riverbanks.
Project Insight was gone.
The three carriers lay broken in the docks, half-submerged and twisted into the river.
I lowered my hand, releasing the pressure over the docks.
The river kept moving, carrying debris out toward the bay.
Somewhere out there, one problem was still unfinished.
James Barnes was still missing.