Iron Man might be able to stand in front of him without Locke being able to tell if he was lying or not.
But Cindy—a sixteen-year-old girl? Locke could easily sense whether she was telling the truth.
Locke shifted his gaze toward Cindy, who was currently negotiating with Gwen, and frowned.
Cindy wasn't lying. She genuinely planned to prank Megan.
Her plan was to have her boyfriend, Kahn, invite Megan to be his date, then trick Megan into wearing a mascot costume to the dance, only to ditch her at the last second on the day of the event.
It wasn't a physically violent plan, but it was highly humiliating.
This followed the classic logic of high school mean-girl pranks.
But...
If that was the case, a problem arose.
If the lightning-fast kidnapping of Megan Walsh he had just witnessed outside the school wasn't orchestrated by Cindy...
Then who was it?
Locke raised an eyebrow.
Good grief.
A real kidnapping?
For a moment, Locke recalled a story from back in Texas. A wealthy man's organ had failed, but he couldn't find a match. He faced certain death without a transplant. By chance, he discovered a seventeen-year-old boy who fit his criteria, so the boy was snatched away in broad daylight.
Wait, no.
S.H.I.E.L.D. people?
Locke's thoughts shifted, hitting upon the most likely possibility.
America was, after all, the headquarters of S.H.I.E.L.D. For Megan to choose New York for school was practically equivalent to walking right into a trap.
But this also proved one thing.
Whether it was Victoria Knox or Megan Walsh, it seemed neither of them knew that the "mysterious organization" they had once belonged to was actually S.H.I.E.L.D.
Tsk, tsk.
Locke didn't even know who to pity more.
Pity Victoria and Megan for being kept in the dark the whole time?
Or pity S.H.I.E.L.D. for being unable to retain talent?
...
"Rip!"
In a warehouse somewhere, Megan, who was tied to a chair, had her hood ripped off. A familiar voice echoed in her ear: "Finally found you, Number 83."
Megan looked at the man standing before her—wearing an eye patch, Her tone was exasperated: "How did you find me?"
Nick Fury...
Wait, no.
It should be Hardman. He smiled and said: "I can always find you through the breadcrumbs."
In the agency, he was Nick Fury.
But within the Prescott organization, he was Head Instructor Hardman.
S.H.I.E.L.D. was a secret agency, so it required an internal agent training base.
Because of an unauthorized operation back in the eighties, Nick Fury had been reassigned as the Head Instructor of the Prescott organization—an entity that adopted orphans from all over the world to train them as S.H.I.E.L.D. agents from childhood.
Later...
After Nick Fury returned to S.H.I.E.L.D. with the help of his good friend Alexander Pierce, he never let go of the Prescott organization. He continued to train young female agents there under the alias Hardman.
Megan Walsh was one of them. Codename: 83!
And...
Victoria Knox's codename was No. 1.
Ever since Victoria defected, Nick Fury had felt a pang in his heart for the first disciple he had personally trained. Consequently, he had been trying to capture her ever since.
But Victoria was his own student; she knew exactly how to go deep undercover, which meant there had been no information on her for a long time.
However, S.H.I.E.L.D.'s network was nothing to sneeze at.
And so.
Upon learning that Victoria would appear in Chechnya, he dispatched Agent 83—Megan—whom he believed had the potential to surpass Agent No. 1, to capture her.
But Nick Fury never imagined what would happen next.
Agent 83 completed the mission, but then she defected too.
Good grief.
Looking at it this way, it wasn't hard to see why S.H.I.E.L.D.'s training prowess was more than a level lower than Hydra's.
It was simple.
S.H.I.E.L.D. couldn't keep its talent. At the very least, Nick Fury lacked the charismatic personality required to retain people—or at least, the exceptional ones.
Look at Agent No. 1, Victoria—defected.
Look at Agent 83, the one he had high hopes for to surpass No. 1—she f*cking defected too.
Tsk, tsk.
If this ever got out, probably no one would believe it.
Wearing a beret and a clothing style different from his usual S.H.I.E.L.D. look, Nick Fury rubbed his forehead. He looked at the bound Megan with a mix of disappointment and curiosity. "So, you defected. Who are you working for now? The 'Eye' organization in Eastern Europe? The recent Roman Brotherhood? Or were you planning to follow your senior's lead and strike out on your own using the skills I taught you?"
Nick Fury hadn't originally known Megan was in New York.
But he had received intel that the Roman Brotherhood had moved to New York, so he rushed over. By the time he arrived, news broke that Victoria Knox had been taken.
Nick Fury felt miserable, but then his luck turned. During an investigation of Midtown High, one of his agents discovered Agent 83—alive and well.
Only Nick Fury knew how he felt at that moment, seeing that Agent 83 was alive and kicking.
Put it this way.
At the time, Nick Fury's most loyal lackey, Phil Coulson, thought his boss's last remaining eye was literally going to pop out of his head. He nervously placed his hand under Nick Fury's chin.
He hoped to catch the eye the moment it fell.
Coulson's mind was already racing, wondering which authoritative eye hospital in New York City was the best.
But...
Only one question was spinning in Nick Fury's head.
Motherf*cker!
Why?
Why did the two agents he favored most both choose to f*cking defect?
Giving it away for free once might be an accident.
But giving it away twice in a row? You can't use "accident" to describe that anymore.
Therefore.
Nick Fury desperately wanted to know the reason that drove his two most prized agents to defect.
"Is it because of money?"
Nick Fury asked and answered his own question while looking at Megan. He let out a sigh. "If you don't want to talk, it's fine. You will."
Having said that.
Nick Fury waved a hand toward an agent who was preparing a truth serum.
Megan looked at Nick as he took the serum, looking somewhat speechless. "Come on, you really think this stuff—f*ck!"
Nick Fury slammed a tube of truth serum into Megan's thigh. "I increased the dosage."
In the Agent Academy, resistance training—including for truth serums—was naturally included.
But unlike the common garbage found on the market, the truth serum he prepared this time was an upgraded and refined version from the S.H.I.E.L.D. Academy.
One injection, immediate results.
Except...
***
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