There were three Helicarriers lined up in the hangar. They all had rows of swiveling turrets on the sides of their hulls and along their flight decks. Also on their flight decks were lines of Quinjets. Every one of them looked like it could take on an entire navy all by itself...​and win.

“Yeah, I know,” Fury said, seeing the astonished look on Steve’s face. “They’re a little bit bigger than a twenty-two.”

When they got out on the floor, Fury gave Steve the rundown on what S.H.I.E.L.D. had been up to. “This is Project Insight. Three next-​generation Helicarriers synced to a network of targeting satellites.”

Steve put two and two together. “Launched from the Lemurian Star .”

“Once we get them in the air, they never need to come down. Continuous suborbital flight, courtesy of our new repulsor engines.”

“Stark?” Steve wasn’t surprised to hear that Tony was involved. To him, these giant new Helicarriers would be toys. To Steve, they looked like something else entirely, and he didn’t like it very much.

“He had a few suggestions once he got an up‑close look at our old turbines,” Fury said. They walked underneath one of the Helicarriers. The bottom of its hull bristled with gun turrets. Behind them was a huge glass bubble with satellite and radar dishes on its inner surface. “These new long-​range precision guns can eliminate a thousand hostiles a minute. The satellites can read a terrorist’s DNA before he steps outside his spider hole. We’re gonna neutralize a lot of threats before they even happen.”

Steve had seen enough. He had to speak up. It was disturbing to think a project this big had happened without him knowing about it, but now that he heard Fury’s reasons, he liked it even less. “Thought the punishment usually came after the crime,” he said.

Deadly serious, Fury answered, “We can’t afford to wait that long.”

“Who’s we?”

“After New York, I convinced the World Security Council we needed a quantum surge in threat analysis. For once, we’re way ahead of the curve.”

“By holding a gun to everyone on Earth and calling it protection.”

“You know, I read those SSR files,” Fury said. “‘Greatest Generation’? You guys did some nasty stuff.”

This was true. “Yeah, we compromised,” Steve admitted. “Sometimes in ways that made us not sleep so well. But we did it so that people could be free.” He looked up at the Helicarrier again, and imagined what it would be like if he was a civilian seeing it in the sky. “This isn’t freedom. This is fear.”

“S.H.I.E.L.D. takes the world as it is, not as we’d like it to be. And it’s getting near past time for you to get with that program, Cap.”

Steve couldn’t believe Fury had bought into this idea. The whole point of the Avengers was the idea that you fought for the world you wanted. A better world. You didn’t just give up and stop trying to believe in what was right. Having bigger guns wasn’t going to make the world a safer place, because how did you know you could trust the people aiming the guns?

“Don’t hold your breath,” Steve said, and walked away. z2CgPQnUu5+8XR5TcviEEBF3BmHq5VdlLPUOAyXZQjmcuFOl7U6JR/aV7Zfyz5OV