3

Steve Rogers wasn’t the only one chosen by the Strategic Scientific Reserve. A few days later he found himself standing in line at Camp Lehigh in the practice field with eleven other recruits. They were all healthy and tall and strong, and next to them, Steve felt even smaller than he usually did. But that didn’t stop him from signing the last-will-and-testament document without a moment’s hesitation. While the other recruits were all nervous about signing their lives away, Steve was willing to give all that he could to the US Army, even if it meant his own life.

Steve and the rest of the recruits filed into a large room, where Steve spied a man and a woman, watching and waiting. The man scowled at Steve, who was relieved to see Dr. Erskine off to one side, observing the recruits. The other man then introduced himself as Colonel Chester Phillips. He stood ramrod straight, multiple medals shining on his uniform. Deep lines were etched on his face, marking the combat missions that he had survived. Yet his eyes were still bright, clear, and serious as they surveyed the room.

Colonel Phillips addressed the men: “The Strategic Scientific Reserve is an Allied effort, made up of the best minds in the free world,” he began. With that, the colonel then introduced Dr. Erskine and Agent Peggy Carter, who was on loan to the army from British Intelligence, and, despite her obvious beauty, looked only slightly less intimidating than Colonel Phillips.

When Agent Carter began to speak, Steve noticed that there was a lot of quiet chuckling and chattering going on. The recruits kept eyeing Peggy, taking in her long legs and pretty face. They also questioned why they were being addressed by a British officer. “I thought I was signing up for the US Army,” one of them said.

Agent Carter stopped talking and zeroed in on him. Steve had just met him. He was a big, rawboned blond guy named Hodge. “What’s your name, soldier?” she asked. Hodge told her. “Put your right foot forward,” she instructed him.

“Why? What kind of move is a dame gonna teach me?” Hodge asked, loud enough for the whole group of recruits to hear.

Peggy decked him with a straight right to the nose. Then she stood, cool and collected, while Hodge started to get up. Blood ran from his nose.

“Agent Carter,” the colonel said.

She came to attention. “Colonel Phillips.”

“I can see you’re breaking in the candidates,” the colonel said. He gave Hodge a hard glare as Hodge got to his feet and back in the muster line. “That’s good.”

The breaking-in didn’t stop there. It was only getting started. First up was the obstacle course. As he stood waiting for his team’s turn, Steve tried to remember everything he had read about obstacle courses. He knew that they were supposed to help a soldier learn how to handle combat situations while building a sense of team camaraderie. But looking out over the various objects on the course, and then taking in the men standing on either side of him, he doubted that would happen. The obstacles included a climbing wall, rope swings, a rappelling wall, a long piece of wood that looked like a balance beam but with a rough surface, large rubber tires, and even a deep mud puddle.

The men already on the course raced through the obstacles, easily climbing over the wall and nimbly running across the balance beam. It looked as if they had been doing this sort of thing their whole lives.

“Our goal is to create the finest army in history,” Colonel Phillips said as they waited. “But every army starts with one man. By the end of this week, we’re going to choose that man. He’s going to be the first of a new breed of Super-Soldiers.”

Super-Soldiers? Steve repeated silently. Was there something going on he didn’t know about? But he didn’t have time to think about it as a horn sounded, signaling his turn to go. He leaped at the wall, trying to pull himself over, but one of the other men’s boots landed squarely on his head, pushing him back. By the time he made it over, he was way behind the others. He could see Phillips, Peggy, and Erskine watching and increased his speed. But he knew that he’d already made a bad impression. He had to pick up his game.

Erskine turned to Phillips, his mind made up. “Rogers is the clear choice,” he told the colonel. But Phillips couldn’t disagree more.

“You put a needle in that guy’s arm,” the colonel began, “it’s going to come out the other side.”

Phillips continued to watch Steve, who was once again the last in line. “Look at him,” Phillips said to Erskine, “he’s making me cry.”

But the course continued, and so did Steve. He scrambled up a cargo net only to get tangled in it when Hodge walked over him. But he recovered and kept going. He crawled through mud covered by barbed wire only to have Hodge kick out a support beam, causing the barbed wire to fall on Steve. Still, he kept going.

His efforts didn’t go unnoticed.

Agent Carter and Dr. Erskine had seen Hodge try to sabotage Steve over and over again. And yet each time, Steve had gotten back up, more determined than ever. He didn’t have the muscles of the other recruits, but he had something they didn’t—heart. He would fight as hard as he could as long as he could and never turn a back on a fellow soldier. Those were the qualities Peggy and Erskine were looking for. Phillips, however, didn’t feel the same way. He still saw Steve as a weak, ineffectual soldier-in-training.

Phillips wanted Hodge for the job and wasted no time in voicing his opinion. “He’s big, he’s fast, he takes orders. In short, he’s a soldier.”

“No,” Erskine interjected. “He’s a bully.”

Phillips immediately countered Erskine’s argument. “You don’t win wars with niceness, Doctor. You win them with guts.” And to prove his point, Phillips picked up a grenade and hurled it into the middle of the course, right near Steve.

As Hodge and the other recruits panicked and fled, Steve ran right at the grenade. “Everybody down!” he shouted as he flung himself on top of the explosive device.

There was a moment of silence as everyone waited for the inevitable. One second passed. Two seconds. Three. Finally, Steve gingerly eased himself up and off the grenade. Looking over to where Phillips, Peggy, and Erskine stood, he cocked his head and asked, “Is this a test?”

Peggy tried not to smile. It was a test of sorts, and not even Colonel Phillips could deny that Steve had passed. Erskine cocked an eyebrow at the colonel. “He’s still skinny,” Phillips growled. But he didn’t argue any more. The SSR didn’t need to look any further: Steve Rogers was going to be their first Super-Soldier.

Later that night, Steve sat alone inside the barracks. The rest of the recruits had been sent home, and the empty beds made Steve feel oddly alone. But a part of him was excited about what the future held. Peggy and Dr. Erskine had given him more details once he was chosen; he was to be given a special serum that Erskine had created. With luck, it would turn him into a man with extraordinary powers. He’d be able to run faster, hit harder, and think quicker—all things that would be helpful on the battlefield. But there would also be risks undergoing such a procedure—namely, would he survive the experiment?

The sound of footsteps echoed in the empty room, and Steve looked up. Erskine had entered the barracks and was walking toward him. As always, the doctor’s expression was somber.

“Can I ask you a question?” Steve said when the older man took a seat on the bed across from him. Erskine nodded. “Why me?”

The scientist smiled. He had been expecting this question. And Steve deserved to know the answer—and the history behind the serum.

Five years ago, Erskine began, he was living in Germany working as a scientist. His experiments were radical, and some felt they were foolish. But then he had invented a serum that had the possibility of giving a man almost-superhuman abilities. It promised great power to anyone who controlled it and, as the war was just beginning, the potential for whoever had it to be victorious. Erskine was eager to keep it out of the wrong hands—but then a man named Johann Schmidt found out about his discovery.

Schmidt, Erskine explained, was himself a brilliant scientist, and also the leader of an organization called Hydra. At the time that Erskine worked with him, Schmidt was fascinated with occult powers and Teutonic myths. So was Hitler. Steve knew that. But Schmidt wasn’t a true believer, a real Nazi. He longed for his own glory, no matter what the cost. Schmidt believed that worlds existed in which men had the strength of gods and could control weather and the elements. He became obsessed with the idea that a great power had been hidden on Earth by the gods and was waiting to be seized by a superior man. Schmidt—and Hydra—vowed to find that power.

Steve raised an eyebrow and Erskine nodded as if to say, yes, insane, I know. Then he continued.

Schmidt believed that Erskine’s serum was the key to that power. And he wanted it. Despite Erskine’s every attempt to stop him, Schmidt got his hands on the serum and, in an act of desperation, injected himself.

The results were horrific, and the experiment was a failure.

Erskine had no choice. He fled his country and made his way to the United States in the hope of keeping the rest of the serum out of Schmidt’s hands. But he knew that the Hydra leader would never stop looking for him—or the serum. The failed experiment had corrupted Schmidt, and in Erskine’s eyes, it had turned the scientist into a monster.

“This is why you were chosen,” Erskine said to Steve, who had been listening intently. “A strong man, he might lose respect for power if he had it all his life. But a weak man knows the value of strength...and compassion.”

The scientist sighed deeply. He saw the doubt in Steve’s eyes and couldn’t blame him. It was a rather unbelievable story. But it was an important one. For Erskine had learned a valuable lesson.

“The serum amplifies what is inside,” he finished. “Good becomes great. Bad becomes worse.” Erskine looked Steve straight in the eyes. “Whatever happens tomorrow,” he said, “promise me you’ll stay who you are. Not a perfect soldier, but a good man.”

Steve nodded in silence. Tomorrow was going to be a very interesting day. He just hoped that Erskine and Peggy were right about him. He didn’t want to think about what would happen if they were wrong.