5

Nick Fury had called an emergency meeting of the World Security Council. They needed to know what had happened with the Tesseract, and they needed to know what he planned to do about it. He brought up holographic images of all the WSC members, with their faces and locations hidden. He did not know who they were, but S.H.I.E.L.D. reported to them. He stood in a small room near the Helicarrier’s bridge and briefed them on the appearance of Loki and the destruction of the S.H.I.E.L.D. base in New Mexico.

When he was done, they weren’t happy.“You’re out of line here, Director,”one of them said.“You’re dealing with forces you can’t control.”

“You ever been in a war, Councilor? In a firefight? Did you feel an overabundance of control?”

“You’re saying that this Asgard has declared war on our planet?”

“Not Asgard,”Fury corrected him.“Loki.”

Another councilor stepped in.“He can’t be working alone. What about the other one? His brother.”

“Our intelligence says Thor’s not a hostile. But he’s worlds away. We can’t depend on him to help, either. It’s up to us.”

“Which is why you should be focusing on Phase Two,”said the councilor who had spoken first.“It was designed for exactly this.”

“Phase Two isn’t ready. Our enemy is. We need a response team.”

“The Avengers Initiative was shut down.”

“This isn’t about the Avengers.”That wasn’t strictly true, but Nick Fury was no idiot. He wasn’t going to show all his cards to the World Security Council when he didn’t even know who they were.

“We’ve seen the list,”said a third councilor.“You’re running the world’s greatest covert security network, and you’re going to leave the fate of the human race to a handful of freaks.”

“I’m not leaving anything to anyone. We need a response team. These people may be isolated, unbalanced even, but I believe with the right push they can be exactly what we need.”

“You believe?”echoed the third councilor.

The first added,“War isn’t won by sentiment, Director.”

“No,”Fury agreed.“It’s won by soldiers.”

Then he waited to see what they would say. More accurately, he waited for them to say what he had known they would say all along. They did not forbid him from going forward, but Fury knew he couldn’t count on them for support, either. He was on his own.

That was all right. Usually he preferred it that way. As long as the Council didn’t start going behind his back, he would be fine.