FEB. YEAR 3
MV1 Presents ... The Star Spangled Avenger ...
CAPTAIN AMERICA #480
STUCK IN THE MIDDLE
written by Mark Bousquet

From the History Books … Captain America found himself transported to the distant planet Beckque where he became involved in a revolution against what looked to be an oppressive ruling class. In the end, however, he had been helping a Nazi-like people regain the power that had been recently stripped from them by the former lower class. The realization shocked Cap tremendously and as the emotions swirled within him, he vanished again. On Earth, Falcon and Sharon Carter have both become captives of a HYDRA faction led by Viper. Meanwhile, an elderly man with a Scottish accent and grey robes has been touring the United States, making the statement, "To all things a beginning. To all things and end." He hasn’t explained himself as of yet.

"Glorious." Viper smiled. The word was a simple one. The mechanations it took to allow the former Madame Hydra to utter it were not.

"I take it you are pleased with my performance?" a large, bubble-headed figure asked from a large television screen in front of Viper.

"Oh, yes, Mysterio," Viper smiled. "Quite pleased. The poor fool Captain America really thinks he was sent to a distant planet. You served HYDRA - served Viper - well."

"I do admit it was a brilliant plan, Viper," Mysterio stroked Viper’s ego. "Teleporting Captain America into my warehouse complex in California where a full simulation was already up and running. Making him think that he was caught in the middle of a revolution against an oppressive ruling class - appealing to his goodly nature to cause him to aid the rebellion, only to ultimately reveal to him that he had been working for a Nazi movement desperately trying to reassert their power. And then, at his weakest emotional moment, returning him to HYDRA’s clutches - his confidence most definitely shattered ... you would make quite the show-woman, my dear, deadly Viper."

"You are too kind, Mysterio."

"Where is the bewildered Avenger now, if I may be so bold?"

"Take a look …" Viper pushed a button and the image of Mysterio was replaced by an image of Captain America.

"Noooooooooooo!!!!!!!!!!!!!!"

Captain America screamed into the air as he found himself ripped from the planet Beckque. He didn’t care where he was - he needed to get back and help try to atone for his sins.

Steve Rogers felt awful - gut wrenchingly, heartachingly awful. He had let his emotions and disgust for the atrocities of war get the better of him and put him into places where he shouldn’t have been. His compassion for the rights of the individual had caused him to act without knowing all he needed to know.

It had caused him to aid a Nazi-like people in their quest to return to power, just because he had come into their midst at a time when they were being kept down by the former rebellion forces. A group of people who had been gassed and slaughtered to keep the Nazi-like people in power.

"WHATTHE-???" A voice yelled. "It’s Captain America! Get him!"

The words broke Cap out of his thoughts and he found himself standing inside a HYDRA base. He checked his surroundings quickly and saw that he was in a long grey-white corridor. To his right were two HYDRA foot soldiers, who quickly raised their rifles and took aim at the Star Spangled Avenger. Cap, almost without thinking, flung his unbreakable shield down the hall and knocked the two soliders unconscious.

As the shield rebounded perfectly back to him, Cap realized that all the pity and regret he held inside him would have to stay buried until he figured out where he was and what was going on.

Another Room Inside Mount Beaulieu

Viper stood looking at a large screen of monitors and smiled. She had been drugging the Falcon for the past several hours, all the while making Sharon Carter watch from her holding cell in another part of the facility.

There is a reason why she has had Sharon watch the mind control process she is putting the Falcon through.

There is a reason to everything Viper does.

"It’s going to be a good year, indeed," she smiled. "Oh look," she spoke to the empty room as her eyes absorbed a monitor’s images, "Captain America has arrived. Right on schedule."

She turned to look behind her at the suit of armor that she had HYDRA engineers re-design for her. An earlier, bulkier design had once resided inside Avengers Mansion before it had been moved to the Storm Museum. She could have stolen the copy at the Storm, but why bother when she had HYDRA engineers at her disposal?

They would do a fine job - not as good as Advanced Idea Mechanics would do, but Viper wasn’t about to hook up with AIM.

Yellow was NOT her color.

She watched Cap for a moment, then reached to her left to touch a button on a large wall of instruments. She spoke into a microphone, "Security Officers, this is Viper. Captain America is in the facility. You will pay for allowing him entrance. His position is near the level three laboratories." She smiled, admiring the strings she could pull. "Attone by herding him into the same cell as the Falcon and capturing him there or pay the ultimate price. Tell no one what you are doing. Sound NO alarms. HAIL HYDRA!"

Captain America was not in the best of moods.

He was, for the second time in weeks, somehow teleported from one location to another without knowing how or why or by whom.

As his fist connected with the lower ribs of a HYDRA agent, however, he was reasonably sure he was back on his own planet. And, considering it was a HYDRA base, there was a good chance that it was the one that he, Sharon and the Falcon had been ivestigating before he disappeared. *

* ( Captain America # 477 - I Wrote That, Yes I Did Mark )

It would be reasonable to conclude that that made HYDRA responsible for his comings and goings. He’d make sure to put a stop to that at his earliest chance.

But for now he had to figure out what to do while he was here. Find an exit and regroup, catch up with Sharon and Sam and get out of the area.

"HAIL HYDRA!" came a shout from Cap’s left, down a hallway that had been empty a moment before.

‘Thanks for the warning,’ Cap thought as he put up his shield to deflect the bullets fired from the trooper’s gun. Cap stepped out of the trooper’s line of vision and waited by the doorway for the trooper to come running down the hall. The HYDRA foot soldier rounded the corner and Cap smashed into the soldier’s face with his shield, knocking him unconscious.

Steve took a second to catch his breath. There was bound to be a mass alarm sounded at any moment. He had to get out quickly. That meant finding stairs and heading up, and hopefully, out.

Holding Cell 13

Sharon Carter still sat strapped to a chair facing a bank of monitors that showed the Falcon’s cell. Her hands were free and she had been provided with food and water which she begrudgingly ate. She had refused at first, but the sharp aching in her rib cage had convinced her to at least nibble at the food Viper provided.

She had been sitting here when she watched Viper inject Sam with shot after shot from several syringes in an attempt to brainwash him.* She could hear the monotonous messages that Viper was forcing the unconscious Sam to listen to over and over.

* ( Last Issue - Mind Control Mark )

HAIL HYDRA HAIL HYDRA HAIL HYDRA HAIL HYDRA HAIL HYDRA HAIL HYDRA HAIL HYDRA HAIL HYDRA HAIL HYDRA HAIL HYDRA HAIL HYDRA HAIL HYDRA HAIL HYDRA HAIL HYDRA HAIL HYDRA HAIL HYDRA HAIL HYDRA HAIL HYDRA HAIL HYDRA HAIL HYDRA HAIL HYDRA HAIL HYDRA HAIL HYDRA HAIL HYDRA HAIL HYDRA HAIL HYDRA HAIL HYDRA HAIL HYDRA HAIL HYDRA HAIL HYDRA HAIL HYDRA HAIL HYDRA HAIL HYDRA

Viper had taunted the Falcon that the messages contained subliminal messages that would brainwash him without his even realizing it.

She had told Sharon the same thing this morning, "He’ll listen to these messages day after day after day, all the while convinced that nothing is happening. Then, once the programming is complete, we’ll let him "escape" and send him back out into the world and let him live whatever kind of life he wants to live until we have a use for him. But make no mistake, Sharon Carter, you’ll never leave this prison."

‘Stupid Viper,’ Sharon thought, as she nibbled on a carrot, ‘just like every other crazy villain out there. Can’t wait to brag about their wonderful plan before they even get to implement it.’

She watched the screen and felt pity for the Falcon’s limp, seemingly unconscious body.

HAIL HYDRA HAIL HYDRA HAIL HYDRA HAIL HYDRA HAIL HYDRA HAIL HYDRA HAIL HYDRA HAIL HYDRA HAIL HYDRA HAIL HYDRA HAIL HYDRA HAIL HYDRA HAIL HYDRA HAIL HYDRA HAIL HYDRA

Something was wrong and Cap knew it.

Well, something other than all that had happened to him recently, that is, but Cap could always adapt to the situation at hand.

There had been no alarm sounded despite the fact that he had been out in the open for a good three and a half minutes. Certainly he either must have been spotted by now or one of the HYDRA troopers had woken up and alerted somebody. Why were they keeping things quiet?

He kept moving through the corridors, facing a HYDRA trooper here, a group of troopers there. Enough so that Cap knew they were there, but not enough to cause him much of a problem. Were they sandbagging? Why weren’t there more troopers coming to-

‘I’m being herded somewhere,’ Cap realized suddenly, recognizing the tactic. ‘Do I go back or keep going forward?’ He decided to retrace his steps and ran directly into a group of about ten HYDRA troopers. ‘Yep,’ Steve acknowledged to himself, ‘they’re definitely herding me somehwere.’

Cap had no choice but to ride it out, though he did press HYDRA’s execution of their plan by accelerating his actions. He reached a long corridor and sprinted through it, when an open door to his left caught his eye.

He stopped and stepped back to check it out, ready for the trap that was probably waiting for him. Peeking inside, he saw the bait. "Sam." Hanging from the wall was the now conscious form of the Falcon.

"Cap?" Sam asked, smiling despite the situation. "’Bout time you got here. Where’s Sharon?"

"No idea," Cap answered, moving in to examine the Falcon’s bonds. "This might hurt a bit." He raised his shield and smashed down on the chains, freeing one arm, then another.

"I got captured," Falcon filled Cap in as eruditely as he could. "Sharon had stayed behind. Haven’t seen her since."

Cap slammed his shield down, freeing Sam’s legs. "This has been how long?" he asked as they moved to the door, trying to remember how long he had been on the planet Beckque. "Three weeks?"

"Three weeks?" said a shocked Falcon as they moved further down the hall. "Where’ve you been, Cap? I’ve been down here three days. Tops."

Gunfire erupted behind them and Steve turned around with his shield up to deflect the bullets. "Long story," Cap said softly, thinking of the Carpans. "But I was gone for a couple weeks, at the least." He frowned as he checked a cell window, despite the gunfire. "Who’s running this HYDRA operation."

"Viper." Sam answered, and Cap nodded in response. "What are you looking for?" Sam asked, trying to hurry Cap down the hallway.

"Prisoners that may need rescuing. At this moment there are 24 SHIELD agents listed MIA by internal reports, including five that are thought to be held by HYDRA." Bullets rang off the shield, but not as many bullets as there should have been from the amount of HYDRA troopers behind them.

"Right. Cover me, then." The Falcon ran down the hall, checking the windows as Cap slowly followed him, concentrating on deflecting the gunfire. "Cap, we got a live one." Pause. "It’s Sharon."

Cap said nothing as he backed down the hallway towards the Falcon a little quicker. "The cell you’re standing by?"

"Yep."

"Move." The Falcon stepped out of the way as Cap took one last powerful step back and slammed his shield between the doorframe and the door. The shield wedged in tight and Cap followed up with a poweful kick that forced the door open.

"Sharon!"

Sharon Carter stood in the center of the room, with her hands on her hips. "Well, took you long enough." She hurried to the door, right at Cap. Steve went to step aside to let her pass, but the exit wasn’ther goal - Cap was. She embraced him, enveloping his mouth with hers. Steve was caught by surprise, and in the milisecond it took for him to regain his composure, the will of his mind was no match for the will of his body.

Not altogether liking the fact that he returned Sharon’s kiss, he was unable to refuse the release of the pain of the last several weeks in these brief few seconds of pleasure.

"Good to see you, too," Steve mumbled as they pulled apart, but Sharon was already putting the moment behind them.

They ran together through the halls of Mount Beaulieu. Without too much time passing, both Sharon and Sam picked up on HYDRA’s strategy. "Just go with it," Cap said, "backtracking at this point is too risky." They travelled up a stairwell, down another hall, around several corner and through some storage facilities. At every turn they met HYDRA troopers and at every turn the three of them easily defeated whoever stood in their way.

"Look at all this hardware," Sharon mused without slowing. "This must be what the hikers have been transporting for them. What the heck are they building here?"

Around another corner, into another large storage house and suddenly they were in the outside night. They slowed for one second to take a look around them.

"No one," Cap stated.

"Er, not quite," Falcon corrected. "What’re those things moving towards us?"

"Well, look who showed up late as usual," Sharon complained, "SHIELD. Get us out of here, boys."

END CAPTAIN AMERICA 480

AMERICAN GRAFFITI

letters c/o mariner2@tiac.net

Note - because of various things - notably the Charter and my desire to write a forthcoming project, there will be no lettercol for CAPTAIN AMERICA during my run as the last five issues of my tenure on this book have all been posted on the same day. Once again, I urge you to try out a new title from one of the new authors - be it Triathalon, MV1 Saga or whatever - and send them some much appreciated feedback. Thanks for reading everyone.

NEXT ISSUE: Captain America 481 - QUESTIONS, QUESTIONS - Cap, Steve and Sharon talk about what has happened - and the fireworks explode between Sharon and Sam as Sharon accuses Sam of being a mind-controlled lacky of HYDRA! Will Sam "Snap"? Learn the identity of the grey robed stranger and discover where, exactly, Pandora’s Box is located and what it has to do with the future of Captain America! Plus, someone dies … but who?

-- MBQ 21.December.1998