Chapter Fifteen: Family Secrets
Right as soon as they arrived to Liberty Base, Ciciley
made good usage of that secure channel linked directly to
communications within Stark’s tower in Manhattan. As much as Sean took pleasure
in watching Elendriel desperately hold in whatever rants she wanted to throw at
Stark there and then, he figured taking a personal tour of the base was more
worth it. His ears still popped from the remarkable depth of its location, miles beneath sea level. He would not have been too surprised if they were close
to the Earth’s core.
(Factual Note: To be anywhere near the Earth's core, Liberty Base would have to be well over five thousand kilometers or three thousand miles, crossing both the oceanic crust and the upper and lower mantles.)
Passing through the stone-made corridor that led to seven
neighboring rooms, he heard the unsettling sound of someone heaving, followed
by that of gurgling and splashing. Livingston recognized the noise – someone just lost their lunch. Of course, judging from the intensity of the sound, it
seemed their breakfast and dinner escaped them as well.
He entered a room that appeared to be the base’s
bathroom, currently occupied by Genevieve. Her head was practically in the
toilet, regurgitating. She brought it back out with the locks of her long black
hair spread across her face, some of it caught against her wet lips. She was
quite the mess.
She brushed back her hair to see Livingston standing at
the doorway, smiling. Quickly, she wiped away the residue left on her glossed
lips, using the back of her right hand. “I didn’t want anyone to see me like
this,” she muttered, evidently embarrassed to have been caught in such a sad
state. “My body’s still readjusting to
being in human form again, and I got all these stupid side effects.”
(Authorial Note: Some of the other side effects I'd planned to mention but ultimately scrapped included urination and fecal discoloration, sore joints, high fever, itchy throat, blurred vision, nasal congestion, and numbness in the fingers and toes.)
Livingston, however, smirked at the scene. “Believe it or
not, you’re not the first person I’ve watched puke into a toilet bowl. There
were quite a few drunken nights I had to spend with Moms before she laid off
the stuff and went clean.”
(Biographical Note: In reality, Ciciley Valdez - the inspiration for Ciciley Livingston - has in fact overcome addiction in the past and currently lives a sober lifestyle.)
Genevieve gulped a little, almost certain there was more
ready to come up her esophagus. Thankfully, it was a false alarm.
She thought it best to focus on something else for a
while. “You two never seemed to have gotten along.”
“Me and Moms?” He shrugged. “We haven’t, but not because
we don’t love each other. We just don’t see eye-to-eye on a lot of
things...except for your mother.”
Genevieve gave him a surprised frown.
“Yeah. The only thing we really ever shared any feelings
on was the sacrifice Gigi made for all of us at Project Geo. Ever since that
moment, I’ve seen her try to be more of a mother to me than she ever dared
herself to. That’s why I think she’s so close to Karter right now. Between him
and her brand-new youth, she sees a restart of the life she could’ve had with
me.”
Genevieve took notice of how dejected he appeared in
reflecting on these thoughts. She gave a small chuckle that led into a brief
cough. “You’re jealous of a toddler.”
Livingston snickered. “Naw. I love the
lil’ fella myself. I always imagined having a baby brother. I was always the ‘baby’ of the
Livingstons before Karter came along. Honestly, I’m lovin’ every bit of being a
big brother to him.”
(Authorial Note: Truthfully, I am the "baby," or the youngest, in my real-life Livingston family. Unlike my fictional counterpart, I was raised along with two other siblings, a brother and sister, rather than just one.)
Genevieve’s lips pouted in adoration. “Awe! You big ol’
softie! He’s blessed to have you guys in his life.”
Livingston nodded in agreement. “Just
wish I could figure out why Saccheri kept him in that ‘Man Cave of Horrors’ of
his. I mean, Karter’s a perfectly normal kid. But I’m gonna get to the bottom
of it, once we’ve gotten past things here.”
Genevieve gulped again, her left hand clasping at her
chest. “Well…I hope that I’ve gotten past this
in time to provide a little assistance.” Her stomach loudly gurgled – an
obvious warning sign. “Excuse me.” Her head returned inside the toilet bowl,
once again spewing out the contents of her stomach into the water.
Sean accepted this as his cue to depart from the bathroom and leave Genevieve to her heaving. The second he was out, he was cornered by a short, young olive-skinned woman with black hair and eyes as
brown as his. “Hello,” he said to her, doing his best to be friendly. She
smiled right at him, seeming to be profoundly enthralled by him, not saying a
single word. Feeling awkward just standing there staring at her, he continued,
“Anything I can help out with?”
He had not expected anyone else to be at the base other
than Stan and Genevieve. Encountering this young woman came as more than a surprise. Yet it
was no more surprising than the young woman’s unexpected gesture of warmly hugging him, wrapping her arms halfway around his tall frame. Feeling
more awkward than before, Sean found it to be unnecessarily overfriendly.
“I love you.”
She whispered during the embrace.
This caught him more off guard than the hug itself. “You
barely even know me!”
“I know, but I can’t help to be excited over meeting my big brother!”
Sean felt all the blood drain from his face, rendering it
entirely numb. He stared upon this mysterious young woman in wide-eyed, intense
shock of what she just told him. His mouth was agape and a raging fire
developed within him. After nearly a minute of stunned silence, he screamed,
“WHAT!”
(Pop Culture Note: I based Agent Sean's initial reaction to Yamila being his sister from the 1971 dark comedy Harold and Maude. The film, which centers on the romantic relationship between a twenty-something man and a free-spirited 79-year-old woman, has a scene in which Harold discovers Maude purposely overdosed on sleeping pills in order to die at the age of 80. Agent Sean's reaction mirrors Harold's in the scene.)
------------------------
Bruce Banner sighed; his inundated posture displayed on
the central monitor via the live feed from his and Tony Stark’s Avengers Tower lab. “So what we do next boils down to how we prevent the next possible
alien invasion to befall N.Y.C. since the Chitauri…and, so far, we’ve got zip.”
“You know, all this would be a lot easier if we had Cap
and Romanoff here. They’re like the expert tacticians.” Stark frowned in
thought of the two missing Avengers. “Where the hell are they anyway? We
haven’t heard a thing from either of them, or anybody from S.H.I.E.L.D., since Cap’s run-in.”
The people within the surveillance room tensed from the
question. Luckily, Mindy knew exactly how to respond – truthfully: “Cap and
Widow are a little busy dealing with Hydra at the moment, Tony.”
Stark and Banner both grimaced and briefly looked to each
other in confusion.
“What’s Hydra’s play in all this?” Stark questioned.
“None right now. But you’ll find out soon.” Mindy remarked.
“Right now, let’s just—”
She stopped as soon as Natalie emerged in frame on the
monitor, appearing out of breath and beyond terrified while standing in between
Stark and Banner, her short stature notable between the two men.
“Natalie,” Jacqueline cried, concerned for the young Native American woman. “You O.K.?”
Once she caught her second
wind, Natalie divulged, “I just got a visit from Yve Ette.” Her left hand
marginally went to her groin in mentioning the name.
“She wants us to see her Super Skrull in action at the ‘right place and time.’
She said that we’ll know where that’ll be when it happens.”
“Wait. There’s a Super
Skrull now?” A flabbergasted Sheryl exclaimed.
(Marvel Note: In the comics, Kl'rt - a decorated soldier in the Skrull army - became the first "Super-Skrull" under the rule of Emperor Dorrek VII. He was endowed with the powers of the Fantastic Four and sent to Earth in order to conquer the planet after the Fantastic Four thwarted their previous invasion attempt.)
“That sounds ten times scarier than a regular Skrull – which I’ve yet to
actually see, by the way.” Stark casually noted.
“The Skrulls experimented with one of their volunteers.”
Natalie revealed. “They’ve fused the Guardian power they’d stolen from
Genevieve to one of their own, in order to create their version of the Super
Soldier. Only it’ll be more like Hulk than Captain America.” She then turned to
Banner and politely added, “No offense.”
Jacqueline intensely considered the message Natalie
passed on from Yve Ette. “It’s got to be a predestined area within New York
where she and her ‘Super Skrull’ will attack. No doubt it’ll make national news
once it happens.”
“Anyone else really
wishing Cap and Romanoff were here now?” Tony somewhat shakily uttered.
“Relax, Stark.” Mindy said. “Even with four sorceresses,
three bona-fide S.H.I.E.L.D. agents, and two Avengers, we can stop that Super
Skrull. Remember, all of us did stop
Facilier together.”
“Yeah, I wasn’t nearly as worried about a Disney character as I am with an
intergalactic science experiment.” Stark rebuffed.
“Any more
family secrets you’ve been keeping from us, Mother?”
The conversation was abruptly interrupted with the
unannounced return of Sean, who barked at Ciciley the second he stepped foot into
the room.
Ciciley was nonetheless patient with him. “Sean, whatever
it is I’ve done now, it’ll have to
wait. We’ve got bigger things happening here.”
“Sorry, Moms,”
He sneered. “But I personally think the fact that you’ve been harboring a third child from Elle and me to be a lot bigger than anything else.”
Elendriel, Ciciley, and everyone else there in the
surveillance room – as well as the three on the monitor – shot him a
daunted stare. “What?”
Ciciley looked past her son to see two figures arrive
just behind him: Yamila and a woozy Genevieve who was barely able to stand on
her two feet. Her hands clenched unnervingly into fists once she noticed
Elendriel staring towards Yamila and asking almost instantly, “Who’s this?”
Sean’s eyes had not left Ciciley when he answered his
sister: “Her name’s Yamila, and she’s the little
sister we never knew existed ‘til now. She’s been kept hidden in this base for
her whole life.”
Shocked from this, Elendriel moved her focus on Ciciley.
“Is this true?” Her voice registered the same sense of betrayal her brother
expressed.
“Yes, it’s true.” Ciciley nonchalantly confirmed. “Yamila
is the product of a top secret testing I’d volunteered for in ’87, sometime
early into my retirement. S.H.I.E.L.D. thought a Super Soldier could be born
rather than made the way Steve Rogers was. Myself and thirteen other fertile
mothers were injected with a mild dosage of the serum during the
first stages of gestation to genetically enhance the fetuses we carried. The
other fetuses died in childbirth. Yamila was the only survivor. But no one else knew about her – no one except me, Stan, and
Nicholas. We all just wanted her to be raised as a normal girl and not another
weapon for S.H.I.E.L.D. to use.”
(Authorial Note: The story of Yamila's birth bears strong resemblance to the main heroine of Disney, DC: Rise of the Immortals, a Disney/DC Comics crossover fan fiction story I wrote in 2009. A character based on and inspired by Ciciley Valdez was also featured in it.)
“And you didn’t think you could trust Elle and me with
that information all these years?” Sean judgmentally retorted. “You just kept her hidden away
like she’s Sloth?”
On his reference, a puzzled Yamila whispered to Stan,
“Who’s Sloth?”
(Pop Culture Note: Lotney "Sloth" Fratelli is one of the main characters of the 1985 adventure/comedy film The Goonies. The deformed member of the sinister Fratelli gangster family, Sloth was kept chained-up and hidden within a room for a very long time until found and befriended by Chunk, one of the Goonies. The film was the first for actor Josh Brolin, who plays Mad Titan Thanos in Guardians of the Galaxy, Avengers: Age of Ultron, and the upcoming two-parter Avengers: Infinity War.)
“God, the secrets and lies just never stop with you, do
they?” Sean told Ciciley.
Ciciley disconsolately sighed. “If you just listen for a
moment, I can—”
“Save it!” He roared. “It’s just gonna turn out to be more bull crap.”
Believing his own conjecture, Sean stormed out of the
surveillance room and headed for the elevator. Ciciley was conflicted to follow
him, not wishing to abandon her place with the team in their
time of crisis.
“I’ll go after him.” Chrissy volunteered, and Ciciley
could not have been more than thankful for her mother’s interference in the
matter.
Prior to her departure, Chrissy gently handed Karter over
to Yamila. The young woman looked on the infant child in wonder. “Is this my
baby brother? Awe! He’s so precious!” She smiled at him while he happily
cooed to her.
Shortly after Sean and Chrissy left the base altogether,
Stark once again addressed the group from the monitor – particularly one member
of their team: “Um, Jacqueline? Remember what you just said about that attack
making national news?”
“Yeah,” she cautiously returned. “Why?”
“It just did.”
Stan switched on another monitor adjacent to the central
one. Immediately, a broadcast from DBN (“Daily Bugle News”) showed live helicopter footage of a rampage in progress through the Hell’s Kitchen section
of New York. Though shot from a notable distance, the footage was crisp and
clear enough for them to see a scaly, pointy-eared green reptilian-humanoid
creature that was just the size of the Hulk, donned from head to toe in an
armored grey battle suit, close in design to something from Tony Stark’s armory.
(Marvel Note: The uniform of the Super Skrull is normally the black-and-purple one they normally wear in the comics. However, for this story, the Super Skrull wears a unique battle suit based on concept art from an Avengers project that never came to past.)
There was no denying this was the aforementioned
“Super Skrull.”
Defiantly, Ciciley commanded her comrades, “Time to suit
up!”
(Marvel Note: Variations of the "suit up" line were first spoken in 2012's The Avengers by Iron Man/Tony Stark and Captain America/Steve Rogers when gathering their fellow teammates into battle.)
----------------------
For a brief time, Liberty Base felt like a brand new home
to Sean – the only place he did not have to feel uncomfortable being in with
all of Hydra raining over them. Now it felt different. With this newest
deception from his mother, the one person he thought he could trust in all this madness, he no longer had anywhere else
to go. For the moment, just being outside near the shores of Liberty Island was
enough. The sun set in the distance, making way for nightfall, and the ocean
waves crashed. It was the most serene place he had been in the last few days.
“Your reaction is justified.” He jumped at the voice that
spoke out from nowhere. He completely forgot Chrissy joined with him there
on the surface. “How you thought about discovering you have a long lost little
sister is equaled to how Ciciley reacted to discovering her lost mother.”
Sean momentarily glimpsed at her. The wind blew her long
dark red hair over her face, prompting her to brush it back with her right
hand. He still could not get over the
sheer oddity of her wardrobe change. The first time he met her, she was dressed
like a young military nurse from World War II. But now she wore modern clothes
that were so tight on her busty frame, it looked as if she was too bashful
to breathe without a button popping off.
“I don’t know if I’d be so bold to compare your situation to Yamila’s, Grandmamma.”
Chrissy smiled. She loved being addressed by that name
from her grandchildren, specifically the one standing beside her.
“Why not?”
“Yamila was coerced into her seclusion, but you had a choice.”
“A choice that I deeply regret once I saw how Ciciley
reacted to the reason why I’d put myself in stasis.” Chrissy looked to the
crashing waves, deep sadness and regret taking over. “Even though it wasn’t the
truth.”
Sean looked to her in alarm. “Say what?”
“What I said about freezing myself to catch up with the
twenty-first century? It wasn’t entirely
the truth.”
He gazed on her as if there was a totally different
woman standing in front of him. “Then what was?”
She opened her mouth to begin with an explanation, yet
rather than words, only a quick gasp escaped. She drifted into
unconsciousness, falling into the arms of Sean. Confused of what just happened, he soon discovered a small tranquilizer dart stuck to the back of her neck. Not
before long did he feel a slight sting on his
neck – another dart meant for him. Just as swiftly, he lost consciousness,
collapsing right beside his grandmother.
(UP NEXT: Evolution Begins!)
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