Chapter 460
Malik had prepared himself for disappointment, but learning that the man Evenson had brought back wasn’t Hive still left a sour taste in his mouth.
"What? You didn’t find Hive?"
Evenson paused halfway through wiping the red wine from his face with a napkin. His eyes slid toward Malik.
This is why Hydra gets such a bad reputation.
He had just traveled all the way between Earth and an alien planet, come back looking like he’d been dragged through a war zone, and not one person had even thought to say thank you.
Nick Fury might be an absolute bastard, but at least the man paid him.
Evenson crumpled the napkin in his fist and tossed it aside.
"That planet is huge. No satellites. No internet. Not even a map. How exactly was I supposed to find someone? Put up a missing-person poster?" He gave Malik a flat look. "If it were that easy, I’d have called an Uber and had them drop me off at Hive’s front door."
"I’m sorry. I was too impatient."
Malik immediately realized he’d pushed too hard and offered an apology.
"Stephanie, please arrange for Mr. Richter to take a bath. And have some proper clothes prepared for him."
Evenson’s eyes drifted toward Stephanie’s bright smile.
Well, well.
So that was the game.
Have his daughter arrange his bath. Was Malik really trying the old-fashioned beauty trap?
Evenson wasn’t that easy to manipulate. Stephanie had her own agenda no matter what she did, and more importantly, there were already three women waiting for him back home who would have opinions about this sort of thing.
If he crossed the line again, he’d probably have to defect to Sargeras and beg for asylum.
Still...
Looking wasn’t a crime.
And maybe touching didn’t count as a serious violation of his principles.
Probably.
Stephanie politely gestured toward the door, then walked over and opened it. A large, heavily built guard stood outside.
"You. Take this gentleman to the bathroom."
The guard nodded.
Stephanie then turned back to Evenson, her expression transforming into a warm smile.
"Mr. Richter, are you satisfied with my arrangements?"
"Heh..."
Evenson gave an awkward little laugh.
Right. She had only said she’d make arrangements. She hadn’t said she’d personally accompany him.
"No need to go that far. He can show me the way. I’ll handle the rest myself."
As he spoke, Evenson glanced at the guard.
"Your house uses body wash, right?"
"Yes..."
Stephanie blinked.
The implication had gone completely over her head. She’d been raised as a sheltered heiress, and there were some kinds of innuendo she simply wasn’t equipped to recognize.
"Good."
Evenson looked genuinely relieved.
Then he followed the guard out to take his bath.
The moment the door closed behind him, Malik and Stephanie practically pounced on the man Evenson had brought back.
Neither of them had actually forgotten about him.
The fact that he wasn’t Hive didn’t make him unimportant. They still needed to know exactly what Evenson had brought home.
After all, this supposed ability to cross between worlds existed only because Evenson had said it did.
Yes, he’d disappeared inside that strange black substance before leaving. But disappearing didn’t prove where he’d gone.
Maybe he’d really traveled to another planet.
Or maybe he’d gone home, slept for several hours, smeared soot across his face, put on some torn clothes, and returned with a fantastic story.
Malik wouldn’t have entertained such a suspicion with an ordinary person.
But Evenson wasn’t ordinary.
Even if Malik ignored the mysterious corporation behind him, Evenson himself was a powerful Avenger who wielded something most of the world believed didn’t even exist.
Magic.
When dealing with someone he couldn’t understand, Malik had learned to keep a few extra cards hidden up his sleeve.
He didn’t care that the man’s clothes were filthy. Malik immediately rolled him over and examined him.
The moment he saw what the man was wearing, something clicked.
"That’s... a spacesuit."
Stephanie frowned suspiciously and leaned closer.
"It looks like one."
It wasn’t the bulky protective suit used for spacewalks or lunar missions. This was the sort of pressure suit worn beneath a spacecraft’s heavier equipment, suitable for working inside a capsule or during ground training.
There was even a name printed on it.
Will Smith.
A spark of recognition flashed through Malik’s mind.
His expression changed.
He began searching the suit for identifying marks, checking every patch and insignia with growing urgency.
Then he found it.
A badge was sewn onto Will’s right arm.
Inside a golden circle, a rocket blasted upward, its multicolored exhaust splitting into two streams before curling toward either side.
At a glance, the silhouette was remarkably similar to the Hydra emblem.
Malik’s face went pale.
"The Far Star Project..."
He sank heavily onto the floor, staring at the insignia as the memories came rushing back.
For thousands of years, Hydra had sought to bring their god back from the stars.
Every attempt had failed.
But after enough failures, even the most blindly devoted eventually had to ask why.
During humanity’s long age of ignorance, failure could be blamed on divine will, fate, or any other unknowable force.
Science had made that excuse much harder to swallow.
Eventually, Hydra scientists developed a more practical theory.
If a portal opened between two worlds, then for as long as that portal remained active, the two worlds were connected.
If people could be sent from Earth to the other side, then theoretically, people should be able to return.
So why had every attempt failed?
One possibility stood out.
The portal might not open at a fixed location on the other side.
It might be random.
But opening a portal would inevitably release energy. Radiation. Waves. Some form of measurable disturbance.
With sufficiently advanced instruments, it might be possible to detect that signature.
Perhaps even predict where the next portal would appear.
There were other theories, too.
Maybe the alien world simply wasn’t survivable.
The people sent through might have died before they ever had the chance to begin searching. Toxic atmospheres, extreme temperatures, lethal environmental conditions...
Any one of them could have killed a human being within minutes.
The theories were convincing enough to justify an experiment.
Three years ago, Gideon Malik had personally overseen the Far Star Project.
Using NASA resources, Hydra selected three astronauts after an exhaustive screening process. They were equipped with spacesuits and survival equipment capable of keeping them alive even on the Moon, along with some of the most advanced instruments available at the time.
Then they sent the three astronauts through the portal.
Malik had been confident.
They had prepared for everything.
They had selected the right people, provided the right equipment, and built an operation specifically designed to succeed where thousands of years of brute force had failed.
And yet...
The astronauts had vanished.
No messages.
No survivors.
Nothing.
The mission had disappeared into the void like a stone dropped into the ocean.
Until now.
One of those astronauts had survived.
And somehow, Evenson had brought him back.
Meanwhile, Evenson stood beneath the spray of a shower in a bathroom larger than his entire bedroom back home.
He tilted his head back and let the hot water wash away the grime of another world.
A small, satisfied smile touched his lips.
Under his breath, he repeated the same phrase over and over.
"Valuable cargo..."
He was beginning to suspect he’d brought back something much more interesting than Hive.
...
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/Sinmerry