CHAPTER 48: COOPERATION BETWEEN HYDRA AND STRYKER
The dawn that broke over New York was a sickly yellow, stained by the last tendrils of smoke rising from the corpse of Kane Manor. In the cold light of morning, the ruins looked less like a tragedy and more like a statement—a crater of ambition, a warning written in ash and twisted steel.
But deep in the sub-basement of a nondescript warehouse in Red Hook, no one was watching the sunrise. Here, the light was a sterile, humming fluorescence, and the air tasted of ozone, antiseptic, and old blood.
William Stryker preferred it this way. God's work, he'd found, was best done out of the sight of God's own sun.
He stood before a wall of monitors, his hands clasped behind the crisp back of his immaculate military-style jacket. The screens showed a mosaic of misery: grainy footage of a woman with emerald skin and feral eyes tearing through a S.H.I.E.L.D. transport convoy in the Nevada desert; satellite thermal scans of mutant "hotspots" across the Midwest; and, centrally, the smoldering ruins of the Kane estate.
"A blunt instrument," Stryker remarked, his voice a calm, educated baritone. He nodded toward the central screen. "Effective for sending a message. Less effective for building a new world. Fire purifies, but it also leaves behind… residue."
In a high-backed leather chair that looked comically oversized for the cramped control room, the man known as the Earl—a title he'd bestowed upon himself with typical Hydra grandiosity—swirled a glass of amber liquor. He was a man of florid complexion and cold, porcine eyes, a study in cultivated decadence masking brute cunning.
"The message was received," the Earl sniffed. "The asset—this 'Batman'—is gone. The Kane resources are in chaos. Our point is made. We are not gardeners, Stryker. We are foresters. We clear the land."
"And what grows in the scorched earth?" Stryker asked, turning slowly. His eyes were pale, almost colorless, and held the unwavering certainty of a true believer. "Weeds. More mutants. More chaos. Your 'forester' analogy is apt, but you forget the most important step: you must plant your own seeds before you burn. Otherwise, you merely make room for your enemies."
The Earl's lip curled. He despised this sanctimonious fanatic. But he needed him. The world was shifting. The old order of nation-states and shadowy cabals was fracturing under the weight of gods and monsters. Stryker represented a different kind of power—a ideological purity, a public-facing cause with private funding and a terrifyingly focused hatred. He was a useful tool. A plowshare for Hydra's sword.
"Your seeds," the Earl said, gesturing with his glass to another monitor. This one showed schematics—brutalist, angular designs for mobile prison cells, neural dampeners, and a large, centralized facility labeled "PROJECT: PURIFICATION." "They require fertilizer. Resources my organization can provide. In return, you offer… a distraction. A righteous cause for the masses to rally behind while we secure the machinery of power."
"The mutant question is not a distraction," Stryker said, his voice hardening. "It is the central spiritual and genetic crisis of our species. They are a corruption. A mistake. My work is the scalpel to your hammer. Precise. Clean. Final."
"And yet your scalpel needs my hammer's forge to be tempered," the Earl countered, setting his glass down with a sharp click. "Your 'Purification' project needs funding, materials, and political air cover. The current administration is weak, terrified of the meta-human lobby. The so-called 'Ultimates' are a fractured debating society. I can deliver the senators. I can secure the military contracts. I can make the world look the other way while you build your… final solution."
Stryker was silent for a long moment, his gaze returning to the screens. The footage of the green-skinned woman—Viper—played on a loop. She moved with a lethal, serpentine grace, disarming and dismembering S.H.I.E.L.D. agents with bare hands. A perfect symbol of the mutant threat. Uncontrolled. Alien. Dangerous.
"The Viper is a complication," Stryker stated.
"She is a catastrophe," the Earl spat, his veneer of calm shattering. "She's not just a mutant. She's a symbol. A rallying point for every malcontent and true believer left in Hydra who thinks I'm a… a compromiser. If she reaches a major cell, she could tear my organization apart from the inside. I want her erased. Permanently. Your 'Purifiers' have a certain reputation for handling mutant problems quietly."
Stryker allowed a thin, cold smile. "We do. But hunting one of the world's most dangerous mutants, one who is also a high-value target for every intelligence agency on the planet, is a considerable undertaking. It would require… significant allocation of our shared resources."
The Earl understood. It was a price. A tithe for their new partnership. He nodded once, curtly. "Name it."
"The Batman," Stryker said, turning fully to face the Earl. "Your forester's work was sloppy. There were no remains found in the manor matching a man of his purported size and physique. Only hired mercenaries. The news of his death is convenient, but I don't believe in convenient truths. I believe in evidence. And the evidence suggests your pest is still alive."
The Earl's face darkened. "Impossible. The strike was total."
"Nothing is total," Stryker countered. "If he is alive, he is wounded. Angry. He will be coming for you. For Hydra. He represents a loose end. An unpredictable variable. My Purifiers are experts at hunting wounded animals. We will find him. We will eliminate him. And in doing so, we will acquire any useful intelligence or technology he possesses. Consider it the first joint venture of our new partnership. We clean up your mess, and in return, you grant me full operational autonomy and funding for the first phase of Project Purification."
He extended his hand. It was not a handshake between friends. It was the clasp of two serpents coiling around the same tree.
The Earl looked at the offered hand, then at the screens—the burning manor, the schematics for mutant prisons, the relentless Viper. He saw the future Stryker painted: a world purged of "genetic deviants," where a stabilized, frightened populace would willingly hand power to whatever strongman promised safety. A world perfectly shaped for a Hydra takeover.
He took Stryker's hand. The grip was firm, cold, and utterly devoid of warmth.
"A partnership," the Earl said.
"A covenant," Stryker corrected.
On the monitor, the Viper vanished from the S.H.I.E.L.D. convoy footage in a blur of green, leaving only corpses in her wake. The image froze, her fierce, beautiful face staring defiantly from the screen.
Two different kinds of evil had just shaken hands. One sought to rule the world through fear and chaos. The other sought to save it through purity and fire.
And their first target was a ghost in a bat-suit, hiding in the basement of a grieving aunt in Queens, unaware that the hunt for him had just been outsourced to a more zealous, more thorough breed of hunter.
In the shadows of the control room, unnoticed by either man, a small, spider-shaped drone, its optical camouflage flickering from sustained operation, detached from a ventilation duct. It had seen and heard everything. With a silent whir, it zipped away, a digital messenger carrying news of a terrifying new alliance back to its master.
The game board had not just been reset. New, more vicious pieces had been placed upon it. And the Bat, for the first time, was not the only predator in the dark.
(End of Chapter)
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