Daisy sneered when she saw this. This was the advantage of working through the system. The base held more than two thousand U.S. soldiers, and Stryker had also hired a substantial number of laboratory guards. A superhero would have to fight their way through the entire base. Daisy did not. A so-called investigation order was enough to break everyone's will to resist.
Her smile was gentle and harmless. To show that she had not come to fight, she had deliberately changed into a white blazer with a black skirt. The Strike Team behind her, however, looked vicious enough to eat people alive, creating a striking contrast.
"Colonel Stryker? Can we begin? I came here in good faith. Once I've cleared you of suspicion, I still have other places to visit."
"To heaven?" Stryker said darkly.
Daisy's expression did not change. "What was that? Say it again."
Every member of the Strike Team tightened their grip on their weapons, ready to open fire at the first sign of trouble. They were not U.S. soldiers. They were highly trained HYDRA!
The genuine U.S. soldiers opposite them were the ones hesitating. They looked toward their officers. They had enlisted to serve their country, not to commit treason.
The enlisted soldiers watched the junior officers, and the junior officers watched the field-grade officers. Only when the two officers who had long stayed at Stryker's side shook their heads did everyone relax.
"Heh, Colonel Stryker, lead the way." Looking at Stryker, now abandoned by almost everyone around him, Daisy's lips curved slightly into an elegant smile. Her lips were red, her teeth white, and several officers standing near Stryker stared in a daze.
As her Eternals-derived genes moved closer to completion, even Daisy's smallest gestures carried a distinctive beauty. Skadi had been the same. Even without a soul, even grievously wounded, her beauty had never been diminished in the slightest.
Aside from the freakish Thanos, all Eternals were handsome if male and beautiful if female.
Her looks won her a measure of goodwill among the U.S. soldiers. Stryker thought the situation over again and again but could not find a good solution. At least here, surrounded by U.S. troops and the Strike Team, there was nothing he could do.
Lady Deathstrike's fighting ability did not matter either. The moment Stryker ordered resistance, there was no telling what his American subordinates would do.
Then Stryker noticed Wolverine accompanying Daisy. Pointing at him, he asked, "Was this guy sent by the Pentagon too?"
Daisy acted as though she had only just noticed Wolverine. "Oh, Mr. Logan? No. Didn't you know? He's Canadian. He came along to guide us. Alkali Lake is rather remote."
Nearly choking on the sheer audacity of her argument, Stryker stopped arguing the point and said in a muffled voice, "Follow me."
Knowing politicians, after placing S.H.I.E.L.D. headquarters in Washington, why would they let Stryker run off to some remote corner of the world and set himself up as a little emperor out here?
As commander of the troops stationed at the base, Stryker's two military deputies were not truly on his side. Every month, they had to return to the Pentagon and report. Because Stryker also had people capable of psychic control, the two officers first underwent a battery of lie-detector tests and interrogations designed to determine whether their memories had been altered. Then they were separated and questioned about everything Stryker had done over the past month—what he had said and whom he had met.
If their accounts did not match, they could expect trouble.
For S.H.I.E.L.D., the government used divided authority and checks and balances. For Stryker, it was simple surveillance. He understood that perfectly well.
Daisy had dragged a whole collection of intelligence agencies into this joint enforcement operation precisely because she knew Stryker would not dare resist.
Back in the day, Red Skull had commanded powerful troops and possessed enormous ambition and ability, yet before fully breaking away, even he had not dared resist the Führer's surveillance.
If Red Skull, with soldiers and guns of his own, had chosen to play the obedient subordinate, did Stryker have the ability to resist now?
Daisy did not know. She had legitimate grounds for being there. If Stryker dared resist, Daisy would simply label him a terrorist. Research mutants? He could try again in his next life.
Stryker walked silently at the front. Only Lady Deathstrike remained beside him; the rest of the base guards had effectively sided with Daisy.
"This is it. Go ahead and inspect it." Stryker pushed open a door and entered first.
A powerful wave of psychic energy began affecting Daisy the moment she stepped through the door. This was different from the psychic suppression or psychic control used by Professor X and the White Queen. This time it was misdirection—a psychic illusion. At a deeper level, it deceived the human brain and every sense.
There was no bottomless dungeon before them, no chainsaws or impact drills. Instead there were broad corridors, white sheets and bedding, orderly medical staff, and patients quietly following instructions.
Patients? The word surfaced automatically in Daisy's mind. She had intended to call them prisoners, but her brain forcibly corrected the term.
Her brain told her that the people lying on the machines were all patients. They had looked tormented before, but after the medical staff gave them injections and treatment, every one of them wore a peaceful smile.
"Thank you. Thank you for saving my son." A kindly old woman threw herself at one of the agents and spoke with deep emotion.
Two glamorous-looking nurses smiled as they gently pulled her away. Every movement seemed poised and warm, as though this place were heaven itself.
Could this be any more fake?! Daisy secretly concentrated her psychic power. With her Eternals-derived genes entering the final two months of their maturation period, her psychic strength had begun to surge as well. This was not psychic power borrowed from the Phoenix; it was entirely her own, a force generated by her brain cells.
Strength, speed, constitution, mind—the Eternals had no weaknesses in any category. They represented the pinnacle of genetic technology. There was a reason humans regarded them as a race of gods.
Concentrating psychic power into her eyes, Daisy focused her gaze on the old woman.
This was no old woman at all, but a middle-aged man covered in blood. His face was twisted with pain. When he saw the agents enter, he thought rescuers had finally arrived and charged toward them as if his life depended on it, hoping these agents from the outside would save him.
And once the illusion was broken, the two nurses were not nurses either, but two huge, burly men. They did not belong to the military at all. They were thugs trained by Stryker, something the Pentagon had tacitly tolerated.
The two thugs had no idea Daisy could see through the illusion. With savage expressions, they pried the middle-aged man's fingers loose, punched and kicked him, and dragged him away. The concrete floor was streaked with blood, and the man screamed in agony. Yet none of the other agents saw any of it. In their eyes, the kindly old woman was simply being escorted away by two beautiful nurses.
"Ma'am, it doesn't look like there's anything wrong here, does it?" a somewhat short CIA agent asked Daisy.
Daisy glanced at him and nodded without changing her expression. "Agent Everett Ross, let's keep looking."
Spider-Woman—Ms. Drew—tugged at her sleeve. "Something about this place feels a little strange..." She could not explain exactly what felt strange.
Daisy likewise told her not to draw attention to it and to remain alert.