In the middle of the room, Ned was standing beside a big whiteboard, with "SHIELD INFILTRATION PLAN" written in big red letters in the middle.
He drew a few branches leading away from it like a mind map, and wrote a few subheadings. I could already feel my hair graying as I looked at his titles.
The titles included "MGS ", "ACT LIKE YOU BELONG", "BOOMBOOM," "05 COUNCIL", and "GET HELP".
I have a strong feeling I wouldn't like this.
"Okay," Ned started, while cracking open another can of Monster. "For the first plan, operation MGS, we're going to need one really special piece of equipment."
Oh? Maybe it isn't as bad as I think? "And what might that be?"
Ned started to draw something on the mind map next to the title. It looked surprisingly cube-shaped.
"A cardboard box." Ned said, looking into my eyes with a completely serious look.
"Ned."
"What?"
"Don't tell me MGS stands for..."
"It stands for Metal Gear Solid." Ned states proudly, as if praising himself for his genius idea.
I give him a deadpan stare.
"Okay! Okay! Hear me out! It gets better, ok?" Ned adds on hurriedly.
"..." I just stay silent. I feel so dead inside right now.
"So, I'll pretend to be a delivery person, and I'll hand them a big cardboard box with a big surprise inside." "He looks smug, like he just solved world hunger instead of stuffing me in a box."
"And? What's the surprise?"
"You."
"..."
Ned then draws a picture of a stick figure curled up inside of the box he drew earlier, plastered with a big happy face.
I proceeded to imitate the sound of the red buzzer from all those TV shows, and tell him to present the next idea.
"Okay! If that one wasn't to your liking, you'll surely like the next one. Its super low-key, super effective: you walk in... with a safety vest. And a clipboard."
I blink at him.
"That's it?"
"Yup."
"Ned... that's even worse than the last one..."
"No, dude, listen. No one questions the guy with a clipboard. You look like you're inspecting something. Say a fancy word like 'structural integrity' or 'radiation compliance' and boom- you're invisible."
"Okay, no. Skip."
Ned sighs.
"Fine. The next plan, my magnum opus, operation BOOMBOOM, is when we call the branch office, tell them we have a bom-"
"Stop." A fucking bomb threat... this ain't even funny anymore.
Ned pouted. "Okay, what about the plan where you act like you're a part of the 05 council? You said this was the SCP foundation irl, right? And nobody knows the faces of the 05 council?"
I pause for a second, debating the idea. But only for a second. I know Shield doesn't have an 05 council, but I'm not sure if there's anything like that for the part of Shield that's infiltrated by Hydra.
"Yeah, no. We're not even sure if Shield has an 05 council. Better idea than the other ones, though."
Ned sighs and looks towards his whiteboard, with 4 out of 5 plans crossed out.
"Well, that means we only have one choice then..."
"We're not doing 'GET HELP. '"
"We're doing 'GET HELP.'"
This feels oddly familiar. There's no way it's the same plan, right? Probably only the names are the same.
-o-
3rd person POV:
A few days later, near the Shield branch office
It was a normal day for Bob and John, who were stationed to watch over the entrance of the Shield Queens branch. People were just walking by the building, nobody even paying any mind. Hidden in plain sight, baby.
Then, as a duo of asian teenagers walked by, something peculiar happened. The slightly taller one of the two tripped on the flat pavement and smashed his head into the concrete floor.
His friend, startled by this, started panicking and calling for help everywhere. It doesn't seem like he's getting any.
John and Bob looked at each other, caught between protocol and basic human decency. On one hand, they were Shield agents, and they needed to stay in the shadows, but on the other hand, a teenager was dying right outside their doorstep.
At that moment, their eyes met through the window. The teenager outside, and John and Bob.
The teen looks relieved and runs right into the undercover shield base.
"Get help! Get help, please! My friend fell and hit his head really hard! I think he's knocked out!" The teen pleaded, eyes starting to wet.
"..." x2
John and Bob sighed. Protocol or not, they couldn't just watch a teen die in front of them.
"We have medical staff in the building. We can help him, but you'll have to just wait outside or go home. Our company doesn't really love visitors."
The teenager perked up at this, thanking John and Bob vigorously.
Soon, thanks to a call, the kid that got hurt was placed on a rolling stretcher and ushered inside the building.
Surprisingly, his friend just left after seeing his friend getting taken in. "He seemed like the type to wait for his friends..." John and Bob thought.
-o-
Alex POV:
No way that actually worked. Damn, my forehead still hurts from falling. I think I got a concussion. Maybe I should have just landed on my side or something. At least I'm not actually knocked out. I observe my surroundings by very slightly opening my eyes, making sure nobody spots me peeking.
Okay, so apparently, this base has underground levels. Which makes sense; it's SHIELD. If they didn't have secret underground levels, I'd be more concerned.
I'm being wheeled into the elevator, and two guys in medical scrubs, probably SHIELD medics, tap in a long-ass code into the floor selection panel like actual spy movie stuff. Instead of picking the floor they want to go to, they click multiple floors in quick succession, probably some number code.
Cool.
Elevator dings. Doors close. We start going down.
One of the medics casually checks my pulse, and I have to resist the urge to dramatically fake flatline just to see what happens. Wait. No. I should probably focus. I got caught up by the comedic tone of "Get Help" that I forgot that this is kind of serious. What I'm doing is probably highly illegal.
And you know what I say about illegal things? Its not a crime if you don't get caught. Lets try not to get caught.
The elevator ride is quiet. Kinda awkward, honestly. The Shield medics were awfully quiet and antisocial. Dang, is this what med school does to you...
Then, finally, it stops. Ding. Doors open. I get a peek at the SHIELD underground base.
It's cleaner than I expected. Sterile. Sci-fi hallways with metal walls, harsh white lights, and doors with retina scanners. I don't know what I was expecting- maybe more military stuff? Right now it just looks like an average office environment if the CEO was a brutal AI overlord.
As I get wheeled towards wherever I'm being sent to, I see a rather peculiar sight. It was an orange tabby cat riding on top of a... Goose? Big, white, feathery, totally menacing- yeah, that was a goose. Here, at Shield? What was it doing? And was the cat goose? The one behind Fury's eye patch?
What a peculiar combination. Goose and a goose. I guess I shouldn't be that surprised. This is Shield. The literal SCP Foundation.
Before I could think more on the topic of the geese (?), I get wheeled further down the facility. We take a right, a left, and another right, landing in front of a big metallic door.
The door whooshed open like we were boarding a spaceship instead of a Shield doctor's office
Inside, the room looked surprisingly cozy. Not cozy-cozy, like a grandma's house, but cozy in a sleek, futuristic way, like David's apartment from Cyberpunk Edgerunners.
The floor was matte silver, with subtle glowing lines that pulsed gently underfoot like the room itself was breathing. The walls were a smooth, steel-gray, with embedded screens that were either off or waiting for someone to say a magic word. A bunch of sleek, foldable medical tools were organized neatly on metallic trays near the wall, all labeled with clean, minimalist fonts like this was a high-end Apple store for surgery.
The people that brought me to this room moved me to the stiff-looking bed in the corner of the room, struggling to carry me from the stretcher to the bed.
After that, they left, leaving me to just stare at the way to white room.
Okay. Time to assess the situation.
Pros: I'm inside SHIELD. That's the infiltration part done. Good job, team.
Cons: I am inside SHIELD. As an intruder. Who has no exit plan. And probably a mild concussion.
Also, the bed is surprisingly comfy, which is honestly concerning. What kind of top-secret base has memory foam?
Why am I so calm about all of this happening? shouldn't I be freaking out about being in a shield facility right now? Is this because of the concussion?
I really shouldn't have followed Ned's plan. We didn't even think of anything after the get in part. Now what?
(a/n I uploaded a pokemon oneshot. Check it out. It's actually for a creative writing tournament my school is hosting, but I felt like uploading it. Making that oneshot was also the reason I didn't post yesterday. MB.)