#Poultry Barbed Wire | Explore Tumblr posts and blogs

amenders93 · 2 years ago

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2 Weeks till Chicken Run 2!!!!!

In every movie we have seen that involves a couple that are taking some time apart, an unexpected event happens that includes one of them seeming to have their back against the wall or in some kind of trouble. However, all is not lost because just in the nick of time, the other comes to the rescue and saves the latter. Last week, we saw the reflection of Rocky and Ginger's relationship as they spent time apart after Rocky decided to leave the farm without telling anyone. We've seen that despite the fact they tried to forget each other and move on, it became very clear that Ginger still loved Rocky and missed him greatly, and that Rocky still loved Ginger and he was questioning his decision to leave her and the other chickens during their time of need. Now this week, we're going to review the next action-packed scene - the escape from Tweedy's Farm. Will the chickens escape safely or will they become chicken pies after all?

Let's pick up right when Mr. Tweedy had finally fixed the pie machine, to the delight of Mrs. Tweedy but the horror of the chickens in the barnyard. Now the farmer has been sent to get the chickens to start making chicken pies but catches them in the act of attempting to finish their plane. Ginger has the chickens overpower him; they truss him up like a stuffed bird and place him under a hut. All the while, Mr. Tweedy has tried to warn his wife about the chickens' revolt, but she either ignores him or just can't hear him. The chickens' fearless leader tells them now is the time to make their escape - that they either die free chickens or die trying! So inspirational! You go, girl! The chickens then wheel the flying machine out onto a runway lit by a string of Christmas lights.

Now we're inside the plane with the chickens on both sides of an aisle where pedals are located for them to work the plane. Nick and Fetcher are inside with them, ready to leave as well. Ginger walks up the aisle to the cockpit, signaling to Fowler that they're ready for takeoff, only to discover that he's seated behind her and not in the pilot's seat. The hens soon discover that Fowler wasn't a pilot at all but a mascot in the RAF for the 644 Squadron, Poultry Division. Ginger convinces the old rooster to take the controls of the plane; since he's always talking about back in his day, and now today is his day. Fowler proudly complies and soon the hens are all pedaling, the propeller is turning, a takeoff ramp is placed up, wooden blocks are removed and the plane moves with wings that start flapping. As the plane approaches the takeoff ramp, Mr. Tweedy jumps up and kicks it over. The plane makes a hard right, knocking the farmer to the ground unconscious.

Ginger tells Fowler to turn the plane around and she runs back to the ramp. As she struggles to push it back into position again, Fowler turns the plane around, getting one of the wheel axles tangling a string of Christmas lights with it. Suddenly Mrs. Tweedy appears and looms over Ginger with an axe! The wicked woman slams the axe into the ramp, a hairsbreadth from Ginger's head, pinning her to the ground. This was it, this was the end of the line for our poor little firecracker hen. Mrs. Tweedy menacingly leans over Ginger, ready for the kill when all of a sudden, a loud noise distracts her. It was the sound of a bell; the bell of a tricycle. Both human and hen turn to the direction of the sound. What Ginger hears next is someone yelling out her name and who does she see?

Rocky Rhodes, daredevil extraordinaire, coming back to help his friends and especially save the love of his life once again. Rocky speeds downhill on his tricycle, aiming for a large mound of dirt just before the barbed-wire fence. He hits it hard, goes sailing into air, clearing the fence and keeps on going. Ginger has never been happier to see him at this moment, not just because he came back to save her but because she thought she'd never see the love of her life again. Unfortunately, Mrs. Tweedy sees him too and she pulls the axe out from the ramp, turning to face the rooster. But just as she does, the front tire of the trike conks her on the forehead and sent her sprawling. She falls backwards, the axe falls to the ground, barely missing her. That wicked witch of a woman soon faints from the thought of the axe almost hitting her.

At the same time, Rocky lands in front of Ginger. Very coolly, he skids the trike to a sideways stop and thumps the bell on the handlebars, as if he's revving the engine of a motorcycle. Last week I did say that Ginger would see her Prince Charming again, and I was right. Rocky and Ginger are happy to see each other again, but this is no time for happy reunions because the plane was headed right for them! Our young lovers grab the heavy ramp and start working feverishly to hoist it back up onto the fence as the plane rumbled closer and closer. Without a moment to spare, they managed to wedge the wooden brace into place and roll out of the way just as the wheels of the plane hit the ramp. The plane rolls up the ramp and soars over the fence to freedom, trailing the Christmas lights behind it. Ginger is mesmerized that their escape plan is working and then she hears Rocky calling her name. He takes her hand and they grab onto the string of lights, held on tight and soar up into the air. Hanging on to the lights for dear life, inching along, they managed to climb on board the plane.

Rocky makes in on first and he takes Ginger's hands, pulling her up to safety. They were safe; they were alone. They were staring into each other's eyes, staying this way for a long moment. Our young feathered lovers are together again! 💘 Then Rocky leans closer to Ginger, and closer, and... she slaps him across the face. She angrily tells him the slap is for leaving, leaving our shocked rooster clutching his hurt cheek. You have to admit, he did deserve that 😏. But to his relief, she gives him a soft smile and grabs his bandana, pulling him closer to kiss him for coming back. He's more than happy to oblige for a kiss with his fair lady hen. But just before they can kiss, the plane suddenly jolts. Oh, so close 😩.

Rocky and Ginger look down to see Mrs. Tweedy hanging from the Christmas lights and she was still wielding her axe. She snarls at them, scaring them a bit. Ginger looked down to see the lights still tangled in the plane's rear axle. She gets an idea; she yells out to Babs for a pair of scissor. Her friend looks through her knitting bag for scissors and when she finds them, they are then passed from chicken to chicken until they arrive in Ginger's hands. She then turns to Rocky, telling him to lower her down. He tries to protest against it, but when our stubborn hen gets an idea in her mind, there's no changing her mind. Fowler calls to the crew to increase their velocity; the chickens respond valiantly, their feet a blur of motion. One of my favorite lines: Babs - What does that mean? Bunty - It means pedal your flippin' giblets out!

Mrs. Tweedy then puts the axe into her mouth and starts to climb the Christmas lights toward the plane. Up above, Ginger puts the scissors into her mouth and leans out the back of the plane. Rocky lowers her carefully, holding her by her feet. Ginger tries to reach the Christmas lights with the scissors, but couldn't quite make it. She shouts to Rocky to lower her a little more. Mrs. Tweedy was still climbing, getting closer. Ginger, meantime, is still reaching for the strand of lights, trying to cut it, when she happened to notice that they were headed straight for the billboard for Mrs. Tweedy's Chicken Pies! She calls out to warn Fowler, who then pulls hard on the controls and the plane swoops sharply upward. Dangling from the lights, Mrs. Tweedy smacks hard into the billboard, ripping off the painted image of her own face. The plane rocked from the impact, whipping out of control. The chickens scream as the plane rocks and Nick and Fetcher scream even louder as they watch their precious eggs spill out of their bag.

Unfortunately, at the same time, Ginger slips out of Rocky's grasp and as she falls, she grabs the wire. Hanging on for dear life, she clutches the wire as she slid down it, Christmas lights popping as she went. She suddenly comes face to face with Mrs. Tweedy's gigantic painted face. The real Mrs. Tweedy whips the painted picture away to reveal her actual snarling face, with the axe still in her mouth! Ginger seizes this moment; she grasps the scissors firmly and tries with all her might to cut through the wire. However, they were too small and too dull; they would not go through. Mrs. Tweedy rears back to swing her axe at Ginger when suddenly... an egg hits the horrible woman in the face. Rocky was using the catapult they'd used for training to fire eggs at Mrs. Tweedy from it. Nick and Fetcher were loading their precious eggs into the catapult, with tears in their eyes and wailing if I may add. Rocky just keeps firing again and again, ignoring the miserable wails of the two rats. All he was concerned about was his precious Ginger. Her brave hero. Rocky's not just her Prince Charming; he's her knight in shining armor 💕.

Throughout this egg flinging, Ginger doesn't give up and is still trying to cut through the wire. Mrs. Tweedy takes another swipe with her axe, knocking the scissors out of Ginger's hand and sending them tumbling, end over end, through the air. Desperate, Ginger tries to bite through the wire; it was useless. Mrs. Tweedy climbs another notch toward Ginger. Rocky, meanwhile, yells back to Nick and Fetcher for more ammunition, but they have no more eggs! Rocky looks back at Ginger to see Mrs. Tweedy raising her axe again, aiming it right for Ginger's neck! He cries out to Ginger in alarm to warn her. Our now trapped hen looks up to see that horrible woman raising her axe. There was no place to go; she was going to get it.

But our smart hen looks down at the wire and gets an idea. Quick as a wink, she holds out the wire and Mrs. Tweedy swings down her axe at Ginger. On the plane, Rocky looks on helplessly as the love of his life gets the axe swung at her. He cries out with fear and sadness in his voice. Mrs. Tweedy grins at seeing Ginger hanging from the wire, headless from her point of view. But don't worry - Ginger cranks her neck to look at Mrs. Tweedy with egg all over her face (literally and figuratively). Mrs. Tweedy's grin starts to fall and at the same time, Rocky, with tears in his eyes looking sad and thinking that he lost Ginger, starts to smile little by little. Ginger smiles at Mrs. Tweedy, showing the severed light string; Mrs. Tweedy looks on shocked. Ginger lets go of one end and waves goodbye, watching the evil woman fall. The plane is now swooping over the barn so Mrs. Tweedy plummets neatly through the open window at the peak of the barn roof and falls into the chute of the pie machine.

On the plane, the chickens were still pedaling as they apparently watched the whole scene unfold. They were all cheering that Ginger had defeated Mrs. Tweedy. Rocky was so happy to see Ginger still alive and thwart that awful human that he gave Nick and Fetcher side hugs simultaneously. As the plane soars up and away from the barn, Mr. Tweedy, who has regained consciousness and untied himself, runs to the barn door and opens it. He sees his wife stuck in the machine trying to free herself. Alarms were sounding as pressure gauges were starting to rise, meaning that the machine was about to blow. Mr. Tweedy winced, then he slowly and quietly closes the barn door.

Meanwhile, up in the air, Ginger manages to climb back up to the plane. Rocky takes her hands and pulls her onboard, relieved that she is still alive and well. Our young feathered lovers are holding hands and looking into each other's eyes, smiling. Rocky and Ginger try once again to kiss when they suddenly hear a huge explosion down below. Once again, so close. Second time they try to have a romantic moment, the second time they get interrupted 😩. They look down and flinch as the pie machine exploded behind them, spewing a mushroom cloud of gravy high into the air. At least they're still holding hands though 👫🏼.

We're going to stop right there because I want to save the best part for last for next week's post. Anyway last week's post showed us that Rocky and Ginger had some time to think about how much they meant to each other. Even though they wanted to forget each other and move on with their lives, Rocky and Ginger realized they loved each other very much and had become a part of each other's lives. Ginger was becoming a better leader, still being honest but not as brutal as before and being more open with her feelings. Rocky was becoming more caring and selfless, thinking more about the others than himself. And after seeing the billboard advertisement, our cocky rooster realized he made a terrible mistake by leaving the farm when the chickens needed him the most. But he mostly realized he will never be truly happy unless he had a special someone in his life - Ginger. So Rocky made another big decision; one that surely changed everything... and it's even better than the last one.

Our daring rooster made the right choice to go back and help his friends, and just in time to save Ginger from an axe-wielding Mrs. Tweedy; an act that she is extremely grateful for. Like the good team they are, Rocky and Ginger managed to get the plane into the air and climb aboard themselves. On the plane, our young lovers are happy to have each other back again. Ginger slaps him across the face as payback for leaving but tries to kiss him for coming back. But first, they had to get rid of some unnecessary weight - Mrs. Tweedy. While Ginger tries to cut the evil woman off the line, Rocky defends his lady fair by attacking Mrs. Tweedy with eggs but soon runs out. After this attempt, Rocky thought that Mrs. Tweedy had beheaded Ginger with the axe and cries out in despair but he starts to tearfully smile when he sees that the axe actually cut through the wire, sending Mrs. Tweedy down into the pie machine in the barn. After that daring and risky success, Rocky and Ginger attempt to have another romantic moment to kiss but get interrupted by an explosion of gravy from the pie machine. But at this point, we can all agree that our young feathered lovers are safe and together, still happy to have each other back in their lives once again. However, we can also agree that if it weren’t for those two interruptions, they would have had their first kiss by now.

I also want to add that you can see a workprint of the Ginger vs. Mrs. Tweedy scene and different workprint versions of Mrs. Tweedy's defeat on the YouTube links below.

youtube

Anyway this is my eleventh weekly Rocky/Ginger moment post commemorating the upcoming sequel to Chicken Run. I hope you enjoyed this post. There will be one more post about the first film coming up in the future. Waiting for this long-awaited sequel may not be easy but these posts are making it easier as the release date draws nearer. But now the wait is almost over!!!!

#chicken run #chicken run 2 #chicken run dawn of the nugget #dawn of the nugget #ginger and rocky #rocky and ginger #rocky #ginger #countdown #Youtube

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almiqahardware · 2 months ago

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When disasters strike — whether due to natural calamities or humanitarian crises — the need for fast, functional, and reliable infrastructure becomes urgent. Among the many tools in the disaster response toolkit, wire mesh stands out as a versatile, cost-effective solution for building temporary shelters and supporting critical infrastructure.

From stabilizing structures to securing camps, wire mesh delivers strength, adaptability, and ease of deployment. Here’s how it plays a pivotal role in emergency response efforts:

1. Rapid Construction of Temporary Shelters

One of the first priorities in any disaster relief operation is providing safe and temporary housing for displaced populations. Wire mesh — especially welded and woven types — can be quickly paired with lightweight materials to form:

Structural frames for tents or modular homes

Reinforced wall systems using mesh panels and insulating fabric

Secure window and door coverings

Advantages of wire mesh in shelter construction:

Easy to store and transport in rolls or panels

Fast assembly using minimal tools or technical expertise

Corrosion-resistant — ideal for coastal or humid environments

In emergencies requiring concrete structures (e.g., bunkers or field clinics), wire mesh also serves as reinforcement formwork, strengthening quickly-poured floors and walls.

2. Perimeter Security and Protection of Critical Supplies

In post-disaster environments, security is a top concern. Wire mesh is widely used to create:

Perimeter fences around relief camps

Storage cages for food, medicine, and equipment

Barriers for crowd control and access restriction

These systems are crucial to:

Prevent looting or tampering with aid supplies

Protect vulnerable groups, especially women and children

Establish quarantine or isolation areas when needed

Galvanized or PVC-coated mesh ensures long-term durability in outdoor use, while barbed or razor wire can be deployed in high-security zones.

3. Sanitation and Hygiene Infrastructure

Preventing disease outbreaks is critical in disaster zones. Wire mesh supports the quick setup of:

Temporary toilet and shower enclosures

Waste storage units with natural ventilation

Drainage cages and debris filters for water systems

Its open-grid structure promotes airflow and visibility while maintaining privacy and containment — helping to preserve both public health and personal dignity.

4. Temporary Enclosures for Livestock and Animals

In agricultural regions, disaster-affected families often relocate with their livestock. Wire mesh is ideal for building:

Livestock shelters and holding pens

Barriers to separate animal zones from human habitation

Fencing to protect food stores and crops from animal intrusion

This supports livelihood recovery by preserving essential assets like cattle, goats, and poultry — especially for rural and pastoral communities.

5. Debris Management and Hazardous Zone Control

Disasters often leave behind unstable buildings, sharp debris, and hazardous terrain. Wire mesh contributes to:

Securing dangerous zones or collapsed structures

Stabilizing partially fallen walls or ceilings

Creating walkways, ramps, or makeshift bridges

These applications improve safety for rescue workers and offer reassurance to displaced residents navigating unfamiliar and unstable surroundings.

Choosing the Right Wire Mesh for Emergency Use

Not all mesh is created equal — relief planners should evaluate:

Material Strength: Steel or stainless steel for durability and load-bearing applications

Protective Coating: Galvanized or PVC-coated mesh for weather resistance

Mesh Size and Thickness: Fine mesh for sanitation, thicker gauge for structural support

Ease of Deployment: Pre-fabricated panels or flexible rolls for quick setup

Additionally, wire mesh that complies with international safety and building codes ensures performance and reliability during high-stress deployments.

Partnering with Experts for Rapid Response

At Al Miqat Hardware, we provide high-quality, disaster-ready wire mesh solutions tailored to the demands of emergency environments.

✅ Rapid delivery across the UAE and Gulf ✅ Custom mesh products for specific relief needs ✅ Expert consultation and B2B/B2C technical support

📞 Contact our Disaster Relief Response Team today for bulk orders, custom solutions, or urgent delivery requests.

Conclusion: Strength in Simplicity

In disaster zones, every material must be multifunctional — balancing speed, strength, safety, and flexibility. Wire mesh delivers on all fronts, making it an indispensable tool for emergency shelter, infrastructure, and recovery.

From securing aid stations to building safe living spaces, wire mesh helps communities stabilize, rebuild, and recover. As climate change increases the frequency and intensity of natural disasters, planners and relief agencies must invest in solutions that are not only fast but future-proof.

Wire mesh isn’t just a building material — it’s a building block for resilience.

#wire mesh #sharjah #galvanized wire mesh #stainless steel wire mesh #security fencing #al miqat hardware #oman business #welded wire mesh #wire fencing #galvanized

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thewoodprojectaus · 1 year ago

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Cost-Effective Farm Fencing Solutions for Every Budget

Farm fencing protects your livestock, crops, and property boundaries. However, finding the right fencing solution that fits your budget can be challenging.

This guide'll explore cost-effective farm fencing options that provide security and durability without breaking the bank.

Understanding Your Farm Fencing Needs

Before diving into specific fencing options, assessing your farm's unique requirements is crucial. Consider factors such as the type of livestock you have, the terrain and size of your farm, and any specific security concerns.

By understanding these needs upfront, you can choose a fencing solution that offers the best value for your investment.

Traditional Farm Fencing: A Reliable Choice

Traditional fencing, such as barbed wire or wooden post-and-rail fences, remains popular due to its affordability and durability.

Barbed wire fences are effective for containing livestock and are relatively inexpensive to install.

Wooden post-and-rail fences provide a classic look and can be a cost-effective option for smaller farm areas or decorative boundaries.

Electric Farm Fencing: Balancing Cost with Effectiveness

Electric farm fencing has gained popularity for its ability to deter animals with minimal material costs.

It typically consists of electrified wires or tapes supported by wooden or metal posts.

While initial setup costs may be higher due to the need for an energiser and insulated wires, electric fencing requires less maintenance over time and can be highly effective for perimeter security and rotational grazing systems.

High-Tensile Wire Fencing: Durability at a Lower Cost

High-tensile wire fencing offers a balance of strength and cost-effectiveness. It consists of tightly stretched wires supported by sturdy wooden or metal posts.

This type of fencing requires careful installation to maintain proper tension, but it provides long-lasting security for larger farm areas once in place.

High-tensile wire fencing is suitable for containing cattle, horses, and other large livestock.

Mesh Fencing: Versatile and Practical

Mesh fencing, such as woven or welded wire panels, provides versatility and durability for various farm applications.

Woven wire fencing, made of interlocking wires, offers excellent containment for smaller animals and can be adapted for uneven terrain.

Welded wire panels are sturdy and practical for creating secure enclosures for poultry or garden areas.

While mesh fencing may have higher initial costs than other options, its durability and versatility make it a cost-effective long-term investment.

Cost-Saving Tips for Farm Fencing

Plan Your Layout: Proper planning reduces material wastage and labour costs.

Consider DIY Installation: If feasible, installing the fencing yourself can save on labour expenses.

Buy in Bulk: Purchasing fencing materials in bulk often results in discounted prices.

Regular Maintenance: Preventative maintenance prolongs the lifespan of your fencing, reducing long-term replacement costs.

Conclusion

Choosing the right farm fencing involves balancing upfront costs with long-term durability and effectiveness.

You can secure your property without exceeding your budget by understanding your farm's needs and exploring cost-effective options like traditional fencing, electric fencing, high-tensile wire, and mesh fencing.

Whether you're fencing a small pasture or a large agricultural area, solutions are available to fit every budget and requirement. Source: https://thewoodprojectaus.blogspot.com/2024/08/cost-effective-farm-fencing-solutions.html

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vijayrajindiapoultry-blog · 6 years ago

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#Poultry Cages Manufacturers India #Poultry Feeders #Cooling Pads #Poultry nipple drinkers #Poultry Winch #Poultry De-Beaker Machine #Poultry Cooling Pad #Poultry Gas Brooder #Poultry Chain Link #Poultry Barbed Wire #Sprinkler System #Chicks Box

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gloamses · 3 years ago

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a fun experience is walking from a busy train station to an airport hotel, which you’d think would be a well-populated region, but somehow in the half a mile between them it becomes a wasteland entirely devoid of any human presence, and you walk through a live poultry district that smells like a slaughterhouse and is only inhabited by many very noisy rats. you get to the airport hotel, according to google maps, by walking through a spooky alleyway with barbed wire on either side, mattresses and assorted dumped trash piled on the perimeters, and smashed glass every inch of the way

#text #this was fun!

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afstar · 3 years ago

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Different applications of binding wire for construction

Binding wire is one of the most vital components you can easily find on construction sites. The binding wire for construction is made of mild steel that is mostly used to tie up TMT bars, beams, and walls so the structure remains concrete.

Besides construction, the binding wire has versatile uses in fencing, making ropes, and electrodes.While there are several steel manufacturing companies to produce binding wire, only a few like AF star is known for their top-grade steel products trusted by many.

Bonus tip: If you are looking for a sturdy and ductile binding wire for 1 ton of steel reinforcement, always buy 10kgs of binding wire for desirable results.

So, let’s find out in detail about the various applications of steel binding wire

Also known as annealed wires have wide applications in any civil construction applications. The purpose of this wire is to accurately keep the steel bar intact in its position to avoid any construction blunder.

Steel binding wire has higher ductility that doesn’t fall apart even under heavy pressure.

You can use binding wire for durable fencing around your property or farm and even poultry mesh netting. However, sizing the wire can be labor and time-intensive.

Because of its durability and flexibility, steel binding wire is used to bind heavy materials to prevent toppling.

Binding wire for construction is also widely used in commercial manufacturing and packaging to safely pack finished products.

Use extensively for barbed wire manufacturing.

Steel binding wire has several uses beyond construction applications, but the only condition here is you must buy it from a specialized manufacturer. So be an aware buyer and invest in high-quality steel binding wire for error-free project applications and executions.

#Binding wire for construction

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newstfionline · 4 years ago

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Wednesday, August 25, 2021

U.S. Is Getting a Crash Course in Scientific Uncertainty (NYT) When the coronavirus surfaced last year, no one was prepared for it to invade every aspect of daily life for so long, so insidiously. The pandemic has forced Americans to wrestle with life-or-death choices every day of the past 18 months—and there is no end in sight. Scientific understanding of the virus changes by the hour, it seems. The virus spreads only by close contact or on contaminated surfaces, and then turns out to be airborne. The virus mutates slowly, but then emerges in a series of dangerous new forms. Americans do not need to wear masks. Wait, they do. At no point in this ordeal has the ground beneath our feet seemed so uncertain. Just last week, federal health officials said they would begin offering booster shots to all Americans in the coming months. Days earlier, those officials had assured the public that the vaccines were holding strong against the delta variant of the virus, and that boosters would not be necessary. As early as Monday, the Food and Drug Administration is expected to formally approve the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine, which has already been given to scores of millions of Americans. Some holdouts found it suspicious that the vaccine was not formally approved yet somehow widely dispensed. For them, “emergency authorization” has never seemed quite enough. Americans are living with science as it unfolds in real time. The process has always been fluid, unpredictable. But rarely has it moved at this speed, leaving citizens to confront research findings as soon as they land at the front door, a stream of deliveries that no one ordered and no one wants.

Census data: U.S. hunger problem may be waning, but food assistance still tops pre-pandemic levels (Washington Post) Hunger around America is improving, compared with a month ago, according to the most recent U.S. census data. But food insecurity has a long way to go before returning to pre-pandemic levels. Self-reported food insecurity for the week ending Aug. 2 was at its lowest levels since the start of the coronavirus pandemic for households with children, according to the census data. That dovetails with strong jobs numbers, stronger economic growth and other bright spots in the economic recovery. But food stamps enrollment is still way up, 2 million more than last year and 6 million more than in 2019. And food banks are still seeing dramatically more need than during pre-pandemic times. Plus money doesn’t go quite as far, as the cost of many grocery items—including beef, poultry, eggs and dairy—continues to tick higher, as it has for well over a year, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics.

Inflation watch (NYT) The good news is that job openings are abundant, wages for people at the lower end of the pay scale are rising quickly, and it appears that the post-pandemic recovery won’t be like the long slog that followed the three previous recessions. But consumer prices have been rising faster than average wages—meaning that, on average, workers are seeing the purchasing power of their paycheck fall. People looking to buy a car or build a house or obtain a wide variety of other products are finding it hard to do so. And while much of that reflects temporary supply disruptions that should abate in coming months, other forces could keep prices rising. These include soaring rents and the delayed effects of higher prices from companies having to pay higher wages.

Cleanup begins in soggy Northeast as Henri plods back to sea (AP) Residents across the waterlogged Northeast began clearing mud and tearing out sodden carpets Monday after deluges dropped by Tropical Storm Henri, whose remnants threatened further flooding in New England as the system made a slow trek back to the sea. The smell of sewage filled the air as residents of Rossmoor, a retirement community in central New Jersey’s Monroe Township, returned to soaked homes and ruined possessions after Henri turned their streets into rivers. Henri spared coastal areas of New York and New England major damage when its center made landfall Sunday in Rhode Island. But its size and slow speed led to deluges in areas from Maine to Pennsylvania.

Turkey reinforces border to block any Afghan migrant wave (Reuters) Afghans who manage to make the weeks-long journey through Iran on foot to the Turkish border face a three-metre high wall, ditches or barbed wire as Turkish authorities step up efforts to block any refugee influx into the country. The beefed up border measures in Turkey, which already hosts nearly 4 million Syrian refugees and is a staging post for many migrants trying to reach Europe, began as the Taliban started advancing in Afghanistan and took over Kabul last week. Turkey is not the only country putting up barriers: Its neighbour Greece has just completed a 40-km fence and surveillance system to keep out migrants who still manage to enter Turkey and try to reach the European Union. Authorities say there are 182,000 registered Afghan migrants in Turkey and up to an estimated 120,000 unregistered ones. President Tayyip Erdogan urged European countries to take responsibility for any new influx, warning that Turkey had no intention of becoming “Europe’s migrant storage unit”.

Paralympics 2020 (NBC) The 2020 Paralympics get underway today in Tokyo, with many anticipating records to be broken in the long jump, swimming, and powerlifting, among other events. Athletes will compete across almost two dozen events including badminton and taekwondo—the two new sports being featured this year. The Games are expected to be the biggest ever in Paralympic history, with roughly 4,500 athletes from almost every country competing in events. Similar to this summer’s Olympic Games, the stands will be mostly absent of spectators due to COVID-19 protocols.

Harris rebukes China in major speech on Indo-Pacific (AP) U.S. Vice President Kamala Harris delivered a sharp rebuke to China for its incursions in the South China Sea, warning its actions there amount to “coercion” and “intimidation” and affirming that the U.S. will support its allies in the region against Beijing’s advances. “We know that Beijing continues to coerce, to intimidate and to make claims to the vast majority of the South China Sea,” she said in a major foreign policy speech Tuesday in Singapore in which she laid out the Biden administration’s vision for the Indo-Pacific. “Beijing’s actions continue to undermine the rules-based order and threaten the sovereignty of nations.” Harris, who is on a weeklong swing through Southeast Asia, declared that the U.S. “stands with our allies and our partners” in the face of threats from China. The speech sought to cement the U.S. commitment to supporting its allies in an area of growing importance to the Biden administration, which has made countering China’s influence globally a centerpiece of its foreign policy. And it came during a critical moment for the United States, as the Biden administration seeks to further solidify its pivot toward Asia while America’s decades-long focus on the Middle East comes to a messy end with the chaotic withdrawal from Afghanistan.

US troops surge evacuations out of Kabul but threats persist (AP) The U.S. military pulled off its biggest day of evacuation flights out of Afghanistan by far on Monday, but deadly violence that has blocked many desperate evacuees from entering Kabul’s airport persisted, and the Taliban signaled they might soon seek to shut down the airlifts. Twenty-eight U.S. military flights ferried about 10,400 people to safety out of Taliban-held Afghanistan over 24 hours that ended early Monday morning, and 15 C-17 flights over the next 12 hours brought out another 6,660, White House officials said. The chief Pentagon spokesman, John Kirby, said the faster pace of evacuation was due in part to coordination with Taliban commanders on getting evacuees into the airport. With access still difficult, the U.S. military went beyond the airport to carry out another helicopter retrieval of Americans. U.S. officials said a military helicopter picked up 16 American citizens Monday and brought them onto the airfield for evacuation. This was at least the second such rescue mission beyond the airport; Kirby said that last Thursday, three Army helicopters picked up 169 Americans near a hotel just beyond the airport gate and flew them onto the airfield. Biden said Sunday he would not rule out extending the evacuation beyond Aug. 31. But Taliban spokesman Suhail Shaheen, in an interview with Sky News, said that Aug. 31 is a “red line” the U.S. must not cross and that extending the American presence would “provoke a reaction.”

Taliban rule presents aid agencies with moral, fiscal dilemma (Reuters) As foreign governments, aid institutions and companies scramble to evacuate staff from Afghanistan, a crucial question is emerging: should they engage with the ruling Taliban or abandon years of investment in the country and 38 million Afghans? The Taliban in the past week has pledged peaceful relations with other countries, women’s rights and independent media but some former diplomats and academics said the Islamist militant group, while more media and internet savvy than the Taliban of the 1990s, is just as brutal. For foreign aid agencies the situation presents “a paradox,” said Robert Crews, a Stanford University history professor and author of the 2015 book “Afghan Modern: The History of a Global Nation.” “If you are an aid worker at a state hospital, you are serving a regime whose legitimacy is in the balance,” he said. “But if everybody goes home, will the state collapse?” Afghanistan’s government budget is 70% to 80% funded by international donors. The country faces economic collapse without that aid.

In Shift, Israel Quietly Allows Jewish Prayer on Temple Mount (NYT) The Israeli government has long forbidden Jews to pray on the Temple Mount, a site sacred to Jews and Muslims, yet Rabbi Yehudah Glick made little effort to hide his prayers. In fact, he was livestreaming them. Since Israel captured the Old City of Jerusalem from Jordan in 1967, it has maintained a fragile religious balance at the Temple Mount, the most divisive site in Jerusalem: Only Muslims can worship there, while Jews can pray at the Western Wall below. But recently the government has quietly allowed increasing numbers of Jews to pray there, a shift that could aggravate the instability in East Jerusalem and potentially lead to religious conflict. “It’s a sensitive place,” said Ehud Olmert, a former Israeli prime minister. “And sensitive places such as this, which have an enormous potential for explosion, need to be treated with care.”

Desperate Nigerians sell homes and land to free kidnapped children (Reuters) After armed men snatched seven of Abubakar Adam’s 11 children in northwestern Nigeria, he sold his car and a parcel of land and cleaned out his savings to raise a ransom to free them. He sent his 3 million naira ($7,300) into the bush, together with payments from other families in his town of Tegina. The kidnappers took the money, seized one of the men delivering it and sent back a new demand for more cash and six motorbikes. “We are in agony,” the 40-year-old tyre repairman told Reuters, still waiting for any sign of what happened to his children three months after the mass abduction. “Honestly I don’t have anything left.” Kidnappers have taken more than 1,000 students since December amid a rash of abductions across the impoverished northwest. Around 300 of the children have still not been returned. President Muhammadu Buhari has told states not to pay anything to kidnappers, saying it will only encourage more abductions. Security agencies say they are targeting the bandits with military action and other methods. Meanwhile, hundreds of parents are facing the same quandary: do everything they can to raise the ransoms themselves, or risk never seeing their children again.

#headlines #news

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diamantinemind · 7 years ago

Text

Risky Business

Summary: The Frosts practice risky corporate strategies while visiting an old wartime ally and business rival at his secret research facility in Flushing, Queens. Several days later, Emma and Elias decide to insure a potentially auspicious business asset as they inspect the aftermath of Natalia's visit to the great city of New York.

Pairing: Natasha Romanoff x Mutant!OC (Enemies to Friends)

Word Count: 10,374

A/N: Thanks for reading! Feedback is always appreciated.

“I wonder what the homeowners insurance rates are like in the area?” Elias mused aloud to his mother as he drove his white Ferrari 275 GTS convertible northbound down Whitestone Expressway.

He glanced to where Emma sat in the leather passenger seat of his roadster. Her long ash blonde hair was piled atop the back of her head by a handful of hairpins and sheer willpower, and it was tucked behind a satiny white polka dotted headscarf that was baby blue on one side and canary yellow on the reverse. The sunlight glared off the reflective lenses of her 18 karat gold-plated Cartier sunglasses, danced down the sleek powder blue leather of her Tibetan lamb fur-trimmed coat, and reflected off her high-waisted dove-white palazzo pants. She idly thrummed her French manicured fingernails on the door panel as the clement mid-March breeze gently tugged at the fur of her coat and the ends of her hair.

“This munitions plant of Howard’s has not been officially operative since October of 1945, so I cannot believe it would be as exorbitant as you imagine it being,” she said as Elias steered onto Exit 14 and coasted along the off-ramp. Emma cast her attention down to Flushing Creek below them as they crossed it. “I remember when this place used to be beautiful. Marshes, water fit for swimming, greenery as far as the eye could see.”

“I only ever remember this part of New York, borrowing the language of Fitzgerald—damn the oleaginous toad and his puerile, psychologically vacant writing—being but a great valley of ashes,” Elias recalled, his pale eyes flickering along the industrial landscape. “I can still taste the bitterness of char on my tongue from when we used to go this way to visit clients and investors in Port Washington.”

“I should have had you a century sooner so that you could have seen this place before humanity ruined it, darling,” Emma sighed wistfully as she turned her focus back to the road upon the off-ramp’s termination on the other side of Flushing Creek. Elias merged onto a road that he drove along until he came to the turn lane for Linden Place. When the traffic light changed to green, he made a right onto Linden. “Did I ever tell you that, after we read it, I burned the signed copy of The Great Gatsby that Fitzgerald gave us?”

“What?” Elias snorted in delight, his gaze skimming over a bowling alley, an endless stream of brownstone apartments, a hotel painted one shade darker than his convertible, and aging townhouses as they traversed Linden Place. “Mother, you didn’t!”

“I did,” Emma grinned. Elias’s shoulders shook with laughter as he turned onto 32nd Avenue. “I packaged the ashes and had them shipped to his doorstep.”

Lined with rundown graffiti-littered red brick warehouses, grease-smudged automobile shops, and dirt-stained brownstone apartments, 32nd Avenue stretched on for several blocks before it culminated in the bustling intersection of 32nd and College Point Boulevard. Beyond the intersection lay a long strip of land along the eastern bank of Flushing Creek where the Queens-based Stark Industries munitions plant loomed like the carcass of an aged grey beast.

“Well,” Elias said after a beat of driving in silence. “That explains it.”

“Explains what, darling?”

“Why I could never find that bloody book when I tried to burn it myself.”

The sound of Emma’s laughter, so very much like the musical sound of frozen rain tapping on a windowpane or like the crystals of a ballroom chandelier tinkling above a grand ballroom, bubbled from her throat to rest upon her son’s ears. With a wry grin, Elias came to a stop at the intersection at the end of 32nd Avenue and flicked on his blinker. As he waited for the traffic light to change in his favor, Elias and Emma observed through a steady stream of traffic the seemingly abandoned Stark Industries plant where Howard’s people made munition, missiles, and napalm for the U.S. government during the Second World War. Unknown to virtually everyone, though, was the fact that life still teemed within what externally seemed but a carapace of a place that had seen far better days. Hell, Elias and his mother had only uncovered the hidden purpose of this low profile location of Howard’s through some good-natured corporate espionage.

“Can you feel the guards?” Emma leaned forward in her seat, tipping her sunglasses low and casting her icy eyes along the bank.

A long compound of connected buildings encircled in barbed wire and chain link fencing, the Stark Industries munitions plant stretched from 32nd Avenue to 34th Avenue under the shadow of Whitestone Expressway and alongside the brackish waters of Flushing Creek. Despite it being widely believed to have been left unused since the end of the war, as a neighbor, Elias personally felt that nothing would delight him more than to look out his window every morning as he listened to Don McNeill’s Breakfast Club on the radio and know that he was only a single deviant spark away from a conflagration of God knows what kind of explosive that could still be lying around in Howard’s old plant that would force all of Flushing to be evacuated and consequently send everyone’s property values plummeting.

Regardless, neither Elias nor his mother had to rely on their telepathic talents to grasp that if there was ever a reason for America’s middle-aged and infamously overt Mustachioed Casanova to operate with what scant subtlety he possessed and work out of what appeared for all intents and purposes to be a deserted factory instead of one of his more highbrow and cutting-edge locales around the world, it must have been a good one. Naturally, Elias and Emma could already confirm that what Howard was hiding behind the thick concrete walls of his plant did indeed necessitate a certain degree of… well, subtlety, especially considering the oft apocalyptic tensions between the United States and the U.S.S.R. that had only been exacerbated since Elias and his mother (and the rest of the Western World for that matter) had lost Kennedy to an assassin in Texas a year and four months ago. The last thing Howard would want the public hearing was that he had been working alongside a Soviet, let alone an authority on electromagnetism and fusion reaction that was formerly on the KGB’s payroll, since 1946.

“I can sense the guards,” Elias nodded as the light turned green and he made a left onto College Point Boulevard. “Twenty-five professionals hired from a private military company as well as a team of Stark Industries scientists.” Elias drifted into the lane closest to the razor-edged enclosure surrounding the munitions plant and eyed the locked gateway up ahead on the side of the road. “I do wonder why Howard chose to hire PMCs to serve as guards instead of capitalizing on his position as one of the directors of S.H.I.E.L.D. to staff this facility.”

“You can ask him soon enough, darling; he’s working alongside his boffins and the Soviet as we speak.”

“Splendid,” Elias’s irises silvered as they remained trained on the road before him.

He reached out with his mind and caressed the fragile psyches of every single one of Howard’s PMCs, his influence casting far and wide throughout the plant and shimmering in the atmosphere over the factory like a great steely net before ensnaring the pliant minds of the hired guards in his telepathic grasp. Twenty-five budlike brains burst into open-petaled blossoms for Elias, proffering to him all their knowledge and skills and secrets for his use. Twenty-five sets of eyes extended Elias’s sight to all reaches of the building, no dark corner left unseen, no act left unwitnessed. From the former warehouse-turned-state-of-the-art security and surveillance station to the long production lines remodeled into a number of high-tech laboratories, Elias saw it all. With hardly half a thought, he compelled two PMCs posted in the security and surveillance station to begin redirecting the incriminating gaze of any security camera onsite that even held a fraction of a chance of capturing Elias and his mother on film, and he urged another pair of guards to rush to the gate.

“Such a peculiar place for a weapons factory,” Elias said as he pulled off College Point Boulevard and drove up to the gateway just as the guards were so generously slipping loose the final lock and pushing the gate open. When Howard’s two PMCs were safely out of the way, Elias eased his Ferrari forward into the compound and parked it at one of the loading bays. “I suppose we cannot judge Howard too harshly, though; we do have that one electronics factory in the urban heart of Tehran.”

“Oh,” Emma sighed longingly while she slipped off her designer sunglasses and set them on the dash. “I miss Iran, darling—the cuisine is scrumptious.”

“Now that you mention it, Mother, I could go for some of the stew we had last time; you know, the one with poultry and pomegranate syrup that was served with white rice. Khoresh-e fesenjān?” A pair of guards jogged to Elias’s roadster, Heckler & Koch handguns holstered at their hips, and opened the driver’s and passenger’s side doors with all the grace of well-trained valets. Elias slid out his car, tossed his keys to the guard nearest him, and patted him on the chest. “Be a dear and make sure my baby does not get hurt while we are gone, sweetheart; I just waxed and detailed him all by hand this morning, and I swear that if someone so much as puts their oily finger on him, I will damn well but a bloody dent in them and you.”

“You and your cars,” Emma snorted at her son as the second guard offered her his hand. She took his help graciously and rose to her feet before eying the vacant loading dock. “I’ll give Howard this much: he’s committed to the act of making this facility appear too ignoble for use by one of America’s most illustrious billionaires since the likes of Rockefeller, Carnegie, or us.”

Elias’s mother was far from wrong. The concrete loading bay which had once been a continuous sheet of smooth grey was pocked with potholes and had been reduced to cracked rubble in spots, allowing weeds to grow up from the earth and color the dreary ground. Faded newspaper shreds were caught in the links of the fencing and waved like banners in the breeze, empty aluminum beer cans dotted the lot outside the munitions plant like curious metallic flowers, and shards of glass lay hidden in the dirt like jewels waiting to be polished. The metal loading dock doors were streaked with rust and decorated with the most sophisticated of urban artworks. Though he was being unfairly sarcastic, some of the graffiti actually impressed Elias, such as the hyperrealistic rendition of Rosa Parks and Dr. King standing hand-in-hand or the art-nouveau depiction of Erik Lehnsherr’s helmeted profile in shades of oxblood and aubergine with the phrase “No more hiding, no more suffering” arcing around the crown of his anti-telepathy headgear. Elias shook his head. To a degree, Erik was right, and Charles was no different, and yet… their philosophies were two vastly disparate kinds of extremism.

Turning away from the graffiti and walking to his mother, Elias nodded at a nondescript side door: “According to Howard’s watchdogs, that is one of the two entrances to the renovated laboratories. There is another around back. Both are heavily fortified, but I have guards ready to let us in on my command.”

Emma looped her arm through her son’s: “Shall we?”

With the minds of Howard’s PMCs at their disposal, Elias and his mother made quick work of navigating the plant, which was as slovenly and slipshod on the inside as it was on the outside for much of their trek through the mechanized wasteland that was the vast majority of Howard’s secret facility. Just when Elias had been beginning to feel like he was going to need at least three separate highly thorough showers to disinfect himself of the dirt and dust, he and Emma stumbled upon the portion of the plant which had been remodeled for scientific study. Hidden behind a set of biometrically locked blast-proof doors, stepping into Howard’s laboratories was like stepping into a different plane of reality where grey grittiness and squalor were but distant dreams of an epoch long lost to the sands of time. Elias actually had to squint against the fluorescent lighting reflecting off the blinding sterility and brilliant whiteness of the renovated assembly line-turned-research center.

“Bloody hell,” he cursed under his breath, uncertain himself of whether he was more stunned by the drastic change of scenery or the glaring lights.

Blinking as his eyes adjusted, Elias quickly scanned the former factory floor while his mother telepathically cloaked them from mortal sight, molding the multicolored psionic energy in the room into a frigid white dome of power that swirled and glittered about herself and her son like a localized snowstorm. Austere walls marked with windows of reinforced glass, diagram- and equation-littered chalkboards, and machinery of the highest caliber—well, in the United States and not owned by Frost International, anyway; Elias had seen better in some of his and his mother’s own facilities and in Wakanda, but that was another story. Men in lab coats buzzed and droned about like studious bees across the room, arguing and hypothesizing and collaborating. Some pointed fervently at schematics sketched upon the chalkboards. Elias followed their gaze to see repeated figures appearing at least once on each chalkboard in the room: an all too familiar crystalline, cube-shaped vessel of unimaginable power and limitless energy and some manner of largescale toric…thingamabob?

“Do you see this?” Elias telepathically queried his mother as he walked past several of Howard’s scientists to inspect an unmanned chalkboard. “These equations? The schematics? Howard’s finally using his research on the Tesseract.”

“A few of the finer details regarding the physics are off,” Emma paced after her son and narrowed her sapphire eyes in scrutiny at the chalkboard. “Are these people not supposed to be the best scientific minds Howard has to work with?”

“Well, yes,” Elias conceded. “But that wasn’t my point, Mum. This torus-shaped device, is this supposed to be a...” He examined the equations and chemical reactions plotted about the diagram, his mind processing the data far faster than any of Howard’s supercomputers. “God in Heaven, it’s a prototypical energy source based off the Tesseract.”

“Well, Howard did drunkenly confess at the international Hellfire Club soiree of 1953 in Los Angeles that he believed the Tesseract could be the key to indefinite sustainable energy,” Emma reminisced as she smudged out an incorrect coefficient, picked up a nearby piece of chalk, and corrected the error. “But this blueprint doesn’t make sense to me; if the core truly burns isotopes of palladium like it says, then he’s making a cold fusion reactor of some sort, one that depends upon a palladium-103 and palladium-107 radio-isotopic decay cell to produce an electrical current.” Emma traced the stream of chemical equations with the piece of chalk pinched between her fingers, and Elias did the same with his eyes. “But how is Howard reconciling the balancing of the protons between the isotopes? Palladium-107 releases an electron via beta decay when it turns into silver-107, therein causing a neutron to turn into a proton.”

“And palladium-103 produces rhodium-103 via electron capture, taking an inner electron into the nucleus, combining it with a proton, and creating a neutron,” Elias nodded eagerly, pointing to the reaction in question on the board. “The electrons would balance the resulting atomic nuclei. If he’s aiming to create energy, there would, in effect, be no net flow of electricity, which means—”

“Howard has found a way to utilize the beta decay of palladium-107 ions as an electron source for palladium-103—”

“Thereby producing an electric circuit between two different radioactive isotopes!” Elias pointed to the diagram of the torus-shaped reactor, taking note of the band-like segments sketched intermittently along the ring of the apparatus. “He must be using electromagnets in the actual reactor, then, to ionize, control the electron transfer, and manipulate the radioactive decay of the palladium-103.”

“I must admit that it’s an ingenious attempt to replicate the Tesseract without causing the kind of destruction that the Tesseract itself is capable of wreaking,” Emma canted her head in acknowledgement and set the chalk down after correcting another numerical error. “The use of palladium, of course, as Howard likely knows, is dreadfully subpar and causing most of the complications he’s running into. He may be limited by the technology of his time, but vibranium would do wonders had he the resources, although I suspect from this data that he has already crossed that bridge and considered it a fruitless path to follow. The poor man likely still thinks that he used the last of this world’s vibranium cache to build Captain Rogers’s shield.”

Turning his searching gaze to the laboratories once more, Elias spotted Howard across the room. Elias himself vaguely recalled being 47—the year was 1891, Benjamin Harrison was the President, the Gay Nineties were treating Frost International rather well, and the suffrage movement was picking up speed around the world—but unlike Howard, Elias’s 47 years had not looked so… timeworn. The nearly ebony hair on which Howard had prided himself in his youth had faded in color, having greyed at the temples, and had receded back from his creased forehead. Small lines likewise furrowed the once tight flesh at the corners of his eyes and mouth, and his tanned skin was beginning to show the telltale signs of a man who had spent his lengthy bachelor years lazing in the sun with a drink in hand and women queued up for his affections when he wasn’t tinkering in some lab or fleeing the United States on charges of selling weapons to Russians.

Some things had and would forever remain the same, however. He was still trim, wore his signature mustache, and refused to don a lab coat in his own facilities where he demanded everyone else be dressed to strict protocol. Despite his wife’s laboring to make an honest man of him, Howard Stark’s psyche also still reeked of lifelong duplicity and self-interest behind the showman-playboy persona he wore like a second skin and clung to like a lifeline.

Alas, the prices one must pay to climb the menacing American ladder as the son of immigrants, the son of Jews, in an increasingly xenophobic and intolerant country. Though Howard may not have been one of Elias’s favorite wartime allies or business rivals or people in general, he admired the man’s will to claw his way out of the oppression and baseness of his childhood and clamber to the acme of American society. For someone whose father had been a fruit vendor and whose mother had made shirtwaists in a factory, Howard had risen from rags to riches, a regular American Cinderella sans bespoke crystal footwear.

“Do we feel like extending an olive branch before we neglect to tell Howard that Natalia is on her way with another K.G.B. agent to snatch his ex-Soviet colleague?” Elias asked his mother.

“Personally?” Emma turned on her heel, wound her arm through her son’s again, and walked them back to the center of the room. “No. Do you feel the need to do so?”

“I’m indifferent.” Elias admitted, his eyes trained on the future abductee, a pale and dark-haired giant of a man—Anton Vanko, mid-forties, defected from the U.S.S.R. at the end of World War II and sought asylum in the United States thereafter—as he conversed with Howard. “Vanko is…” Elias narrowed his eyes and honed in on Vanko’s mind; the Russian was hiding something, something which had been weighing upon his psyche for years—“Vanko is—no, was a spy. He just went rogue on the U.S.S.R. a week ago.”

“That certainly explains why my better judgment barred me from trying to steal him from Stark Industries and employ him as a lead scientist at one of our labs the second he stepped foot on American soil.”

Elias nodded slowly: “That also explains why the K.G.B. is sending Natalia and another agent to abduct him, then; his original defection had been a ploy, but this time it was too authentic for their liking.”

“Fickle as cats, the K.G.B.,” Emma snorted, and with a dismissive flick of her wrist, the swirling psionic energy shrouding them from detection dissipated into the rafters high overhead.

As per custom to those who are unused to the tricks of telepaths or the talents of superpowered individuals in general, the sudden appearance of two natty blonds from seeming nothingness not only caught the attention of every single person in the room but also gave them each quite a start. One man flinched so hard that he tripped over his own feet and nearly fell upon a rather fragile and highly expensive apparatus beside him. A thunderous silence descended upon the factory floor for several fleeting moments as all eyes then turned from Elias and Emma to Howard, whose composure had slipped seconds prior and whose visage revealed an array of rapidly shifting emotions: astonishment melted into fury which chilled into leaden recognition that in turn grew buoyant and became a sort of curiosity tinged with tones of uneasy caution and an almost fond exasperation.

“How—?” Howard began, shattering the tense quiet.

“Your security team are gentlemen, Howard,” Emma offered the man a charming smile and little else. “They were only too happy to open any door we wanted.”

“They’re also getting fired,” Howard muttered before jamming his hands in his pockets and striding toward Elias and Emma. His scientists scrambled to return to their studies as he walked by. Vanko’s gaze lingered on the Frosts until Elias caught his eye and the alleged ex-Soviet turned his back to the unfolding scene in the center of the old assembly line. “This is private property, you know. It’s also a top-secret facility that I’ve gone to great lengths to secrete.”

“Truly?” Elias shifted his attention from Vanko to Howard, whose nostrils marginally flared as he came to a stop before the Frosts. “We had no idea, sweetheart, I assure you.”

“Glad to see you’ve still got your scintillating wit and suavity,” Howard sighed heavily through his nose. “Since I assume you have my security team firmly under your thumbs, there’s no point in throwing you both out, so how can I help you?”

“Oh, Howard, darling,” Emma unlinked her arm from her son’s and patted Howard’s cheek, “as if you could even think of tossing your two dearest corporate competitors and most valued S.H.I.E.L.D. consultants aside like they were nothing more to you than trifles.” A single fluting chuckle escaped her, and she shook her head, patting Howard’s cheek more sharply this time, the smack and suction of flesh audible with each strike. “Now, my dear, let us get down to the brass tacks; we have simply missed you and the wonderful brain housed in that skullcap of yours so dearly that we came on a social call. Indulge a pair of old friends, won’t you, Howard?”

“The day that Emma and Elias Frost swing by unannounced for a ‘social call’ without a hidden agenda or twenty is the day that I drop dead,” Howard snorted, shaking his head in amusement as Emma’s hand fell back to her side. “Why the hell not, though, I guess? We can gab—it’s bound to be more interesting than anything else I had planned for the day.”

~*~*~*~*~

“The bar is serving scotch on the rocks today, ladies and gents,” Howard cast a glance over his shoulder as he poured his drink into a crystal tumbler filled with ice chips. “Any takers?”

Elias examined the renovated foreman’s breakroom that Howard had made his personal office and all its ascetic décor: “More of a martini man, admittedly.”

“I too appreciate the offer, Howard dear, but I don’t drink that scotch,” Emma said as she idly inspected Howard’s cluttered desk before taking a seat in one of the man’s high-back leather chairs, conceivably the most extravagant furnishing in the room. Crossing one leg neatly over the other, she turned her wintery eyes then to Howard’s back.

“I think I recall you saying something like that at my first Hellfire Club party,” Howard hummed in thought as he capped his scotch decanter and set it aside on the bar behind his desk. He turned to face the Frosts as Elias moved to stand beside his mother, shifting his weight so that he leaned casually against the back of her chair. “Boston, spring of 1941, the New England branch’s annual gala. Sir John Braddock, Warren Worthington II, Sebastian Shaw, and I were there to be inducted. I was in the midst of speaking with a friend—”

“Hugh Jones, the head of Roxxon Oil Corporation and the man who you would later make a cuckold, you mean,” Elias reminded with a smirk. Without so much as a look in his mother’s direction, he accessed the psychic link between them and telepathically queried, “Are you ready?”

“I’m entering Vanko’s subconscious as we speak, darling.”

“Yes,” Howard cleared his throat, “thank you for jogging my memory, Frost.” Flicking his brown eyes between Elias and Emma, he continued: “And then all of a sudden, the real celebrities of the party show up—Club Royalty! Let’s see, Ned Buckman was the Black King at the time, and he introduced himself alongside you two and a pretty blonde piece of arm candy, his Black Queen. Paris Seville, I believe—”

“And then you revealed yourself to be highly intoxicated and a spoiled lothario riding into the Hellfire Club on a tide of entitlement if memory serves me correctly,” Emma smiled affably. Her glacial blue irises froze into a tundra white color defined from the off-white sclera of her eyes by a wire-thin ring of silver-cyan, and she telepathically said to her son, “The replication of Vanko’s knowledge on electromagnetism and fusion reaction has commenced.”

“Ah, yes, well…” Howard frowned, none the wiser to his sudden development of a case of something akin to acute induced visual agnosia thanks to Elias. With his parietal lobes temporarily impaired in such a way, Howard may have been able to see the piercing eyes of the two blonds visiting him, but he was ignorant to the fact that those eyes he beheld were no longer the jewel blue he was accustomed to observing; rather, they were psychically charged and colored in shades of white and silver. “Those were quite the days, weren’t they?” He took a long sip of his scotch and said, “Thank God people change.”

“People do change…” Emma said with a sigh, thrumming her manicured nails on the plush armrests of Howard’s chair in displeasure. Elias felt his mother sneer psychically before she said to him, “So, not only is Vanko an ex-spy, but he is also riding off of Howard’s coattails. For a so-called fusion reaction and electromagnetism genius, he certainly does not know much more than you or I, darling.”

“Does that then make us among the world’s foremost experts on fusion reaction and electromagnetism?” Elias asked his mother with a playful lilt. “I think it should.”

Emma offered her son a fond smirk before turning her attention back to Howard: “Despite the perhaps unwarranted verbal lashings, Howard, it is good to see you.”

“Yes,” Elias nodded his agreement even though it was not entirely the truth. Like Howard had earlier stated, the Frosts had possessed ulterior motives for their visit today prior to finding out Vanko was a largely hopeless resource for further scientific insights. Perhaps, though, he could still be of use; corporate intel and Stark secrets were just as desirable as knowledge of advanced physics and chemistry, after all. Of course, Elias and his mother could have mined it all direct from the source himself, but psionically parasitizing people who could be considered friends mayhap crossed the already tenuous and hazy ethical line all psychics perpetually toed due to the nature of their burdensome gift. “We missed you at the last three Hellfire Club annual galas.”

“Emma, Elias,” Howard’s eyes flickered to the drink in his hand, the ice clinking softly in his glass. “You know as well as I do that I’m trying to put my days of debauchery behind me. I’m not quite as young—or romantically available—as I used to be.” He chuckled, “And besides, the environment towards the end of my partying days with the Club was always so tense when I was sober enough to sense it.”

“In sooth?” Elias tilted his head as though ignorant to what Howard spoke of. It would be… beneficial to hear Howard’s perspective on the noted and dangerously authentic tensions within their Hellfire branch.

“Yes, in sooth, Shakespeare,” Howard scoffed. “I swore sometimes that you two were going to tear Shaw and his friends apart. Isn’t the Inner Circle supposed to get along? And also, what’s up with the Hellfire Club coordinating the Cuban Missile Crisis and trying to spark mutually assured destruction?”

“That was all Shaw’s sect,” Elias withheld a snarl. “Trust us; we had no idea the Black Court was going to do something so gauche and nihilistic behind our backs.”

“Moreover, Howard, don’t be daft,” Emma rolled her glittering snow-colored eyes. “From your time as a director of S.H.I.E.L.D. to your own experiences as creator and chief executive of Stark Industries, you know how it is to work alongside people just as headstrong as yourself. Also, when have you ever known the upper crust to ‘get along’?”

Though his mother was making generalizations to dissuade Howard from probing further into the dynamics of the New England Hellfire Club’s Inner Circle, the man was not inherently wrong in his assessment. There had been a time when the Inner Circle had run like a well-oiled machine (with a little bit of psychic policing as the lubricant, admittedly, though that was beside the point). However, that era of esprit de corps had come to an abrupt and bloody conclusion at the onset of the Second World War when Elias and his mother had been called to Europe to assist the Strategic Scientific Reserve in their mission to combat the forces of HYDRA ravaging the European, Mediterranean, and Middle Eastern theatres.

While Emma and Elias had been offering their services in whatever manner best helped the S.S.R.’s early war efforts—whether that be telepathically spying on, psychically lobotomizing, and/or brutally assassinating Nazis and fascists—Edward Buckman, the Black King at the time, had been charmed by Sebastian Hiram Shaw’s ambition and ruthlessness between the sporadic home visits Elias and Emma were able to make. Naturally, it was while they were across the pond that Buckman had idiotically decided to mentor Shaw for a leadership position in the Club. Buckman, the heedless oaf, may as well have signed his and his lover’s own death warrants.

In August of 1943, Shaw, a closeted mutant and the CEO and founder of a weapons manufacturing company slightly less impressive than Stark Industries, had betrayed Buckman. Shaw had the Black King executed alongside his Black Queen and lover Paris Seville at her coastal Rhode Island estate and had the murders pinned on one of Seville’s maids with whom Buckman engaged in highly inappropriate relations on the side. With Buckman and Seville six feet under and Elias’s and Emma’s North American presence growing scarcer the longer the war raged on, Shaw had secured almost complete control over the New England branch of the Hellfire Club. It did not require an overly active imagination to grasp how unfortunate such a situation and the innumerable unseemly alterations to the Club Shaw was able to churn out in Elias’s and Emma’s absence turned out to be for all parties involved, save perhaps Shaw himself and his closest allies. Their time would come, though; in fact, it was coming, burgeoning on the horizon like a radiant dawn.

“So,” Elias felt the gears turning in Howard’s mind, felt him prepare to again press the issue of the Inner Circle, and cut him off. “How is Maria?”

“Good, good.” Howard accepted the conversational redirection. To a point. “She more or less banned me from ever attending one of your Club parties again.”

“A pity,” Emma remarked without much conviction. Howard, bullheaded as he was, was blatantly not letting talk of the Hellfire Club drop so easily. Emma heaved a prolonged psychic sigh, “I suppose this is the price we must pay for making an unannounced visit and lying about why we truly came.”

“We might as well let him jabber on,” Elias returned. “It will give you more time to root around in Vanko’s skull and see what kind of intel he had been sending the K.G.B. before he decided to quit and practically ask for them to send Natalia after him.”

Out of some quasi-Pavlovian reflex Elias occasionally acted upon at the mention of Natalia, he unconsciously glanced to his right arm. Beneath the silk sleeve of his dress shirt, the young woman’s Parisian parting gift remained on the far side of his bicep—a surprisingly clean silver-pink line spanning the muscle, the remnant of a wound bone-deep. He could have healed the scar much in the same manner he had psionically regenerated the damaged tissue and lost blood, but he had decided to keep it on a whim. Elias could not quite explain it, but in the moment and even now, it had felt and still feels wrong somehow to will it away with no more than a bat of his eyes.

It could be a result of his growing… fondness of Natalia. Receiving a live stream of updates on her without cessation through the psychic tag he had anchored deep in her psyche had certainly warmed Elias to a strange partiality from his initially scientific curiosity and pragmatic mindset concerning how the U.S.S.R.’s premier Black Widow might best operate as a pawn for him and his mother’s far-reaching ambitions. Though it was difficult to describe what exactly Elias felt for Natalia after she had unknowingly been a constant fixture in his mind for well over a year, he did hold for her a great deal of sympathy—or maybe empathy since he vicariously felt her suffering? Irrespective of sentiment, due to the bond that Elias had psionically forged with Natalia, he had gained a wealth of superliminal and subliminal knowledge from the young woman and likely knew her and the Red Room just as intimately as she herself did at the current moment.

Formally recognized in the U.S.S.R. as an invitation-only and little-known girl’s boarding school and ballet conservatoire named the Red Room Academy for the Advanced Education of Exceptional Young Women, the Red Room was in reality a remote espionage training facility for vulnerable and easily-acquired orphan girls across the vast U.S.S.R. As for the historical particulars of the facility and the Black Widow Ops Program instituted there, Natalia was not exactly well-versed. With a little digging and conversing with old former S.S.R. associates who had infiltrated the Red Room Academy in 1946, Elias and his mother were able to piece together some of the information beyond Natalia’s grasp. The Red Room itself was the brainchild of Russia’s Department X, a covert deep science and espionage government agency created by Joseph Stalin after the Great War to ensure that the Soviet Union would become the world’s leading superpower by having better weapons than both its enemies and allies combined. Despite founding the Red Room sometime in the 1920s and crafting the Russian Assassin Program—the Black Widow Ops Program’s precursor—to train young girls as elite spies and assassins who would grow up to hopefully be some of the U.S.S.R.’s greatest operatives, Department X produced rather unimpressive results. It was not until the final years of World War II when Department X experienced some form of smashing success—likely the replication or development of a variant of Erskine’s Super Soldier Serum paired with advancements in the field of psychotechnics or the acquisition of psionicially gifted assets—that inspired an overhaul of the previously middling Russian Assassin Program, thus birthing the Black Widow Ops Program which would go on to garner additional victories for the Soviet Union.

What Natalia did know about the Red Room, though, was all in lived experience, which was without a doubt just as crucial as the more historiographical information Elias and Emma had managed to uncover. At any rate, Natalia’s intel was by far more likely to be of immediate practical use. Located among the pine woods and swamps of northwestern Byelorussia, the Red Room was hidden well enough from public sight that evidence of its crimes against humanity could be buried in the winter snow or tossed into the nearby marshy lowlands for the forest’s resident scavengers to consume and thereby conceal. The facility’s inhuman abuses were many, though brainwashing, torture, murder, forced human experimentation, and the training of child soldiers certainly topped the list.

While Natalia’s childhood had been spent mastering the art of killing and weaponizing her budding femininity and learning the manifold ways to destabilize governments, other girls her age had been able to be carefree and happy in the summer years of childhood. Laughing, singing, playing, things that Natalia had never known, that she may never know. Such youthful innocence should not be a privilege for those able to afford it, and the fact that it indeed was an honor rather than a God-given right on this depraved chunk of rock floating in an unforgiving universe made Elias’s blood boil in his veins and gave him rash notions to astrally project his consciousness halfway across the world and psychically assassinate the monsters responsible for ruining the lives of little girls like Natalia.

“You doing fine over there, Elias?” Howard’s voice cut through the fog of fury that clouded Elias’s mind and brought him rushing back to reality. Howard’s gaze was wary, his hands wrapped carefully around his now empty tumbler.

“Lost in thought, Howard,” Elias forced a laugh and a tight-lipped smile. “Forgive me for my preoccupation.”

“No need for apologies,” Howard said with a much more reassuring smile than Elias’s. He cleared his throat awkwardly, his upturned lips slipping in mild concern. “Is it Rogers and… Barnes?”

“Uh…” Elias blinked, thrown. Emma tensed in Howard’s chair.

"Howard—” Emma warned at the same moment that Howard set his tumbler aside and said, “This month marks the 20th anniversary of Rogers’s flying the Valkyrie into the Arctic and Barnes’s—”

“I may be a centenarian, Stark, but my memory has yet to fail me,” Elias lightly quipped. He swallowed, his throat growing thick with the melancholy that had been intermittently afflicting him for days, though, admittedly had receded since he and his mother had decided to investigate Howard’s secret research facility. “James—” Elias frowned. No one had ever referred to James by his first name other than Elias himself, James’s second-generation immigrant mother Winifred, and his headstrong Romanian grandmother, and that is how the man had liked it. “Buck would have been 48 years old on March 10.”

Emma reached up for Elias’s hand, holding onto it tightly: “Why don’t we talk about something else, darling? Something like Howard’s laughably short-lived career as a film director or when Peggy knocked him into the Thames on V-E Day for trying to kiss her and how he would have drowned had he not been fished out by a group of frogmen.”

Elias squeezed his mother’s hand, grateful, but sighed instead, “I have missed him every day since 1945. Steve too; he was a remarkable man and one of the best friends I have ever had.”

“I…” Howard scowled, shaking his head. “I hate this time of the year. Reminds me of all the ways we could have done things differently back then. Reminds me of how the world lost some of the greatest men and left profiteers like me behind.”

“Howard, you are hardly to blame for anything that happened during that odious chapter in the text of human existence.” Emma massaged the bridge of her nose wearily. She always got weary when speaking of the war.

“That doesn’t mean I don’t feel guilty for helping to produce weapons of mass destruction, Emma, for working on Project Manhattan and making that godforsaken atom bomb,” Howard admitted in a rare moment of incisive and brutal honesty. “You know, my greatest creation was Captain America; he was the only thing I made that genuinely saved lives, directly and indirectly, instead of outright claiming them.”

Elias, in an even rarer moment of empathy, pursed his brow: “Oh, Howard...”

“What do you think this Earth would be like had Barnes not fallen?” Howard asked, his gaze faraway. “Had Rogers found some way to save the day without sacrificing himself in the end?”

“Thinking like that will not bring them back,” Elias pushed himself upright from the back of the chair his mother sat in, feeling the need to put his body in motion to better occupy his mind and the darkness which eddied at its outskirts. “But if you want my God’s honest opinion, I would have dragged Buck home from the war after the Commandos came back from their mission to capture Zola and returned him to his family like he wanted the whole bloody time he was overseas. He would be safe, happy. Likely a mite more rotund and softer in spots, but still as handsome as ever.” Elias exhaled heavily through his nose as he felt his voice begin to falter. He paced across the room, examining the sparsely decorated walls to distract himself. “As for Steve, well, he and Peggy would have gone dancing. Courted. Maybe married and had a few kids as obstinate as both of them.”

Elias turned and saw that his mother’s eyes were on him. They were no longer glowing white with telepathic power. Instead, they were just their regular pretty blue and so profoundly sad. He averted his gaze.

Howard broke the silence: “You really loved Barnes, didn’t you?”

“With every aching fiber of my being.”

~*~*~*~*~

Shutting the passenger’s side door of his mother’s porcelain white Aston Martin DB5, Elias flipped up the wide collar of his Burberry peacoat against the frigid early morning drizzle sailing near-horizontal on the wind. The soft wool brushed the stubble of his jaw, reminding him that he needed to shave. Or maybe not—he could raise a neatly trimmed beard like he had in his twenties and thirties; full facial hair was slowly coming back into fashion since it had silently grown passé in the decades following the Civil War. He adjusted the brim of his beaver-fur fedora as a gust of wind tried to snag it from atop his head. He shoved his leather-gloved hands in his coat pockets, pushing all thoughts of grooming and haircare aside for the time being, and glanced around the lot surrounding Howard’s Queens-based research facility which had officially lost its top-secret status as of Natalia’s visit to it less than twelve hours ago.

Although he had remotely kept tabs on Natalia and her activities from the previous night via the psychic tag embedded in her psyche, Elias had to give his favorite Slavic spider a hand upon observing the physical aftermath of said nighttime activities. She had indubitably left a message. Grey plumes of smoke yet curled up into the cold rainy sky from the half-melted and warped remains of the warehouse where Howard’s security and surveillance station had once been located as well as from the ragged hole which had been blown in the graffiti-laden exterior wall outside the part of the factory where Howard’s laboratories had been. The smell of ash still hung heavy in the air, and a vaguely chemical odor slithered beneath the burnt scent, only detectable when the breeze happened to propel it in the right direction from the assembly line laboratories. Half-singed papers, broken lab equipment, and strips of metal rested upon the cracking concrete like fallen corpses before the plant’s newfound sharp-edged maw while literal blackened corpses littered the hard earth near the burnt warehouse. Picking through all the detritus as they slipped into and tramped out of the hole in the factory wall and the warehouse’s writhen skeleton was a team from Damage Control, S.H.I.E.L.D.’s official cleanup crew that assessed and controlled messes like the one the K.G.B. had left behind for Howard to find.

“What happened here?” Emma, in a dark trench tied loosely about her waist, a matching bucket hat, and white André Courrèges go-go boots, walked around her British grand tourer after locking it to stand beside her son.

“What you see before you is the result of the foolishness of another of the field chaperones the K.G.B. seems so insistent upon pairing Natalia with following the events which transpired in West Berlin and Paris.” Elias swept his gaze around the wrecked compound and inspected the S.H.I.E.L.D. agents as they went about their work with antlike efficiency. “While Natalia cleared the way for her K.G.B. babysitter, a veteran agent named Boris Turgenov, and then permanently took down the surveillance system by setting off high-grade explosives in the warehouse, Turgenov made his way to the labs. Howard was not onsite during the attack, but what PMCs remained from Natalia’s initial strike evacuated the other scientists and got them to safety by the time Turgenov broke through the lab doors—”

“And found Vanko still there?”

“Precisely,” Elias nodded. “Vanko refused to let Turgenov haul him back to the U.S.S.R. where he would be exterminated, tossed into the Siberian wilderness to fend for himself, or brainwashed into servitude, no doubt.”

“And the gaping hole in the factory wall comes in where?”

“Vanko and Tergenov scuffled. Vanko pulled out a highly unstable and untested ray gun of some sort that he and Howard had recently designed, fired it, and blew up not only Turgenov but also part of the factory wall and himself.”

“So Vanko is dead?”

The sound of wet concrete chips and glass crunching underfoot filled the silent compound as Elias and Emma impassively watched the Damage Control team clear the area, rolling charred corpses into body bags, sorting through seared and water-damaged classified research notes, and lugging damaged laboratory gear into S.H.I.E.L.D. cargo vans pulled up in the loading bay near where Emma had parked the GT she had fallen in love with after having seen it being driven by Sean Connery as James Bond in Goldfinger last year.

“Vanko was admitted into the ICU at Queens Hospital Center when first responders found him pinned under a massive slab of the collapsed wall,” Elias said. “He’s in critical condition and is suffering from… a lot.”

Taking a moment to parse through the colorful threadlike psionic signatures and layers of psychic imprints left along the bank of Flushing Creek, Elias found a trace of Natalia’s psyche almost immediately. Claret red as the blood she spilled or the hair framing her pale face and redolent of new leather, spring lilacs in full bloom, and scouring soap, it was a thing to which he had become accustomed over the years. He knew it like the back of his hand, and it was because of this that Elias had to suppress a troubled sigh.

It was changing, displaying telltale signs that Natalia’s Black Widow conditioning was deteriorating and had been doing so in an insidious manner for some time now. As best as Elias could tell, the only perceptible effects of the conditional degradation were still relatively minor: implanted Red Room memories and obedience were grudgingly shifting like once-settled tectonic plates encrusting the slumbering superdense core that was all that the Soviets had attempted to repress within Natalia as it turned fitfully in its dwindling sleep. The vague sense of wrongness that she had experienced intermittently a month after Elias had first planted the anchor had now become something akin to her new understanding of personal normalcy, and the corrective switches wired into her programming which set Tchaikovsky to thundering in her skull whenever her psyche deviated from the preset Soviet standard held for Widows before righting the abnormality were so eroded that they only flipped once every week or two.

This provided Elias with only an infinitesimal amount of comfort despite the fact that these results were the slow-growing fruit of his psychic anchor and his mother’s further splintering of Natalia’s conditioning in the middle of Paris’s leading military museum as he had kept the Black Widow preoccupied with his testing of her potential as an asset to be added to the Frost’s arsenal. Verily, the Frosts had wanted this to happen, had caused this to happen, and yet… Elias could not shake the niggling concern that wormed in the pit of his stomach at the thought of how his and his mother’s manipulations might impact Natalia should the K.G.B.’s psy-ops agents or her brutal handlers finally discover that the U.S.S.R.’s best Widow was compromised in perhaps the most compromising of ways. It was a reality that would precipitately come about if Natalia’s conditioning continued to flag at the rate at which it had been and the Frosts did nothing to either stop it or further secrete it. Given the circumstances, though, secreting it was going to prove to be an increasingly difficult option that would call for a drastic decision should Elias and his mother wish to circumvent future resource-draining complications.

Emma reached out and touched her son’s arm, shaking him from his thoughts: “Where is she now?”

“Preparing to land in Moscow from a nine hour flight aboard a small Soviet jet,” Elias honed in on his psychic connection to Natalia, and he saw her piloting the private aircraft through the heavy steely clouds of the Russian countryside. “When she lands, she will refuel and rest for a few hours before returning to the K.G.B. outpost in Novosibirsk where the Widows are all stationed.”

“We’re not letting the K.G.B. realize what kind of state Natalia’s conditioning is in and losing nearly two years of work and a potential asset,” Emma reassuringly squeezed Elias’s arm through his thick peacoat with her gloved hand as the concealed front entrance of Howard’s facility opened and Howard himself stepped out into the gloomy morning weather. “What would you like to do?”

“Go over the specifics later,” Elias said as Howard’s eyes turned to the Frosts, his countenance inscrutable. He was in his shirtsleeves, the cuffs rolled up to his elbows, and his tie was thrown about his neck more like a lariat than a necktie. “Summarily, to remove the Soviet psychics from the chessboard; they’re nothing but a nuisance at this point and present little reason to keep around any longer.”

Innocuous as it may seem when thusly phrased, that was the drastic decision: ridding the playing field and the K.G.B. of its psionically gifted agents. With them out of the picture, the risk of Natalia’s psychic developments and waning mental programming being discovered would be diminished by a factor of fifty. Bloody hell, maybe a hundred. However, what it really meant was the lobotomy or extermination of each and every agent under employ by the Soviet government who was in possession of a telepathic or empathic talent. To think that lobotomy would be the more merciful of the two practices was the misconception of a fool, though; the K.G.B. would kill the lobotomized psychics the instant the agency had no use for them.

As Howard approached Elias and Emma with a stack of crinkled schematics in his hands, Elias felt his mother give him an assenting telepathic nod. She understood quite well what he had meant. Neither of them were exactly strangers to dirtying their hands when the situation called for such direct action to be taken to protect their interests. Truthfully, they had dirtied their hands for much less. To do what Elias had in mind was not a delight nor would it be taken lightly, but it was going to occur regardless.

“You came,” Howard said as he paused before them.

“You called,” Emma replied. “Before I would typically even commence my morning toilette.”

“My apologies, Ems.”

Elias and Emma frowned in unison: “I beg your pardon?”

“Can we walk and talk?” Howard checked as he squinted up at the dreary sky, his upturned face collecting raindrops. Before either Emma or Elias could give their affirmation, Howard was on the move, brushing by them to hop into the back of a nearby black S.H.I.E.L.D. van. Emma and Elias shared a look before trailing after Howard, coming to stand outside the cargo van as his voice echoed out to them: “Were either of you responsible for exploding my warehouse, blasting my labs to bits, or hospitalizing my lead researcher by dealing him life-threatening injuries?”

“Howard,” Elias responded with equal parts cautionary deliberateness and affected woundedness. “You think so lowly of us.”

“Not at all,” came the man’s muffled reply and the sound of papers being shuffled from within the van. “I’ve always admired the both of you for your self-serving and scheming natures, really.” Elias blinked, uncertain how to interpret that comment, while Emma stared impassively at the vehicle. “I just want to know if this is some sort of corporate rivalry thing spurred by the sight of what my team was working on three days ago when you two stopped by for a visit.”

“As much as we would love to live up to your oh-so flattering expectations of us, Howard,” Emma rested her hands upon her hips as her stare crystallized into incisive ice, “it is with great regret that we must inform you that we are not the bombardiers for which you are looking.”

Howard was silent for a long moment, the only sound escaping the nondescript cargo van being that of the man’s sorting through salvaged materials and paperwork. The upturned collar of Elias’s coat tickled his cheek as a strong burst of wind whipped across the lot, carrying with it a storm of ashes. The knotted belt of his mother’s trench slipped loose and the long panels of fabric billowed around her in a most dramatic fashion, revealing the pleated white velvet mini dress she wore underneath. Arms still akimbo, Emma made no move to reclose her long coat.

Finally, footfalls. Howard stepped out of the back of the van and down to the concrete lot to eye the Frosts critically. Elias’s left eyebrow arced high on his forehead of its own volition, questioning and challenging and drolly entertained all at once.

“So,” Howard nodded tightly before crossing his arms over his chest, “the miscellaneous charred body parts scattered about Vanko’s lab don’t belong to an agent you hired to infiltrate my factory?”

“No, Howard,” Emma said coolly. “They do not.”

Silence. Rivulets of cold water trickled down Howard’s face. His pressed white button-up clung to his slender frame, dangerously close to being translucent if not transparent in some places.

Elias cleared his throat: “The man’s name was Boris Turgenov.”

“What?” Howard’s bushy eyebrows furrowed.

“The owner of the miscellaneous charred body parts,” Elias said. “His name was Boris Turgenov, a veteran agent of the K.G.B.”

“He was on a mission to procure his former Comrade—id est your ex-Soviet friend Dr. Anton Vanko,” Emma added. “Turgenov was to drag Vanko back to Rodina for cognitive recalibration.”

“How did you—?”

“We read the psychic imprints Turgenov left on this place in the short time he was here,” Elias explained, slipping a gloved hand out of his pocket to gesture to what Howard would perceive to be empty air. Of course, it was far from vacant; vibrant wisps of psionic energy drifted about, threadlike psychic signatures unspooled in the rain, and thoughts lapped like waves out from the ocean-deep or puddle-shallow minds of every sentient being surrounding them from Howard to the ant scurrying by his polished leather shoes. Sensing Howard’s confusion, Elias elaborated, “Yes, Turgenov may be dead, but he was not always. If you would like to cut straight to the pith, anything with a neuron produces psionic energy and leaves a nearly permanent residual trace of that energy wherever it goes. It is but a matter of tuning in to the proper frequency, I suppose, to be able to interact with it.”

“Huh,” Howard scratched his chin thoughtfully. “I always thought psychic mumbo-jumbo was more… well, mumbo-jumbo.”

“Yes, well, you would be wrong,” Emma said with a tap of her foot that suggested she was growing tired of the conversation. “Can we help you, Howard, or did you request our presence just to accuse us of arson and murder face-to-face?”

“That was actually about it,” Howard shrugged. “I appreciate the K.G.B. lead you two gave me, though.” He stuffed his hands in his pockets and looked between the two blonds before him before asking, “While you’re both here, can I pick your brains?”

“It is much more likely for us to pick your brain, Howard,” Elias’s lips curled into a small smirk. “Ask whatever you would like.”

“Why do you two think the K.G.B. wants Vanko?”

“Why would they not?” Emma responded flatly. “Not only is he an expert in his scientific fields of study, but he has also worked alongside the famous Howard Stark, one of America’s brightest technological luminaries.”

“That must have tasted bitter on your tongue, Emma,” Howard chuckled without much enthusiasm.

“I did say ‘one of,’ my dear,” Emma flashed a feline grin.

Howard hummed in response, his forehead creased from the ponderous weight of his ponderings: “There’s not a snowflake’s chance in Hell that a single K.G.B. agent, no matter how much action he’s seen, could pull this op off. No human could have.”

Elias’s jaw clenched almost imperceptibly. Emma tilted her head slightly, her long hair spilling over her shoulder.

“Turgenov must have been some kind of metahuman,” Howard theorized. “A mutant or enhanced individual.”

“He got himself blown up, Howard,” Elias laughed dismissively. “He must not have been that good.”

“Fair enough,” Howard conceded. “I just thought… I don’t know. The Soviets have a history of metahumans.”

“I think that you mean they oppress and systematically murder mutants who fail to offer themselves up as tools and weapons to the government,” Emma said pointedly. “If that is indeed the Soviet history you are referencing.”

“That,” Howard nodded, “and Soviet attempts to make the perfect espionage agents and assassins. Black Widows, they call them now, but I thought they were an exclusively female force.”

“Your dream, I imagine,” Elias jabbed good-naturedly to keep Howard talking. As one of the three co-directors of S.H.I.E.L.D., it was possible that Howard may know something about the Widows that the Frosts had not yet picked up from the anchor in Natalia’s psyche.

“At one time, yes,” Howard snorted, shaking his head. “Now, not so much.” He paused, eying the Frosts briefly. “I admittedly don’t know much about these Widows. Intelligence gathering, spycraft, and espionage is more of Peggy’s area, but I do know that they’re out there and that they’ve got some kind of alternative Super Soldier Serum coursing through their veins.”

“Has S.H.I.E.L.D. managed to capture one of these Widows?” Emma asked. “Studied them to see how the U.S.S.R. miraculously created a strain of Erskine’s serum?”

“Unfortunately, no.” Howard’s shoulders fell as he sighed. “Widows are slippery and typically too dangerous for most of our agents to even attempt to tackle head-on, but Peggy and the Howling Commandos—” He paused, looking quickly between Emma and Elias before amending himself, “Dum Dum’s post-war Howling Commandos, that is, encountered a Black Widow in training back in 1946 in some Byelorussian boarding school-military base-mad scientist’s lair called the Krasnaya Komnata—”

“The Red Room,” Emma said under her breath.

“You know of it?” Howard was not surprised.

“Only in hushed whispers,” Elias lied. “We never knew what or where it was.”

“They apparently indoctrinate and desensitize girls from an early age to train them to be elite operatives,” Howard accepted Elias’s dishonesty and spoke on. “Peggy and the Howlies saw some disturbing stuff there despite it appearing to be abandoned. They found a girl, nine or so, supposedly left behind in the Soviets’ rush to save their skins from being discovered. Looked real sweet with her pigtails and alligator tears until she stabbed Dum Dum, snatched his revolver, and shot and killed one of the Commandos recruited after the war before she clambered into the ventilation ducts and got away. She popped out of the vents later in the mission, killed an S.S.R. agent, shot one of the other new Commandos in the leg, and still disappeared in the end.”

“Bloody hell,” Elias muttered in disbelief. Dum Dum had not exactly elaborated upon that information when the Frosts had inquired about the 1946 Red Room raid he had co-led with Peggy.

Elias wondered if the girl the S.S.R. and the Commandos had encountered could have been Natalia. No, the ages were wrong; Natalia would have only been four at the time of the S.S.R.’s storming of the Red Room. That fact, however, did not divorce the image of a young Natalia with her red hair twisted into pigtails hacking apart and shooting men over thrice her size and age from the mental picture of another orphaned Russian girl met during the S.S.R.’s 1946 Soviet raid doing just the same.

“Peggy and I ran into a proto-Widow on numerous occasions back in the late-40s who was trained in the Red Room before they developed their variant of the serum,” Howard confessed. “She was in her early twenties and absolutely stunning. Also extremely lethal. I can hardly imagine what she would have been capable of had she been hopped up on some knock-off Erskine biochemical treatments.”

“Anything,” Emma wrapped her coat about herself and knotted the dangling belt about her waist before looking over to her son. “She would have been capable of anything.”

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nelsonfenceco1 · 6 years ago

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But wood fencing has numerous other uses as well. For instance, if you have an outdoor restaurant, you can utilize a picket and flat style for personal privacy. Additionally, wooden fences can be used to obstruct products like trashcans. Woods only disadvantage is the relatively short life expectancy. Note: If you have an agricultural company, you can also go for bonded mesh fencing, sometimes called “No Climb up” fencing.

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It is likewise quite simple to set up. Like iron fences, vinyl fences are incredibly long lasting. These fences do not get damaged over extended periods of time thanks to their UV finish. Vinyl fencing is also beneficial due to the fact that it hardly requires any maintenance apart from routine cleansing. Furthermore, considering that the color goes through the fence, there is no need to paint the fence too.

However, correct setup is necessary for vinyl fences to last long. If you are looking for a fencing choice that can be installed nearly immediately, then chain link is what you need. Chain link fences are identical from all sides, although you can improve their browse colored powder coating.

It resists deterioration and lasts for many years. It is primarily utilized in industrial and construction settings, specifically since it can be utilized inside as well, i.e. to develop further safe and secure storage areas inside storage facilities. Wire mesh fence can likewise be utilized to protect a little location. Other choices consist of barbed-wire fences and composite fences.

Simple Techniques For Commercial Fencing Companies

Keep the following questions in mind when selecting a kind of fence for your company: Is the fence important to the function of your business? How important is curb interest your company? How much are you happy to invest in fencing? Once you address these concerns, speak with a trustworthy fencing business like Nelson Fence Company, a Fencing Contractor near you, as expert consultation is always an excellent idea for industrial fence setup.

There are a plentiful array of options readily available on the fence market. These alternatives are consisted of three major types of pereimeter structures: chain link, wood, and decorative fence services. Choosing the very best design of fence for you and your service depends upon 2 deciding aspects: the sort of business you own and its location.

Wire Mesh Fence: A basic contractor whose business is situated in a commercial park would probably usage chain-link fencing in order to secure their on-site properties. When utilizing chainlink for security functions, it is best to pursue a height of 6′ or 6 feet of higher and a thickness of at least 9-gauge in order to profit from this expense efficient fencing.

Getting My Commercial Gates And Fencing To Work

Attractive security is the predominate goal for numerous company installations. These fence can be comprised of three main kinds of ornamental fencing:Welded Steel Fence: Black (non-galvanized) steel elements are bonded together to form a section that is them primed and painted. Throughout installation, the areas are welded straight to the posts at the jobsite.

If welded steel panels are added it is highly recommended to add a polyester powder coated finish of the galvanized steel. Though there are a range of remarkable industrial fence choices, a recognized and experienced expert fence business ought to constantly have the ability to offer design and budget services for your special job specifications.

Businesses and home supervisors have a large variety of choices in business fencing today. The choice typically depends on aspects such as the level of security required and visual value. For instance, a manufacturing center’s prime consideration may be security to prevent theft with attractiveness being a secondary consideration whereas the function of a fence for a neighborhood swimming pool is security.

Techniques For Commercial Chain Link Fencing

These are the 10 most typical types of industrial fence. weather resistant and to avoid rust. Vinyl coated chain link fencing simply includes an outer vinyl coating. It is mainly used for a more attractive appearance. Layered chain link is available in several colors, including brown, green, and black.

The slats are also offered in a variety of colors. The primary benefits of this type are the strength of chain link, plus the included privacy, wind protection, and security of the slats. Aluminum primary benefits is their low upkeep, due to the fact that aluminum is highly weather-resistant. Wood fences are normally connected with domestic applications however they also succeed in business scenarios.

Swimming pool fences are becoming a legal requirement in lots of states, consisting of Georgia. The principal factor for installing this kind of fence is to avoid unsupervised children from roaming in and drowning. They can likewise avoid unauthorized individuals from utilizing the pool when they are equipped with a locking gate. Vinyl fencing is offered in lots of designs, varying from strong for personal privacy to pickets for aesthetic appeals.

How Commercial Security Fences can Save You Time, Stress, and Money.

Farm fencing is designed primarily to keep livestock inside the boundaries of the residential or commercial property. Basic rail systems may be appropriate for larger stock whereas woven wire mesh is a good choice for commercial poultry farms that raise chickens and turkeys. Dog fence kennels are an unique kind of fence, normally made from galvanized chain link.

They offer numerous benefits; they stand up well in the weather condition, they use a range of setups, and best of all they do not need to be permanently located in any one spot. Considering that they are made up of sections of fencing that are connected together they are self-supporting. This indicates there are never any post holes to dig.

Today they are incredibly popular with constructing contractors, installing them around neighborhoods. They are built by setting up the posts and then sliding the horizontal panels into the adjacent posts. Their advantages include weather-resistance, being rot-proof, strength, and never needing painting. They can be power-washed for cleaning when required. Company owner and property managers have lots of options to consider when choosing the appropriate kind of industrial fencing to install.

The Commercial Chain Link Fencing Trick That Nobody is Discussing

You may believe buying and setting up a fence for your commercial property would be simple, best? But, with many choices on the market, it can be tough figuring out the very best kinds of commercial fencing for your company and building’s aesthetic. While some companies are strictly worried about discovering the most safe fencing, others would like the fencing to include curb appeal.

Chain link installs quick and efficiently. It has an identical appearance from all sides. It can be powder covered in numerous colors. This fencing is perfect for when you are establishing a protected perimeter rapidly. There are slats readily available for privacy that likewise assist reduce the wind, noise, and dust.

The steel building and construction is additional resilient, withstands deterioration, and lasts for several years. This fencing is best for industrial, building, and warehouse websites. Some say that vinyl is last, and they might be right. Because vinyl fencing is UV secured, and the color goes through the product, it never requires painting.

Commercial Fencing

Other than for routine cleansing, there is little to no upkeep for the life of the item. Its lightweight requires correct setup to withstand severe weather, and it might crack if struck in extreme cold. Vinyl fencing has numerous applications, especially within housing communities. And, due to the fact that if its visual appeal, it is both decorative and secure.

These fences have many agricultural applications, varying from ornamental split rail fences to posts for electrical and wire mesh fencing. It is an enticing option due to the fact that the wood can either mix in or boost the natural environments. Also, it will improve the agrarian farm setting while guaranteeing a relied on security measure.

Perfect for marinas and municipal public pools and rec centers or hotels with outside swimming pools. Every state has rules and policies concerning public swimming pool fencing for security. Our service technicians are well-informed relating to these standards and can assist you to identify not just the very best fencing for your needs however will ensure it is compliant with state laws.

All swimming pool fencing is specifically produced to comply with BOCA codes for swimming pool security. Steel and aluminum ornamental fencing is a market requirement and a preferred for lots of business usages. Manufactured of sturdy metal, it is extremely durable and resilient. While the look can be ornamental or commercial, because of its robust design, it uses included security.

The color will not fade. There are preassemble panels available for simple setup. There is no end to the security and ornamental usages for steel and aluminum fencing. Newer to the market, composite fencing is a mix of resin, or plastic, with wood. The style look is that of natural wood or stone and is readily available in numerous colors.

The decorative look is popular for a garden, farming, and perimeter fencing. These fences are made up of a heavyweight product that is manufactured utilizing recycled wood fibers. Therefore it is long lasting and safe. Barbed wire construction consists of a wire with sharp edges or pointed barbs located a spaced intervals along the strand.

Techniques For Commercial Chain Link Fencing Part 2

Sharp barbs are then added by a crimping maker along the entire length. Razor wire is usually utilized on top of fences and walls as a security procedure. Barbed wire has many agricultural uses, especially in livestock fencing. Both fencing types are perfect for containment, defense, and security. They also work as an useful, and cheaper divider and deterrent.

There is a variety of design offered including picket and flat panel privacy. The panels are preassembled, so the fence is installed quickly and rapidly. Numerous entrepreneur appreciate the aesthetic appeal of this kind of fencing. It is ideal for dining establishments featuring outdoor patio area seating or for designated picnic areas in personal real estate neighborhoods.

When it concerns fencing your commercial property, there is a lot to consider. It’s not normally for decorative factors, rather a quote to enhance the security and security of the home. Naturally, you may desire something that looks good, too, depending upon the kind of commercial residential or commercial property you run.

So, what kind of fence does your industrial residential or commercial property require? Let’s take a look at your options and how they can best serve your requirements. Fence Types Aluminum– the factors you may select aluminum consist of the sturdiness they offer, as well as the maintenance. As in, there is really little of it needed.

Additionally, they can stand up to nasty weather and you won’t require to stress over rusting. Chain Link– you will see these frequently on construction websites. Chain link fences are strong, they last for a long time, and they can deal with harsher weather condition too. It’s also possible to install slats to reduce the effect of noise, debris, wind, and dust.

Wood offers security, safeguards your residential or commercial property from wind, and can also decrease outdoors sound. With a wooden fence, you also get the added benefit of personal privacy. Concrete– with concrete you get all of the advantages. It supplies you with major privacy and security, in addition to longevity. It can reduce the noise originating from your property or vice versa.

In addition, it’s possible to finish it with a finish that avoids graffiti. Vinyl– vinyl is a resilient fencing alternative, that stands strong while requiring extremely little upkeep. They don’t rot like wood or rust like metal. It’s moisture resistant, and you can choose from a range of designs and colors too.

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8 Facts About Commercial Fencing Companies