Sir Nicholas Fury

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Last updated September 29, 2090 8.42 a.m. PT E-mail this Print this
Who is Anti-Citizen Four?
In addition to the original Anti-Citizens a new suit of armor has shown up in opposition to order, sanity, and the stability of the nation.

Anti-Citizen Four has armor of a dark green and black, with a fully hidden face that makes him unidentifiable. Any person or persons with information on Anti-Citizen Four should contact the President's special Anti-Citizen Capture Line at 555-555-5655.
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seattlepi.com
u.s.
Last updated October 10, 2090 9.42 p.m. PT E-mail this Print this
Anti-Citizens Speak Out!
This reporter received the following letter, supposedly from the Anti-Citizens!

Sir,
We do not stand against order, sanity, and stability, rather we stand for those who cannot stand for themselves. The President For Life has muddied the original goals and ideals of this great nation which we love so much. For the weak, for the lost, for those who are targets of people who should protect them; there we shall be.
Sincerely,
Captain America, Sir Nicholas Fury, the Revolutionary, and Freeman.

All positions in the letter are solely the opinion of the writers. The reporter expresses no agreement whatsoever with the opinions of the Anti-Citizens.
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The target is a caravan of people who have been picked up by the President's squads to be tested and cleaned. The world isn't kind to those who have been picked up, even if they are found clean.

The path has been charted out, the number of people (thirteen) has been confirmed, and so have the number of guards. The point of extraction is between two abandoned warehouses.

It's not like that.

It's just.

It's just that you're twenty four, and your friends are all passionate about politics, and tell you that he's done the best job in history.

It's just that you had this cousin, and she had this friend, and her friend's little sister was, you know. And your cousin got swept up in it, and you got a polite little note saying that they were sorry for the mix-up and that you'd be pleased to know that your family was safe.

It's just that you sit in classes about history and you hear about how terrible it was and you think about what people could do, that they can't now.

It's just that you wonder about the definition of the word, when it comes on the media.

It's just that you look at three old, tired faces belonging to three old, tired men and you wonder.

You wonder what happens when the old stop and the new never start.

You wonder what happens when heroes die.

Then you put the last bit of dark green armor on and you check yourself in the mirror. A harshly mechanical voice, which you are pleased to note sounds nothing like you, announces to your dingy little basement room; "Anticitizen Four reporting for duty. Just as soon as I find a way to contact the rest of you."

Ms. Gravens, the host of the ever popular Good Morning America, sat poised and smiling for the cameras long before they were actually turned on. Her breathing was even and just a little bit excited – this interview, this debate, could rocket her from well known morning host to the big time and her very own show.

Her guests, two prestigious doctors of history and politics, had been preparing for this event for weeks, ever since the President for Life gave permission for the topic to be discussed.

”Rolling!” The light on top of the camera blinked on and Ms. Gravens' smile beamed out full wattage.

“Good Morning America! Today we have some very special guests in a very, very special debate. Dr. K. Scott and Dr. E. B. Derka will be discussing the current upsets by the small terrorist group that the government is calling the Anti-citizens.

“Everyone knows Anti-Citizen Three – the so-called Captain America who refused to stand down when our President for Life began his genetic reforms to keep us safe from the superhuman menace. As a short recap - Steve Rogers was a fine arts student in the 1940's before America entered World War II. He attempted to enlist in the army only to be turned away due to his poor constitution. A U.S. officer offered Rogers an alternative way to serve his country by being a test subject in the project, Operation: Rebirth, a top secret defence research project designed to create physically superior soldiers. Rogers was given a costume modelled after the American flag, a bulletproof shield, a personal sidearm and the codename Captain America. Throughout World War II, Captain America and Bucky fought the Nazi menace. In the closing days of World War II in 1945, Captain America and Bucky tried to stop Baron Zemo from destroying an experimental drone plane. They reached the plane just before it took off, but when Bucky tried to defuse the bomb, it exploded in mid-air. The young man was believed killed, and Rogers was hurled into the freezing waters of the North Atlantic. Neither his body nor Bucky's were found, and both were presumed dead. Unfrozen much later in time, Captain America was out of touch with the reality of our world and began fighting our glorious President for Life.

“Anti-Citizen Two is something of an enigma. To all appearances he seems to be Nick Fury. Folks at home, Fury was the son of noted World War I pilot Jack Fury and an alleged descendant of one of the men who wore the Phantom Rider mask in the late nineteenth century. Nick Fury was born in New York City's Hell's Kitchen neighbourhood in the late 1910s. Most of his life is under so many classified barriers even now that our press release is more censor bars than not. What we can tell you is that Fury was one of the great heroes of the twentieth century and when he died it was a terrible loss for all normal humans.

“While Fury's death was faked many times, this last time was of old age in a bed at home. We're not sure who Anti-citizen Two actually is, but the chances he's Fury are very slim.

“Then of course there is Anti-Citizen One. Any information on the Man in the Orange Suit will be rewarded greatly by the President For Life. Please call the number on your screen if you know anything at all about where he came from, who he is, or how any of these extremely dangerous men can be caught.

“Dr. Scott?”

The slightly nervous-looking young man, weedy and pallid under the lights, coughed into a handkerchief and offered a weak smile to the camera. He was ready for this, truly, but the cameras were pressing on him in a way that he hadn't felt since defending his dissertation. That all faded when he started speaking, however, and his voice was warm and rolling.

“Thank you for that introduction, Ms. Gravens. I'm going to start by addressing the property damage these three menaces have inflicted on several government installations. No citizen could have missed the news coverage when the Haile was hit – the repository for all of our genetic information. We lost decades of health research when they destroyed that building, let alone the explosion of the experimental laboratories hit later that month.”

Dr. Derka broke in at that point, leaning forward with her hands on her knees and frowning. Although looking more confident than her opponent, her nerves were far higher. She had been given the unpopular stance and was grimly determined to hold her own in the face of dangerous waters. To that end she'd had several shots earlier for strength.

“Now now, Dr. Scott. What do you say about those rumours that the labs were actually weapons depots? That's been floating around for years.”

“All respect Dr. Derka, but poppycock. What do we need weapons depots for in the New York area? We're not at war. The worst that we have to consider is the possibility that the superhuman menace might arise again to put ordinary citizens at risk.”

“Some say that it's the lack of superhumans that has the country in the slump it has been at. How much great art, how many advances in the sciences, have been made since Captain America was executed?”

The tension level on the sound stage rocketed, both Ms. Gravens and Dr. Scott staring at Dr. Derka in complete shock. People just don't call him that any more. Alleged. So-called. It's just How Things Are Done.

“Steve Rogers.” Ms. Gravens says quietly, and Dr. Derka pales.

“Steve Rogers was executed. My apologies. I didn't mean ...”

The cameras switch off and a commercial break begins with a portrait of the President for Life and the nervous voice of the announcer stating, “The views expressed in this show are not those of the network or of any persons other than the guest.”

The target is low on information, this time, but high on things which will be useful in the future to either side; weapons. It's the major depot for this city and the three men who comprise the revolutionaries in this where and when are going to demolish it while looting as much as possible.

The complex has multiple buildings, four of them, and the weapons are stored in such a way that without prior knowledge of what is where they are not usable in current manner. Ammunition is stored in a different building from the clips, which are stored differently from the rest of the weapons. Fuses and mines are also stored separately, one with ammunition and one alone. The idea is that people who are sent here have the time to go from building to building. It isn't an emergency cache, this is a working facility. It is patrolled day after day by grim faced men and women who were personally chosen by the President to protect these weapons.

Lunches are taken in three shifts, with two thirds of the guards on duty at any given time. All gates require both a photographic key-card and verification by someone who personally knows the entrant, the people manning the gates were chosen for photographic memory.

The walls are twice the height of a man, with angled wire to keep people out. They're comfortable for two people to pass, but no wider than that. The stair cases also require use of the key cards to get in.

As a last situation, guard dogs both patrol with the guards and are allowed to wander through the complex on their own. Feeding is performed at dusk and dawn, enough to keep them healthy but not enough to get them fat and slow.

The building is the same as it was the day before. Few obvious people, few obvious cameras. Plenty of open space, and a couple of men across the street getting themselves ready for a snatch-and-grab...while prepared for it to go very, very wrong.

"You won't find most of them here." Rogers says, staring at the long braids he's worn for years. Sir Nicholas just grunts, bending over the books, "You could keep them." the older-looking man points out, "They would make you distinct, yes, but also hide your identity a bit. Who do you say I will not find?"

Sir Nicholas is adjusting. Not well, not gracefully, but he is adjusting to this world and the things he needs. The clothing is uncomfortable, foolish, hard to move in. The shoes are nowhere near as sturdy as his boots were. Even the colors are annoyingly different; blue and white rather than the deep purple and gold that he wore for so long.

The two, squalid rooms which he and Rogers are sharing remind him uncomfortably of youth as an orphan, as under and uncovered by the rule of law. That is, he must admit, close to the truth. It still disturbs him.

He thinks that it disturbs Rogers, as well. Every now and then he looks up from his near-frantic reading to see the other man looking at him with an expression of mixed anger and sorrow. He had been friends with Nick Fury, the man who Sir Nicholas so much resembles, for close to a hundred years before Nick died. "Would that other Fury betray you? Would he lie to you?" and "That other Nick Fury you knew? I'm not him."

They've had their fight over it, yes, but Rogers hasn't forgiven Sir Nicholas for not being that other Nick Fury. So be it. is the knight's opinion, We have a common goal, and then I shall go my way and he shall go his.

Eventually the silent but accusatory stare becomes too much, and Sir Nicholas stands, "I must take the air. I shall return anon." It is the kitchen door he opens, not the hallway one. Open, close, open, close, open...Milliways.

Nothing moves until Sir Nicholas' shoulder is firmly under the heavy weight of the man known as Rojhaz, as Steve Rogers, as Captain America.

Then lots of things happen. The scientists shout, one of them raises a gun, and Sir Nicholas - encumbered by the body of a man much larger than even his broad-shouldered and muscled frame - never the less springs into action. It's a blur, really, as he kicks the man with the gun into the other man before dumping Rojhaz on the gurney, then quickly, efficiently, kicks each of the staggering scientists in the jaw as they attempt to get up.