Chapter 1637: The Captain On the Run, and Pierce Takes the Stage

Luke picked up his pace and sent a message to Tony. “Black Egg is dead. You need to hurry up.”

Nick Fury’s “death” meant that the two parties had completely fallen out, and it was time for Hydra to reveal its true intentions.

Perhaps Hydra still wanted to lurk for a while, but Nick Fury, who was “dead,” wouldn’t give them that chance.

Otherwise, wouldn’t the director have “died” for nothing?

Tony simply replied, “Got it.”

Last time, Nick Fury had used Phil to put on a “martyr show.” Now, it was very hard for the tycoon to feel much.

It made more sense to hurry up and plunder SHIELD’s resources.

Once SHIELD collapsed, the burden of world peace would fall even harder on Tony Stark’s shoulders.

Thus, he diligently plundered the organization with a clear conscience.

Everything was for world peace!

Sure enough, Frank sent a third message dozens of minutes later. “There was a fight in an elevator at SHIELD. The victor jumped from a height of more than ten floors, took down a plane, and ran. ”

Luke was stunned. “Huh?”

Frank said, “Hm, this guy is really good at close combat. The way he throws his shield is also very interesting.”

Luke: “…Where is he now?”

Frank: “We’ve lost him for the moment.”

Luke said, “Ignore him. Killing him is harder than killing Black Egg.”

Frank: “Hehe, that might not be the case. A hero is always the quickest to die.”

Luke said, “He’s almost 90 years old.”

Frank: “…Okay, I take back my words. He’s indeed quite capable.”

Luke’s mind raced. So, even Captain America had fallen out with Hydra SHIELD. All-out battle was close to breaking out in SHIELD.

He said, “All members, enter standby mode. Hammersmith will assume full command.”

Pings rang out in the team channel as the team members came online with the remote-controlled robots.

Frank swiftly began to give orders. The team members operated the remote-controlled robots and began to rush to their designated positions.

Half an hour later, the commander stopped issuing orders on the commander’s exclusive chat window in the team channel.

Frank wouldn’t act rashly until something happened.

If that happened, he wouldn’t just be helping Hydra out, he might even cop the blame after this.

After a brief silence, the ID “Knight” popped up in the team members’ chat, and people started talking.

Frank, Ivan, Angel, Damon and the Ninja Squad’s “teacher” either remained silent or simply responded with a few words.

Mindy and the little turtles greeted each other and chatted excitedly.

Nobody stopped them.

Even Frank, who hated distractions during an operation the most, didn’t say anything.

That was probably because the team members’ chat window didn’t interfere with the commander’s exclusive chat window.

Everybody would immediately pay attention to any orders in the commander’s window.

The operation hadn’t really started yet.

It wasn’t good for everyone to remain silent and tense for long periods of time.

It was like a rubber band. When your nerves were stretched taut for too long, it would throw you out of the proper state.

Besides, it was only the five minors who were chatting. The older crowd didn’t say anything and watched the screen silently. They wouldn’t be delayed if something happened.

It was usually Selina who initiated the group chat.

However, she was basking in the May sun in Mexico, so Luke let her take a break this time.

The five minors were very good at livening up the atmosphere.

They talked about TV shows, movies, cosplay and so on. Even the older members felt it was quite fun to watch them.

Just like what was described in Maslow’s hierarchy of needs, humans had five levels of needs, and the lower three levels had been amply met for the team members.

The biggest problem had been with the turtles and their teacher, but thanks to Internet access and communication with the rest of the team, their social needs, which they had lacked the most, were now being met.

As for the remaining high-level needs of esteem and self-actualization, these were without doubt met through the vigilante work which they did as superheroes.

Even Frank and Angel would say that this wasn’t a strong need for them.

However, if they had a choice, to have an utterly fulfilling “career” recognized by the public was far better than being despised by everyone.

So, watching the “small” superheroes talk about superhero cosplay was pretty fun.

The older members were too embarrassed to discuss this, but it was impossible to say that they weren’t interested in what other people thought.

Even Luke, who had a lot of aliases and switched between them often, still read the crack comments online about him. However, other people didn’t have a system, and it was hard for them to be as detached as he was.

The situation was pretty much what Luke and Frank had expected.

There wasn’t much activity in D.C. for the next few hours. At least, there were no more public battles.

But Tony soon received an internal message from SHIELD.

After Black Egg’s “death,” Alexander Pierce of the World Security Council, as Nick Fury’s direct superior and the previous SHIELD director, was temporarily taking over SHIELD affairs.

In the meantime, this “old” director issued a wanted order for Captain America, telling everyone in SHIELD that Nick Fury’s death was related to the captain.

Luke pondered for a few minutes before he sent a message to Tony. “There’s a big problem with this new director.”

Tony said, “I agree.”

They didn’t continue discussing it.

No matter how reasonable it might be to pin the blame for Nick Fury’s murder on Captain America, it was still very suspicious.

It wasn’t that Pierce was stupid, but only someone with a high rank could “convict” Captain America.

If Nick Fury wasn’t dead, he would also have this authority.

Of course, Black Egg, who had now been “killed” by Captain America, naturally couldn’t do this.

Luke and Tony didn’t relax with Pierce’s appearance. Instead, they were even more certain that something was going to happen.

As a member of the World Security Council, Pierce was at the top.

For such a bigshot to personally step in meant that things had gotten to a point where it was necessary.

What was the Helicarrier going to do as part of “Project Insight”?

Was it going to completely destroy D.C.? And bury major cities on the East Coast like Pennsylvania, New York and Boston along with it?

Luke felt that this was probably the only way to severely cripple America.

Blow up the person in the White House? Dream on.

In a sense, the person in the White House was just a “tenant,” while the “owners” would always be the major capital corporations.

Michelle Geber, the current “tenant,” only had a year in office left, and was about to step down. It didn’t matter if she died or not.

It wasn’t hard for Luke to find out about Project Insight.

It was SHIELD who had given the project its name.

Apart from the high-ranking members in SHIELD, several people in Hydra had heard this name, but nobody knew what the plan was.

Based on Luke’s understanding of Hydra, there was no way such a huge air carrier would be used against aliens.

On the contrary, there were many people in Hydra who wanted to seize the opportunity to climb the ladder.

They preferred to work for Hydra over world peace.