NOVEL NEXT Chapter 180 – Black List
[2009 – October]
[SHIELD – New York Headquarters]
Facing the holographic projections of the World Security Council members, Fury's facial expression was decidedly impassive as he had naturally expected to be questioned by them about Elijah Frost's actions.
“Monetary damages roughly in the billions, environmental damage incalculable, an estimation of one thousand and seven hundred people killed, not to mention the tens of thousands that were injured in the aftershocks of the attack.”, a male voice sounded out in accordance to the lip movements of Gideon Malick's projection.
Being a powerful businessman and an incredibly influential political figure, the man had every right to sit on the seat of a Council member, his mannerism mirroring the great authority that he wielded.
“If that is what you meant by assuring us that Elijah Frost is no threat to the world then we seriously have to question your ability to accurately assess potentially dangerous individuals, Director.”, Malick ended, the admonishment clear in his voice, his tone grave.
The Council didn't give Fury any chance to answer the accusations though as Chao Yen, another Council member, spoke up.
"As well as your ability to lead SHIELD according to the motivations for its inception.", the man added with an Asian accent to his words before continuing, "If you cannot even accurately assess what kind of danger an individual poses after investigating, much less deal with threats like this, why do we fund your organization in the first place?"
Holding back the derisive snort that threatened to escape his lips at those ignorant words, Fury almost wanted to question if the Councilman had looked at the same footage that he had.
Even if he poured all the resources at his disposal into it, the spymaster had serious doubts about being able to 'deal' with the young mutant that had single-handedly rearranged the surface of the planet and caused earthquakes all over the American continent before disintegrating hundreds of satellites with a single move.
Because even with the footage of Elijah Frost using his powers, Fury still had no idea about the true nature of the young man's terrifying abilities.
This obviously also stressed how unwise it was to provoke the young man by sending his Agents to spy on him after the boy had already warned Natasha that there would be consequences for such actions.
And now that Fury had actual footage of the kind of consequences that the young man had spoken about, he was already counting his lucky stars for rejecting the Council's order to further investigate Elijah Frost.
Naturally, the Council wasn't seeing things his way as they were only concerned about unstable elements that they could not control, instead of accepting the reality of the situation, which was that they were just hopelessly and unquestionably 'outgunned'.
Even if they had known beforehand about Elijah Frost's attack, did they even have the power and resources to stop him or fight back? Fury at least didn't think so.
Still, the Director of SHIELD kept his calm as he replied: “According to the intel we managed to unearth, the attack was aimed at the main base of operations of the rogue Weapon Plus Program, called 'The Facility'.”
SHIELD didn't have any intel about the Facility before the incident, even though Fury had heard rumours about the organization, especially its problematic origins considering that the Weapon Plus Program was an operation funded by the U.S. Government.
With Elijah's attack though, he had indirectly helped them unearth a lot more information about that organization since they now knew where and what to look for.
“From what we understand, there were not only experimenting with the genetic material of mutants but also captured mutants and humans to either experiment on them, or to try and forcefully awaken them as mutants before selling them off as living weapons.”, Fury continued, trying to guess the reason for the young Frost's actions.
With this intel in hand, he was sure that the Facility must have provoked this disaster with their actions even though the exact details of what led to the attack were unclear.
Fury trusted Natasha's assessment and Logan's opinion when it came to Elijah Frost's character, which was also consistent with the limited information that he had about the boy's past and the surveillance material at hand.
To be more accurate though, Fury almost desperately wanted to believe that the boy was not a vicious monster that was just out to cause death and destruction because the alternative was a rather nightmarish scenario.
“Director, we did not convene this meeting to find excuses for the attack or to denounce the actions of a few rogue scientists.”, Malick countered, the Councilman seemingly unwilling to discuss any kind of justification for the young mutant's actions.
“We called for this meeting to decide how to deal with Elijah Frost, now that we have seen what he can do. It is obvious that he is a threat to the world at large, as such I vote that he be put on the Black List.”, he stated decisively.
The Black List was a list of individuals that potentially threatened global security and, if possible, should be eliminated. Furthermore, once on the list, there was no way to be taken off it besides dying.
This didn't mean that SHIELD would hunt down the names on the list as some of those individuals were simply too dangerous and the chances of success were simply too small. Still, they were targets of great interest and constant surveillance.
Erik Lehnsherr, a.k.a. Magneto, was at the top of that list as he wasn't just a terrorist but his power also made it almost impossible to capture or kill him, even if SHIELD was prepared to suffer great losses.
What made Fury furrow his brows though was the fact that putting Elijah Frost on the Black List would most certainly make it incredibly unlikely for the Council to agree to consider him as a potential candidate of the 'Avengers Initiative', which was one of the projects that the spymaster was most concerned about.
After having seen the examples of overwhelming individual strength, Fury firmly believed that forming a team of enhanced individuals was the most effective way to combat the increasingly unstable situation on this planet.
The emergence of enhanced individuals on a global scale was increasing exponentially, especially if one included mutantkind. Not to mention that the advancements in the scientific field were slowly making disputes between countries and different organizations more and more dangerous.
And while the brewing conflict between humanity and mutantkind made it difficult, almost impossible even, to recruit a mutant for the Avengers Initiative with the Council's approval, Fury was clear on the fact that even his best Agents had no chance of winning against mutants that won the genetic lottery like Magneto or Charles Xavier.
Therefore, he had always paid special attention to newly-awakened mutants that exhibited signs of great strength in hopes of recruiting someone that could measure up against those that stood at the peak of individual prowess.
Still, he also knew that after what Elijah had done, it was impossible to not add his name to the Black List as his powers and actions most certainly qualified him for a place near the top.
Fury though wasn't so easily dissuaded as he replied sharply: "Black List or not, the reason for his actions has to be investigated. If we want to accurately assess how much of a threat Elijah Frost truly is, then we must find out the cause behind his act of flattening an entire mountain range."
"And until we have the whole picture, I will not send any of my Agents to risk their lives to surveil someone that dangerous. The risks simply outweigh the potential gains and I do not want to be responsible if that young man turns New York City into a wasteland in his anger.", the spymaster stated decidedly, thankfully hearing no objections from the Council members.