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domarzioneExcerpts from Interview #2 with SHIELD prisoner #2935734H
1800 words | PG-13 | HYDRA, Winter Soldier/Bucky Barnes
Session note: The prisoner has revealed that he was part of the 'asset management team' controlling the HYDRA operator known as the Winter Soldier [possibly SGT J. B. Barnes, US Army, MIA 5 September 1944, declared KIA 12 December 1944]. Further questioning suggested after follow-ups on provided information complete.
[Clearance: TOP SECRET/SI-MORAY 5342/HCS-7766/NO TRANSMIT]
I joined HYDRA in 2004, at least officially. Before then, it had been unofficial, I guess. Probationary, although I didn't know it was like that. For obvious reasons, the cell leaders were worried about moles and spies, so if you seemed interested, they'd sound you out for a good long time before giving you anything. I'd been on the bulletin boards for a while, since undergrad, and a few mailing lists -- those were still a thing back then.
How did I find them? By accident, really. I had always been very politically active, but I was also at an engineering school, which are usually not very politically aware -- or socially aware, or culturally aware, or aware of anything, to be honest. So I turned to the internet to find like-minded folks. There was a lot of weeding through the crazies, but I eventually found some HYDRA boards... No, of course they weren't called HYDRA. The first one I found was a riff off of Doctor Strangelove and all of the board mods had the names of characters. I started there and took suggestions and found more.
Political stuff, mostly. [...]
My first job out of school once I got my doctorate was with Stark Industries, in their Robotics division. I worked myself up to being a program sub-director for... well, to simplify, for the joints on their robotic arms. Like the one that got packed on to the Space Shuttle to go to the International Space Station. I worked on that one from start to finish. I also was part of the team that overhauled the entire line of joints for the medical robot arms. The elbows and wrists, you could say.... I liked the work a lot, it was very satisfying on the professional and personal level. Stark Industries, even when they were primarily weaponeers, they put a lot of resources into humanitarian applications of cutting-edge technology. I got to see one of the arms I'd redesigned joints for assist on an appendectomy five thousand miles from where the doctor operating it was standing. That was a great day, even better than getting to say that I'd designed something that was being used in space.
I did reportage for HYDRA during that time, yes. I wouldn't call it corporate espionage because it wasn't going to a competitor; I was monitoring progress. HYDRA benefited tremendously from what SI did, in all sectors, not just defense. It wasn't a matter of influencing anything at SI, no. Just straight-up keeping track of things.
I left SI in 2009 to work for HYDRA directly... It was a reassignment. I would have been happy to stay at SI, but I went where I was needed and I would be lying if I said that I wasn't pleased to be asked to move over... Because it meant that my work had been noticed, that I was doing a good job. And because I would get a chance to do more for a cause I believed in.
My initial assignment was to what would become Project Insight... no, of course HYDRA had its oar in from the start. Who do you think came up with it? Nick Fury? We had what I guess you'd call a shadow project team, like the UK has shadow ministers -- HYDRA scientists who had access to all of of the SHIELD teams' work and kept abreast of it. I was the shadow project manager for the weapons systems... no, it's not such a leap, certainly not at that point. Insight was still early in the design phase, so all I was really doing was taking notes on what the SHIELD teams were batting around ideas for and what they were building prototypes of. It wasn't very thrilling work, to be honest, mostly bureaucratic. It would have gotten far more interesting once the design plans were approved, but by that point, I was already with the Lion Tamers.
The Lion Tamers were what we called ourselves, mostly, although it was commonly used within a certain level of HYDRA hierarchy. My actual job title was Maintenance Engineer IX, Asset Management Team, Project Alpha-19440905. My pay stub just said "Maint. Eng IX, AMT" on it... Of course I got a pay stub. And I paid taxes on that income, too.
We called ourselves the Lion Tamers because that's what it felt like. The asset we managed was... challenging. He'd killed so many of his handlers over the years that, back in the '90s, the project manager had stopped remembering the names of the actual team and just went with nicknames. There was a Gunther, a Gebel, a Williams, a Siegfried -- that was mine, a Roy, a Cristo, a Lacey, and the gals were always Mabel or Rose. I went through two Roys and two Gebels while I was there.
No, most of them were biomedical engineers and regular medical doctors -- the asset was mostly human. I was usually one of two robotics specialists, although sometimes I was the only one depending on who was available... No, it was just the arm, but saying anything about him was 'just' anything is underselling it. You've seen the pictures, right? From when he went after Fury in the streets? That's who I spent four-plus years with. Of course it was terrifying. Even when he was in the cooler. You could see his face and even though you knew he was out, that the cryo drugs had him so far under they needed to shock his heart to get him started again, you still got nervous because if something happened and he woke up, the pressure seals on the chamber weren't going to hold him. Sometimes we used to throw a dropcloth over the window so we didn't have to look at his face and get creeped out.
Honestly, no. I didn't consider him a person. He was flesh and blood and anatomically human, save for the arm, but he lacked the... spark of life you expect from a person. Or a dog, really. He had no personality; that had been stripped out of him decades ago. He could talk and was very intelligent when it came to his skill set -- updating him on weapons, technology, stuff he'd need to go outside and do his job, all that was always very easy from what I saw and what I was told. Nobody had any complaints there. But you couldn't carry on a conversation with him. I could tell him about upgrades to his prosthetic and what was different from last time and he could follow and understand and he'd ask a question if he had one, but it was very stilted and strictly utilitarian and he never had an opinion about anything -- it worked better or worse, it was harder to use or it wasn't, that sort of thing. He didn't have likes or dislikes. If you asked him if he liked the kit he had been provided with for a mission, he'd give a purely technical answer. If you asked him if he liked ice cream, he'd just stare at you. He was a golem, not a person. A couple of the guys called him Arnie the Asset after the guy Schwarzenegger played in Terminator, but it wasn't like he could get the joke, you know? He didn't answer to it anyway.
I knew, yeah. Not at first, not until they found Captain America... Of course we knew about that right away. When we heard about it, the head of the project at the time, Pete, he cracked a joke about getting a matched set and I think we all thought he was talking about super-soldiers, but then he said no, he meant the two living Howling Commandos. And then he told us that the Asset used to be Bucky Barnes. I looked him up on Wikipedia later and yeah, I made the connection then... No, that didn't change anything. HYDRA had its super-soldier and SHIELD would have theirs and ours was a helluva lot more useful. He was the most elegant, most lethal, most important weapon HYDRA had in shaping world events to prepare for HYDRA's triumph. Steve Rogers spent seventy years as a popsicle and then a year living in a cocoon hiding from himself and the world around him until the Chitauri came. You tell me which one was really alive.
The Asset displayed no long-term memory recovery, no. Never. There was nothing in his files and you can be damned sure HYDRA was taking pains to monitor that. There wasn't anything until he physically interacted with Captain America and then there was some recall, but only temporarily... No, the first response was to try logic and an appeal to reason, would you believe? It wasn't what any of the Lion Tamers would have tried, but who were we to contradict the Supreme HYDRA? We knew how it would go in the end, but if Pierce somehow got the Asset to respond to his appeal, great. The wipe and the re-conditioning was always the hardest part; it's where most of the injuries and deaths happened, so if we got to avoid it, bonus. But we didn't and we were pretty lucky to get away with only the usual bruises.
The memory repression tech I can only tell you about in generalities. I know the principles and the effects, but you'll need someone with neuro-tech experience to give you the specifics... No, we called it a wipe, but it wasn't like we were actually wiping memories away, we just...quarantined them. If you have ever partitioned a hard drive, you'll understand.
No, it hurts. It hurts a lot. The Asset was clearly in distress... Because it wasn't important. He routinely experienced pain and withstood it. He never fought the process.
The re-conditioning. He fought that violently if we didn't get it started right away. That's where the body count came from. We had maybe five-ten minutes after he woke up, either from the cryo or from the wipe, before he turned violent... No, because it made the re-conditioning process impossible. It requires a suggestive state, but it also requires a mental clarity that drugs would have made impossible... Because we were less important to the mission than he was and if we died to keep him effective, then we died for the greater good. But on the whole, we preferred to work fast because there are better ways to die for HYDRA's advancement.
[...]
1800 words | PG-13 | HYDRA, Winter Soldier/Bucky Barnes
Session note: The prisoner has revealed that he was part of the 'asset management team' controlling the HYDRA operator known as the Winter Soldier [possibly SGT J. B. Barnes, US Army, MIA 5 September 1944, declared KIA 12 December 1944]. Further questioning suggested after follow-ups on provided information complete.
[Clearance: TOP SECRET/SI-MORAY 5342/HCS-7766/NO TRANSMIT]
I joined HYDRA in 2004, at least officially. Before then, it had been unofficial, I guess. Probationary, although I didn't know it was like that. For obvious reasons, the cell leaders were worried about moles and spies, so if you seemed interested, they'd sound you out for a good long time before giving you anything. I'd been on the bulletin boards for a while, since undergrad, and a few mailing lists -- those were still a thing back then.
How did I find them? By accident, really. I had always been very politically active, but I was also at an engineering school, which are usually not very politically aware -- or socially aware, or culturally aware, or aware of anything, to be honest. So I turned to the internet to find like-minded folks. There was a lot of weeding through the crazies, but I eventually found some HYDRA boards... No, of course they weren't called HYDRA. The first one I found was a riff off of Doctor Strangelove and all of the board mods had the names of characters. I started there and took suggestions and found more.
Political stuff, mostly. [...]
My first job out of school once I got my doctorate was with Stark Industries, in their Robotics division. I worked myself up to being a program sub-director for... well, to simplify, for the joints on their robotic arms. Like the one that got packed on to the Space Shuttle to go to the International Space Station. I worked on that one from start to finish. I also was part of the team that overhauled the entire line of joints for the medical robot arms. The elbows and wrists, you could say.... I liked the work a lot, it was very satisfying on the professional and personal level. Stark Industries, even when they were primarily weaponeers, they put a lot of resources into humanitarian applications of cutting-edge technology. I got to see one of the arms I'd redesigned joints for assist on an appendectomy five thousand miles from where the doctor operating it was standing. That was a great day, even better than getting to say that I'd designed something that was being used in space.
I did reportage for HYDRA during that time, yes. I wouldn't call it corporate espionage because it wasn't going to a competitor; I was monitoring progress. HYDRA benefited tremendously from what SI did, in all sectors, not just defense. It wasn't a matter of influencing anything at SI, no. Just straight-up keeping track of things.
I left SI in 2009 to work for HYDRA directly... It was a reassignment. I would have been happy to stay at SI, but I went where I was needed and I would be lying if I said that I wasn't pleased to be asked to move over... Because it meant that my work had been noticed, that I was doing a good job. And because I would get a chance to do more for a cause I believed in.
My initial assignment was to what would become Project Insight... no, of course HYDRA had its oar in from the start. Who do you think came up with it? Nick Fury? We had what I guess you'd call a shadow project team, like the UK has shadow ministers -- HYDRA scientists who had access to all of of the SHIELD teams' work and kept abreast of it. I was the shadow project manager for the weapons systems... no, it's not such a leap, certainly not at that point. Insight was still early in the design phase, so all I was really doing was taking notes on what the SHIELD teams were batting around ideas for and what they were building prototypes of. It wasn't very thrilling work, to be honest, mostly bureaucratic. It would have gotten far more interesting once the design plans were approved, but by that point, I was already with the Lion Tamers.
The Lion Tamers were what we called ourselves, mostly, although it was commonly used within a certain level of HYDRA hierarchy. My actual job title was Maintenance Engineer IX, Asset Management Team, Project Alpha-19440905. My pay stub just said "Maint. Eng IX, AMT" on it... Of course I got a pay stub. And I paid taxes on that income, too.
We called ourselves the Lion Tamers because that's what it felt like. The asset we managed was... challenging. He'd killed so many of his handlers over the years that, back in the '90s, the project manager had stopped remembering the names of the actual team and just went with nicknames. There was a Gunther, a Gebel, a Williams, a Siegfried -- that was mine, a Roy, a Cristo, a Lacey, and the gals were always Mabel or Rose. I went through two Roys and two Gebels while I was there.
No, most of them were biomedical engineers and regular medical doctors -- the asset was mostly human. I was usually one of two robotics specialists, although sometimes I was the only one depending on who was available... No, it was just the arm, but saying anything about him was 'just' anything is underselling it. You've seen the pictures, right? From when he went after Fury in the streets? That's who I spent four-plus years with. Of course it was terrifying. Even when he was in the cooler. You could see his face and even though you knew he was out, that the cryo drugs had him so far under they needed to shock his heart to get him started again, you still got nervous because if something happened and he woke up, the pressure seals on the chamber weren't going to hold him. Sometimes we used to throw a dropcloth over the window so we didn't have to look at his face and get creeped out.
Honestly, no. I didn't consider him a person. He was flesh and blood and anatomically human, save for the arm, but he lacked the... spark of life you expect from a person. Or a dog, really. He had no personality; that had been stripped out of him decades ago. He could talk and was very intelligent when it came to his skill set -- updating him on weapons, technology, stuff he'd need to go outside and do his job, all that was always very easy from what I saw and what I was told. Nobody had any complaints there. But you couldn't carry on a conversation with him. I could tell him about upgrades to his prosthetic and what was different from last time and he could follow and understand and he'd ask a question if he had one, but it was very stilted and strictly utilitarian and he never had an opinion about anything -- it worked better or worse, it was harder to use or it wasn't, that sort of thing. He didn't have likes or dislikes. If you asked him if he liked the kit he had been provided with for a mission, he'd give a purely technical answer. If you asked him if he liked ice cream, he'd just stare at you. He was a golem, not a person. A couple of the guys called him Arnie the Asset after the guy Schwarzenegger played in Terminator, but it wasn't like he could get the joke, you know? He didn't answer to it anyway.
I knew, yeah. Not at first, not until they found Captain America... Of course we knew about that right away. When we heard about it, the head of the project at the time, Pete, he cracked a joke about getting a matched set and I think we all thought he was talking about super-soldiers, but then he said no, he meant the two living Howling Commandos. And then he told us that the Asset used to be Bucky Barnes. I looked him up on Wikipedia later and yeah, I made the connection then... No, that didn't change anything. HYDRA had its super-soldier and SHIELD would have theirs and ours was a helluva lot more useful. He was the most elegant, most lethal, most important weapon HYDRA had in shaping world events to prepare for HYDRA's triumph. Steve Rogers spent seventy years as a popsicle and then a year living in a cocoon hiding from himself and the world around him until the Chitauri came. You tell me which one was really alive.
The Asset displayed no long-term memory recovery, no. Never. There was nothing in his files and you can be damned sure HYDRA was taking pains to monitor that. There wasn't anything until he physically interacted with Captain America and then there was some recall, but only temporarily... No, the first response was to try logic and an appeal to reason, would you believe? It wasn't what any of the Lion Tamers would have tried, but who were we to contradict the Supreme HYDRA? We knew how it would go in the end, but if Pierce somehow got the Asset to respond to his appeal, great. The wipe and the re-conditioning was always the hardest part; it's where most of the injuries and deaths happened, so if we got to avoid it, bonus. But we didn't and we were pretty lucky to get away with only the usual bruises.
The memory repression tech I can only tell you about in generalities. I know the principles and the effects, but you'll need someone with neuro-tech experience to give you the specifics... No, we called it a wipe, but it wasn't like we were actually wiping memories away, we just...quarantined them. If you have ever partitioned a hard drive, you'll understand.
No, it hurts. It hurts a lot. The Asset was clearly in distress... Because it wasn't important. He routinely experienced pain and withstood it. He never fought the process.
The re-conditioning. He fought that violently if we didn't get it started right away. That's where the body count came from. We had maybe five-ten minutes after he woke up, either from the cryo or from the wipe, before he turned violent... No, because it made the re-conditioning process impossible. It requires a suggestive state, but it also requires a mental clarity that drugs would have made impossible... Because we were less important to the mission than he was and if we died to keep him effective, then we died for the greater good. But on the whole, we preferred to work fast because there are better ways to die for HYDRA's advancement.
[...]
