Wolverine stands alone on a beautiful mountain hill. There, he is testing the new sword he received, and it suits him fine. He reminisces that he used to think he was the best there is at what he does. Now, it turned out that he is actually the worst. However, Logan realizes he can’t change that. So, he is going to use this new sword. After safely stashing the sword into his belt, Logan promises to himself that he is going to use this sword to make everyone pay for the ones pay for the terrible things they did to him.
SHIELD Command Center, at an unknown location…
Dum-Dum Dugan stares quietly in front of him, before speaking to a woman on a video-phone. Addressing her as Madam Secretary, he asks how he can be of service. Stern faced, she demands answers. Cold and hard facts.
Dugan admits that there aren’t any “hard facts.” And, he adds, with Wolverine dropping in and out of the grid so sporadically, there isn’t much hope SHIELD will have at any time soon. The secretary warns Dugan not to give her this nonsense. She is fully aware that SHIELD is holding back information on her, and promises she’ll make them pay for this once she finds out what this information actually is. Dugan asks the secretary whether, if she discovers anything, will she be a dear and pass it along. The cabinet secretary’s only response is a scowl.
Ignoring Dugan, she warns him that he should be more mindful of his current situation. Dugan angrily defends that he knows exactly what his “situation” is. He knows he got handed this stupid nonsense because he’s got years into this to know the stakes and just enough of a profile to make a profitable scapegoat if this whole mess goes to hell in a handbasket. Which, Dugan even more angrily shouts, it already has! The secretary is pleased to hear that at least Dugan understands the situation. She wants him to understand the following thing as well: she is a very powerful woman. She could make some calls on Dugan’s behalf, and perhaps even get him out of this mess. But, before she does anything, the Secretary needs to know that there will be a… reciprocation. Dugan wants to know what that is supposed to mean. After all, the president has full protection. The secretary defends that she isn’t talking about the president.
On that very moment, the video-phone goes out. Dugan believes that she hang up on him. Unfortunately, this isn’t the case. On that very moment, the alarm signal goes off in the entire base! One of the female agents comes to inform Dugan that they’ve got a situation. The White House communication devices are down… across the board! They are completely blacked out!
Elsewhere, in the sewers…
After having sliced through the communication devices with his claws, Wolverine continues his journey through the tunnels.
At the White House...
The alarm goes off at the White House, and the secret serice quickly lead the president to safety. Hearing the commotion, the secretary comes to check out what’s going on, but only find the secret service pushing her out of the way while trying to evacuate the president. After being left all alone, the secretary starts to panic, and wonders what’s going to happen to her.
SHIELD Command Center…
When Dugan demands to know where the president is now, an agent reports that the secret service is moving the president toward Exit Designation: Scorpio, and should arrive there in about six seconds. Dugan goes to check out his other agents, who are at their computers trying to pinpoint the president. Dugan wants to know how many agents SHIELD has on the move at the White House. There are two squads inbound. The Baltimore unit is mobilizing as they speak. SHIELD also has an aircraft en route for extraction in about eight seconds.
Another agent comes to inform Dugan that the secret service reports that Scorpio is impassable! They are proceeding to the secondary possibility. However, another agent cuts in, alerting that aircraft is reporting communication failures, and that they are flying blind! As Dugan and the others take this in, another agent informs Dugan that Norad is reporting what looks like an incoming cruise missile. And that cruise is heading straight towards the White House itself!
Dugan wants that thing shot down, however the agents shamefully report that they can’t do that. The cruise is too low, and too close. Dugan demands to know how this happened. An agent explains that it looks like the cruise was fired underwater, somewhere in Chesapeake Bay. When Dugan wants to know how close the cruise is, the agent reports that the cruise is already there. Cursing aloud in rage, Dugan throwing his earpiece against the wall, smashing it. Suddenly, an agent reports that they are reading a negative impac. The missile appears to have malfunctioned, and landed in the yard near the White House. The mansion itself is completely safe and intact.
The many SHIELD agents and Dugan are speechless, and the agents cheer for the victory. A serious Dugan orders them all to shut up immediately, and the agents to as told. Dugan wants to know what this was all about. A warning? A show of force? An agent reports that a nuke squad has been deployed to dismantle the missile ETA twenty-two minutes. All SHIELD personnel are being pulled back from the site and are cordoning off the area. Dugan thinks about it for a while, and realizes the true plan. Wolverine got them again. When the agents don’t know what Dugan is talking about, Dugan reveals hat he means that the president wasn’t the target.
At the White House…
The cabinet secretary walks through the deserted White House hallways, and calls out to check if anyone is still there. To her surprise and horror, Wolverine arrives from behind a corner! It’s just the two of them now, he tells her.
SHIELD Command Center…
The agents want to know if the missile was just a decoy. Dugan admits he thinks so. He believes that Wolverine did it so that SHIELD would pull back and give him time to operate. The agents want to know about the equipment malfunctions aboard SHIELD’s aircraft. Is Wolverine was responsible for those as well? Dugan confirms that’s possible, but explains that it’s also possible there are other players on the board. The agents don’t know what Dugan is talking about.
At the White House…
The crashed missile starts to crack open, and a metal foot steps out of it.
Wolverine angrily grabs the US secretary by her hair, and smashes her head into the wall! When he demands to know who she’s taking orders from these days, she defends it’s from the president of the United States. Wolverine snikts out his claws and threatens the secretary with them. He demands to know who she takes her real orders from. Suddenly, an explosion sound is heard. A crying secretary mentions to Logan that people were prepared for this, and she isn’t helpless.
On that very moment, a Shiva robot crashes through a wall! Wolverine recalls that the robot was build to track down and neutralize rogue agents of the Weapon X program. These things are pretty near indestructible and the robots don’t quit until they’ve done their job. The secretary notices the Shiva robot stalling, and orders it to kill Wolverine. However, instead of doing as ordered, Shiva kills the secretary! Wolverine admits that he didn’t see that coming, and apparently, neither did the Secretary. He believes that whoever sent Shiva knew that he was coming for this woman, so they silenced her.
Wolverine takes out his sword, and starts fighting Shiva. Logan knew that the secretary was somebody’s mole. He recognized the code matrix she was using in her speeches. He believes she must have been a lot higher up the food chain than he assumed, or the mysterious attackers wouldn’t be risking this kind of exposure. Either that, or all this was a trap. They used the secretary as bait to lure him here, isolated the site, and send in their heavy hitter. Logan jokes that, next time, these people better send in something else than a tin robot, because that isn’t going to work anymore. This isn’t like the old days. This is a new day, and Logan is packing a whole new kind of heat.
After dodging all of Shiva’s blasts, Wolverine uses his sword to cut the robot in half, and destroys it. He spits on the remains and then walks towards a door, leading to the Lincoln Bedroom. Entering, he examines a wall, which he quickly slices through using his claws. Behind it, an old, wooden door is revealed. Logan opens it, and walks into a dark tunnel.
SHIELD Command Center…
A four-star general debriefs Dugan about the current situation. The secretary is completely fried up, and dead as can be, the general tells Dugan. He’s got one cruise missile, whose origins are unknown, sticking out of the White House lawn. He’s got one robot samurai, whose origins are also unknown to him, lying in two pieces in the hall outside the Oval Office. And in the center of this whole mess, the general has Wolverine running around, completely off the chain. And no one seems to know why or what he is after. Also, the General believes, the reason why no one knows what Wolverine is up to because every time anyone gets close to finding out, Logan always manages to slip away from them! So, the general’s question is this: what are Dugan and SHIELD doing at the Command Center, because it doesn’t look like they are solving the situation.
In response, Dugan defends that they are simply playing the cards they are dealt with. They don’t know who fired that missile. They don’t know why Wolverine was at the White House. All they know is that Logan has got his memories back, and is really ticked off. If they are going to have any chance of gaining the initiative, Dugan mentions that he’s going to need authorization to station SHIELD agents in all possible quarters.
The general believes that Wolverine knows SHIELD completely from the in and outside. Any further involvement at this point would be considered a liability. Wolverine has played SHIELD like a fiddle, time and again. And the general believes Dugan knows this. He doesn’t want to offend his old friend Dum-Dum, but the general mentions he and his companions are going to take matters into their own hands. From here on in, it’s every man for himself.
Meanwhile, at the US Embassy in Santiago, Chile…
Security agents take an elevator down to the labs. There, scientist confirm to them they are good to go. A noise is heard through the chamber and, a minute later, the agents inform their new audience that they aren’t going to B.S. him. They’ll just give him the facts and he can make the decision by himself. Simply put: the country needs him. A new threat has emerged, and the state doesn’t know how to handle it. The soldiers are in danger.
The mysterious person, almost breathless, is determined to get their boys out of danger. The agents confirm that’s exactly what they’ve got to do, and why they need him. They want to know if he’ll accept the assignment.
Nuke steps out of his stasis tank, and demands to have a red pill!
