“I nearly called early,” Daisy says, “in the hopes he’d still be alive and would be able to give me a last piece of advice. Maybe I should have. He couldn’t have taken not doing anything about the latest event well, I know.”
“Well,” Melinda replies, “we didn’t do nothing. I’m not going to get into the details right now, but we did enough to ease his conscience a little. And he knew he could never be the one protecting the world forever. Now what did you want advice on?” Because if she knows Daisy, it couldn’t have been any small matter.
And thankfully she doesn’t protest Melinda’s pretty much refusing to tell her something. Instead she hands her a tablet. “The communication we sent out was one we piggybacked through government communications. Then we decided to look further into their networks, to see who needed help, and especially who might not get it from them. And then we just sort of kept going. And we got a long list of all the things our recently dearly departed president got up to that the public doesn’t know about yet. Ross has made a show of revealing a couple things and reversing quite a few of his policies, the ones he himself didn’t care about anyway, but the Inhuman-related stuff he’ll probably let go on if someone doesn’t do something.”
Melinda knows exactly what Daisy is asking. And by the time she’s done reading through the tablet, she knows exactly what the answer has to be. Basic moral decency will allow no other answer.
Still she has to say it: “If we do this, S.H.I.E.L.D. will never get back into the government’s good graces. Even when Ross leaves office, his successor will know we’re a threat to him; there won’t be the amnesty Ellis tried to give us. Every member of this organization may end up having to go dark and disappear from the outside world for good.”
“I know.” Melinda can hear how much this agonizes her. “I’ve been trying to think of things we can do where maybe we can keep them from figuring out we’re behind them.”
“We start with that. First thing we try is exposure.” That’s obvious enough. “Leak everything. As a whole, in parts, whatever minimizes the possibility of it being traced back to us.” It might be anyway, but at least they can try to prevent it. “At the very least, that’ll probably stop the kind of systematic murder of Inhumans that’s been going on; there are some things the American public still won’t tolerate yet.”
“They wouldn’t before half of them died,” Daisy sighes.
“Then we don’t give them the chance to get worse,” is Melinda’s response. “We can still generate mass outrage, at least for the next few days. That gives Ross a chance to do the right thing as well. After that, we’ll also have a better idea of what will stop on its own and what won’t. Most importantly, it gives us time to make plans. I know you’ve probably been thinking of doing daring rescues and acts of sabotage and interference. But remember, everything we do has things to be dealt with after. We rescue people, especially children, we need to know what we’re doing with them. We go into a government building, we need a plan to get out without anyone tailing us.
In fact, I’m laying a ground rule right now that we take no prisoners, and we steal nothing the government will be desperate to get back; those objects will be destroy only. Ross will probably pour a lot of effort into finding us no matter what, but we don’t give him or anyone else extra reasons. We’re not like we were last time; we’ve got equipment and knowledge enough.”
“So we’re doing this?” Daisy sounds very relieved.
Melinda thinks of a moment she remembers from a life she hadn’t actually lived, standing opposite this woman in a Hydra cell with a terrigen crystal in her hand. The commitment she made then is one she’s about to make in a world she won’t leave a few days after.
But as it was then, there’s no true hesitation. “Yes,” she says, “we are.”