Madness of the Serpent

As the spirit rested on the long, navy blue cushioned seat, a comforting hum beneath its arms and feet, it stared out of the circular window and contemplated how it arrived to this point.

It had awoken in this very spot, at first confused as to how it got there, then alarmed from the unfamiliar surroundings, and finally filled with panic at the memory of its attempted escape. This had not been helped by the sudden shadow of the Jotun-Asgardian towering overhead. It had shrunk back as the Loki had slowly leaned over, placing his palm on the back of its seat as he peered closely into its face.

"You attempted to run away," he said, his voice low and even, almost conversational. But it was learning to gauge his intentions rather than believe the face he presented to the world. His voice frequently disguised his motives – it was his eyes that often spoke the truth.

And his eyes at this moment were hard and piercing, trapping it in a state of paralysis.

"Why?" he asked, his inflection strangely flat, as if the answer did not matter – but his glittering eyes indicated otherwise.

"The door was unbarred," it answered with as much impassivity as it could gather, finding this a difficult feat to accomplish with the Loki mere inches away. "It wanted to explore its surroundings."

The Jotun-Asgardian did not respond immediately, though his eyes moved back and forth as he searched its eyes carefully.

The spirit remained completely still, muscles tensed to the point of breaking as it waited for him to identify whatever he sought – hoping he would find nothing duplicitous or suspicious, causing him to lash out in anger at the spirit.

Finally, his expression softened imperceptibly, and it let go of the breath it did not realize it had been holding as he slowly pulled back.

"Is that all? You need not have done so. I was planning on bringing you with me on this spectacular adventure."

"Adventure?" the spirit inquired, more relieved it had passed his scrutiny than it was curious as to where they were or how they had arrived there.

"Take in the view," he stated, the corner of his mouth moving upward in amusement. "Through the porthole to your left."

Finding its interest growing despite its uncertain predicament, the spirit followed his instructions, its eyes widening as it saw nothing but a sea of fluffy white foam far below.

"How?" it asked. Even though there were several questions running through its mind at that moment, least of all how they were suspended in the air, it found its eyes wide in fascination as it studied the carpet of white froth – most likely some kind of atmospheric suspended liquid particles.

"Primitive human engineering. One of their favorite endeavors is to climb aboard perilous metal tubes and propel themselves through the air at reckless speeds, held together with little more than flimsy rivets and rusty bolts." The Loki spoke as he settled onto a plush seat on the other side of the cramped quarters. His seat faced the middle of the air vessel, rather than forward, so the Jotun-Asgardian could stare straight at the spirit while it had to turn its head to the right to look at him.

It did so now, looking over its shoulder to see the mirthful expression on his face. Unfortunately, the movement of its head caused an ache to radiate from the left side of its face. It gently touched its cheek, puzzled at the discomfort caused by its fingers grazing over the unpleasant raised area on its face.

The Loki stared at it for a quiet moment, his lips pursed together in a slight frown.

"Do you understand how close you were to death?" his soft voice inquired, pale blue eyes fixed on its face intently.

The spirit averted its own gaze as it tried to recall what had transpired, focusing its eyesight on the blue and white speckled plush carpet. The inner area of the air vessel was narrow but surprisingly comforting, all soft edges and clean colors of white and dark blue.

Its eyes grew unfocused as its mind traveled back to what had occurred when it had left its confinement.

Having realized the door was unlatched, the spirit had glimpsed through the door frame to see if there were any humans within sight. Seeing and hearing none, it had quickly traveled down the first corridor it saw. It had absolutely no inkling where to go, but it could sense the damp weight of the air, and came to the rapid conclusion it was underground and should travel away from the pull of gravity: upwards.

Soon finding rectangular stone steps, it had quickly ascended them, turning to realizing there were more steps to traverse. It continued along this pattern, climbing to a new level and turning onto a new path of steps until there were none remaining, breathing faster as its heart pounded from the exertion.

The spirit was then in a new area – different from the closed, musty corridors it had become accustomed to. It was now presented with a more open environment, a massive room with several hallways leading off in various directions, as well as several long depressions in the flooring. The smell of damp and mold was replaced by dust and abandoned civilization.
Inquisitive as to its new location, it walked further into the massive, open area, almost dome-shaped. The depressions in the flooring were several feet deep, inlaid with long tracks of metal embedded into dark grey stone.

That was when it had heard the sound of heavy footsteps, and it had turned, frozen in place as it saw the three humans adorned in black armor as they patrolled the vast chamber. It had no opportunity to retreat from sight, and at the sound of their shouts, it had turned and fled back down the stairs.

There was a deafening boom and the corner of the wall, where it had been a second earlier, exploded with a shower of white powder, causing the spirit to cover its head uselessly with its hands as it almost fell down the steps. Its frightened, primal body took over, all semblance of control gone as it fled from what it believed was certain death.

Practically tumbling down the stone steps, the spirit reached the next landing and turned to the left, panicking as it tried several locked doors. It did not gain much distance, and rough hands grabbed it from behind, shoving it against the wall. It had not realized the humans had been so close, its ears still ringing from the small explosion of whatever weapon they had wielded against it.

The spirit had looked up at the humans, wide-eyed, and the last thing it could recall were their angry faces and hard eyes. There were no memories after that encounter.

Its next moments of consciousness had been to find itself bundled in the grey blanket, a gentle rumble filling the air as it had looked up to find the Loki watching it with an expression that could have been misconstrued as concern – the odd look quickly vanishing as it had fully opened its eyes.

"What has become of the humans who caught it?" the spirit asked, lifting its eyes from the benign carpet to the dangerous gaze of the Jotun-Asgardian. He returned the look by elegantly raising one eyebrow.

"They're dead, of course," he remarked casually, his tone indicating that his answer should have been obvious. "One of them nearly put a bullet in your skull, and when that failed, he struck you hard enough to render you unconscious."

You'll either be useful, or you'll have a bullet in your head.

The spirit immediately and involuntarily shuddered, the Barton-Hawk's prescient phrase being spoken almost word-for-word from the Loki's mouth.

The Jotun-Asgardian must have seen something in its face, some sign of the growing queasiness in its stomach because his smile slowly faded as his eyes hardened like ice.

"All I have achieved thus far was almost turned to ash as a result of Barton's carelessness. You do not know how dearly your untimely demise would have cost me."

At the mention of the Barton-Hawk's name, its heart had begun to pound alarmingly in its chest. If the Loki had killed the humans who had damaged it, what horrifying punishment had his mind-thrall received?

"The Barton-Hawk? Is he-"

The Jotun-Asgardian gave a small snort.

"His name is Barton, not 'the Barton-Hawk'," he responded, correcting the spirit's speech. "And he yet lives. I still have use of him in a mostly functional state. Why?" he asked, his pale eyes narrowing while suspicion crept into his voice.

It chose its next words carefully, relying on its default blank expression to hide its concern for this particular human.

"It does not want another life extinguished because of its actions."

Again, the Jotun-Asgardian fixed his intense stare on the spirit-in-flesh, as if he could discern the truth simply by glaring – or perhaps he believed he could compel it to confess its inner thoughts by the nature of his intimidating presence.

Most likely, the Jotun-Asgardian simply enjoyed dominating the interactions he had with the spirit. Was this an aspect of his personality that had always been there? Or did his enjoyment of controlling and threatening others arise after his torment by the golden apparatus?

"Those mortals would still be alive if you had not chosen to wander." He articulated the last word in such a way that clearly stated he knew the spirit had spoken falsehoods in regards to its reasons for attempting to leave its imprisonment.

"Do you see what happens when you act against me? Some poor human is harmed in the process. Call it… collateral damage, if you will."

The spirit understood perfectly the implicit threat in his words. Anger me, and others will suffer for it.

It slowly nodded, never taking its eyes from his.

"Say it," The Jotun-Asgardian said in a low growl, every semblance of levity gone as he stared darkly into its face, leaning forward with his elbows pressed into his thighs. "Swear you will never attempt to leave my side again."

The spirit found his wording… odd. Not the type of phrase it imagined one would use when talking about a tool or an object, which was clearly what the spirit represented to the… to Loki.

The assassin had made that abundantly clear.

The spirit did not answer for several long, drawn out seconds, and it could see the Jotun-Asgardian's patience wearing thin, his expression becoming darker the longer it remained silent. It ignored, possibly at its own peril, this slow but inevitable volatility in his emotions, as its mind was preoccupied with choosing its next words with care and purpose.

The spirit desired to state its intentions in a way that was not entirely unambiguous, and could be left open to more than one interpretation.

"It swears to never abandon you again."

Not the words he had specified, but they were the exact words the spirit wanted to adhere to his subconscious. Past the damaged psyche, past the broken thought processes, was there some part of him still whole that would hear and understand?

There was something there, in his eyes, almost too quick to recognize. A fleeting look of surprise, of something else unknown, but it was swiftly concealed with an expression of smooth detachment.

"That is acceptable," he stated, his tone hinting at indifference, but his eyes strayed from the spirit as he appeared distracted with thought.

The spirit waited for him to speak, which he did not do for several minutes.

"I… apologize for my earlier actions. It was unseemly behavior for a King, and I realize it may have contributed to your need to… leave your quarters." The Jotun-Asgardian watched its face closely, and it did not react, suspecting it was some sort of trap or ruse. He cleared his throat, and continued by saying, "I fear I have been going about this all wrong."

Loki grew a slow smile on his face, meant to be disarming and genuine, but it could only read the expression as sly and manipulative.

"I have been attempting to force you to adopt my perspective regarding the mortals and their need for an authoritative, incontestable ruler. But you will have to take this journey voluntarily if you are to accept my point of view."

It said nothing, perplexed by his sudden change of tactics. It highly doubted it would ever agree that an army of mindless, ravenous beasts would be an acceptable outcome, as it assumed this was how Loki intended to conquer the humans. He had never specified their existence to the spirit, but it remembered their monstrous presence, greedily anticipating their entrance into the portal before the spirit had sabotaged their efforts.

It did not want to contemplate what would happen if the Jotun-Asgardian ever found out that dangerous truth.

"Think on what I have said," he said amicably, revealing his bright teeth in a smile that was anything but friendly as he half-sprawled across the plush seating he currently occupied, which was long enough that a human could comfortably lie along its length. Its own forward-facing seat could only be occupied by two beings, and it was glad Loki had not chosen to sit close to the spirit.

Being in the same quarters with the unstable Jotun-Asgardian for any length of time was unnerving, and it realized fully, for the first time, that it was forced to remain in his presence with no chance of respite.

Having sensed the conversation was now concluded, the spirit returned to staring out the window at the voluminous clouds and the curved shape of the blue atmosphere above its head. It tried its best to ignore its proximity to Loki, as well as the alarming thoughts which plagued its mind, and instead focused on the fact that it was flying through the air – high above the planet and free from the constraints of gravity. It was the closest sensation to freedom that it had achieved thus far, having been in one form of confinement or another since its "birth".

An unknown measurement of time later – it was still adjusting to the temporal concept, although its body did seem to have some kind of internal mechanism for gauging the passage of moments – it felt the hairs on the back of its neck prickle. It had not heard his approach, but he could feel the closeness of his presence as easily as it felt a change in air currents or temperature.

Sure enough, Loki gracefully folded himself directly next to the spirit, making it want to squish itself against the hull of the air vessel in order to eliminate the physical contact its leg now had against his. But it resisted this urge, knowing the act would draw his attention.

Loki grinned with high-spirits and placed a flat, silver rectangular object on its lap. It was cool, metallic, and smooth to its touch. The spirit glanced sideways into his face, but he only smiled. He wanted to force it to speak, no doubt enjoying these micro-assertions of control he held over the former-spirit.

"What is it?" the spirit asked, quickly averting its eyes back to the object. At least he was not taunting it with the sceptre, which was – oddly but pleasantly – nowhere to be found.

"Your scholarly pursuits into the human-animal," he said in a friendly enough tone. He reached across its arm, and it had to tense its muscles in order not to flinch.

If Loki saw, he did not remark on it. He merely opened the flat rectangle, revealing it as some kind of two-sided device. The upper half was a display – the lower was a series of small squares which could be depressed. The object, apparently some type of machine, was completely foreign to the spirit.

"Before we arrive at our destination, you will research man's history in order to understand the context of the… situation. The humans are a complicated lot, incredibly indecisive and fickle in their appetites and aspirations.

"This device will serve as your mentor as you analyze these… people." Loki sneered at the last word, but it refused to turn and look at his expression. It was already succeeding in not visibly trembling from the flight response his nearness evoked from its body, and it did not need to see his primal grin to know what he thought of the humans.

Loki continued to reach over its arm, showing it the ways to navigate and instruct the computing device (called a "laptop") into obeying its commands. It was relieved when he removed his hand back into his own personal space, but he did not retreat to his side of the air vehicle.

"Here," he said, and it did flinch when it felt its hands on the sides of its head, placing something heavy over its ears. This drew an unkind laugh from the Jotun-Asgardian.

"They are called headphones," he said, lifting one of the devices off of its right ear so he could be heard. "They will assist you in better hearing the sounds from the prerecorded images."

It reached up to gingerly touch the coverings on its head which appeared to filter out the loud but soothing rumble of the engines. Loki stretched across its seat and pressed a series of buttons when it did not move, and it chanced a peek at his face.

Never one to miss an opportunity to cause the spirit discomfort, Loki flashed a cocky, self-satisfied smile.

"Enjoy your movies," he crooned silkily before replacing the cuff over its ear.

______________________________________________________________________

They were called "documentaries".

Moving images and audio inputs which told a story by entertaining, educating, or informing on a certain point of view. They were quite fascinating. The spirit was not sure what it had been expecting, but it had not been this.

Loki was making good on his word. It was learning. In fact, it was learning much more than it desired, realizing that Loki had chosen these segments of information to share with the spirit for a very specific purpose.

The first documentary was titled "Why We Fight", and it portrayed a brief history of the American war machine over the past six decades.

The humans had apparently created a political and military structure which would fuel unending civil war across the Earth. The United States government, including its own leader, lied to its people in order to position itself as the world superpower, intervening in other countries that threatened its imperial agenda.

The spirit continued to watch the flashing images while listening to the various narrators, its eyes widening as it watched the humans harness the power of nuclear energy… and use it to instantly decimate almost 200,000 civilians, most of whom wanted to surrender peacefully.

Two of the human scientists who had helped bring about this mass slaughter stood together, smiling gregariously in a black and white photo, the names "J. Robert Oppenheimer and Howard Stark" appearing along the bottom of the picture.

It could see why Loki had chosen to strike first at the human nation known as the United States. By far, it had the most military strength, and many of the other peoples of Earth had grown weary of their war-waging and their tendency to topple foreign governments not to their liking.

The spirit did not want to believe the humans were so apathetic as to let their leaders order the mass killings of innocent humans in other areas of the planet, separated only by invisible lines and arbitrary borders. A species living in this manner could surely not survive for long?

Clearly, it had to be a mistake. The documentary had to be false or misleading in some way. Otherwise, the logical conclusion made no sense at all.

But as the last half hour of the film showed, these were not lies. The piles of human corpses, scenes of blood and violence and dropped explosives, of maimed human younglings… it was not a trick. It was a brutal truth that lingered long inside of its mind, behind its eyelids.

The second documentary was shorter than the first, but it continued the theme of American "exceptionalism" and global military strength. It was an "hour-long exposé on the sordid agenda and immoral methods of the highly secretive SHIELD". According to the captions at the beginning of the film, "Behind the S.H.I.E.L.D." had never been publicly released and the journalist who directed and produced the documentary was discredited by every major news media outlet, effectively shutting down the project before it could be completed.

Despite this hurdle, the unpolished film had gone "viral" and conspiracy theories about the covert black ops government agency were very popular on the globally connected network called the Internet.

The film included interviews from anonymous sources, news clips on peculiar occurrences where SHIELD may have been involved in occurrences of supernatural origin (such as a suspicious dig site in Puente Antiguo, New Mexico, the Duel of Harlem, and the Battle at Stark Expo), and leaked information from a hacker group known as The Rising Tide. This unverified information speculated on the existence of high-tech prisons which housed both criminals with unusual powers, and non-criminals who had the potential to be a danger to the general population. From the conversation it had had with the female human who had claimed herself as an enemy of SHIELD – it believed this information was most likely accurate.

The beginnings of SHIELD were shrouded in mystery, though there was a possible link to its founding and the creation of Captain America: a soldier who had been given superior strength, speed, and coordination by an unknown experimental concoction during the beginning of World War II. There were also rumors that the group which had been a pre-cursor to SHIELD had obtained powerful, alien artifacts from raiding HYDRA strongholds at the end of the human war.
SHIELD was compared (in terms of information gathering, covert operations, and lack of public awareness) to a United States governmental agency known as the Central Intelligence Agency. The CIA was also autonomous and had been known to overthrow the governments of other nations, as well as extradite prisoners to undisclosed locations known as "black sites".

The name of the disgraced journalist who had directed and produced the film was Amir Sadik. The spirit made a mental note of this.

"The Corporation" was the title of the next documentary. The documentary had been difficult to follow at first, as the phrases used were abstract and convoluted. It was difficult to imagine what a "business" or a "corporate enterprise" was, but it had heard these terms used in the previous documentary in connection to military spending and defense contracts. Corporations such as Lockheed Martin, Boeing, and Stark Industries were the biggest contractors for tactical missiles, fighters, bombers, and other pieces of highly advanced war technology.

The link between corporations, the global standing army of the United States, and the political structure of America were so intertwined, that it had little doubt the Jotun-Asgardian had chosen these three films with the express purpose of showcasing these connections.

The documentary explained the callous actions of corporations not only harming the world's poorest people, but also its non-human denizens. Earth animals were exposed to chemicals, either to test their safety for humans, or to increase production of their biological processes, even though such products have shown to cause harm to the humans who consume them.
The segment of the film which most deeply affected it was when corporations had legally gained the ability to "own" life. First, bits of bacterial genomes were considered under their rule, then artificially created animal species, and finally bits of human genes which could be made profitable in curing certain illnesses.

Growing more and more disquieted at the films Loki had chosen for it to watch, it had glanced up at the end of this film – so engrossed during the documentaries that it had almost forgotten it was flying thousands of feet in the air. Loki was no longer lounging on his side of the compartment, nor was he anywhere in sight, and the spirit determined he was most likely at the front of the air vessel – the only part of the aircraft that was completely concealed from view.

Its curiosity to know where Loki had departed to was overridden by its desire to continue watching the disturbingly fascinating documentaries.

The fourth and last one was curiously named "An Inconvenient Truth". The link between America's military-industrial complex, economic colonialism, and environmental degradation was now linked to a new phenomenon: global warming. Buried fossil fuels, which the United States' military directly depended on to, quite literally, fuel itself, was accelerating the temperature of the planet as well as creating more extreme weather patterns.

It was also the first time that the spirit being had seen an image of the planet it had been stranded on. It was a beautiful blue sphere with swirling patterns of white, orange-brown, and emerald green. Surprisingly, a large percentage of its surface was frozen and liquid water, and it briefly wondered why the humans were not an aquatic species.

The spirit observed with fascination as the film explained the workings of the atmosphere and how it interacted with various gases and light waves of its system star, as well as the oceanic currents that helped regulate global temperatures.

Its awe and curiosity morphed into bewilderment as the film showed political leaders denying the problems of air pollution and temperature increases. Infectious pathogens were becoming more widespread, the behavior patterns of non-human animals were rapidly changing to keep pace with the warmer seasons, and living habitats such as the unicellular coral reefs and massive pine forests were slowly dying off.

The spirit neither moved nor spoke after the film ended, staring blankly at the machine as the names of humans who had participated in creating the documentary slowly crawled up the dark screen. The ending had contained a hopeful message that humans could do something to change their predicament, but it did nothing to lessen the disquiet in the spirit's mind.

The problems the humans faced seemed insurmountable, and their efforts to combat these conflicts did not equally match the dire conditions they were confronted with.

This could not be. Loki was mistaken – he had to be. Humans could not possibly be the lost creatures he made them out to be. There was something missing, something the spirit had overlooked or had not been shown.

The spirit suddenly felt claustrophobic, trapped, entombed in an airborne death-trap that could succumb to gravity and plummet to the planet at any moment. It had to move, had to get away, had to get the hateful machine off of its lap.

Pulling the headphones off of its ears, it placed the computing device on the stunted, oval table nearby, rising unsteadily to its feet with the intention of finding reprieve from the overwhelming information needling in its mind.

Loki stared up at it expectantly, having reappeared sometime during the last narrative, a sweetly innocent smile beaming from his pale features.

"Learn anything interesting?"

"It… needs to use the restroom."

"I need to use the restroom."

Staring at him blankly, it said: "Then you should go as well."

He gave a snort, the amusement in his eyes authentic for once, instead of malicious.

"If you are going to speak, you will learn to do so properly. You will refer to yourself in the first person using phrases such as 'I' and 'me'. Third person phrasing will be 'she' and 'her'."

Loki continued on, his lanky limbs displayed in a way that seemed to convey casualness and disinterest. But his pale blue eyes were always laser-sharp, forcing the spirit to make eye contact.

"And you have a name, Trinity. No more of this 'it' nonsense. You are not a table or a chair."

What is it, then? it had almost blurted out.

Almost.

"As charming as your quirky phrasing may be, your naïvety is of little use to me."

Standing with its fists slightly trembling, it was surprised to find an unpleasant warmth spreading to its face, especially defined around the cheeks. It suddenly desired very much to seek some other area of the air vessel and obtain solitude. It needed to collect its thoughts, and it could not do so while constantly oppressed by Loki's pale gaze.

He stared at it for a long moment, his eyes searching for something, but the spirit had no idea what it was. Or if he had found it.

Finally, with a careless flick of his finger, he said:

"Go."

It attempted not to appear visibly relieved as it left his presence, a feat it believed to have accomplished as Loki did not make comment.

The restroom was found easily enough, a tiny compartment which should have made it feel confined, but which felt surprisingly liberating as it was freed of the Jotun-Asgardian's surveillance.

Standing above the sink, it tried not to vomit as the adrenaline began to slowly fizzle from its body. Such a terribly burdensome hormone. Its body seemed to want to use it at every confrontation or difficult moment, making it more arduous to focus with any type of clarity.
Such a primitive body, much more of an obstacle than it was an advantage. How the species managed to survive long enough to propagate, it had no idea.

It realized it was attempting to stall its brain from contemplating the documentaries. But it was inevitable. It was already beginning to dissect them, turn them over in its mind, disseminating and absorbing what it had been shown.

It remembered the female human – the one in the damp, underground lair who had spoken of her sister. She had displayed a genuine worry and affection for her sibling, stolen by SHIELD – and this type of behavior was further reiterated in the documentary. The film had stated that SHIELD captured gifted individuals who could pose a threat, but to who or what, the spirit still did not understand.

Could the other documentaries be just as authentic? Or were they filled with untruths? Not falsehoods conjured by Loki himself, unless he was able to create something of that complexity on a human computer. It was entirely possible – the spirit had little to no information about what skills the Jotun-Asgardian possessed, other than his ability to create materials with some sort of energy manipulation.

It wanted to meet humans – observe them to discover if their true natures matched those displayed on the documentaries, but it did not know how it could do so in the presence of Loki, who clearly detested the people he meant to subjugate.

If it could only eliminate the sense of growing sickness in its belly – at the possibility that humans were careless and selfish and hopelessly lost when it came to accumulating wealth and sucking the life from their beautiful planet.

Otherwise, the only logical conclusion the spirit could come to was that the humans were a suicidal species.

Its growing state of unrest was heightened to a new level as it came to a startling realization. What if the humans truly needed guidance and leadership, even if it came from an unkind hand?

What if… what if the Jotun-Asgardian was right?

There was only one small flicker of hope which had not been extinguished yet. Those documentaries had been created by someone who was dissatisfied with the predicament the humans were in. Humans had taken the time and energy to construct those films to try to enlighten others, and there were plenty of humans in the documentaries themselves who had expressed remorse and concern over the actions of their fellow species.

It was peculiar. The documentaries, for the horrible atrocities they exposed, always ended with a message of hope. Of humans calling on fellow humans to come together and make a change in order to secure their future, instead of plowing headfirst down a path of self-destruction.

Did Loki know this? If he wanted to show how irredeemable and lost the humans were, why would he also reveal that they were capable of self-reflection and redemption? Had he done this on purpose, or had he not watched the films himself?

It had to hold on to the possibility that not all humans were such brutal, selfish creatures.
Because if it was wrong, if the humans were as cruel as they were portrayed to be, than a rampaging army of insidious monsters could not make things much worse than they already were.

Notes