The Ultimates: Against All Enemies Read Online Free

heard of a subway tunnel without a rat somewhere in it? It's part of the territory. They came here, and we killed most of them. Then the rest of them multiplied. Then we killed them again. I don't have any reason to expect we've seen the last of them now."
    "Which is exactly what you would say to keep your... what was it, General? Remind this meeting of your last appropriation."
    "One hundred fifty billion dollars," Fury said without missing a beat.
    "And you're going back this year for the same, is that correct?"
    "It is."
    "So you have a real interest in making sure that the threats SHIELD is chartered to counter are taken seriously."
    Fury felt his temper rising, and told himself not to open his mouth, but somehow he already had. "I don't think Homeland Security is in any position to throw that particular stone, Mr. Secretary." That did it, he thought. Now the knives are out. Garza wasn't looking amused anymore.
    "You mind if I pick this up again for a minute, Vince?" asked Ozzie Bright. Altobelli nodded. Bright stood and put both of his hands flat on the table. "It's my opinion, ladies and gentlemen, that security reasons compel us to limit the dispersal of this technology to venues and situations that are strictly controlled and monitored. Its loss to the Chitauri would be a devastating blow." Not nearly as devastating as never having had it in the first place, Fury thought.
    "I'll ask you to indulge me in a little historical parallel," Bright went on. "During World War II, hard decisions were made about utilizing certain technologies and acting on the information gained thereby. Had the Allies saved every life and thwarted every minor movement they learned about by cracking the Enigma code, the Nazis would quickly have abandoned Enigma; by sacrificing those necessary lives, the Allies maintained their intelligence superiority over the Nazis long enough for that advantage to prove decisive. Do you understand the analogy, General Fury?"
    Fury made his tone as level as he could. "I understand the analogy, Mr. Secretary, but I think circumstances here are different enough to render it invalid."
    "Well," Bright said. "With all due respect for your understandable difference in opinion, I suggest that the facts speak for themselves."
    And Fury knew he had lost. Maybe not just because of his lapse in temper, but he had lost all the same. 4
    Steve was watching Some Like It Hot on cable when his cell phone rang. He had to resist the urge to walk over to the phone on the wall in the kitchen. He'd spent twenty-seven years talking on phones tethered to walls, and he was having a hard time getting used to the change. He checked the cell phone's caller ID, saw that it was Nick Fury calling. "General," he said.
    "Cap," came Fury's voice. "You home?" This was another thing Steve couldn't get used to. Of course he was home. That's where you were when you talked on the phone.
    Only now that wasn't true anymore.
    "Yeah," he said.
    "Good," Fury said. "I'm downstairs. Let me buy you a beer." On his way out, Steve walked over to the TV and turned it of!" Then he remembered that he'd been sitting next to the remote. Now that's even stranger than the phone, he thought. I never even saw a television before I left for the war; every time I've ever used a TV , it's had a remote. And yet I still go to turn them off manually. Walking downstairs, he wondered if the problem was that he just assumed all electronic things had switches. Then he decided that the whole thing wasn't worth worrying about. There were more important problems.
    Such as why Nick Fury had come looking for him at ten o'clock on a Tuesday night.
    "I'm kind of a morning person, General," Steve said when he came out the front door of his building. "If you're looking for a drinking buddy, I might not measure up."
    "I don't even care if you drink," Fury said. They got into Fury's car—his personal car, Steve noticed, not one of the service limos that usually took them around the city.