Survival of the Fittest

"There are not many men in your position who have survived a bullet to the chest, Agent Carter. Statistically speaking, of course."

"Statistics say a lot of things. I usually try to ignore them."

"That hardly seems wise."

"If I was wise, I wouldn't be in this situation, would I?"

"Fair point. The bullet narrowly missed your left lung and embedded itself in your sternum. This caused some minor bone fragmentation which further grazed an artery and caused major blood loss. By all accounts, Agent Carter, you should've died. You're a lucky man."

"Is that what you think?"

"And how exactly did you survive, Agent Carter?"

"...My old Marine buddy, Javier Niebla, was a field medic and a surgeon. We spent six months in that hellhole of a country before I got shipped back home to become a star-spangled fed. Told me that the moment he got back home he was gonna take his inheritance money and set up shop in Venezuela, where his dad was born. Said to look him up if I ever needed a favour. I figured I had at least a small chance of actually finding the guy alive and kicking, so I sought him out."

"You made unauthorised contact with a third party whilst on an espionage assignment."

"I had my shot and I took it. The game changed when I found the little girl in the bag. I had to think about both of our safeties. It was either call for help or die in a ditch, and god knows your people weren't any-"

"Do not say anything you're going to regret, Agent."

"...Alright. Fine."

"Thank you. With the package in tow, you made your way to this third party's residence and collapsed on his doorstep, correct?"

"Well, it sounds pretty rude when you say it like that."

"What happened when you regained consciousness, Agent Carter?"

"..."

"Agent Carter?"

"Nate?!" A voice called out from above as a wave of blinding light rushed to greet the semi-conscious Nate Carter, his eyes fluttering in reaction to the visual onslaught. "Nate, can you hear me?"

Nate's mouth felt dry, an avid wasteland beneath an overbearing sun. His eyelids were heavy with the burden of exhaustion and a dull unwillingness to stare at the all-encompassing light drowning them in its luminosity. His body felt numb as he attempted to lift his hand or move his feet or give any indication whatsoever that he was awake. But, most notably of all, his chest seared with pain as his mouth tore open to elicit a silent scream of pain.

"Iris?" The voice said to someone hidden from Nate's field of vision. "Iris, it's okay. I need you to hand me the mask again. He needs to be asleep."

Only then did Nate become aware of the concerned whimpers and choked sobs droning on in the back of his mind.

Iris.

He remembered. He remembered everything. He remembered his mission, his promise to get the girl out of their complicated situation at the cost of his own security. He remembered the unbridled fear in her eyes as he bled to death in the driver's seat of his rented pick-up truck. He remembered dragging his lazy body to an old friend’s house and falling into a pleasant, dreamless slumber soon thereafter. Nate surged upwards, barrelling through the pain in his chest and reaching out at no one in particular as a pair of strong hands rushed in to pin him back down.

"Iris, now!" The voice shouted, demandingly as Nate struggled to break free with what little strength he had left.

In a few moments, a dishevelled Iris came into view, an anaesthetic gas mask in her small hands. As Nate desperately tried to grab at her with an unresponsive hand, the mask came down over his mouth and filled his senses with a warm, calming gas. His spastic movements lessening, Nate sank back down and into a bed of soft, pliable heat and allowed his arms to slacken at his sides. Placing his memories aside for the time being, Nate drifted into another dreamless slumber, his faculties leaving him and taking his worries with them.

"Thank you, Iris." The voice echoed through the haze. "Don't worry. Nate'll make it. He always does. He'll make it."

Nate closed his eyes and exhaled, all but dead to the world.

Survival is a cruel and miserable thing. From the moment we first gain some level of awareness and intelligence, we are taught that we live in a world where only the strong survive, and that the strong only survive by preying on those born with the misfortune of being weak. In the wild, predators feast on their unsuspecting prey as simply and thoughtlessly as one would feast on a freshly made sandwich and, though humans like to entertain the notion that we are somehow different and more compassionate than our primal cohabitants, we prey on each other just as thoughtlessly.

The muscular bully assaults the weedy nerd because the nerd is weak. The power-hungry CEO fires the lowly pencil-pusher because the pencil-pusher is redundant. Society cheers and fawns over those with the strength to pull themselves onto their pedestals and refuse to relinquish their positions, whilst jeering those who stumble at the first hurdle, rolling around helplessly in the dirt.

When a weak man takes his own life, he is treated with hushed pity and disapproval. When a strong man takes another's life, he is feared and remembered for his cruelty. He is locked away by those who would condemn him for his actions and, as time rages on, he dies just as readily as anyone else. Yet, he is made immortal by the cruelty of his actions because humans are survivors and, therefore, it is in our nature to prey on the weak and revere the strong. No matter how adamantly our brains rationalise the strength of cruelty away, our hearts long to embrace the strength to be a monster and only those who realise that longing and accept it will have the strength to take a life. To take a life to further one's own interests is the pinnacle of our survival instinct. It is the cruel process of evolution. It is the true meaning of life.

Cannibal Santigo knew the meaning of life.

As he sat in the overbearing sun beating down upon the nation of Venezuela, he considered the cruel humour of his situation. He sat by an Olympic-sized swimming pool filled with the blood of the weak, just outside of an expensive mountain villa so delicately built atop a foundation of corpses and isolated from the rest of the weak and sickly world by an ostentatious wall. The wine, wringed from the decaying flesh of his enemies, tasted sweet as it rolled down his bloodthirsty throat and into the pit of darkness within his being. The girls sharing his pool with him were spoils of war. Trophies evidencing his past conquests. Through mistreatment and molestation, they stayed by his side not because he was particularly attractive, but because he was power incarnate. And he was power incarnate because he preyed on the weak like the ravenous beast he was.

He was not a man. He was a cannibal, a transcendent beast to be feared and avoided. A creature who embraced the cruelty of survival in all its blood-soaked splendour. Santigo gave an instinctive smile as he brought the finest wine his vast wealth could buy to his lips and drank it like the finest nectar.

He knew the meaning of life.

The sun rays reflecting off of his glistening body, Santigo stood from his seat and made his way over to the pool, stripping the towel from his lower body and standing, fully nude, before the envious world. Everyone and everything on this god forsaken planet would, one day, be his bitch. With an exhale, Santigo leapt into the pool and joined his girls, eliciting squeals of surprise as he submerged himself in the cool body of water, the rushing of the fine liquid in his ears drowning out the chaos which perpetually reverberated through his entire being for but a moment before he re-emerged and became one with the pain and suffering of every living creature outside of his sphere of superiority once more.

"What do you want, Alberto?" He asked in a gravelly tone, causing the new arrival to jump in surprise.

A recent recruit to his personal army of like-minded survivalists, Alberto was everything Santigo despised in a man. He was cowardly, unsure, bumbling and, most irritatingly of all, thoroughly incompetent. With all eyes now on him, Alberto nervously wrenched the cap in his grip and cleared his throat.

"<I'm sorry to bother you, Mr. Santigo-" He began, fighting against the urge to stutter uncontrollably.

"Cannibal." Santigo said, stepping out of his pool and causing Alberto to recoil from his exposed manhood. "You refer to me as Cannibal when we're discussing business. And you speak English."

Sweat forming on his furrowed brow, Alberto took a pause to correctly translate his next words into English before proceeding. "Cannibal. Sorry. There is some bad news, Cannibal."

"I'm listening." Santigo stated, draping his towel across his nether region and eliciting a faint sound of relief from his jumpy underling.

Alberto took another pause, this time to weigh up the consequences of informing his boss of the bad news. "The package. It has been taken."

Santigo seized up, his hands balling into bulging fists in barely contained fury. "Elaborate." He said, the words falling out of his mouth in an irritable grunt.

"It was an American." Alberto continued, trying desperately to avoid making eye contact. "Survivors placed his accent."

"Survivors?" Santigo replied, his eyes narrowing.

"We, uh, lost a few men." Alberto coughed. "The American took the package and fled to a nearby motel. We sent more men after him, sir, but..." He bit his lip, not having to finish his sentence. "He got away from us. Took the package with him. We've got people scouting the area to try and find him, but I don't think they'll stand much of a chance if they do."

"So," Santigo said, thoughtfully. "We're dealing with a professional. A trained killer. A cannibal."

"A cannibal, sir?" Alberto butted in, his eyes shifting restlessly.

Santigo ran a muscled hand through his rugged beard, his mind racing. Though he was first and foremost a businessman, the thought of going toe-to-toe with a trained killer roused a certain level of excitement in him. A rush of adrenaline caused his heart to surge and his mind to follow as he considered and processed the information he'd been told. His hand gliding from his beard to his mouth, Santigo gave a choked laugh, quickly collecting himself and attempting to hide it from a confused Alberto. Recomposed, Santigo walked into his villa, beckoning for Alberto to follow his lead.

As the two men briskly strode through the expansive villa, Alberto took in his surroundings. The villa, itself a beautiful example of Spanish architecture and top-class interior design, was a stark contrast to the armed men littered throughout its halls, casually conversing with one another or entertaining themselves with a game of pool or a game of Call of Duty. Despite their frivolity of their exploits, however, the truth of their presence caused Alberto to swallow, hard. They were executioners and mercenaries, assassins and burglars, rapists and sociopaths all brought together by a shared interest in taking through force what they considered to be rightfully theirs. They were Cannibal Santigo's elite, the worst of the worst elevated to positions of comfort and luxury by the blood on their hands. Though Alberto was by no means a good man, he was not like these men. At least, he liked to think so.

"That package is worth more than your life, Alberto. More than mine." Santigo said, ascending a spiralling flight of stairs as Alberto followed at what he thought to be a safe distance. "Its contents are worth billions on the black market."

"Um, Cannibal, sir?" Alberto interrupted, rubbing a hand across the back of his neck. "If you don't mind me asking, what was in the package?"

Santigo stopped dead in his tracks, the smothering silence filling the area quickly making Alberto regret asking the question. After a few more seconds, he continued moving up the stairs and returned to the conversation. "I suppose there's no harm in telling you once we're in the confines of my office. The walls have eyes and ears, son."

"I understand, sir." Alberto said with a short nod.

Reaching a pair of heavy oak doors on the upper floor of the villa, Santigo waved the two armed men guarding the doors aside and pushed them open, entering his office. To Santigo, the office was more than a simple place of business and secrets; it was a sanctuary. The one place on Earth where he could isolate himself from the pained screams of the outside world and contemplate how best to expand his rapidly growing empire of crime.

From humble beginnings, he had taken a group of men and women dedicated to the concept of 'Survival of the Fittest' and turned it into a near autonomous machine of crime with connections running through all of Venezuela and beyond. A fully operational terrorist cell with the sole objective of furthering their own interests. The Cannibals, through Santigo's own ruthlessness, had cemented itself as a legitimate threat to any and all who would stand in the way of natural selection in just over a year and, so long as Santigo ruled over the group with an iron fist and a vice-like grip, their outstanding prosperity would only continue. Taking a brief moment to take it all in, Santigo moved towards his mahogany desk and ran a hand over its surface, almost sensually.

"The package, Alberto, is a weapon." Santigo continued, gazing out of a window at the beautiful Venezuelan landscape he so very often took for granted. "A weapon fully capable of causing World War III. A weapon which makes anyone holding it the most dangerous man alive, so long as he uses it properly."

"A weapon? Like a bomb?" Alberto asked, rubbing his arm.

"Like a girl." Santigo responded. "The weapon is a little girl, Alberto. A little girl with extraordinary abilities. A little girl who is going to both make me rich and finally fix this world."

Alberto's heart skipped a beat. "'Fix this world'?" He repeated, puzzled.

Santigo gave a grim smile as he turned to face the man. "What if I told you that the world has gone soft, Alberto?" He said, resting a hand on Alberto's shoulder and firmly squeezing it. "What if I told you that I could restore the natural order with this weapon with one little push?"

"How are you going to do that, Cannibal, sir?" Alberto asked, genuinely curious.

"Quite simply, Alberto, I am going to destroy this entire broken country." Cannibal said, excitedly, his cold eyes scanning Alberto's as he spoke. "I am going to take this girl to a meeting between VIPER, Argent, G.A.I.A and countless other similar groups and I am going to sell the girl to the highest bidder. I'll then use her immense power to turn this country into a smouldering crater and make sure the blame falls on the shoulders of the American government. They will deny their involvement. They will insist that it's all a misunderstanding. But the seeds of doubt will have been planted. The various organisations, looking for revenge, will launch their campaigns against the Americans. The Americans will retaliate. The organisations will up the ante and raze their mutual foe as best they can. Those that support American interests will get involved, as will those that loathe that neutered shell of a nation. Inevitably, it will be revealed that the cause of the incident was a little girl the American government turned into a living weapon. Before anyone is truly the wiser, things will escalate. Armageddon."

Alberto took a step backwards, shaken by his employer's words. "But why, sir?" He asked, confused. "Why would you want any of that?"

"I've told you, Alberto," Santigo responded, placing his other hand on his other shoulder. "I want the natural order of this world restored. No more supporting the weak, the crippled and the stupid. No more laws forbidding the strong from asserting their dominance. I believe in one simple principle, boy: that only the strongest deserve to survive and prosper." Santigo leaned in close, whispering in Alberto's ear. "I want to be the strongest."

Alberto broke into a cold sweat, his knees trembling in fear. Only now did he realise that his boss was insane. His actions and motivations weren't those of a businessman or a survivalist; they were the actions of a homicidal psychopath, a murderous creature with no sense of empathy. A creature incapable of identifying with those around him outside of basic and superficial qualities, who only saw the weak as prey and the strong as rivals.

A cannibal.

"Why?" Alberto stuttered, now moments away from turning tail and fleeing. "Why would you tell me this, Cannibal?"

"Alberto, please." Santigo said, his hands sliding from the frightened man's shoulder to his exposed neck, his thumb sliding over his Adam's apple slowly. "Call me Álvaro. This isn't business. This is pleasure."

Alberto gave a choked shriek in surprise as Santigo's powerful hands gripped his throat and began slowly squeezing the life from it. His arms flailed wildly, desperately attempting to remove the hands slowly crushing his throat in their grasp. His heart flew into a frenzy and his eyes darted around the room frantically as he tried to breathe, his lungs struggling to take in air that simply wasn't there. As his panicked actions slowed and his body began to feel numb, Alberto's mind went back to his family. Back to the people who would be preyed upon by this madman. He regretted everything as his vision began to slowly fade, flashes of brilliant light exploding around him. He wanted his mother. He wanted to tell his mother he was sorry. He wanted to taste his mother's cooking one more time. To hear another one of her bedtime stories. And then the entire world went white and he thought no more.

Santigo let Alberto's limp body fall to the ground, his face blue and his empty eyes bulging. Regaining his composure, he grabbed the man's discarded cap and placed it gently on his head. Satisfied, Santigo walked out of his office and gestured to his waiting men, who quickly busied themselves disposing of the body as he retrieved his cell phone from a nearby table, quickly dialling a number and waiting.

"Hello?" He eventually said, making his way towards the pool. "Is this 'The Cuban'? Yes. It's Santigo. How soon can you arrive in Venezuela? That soon? Good. I have a little problem I need you to take care of. I'll have a man pick you up. And don't worry, it'll be worth your while."

Hanging up, Santigo placed the phone on a lounge chair and dove back into the pool, submerging himself in the soothing water, clouding his senses once more.

Nate Carter awoke with a startled cry, his body sweating profusely. Still panting deeply from a nightmare he couldn't quite remember, he pulled the blanket from his person and peered at what was beneath it. His chest, previously pouring with blood, was now bound with tight bandages. Satisfied that he probably wasn't on the brink of death anymore, Nate sat up and swung his legs over the side of his bed, rubbing his still tired eyes and trying to gather his bearings.

He was in the sterile setting of what appeared to be a hospital room. Beside him lay a table of discarded medical tools, some of them still bloody from surgery, and his Glock. Still groggy, Nate reached for the trusty weapon and checked it over before standing from his operating table, briefly grasping his bandaged chest and grunting in pain.

"Iris?" He called out, tucking the Glock into his pants and pulling on his shirt. "Iris? Are you there?"

No response came from the shadow bathed room. Sighing, Nate moved towards the door, cautiously pulling it open and peering out of it. The hallways outside of his room were completely barren, the only light pouring in through the windows from passing cars. Wanting nothing more than to leave the place, Nate shuffled down the hall searching for an elevator, or a flight of stairs.

Hospitals had always made Nate antsy. When his father stumbled home drunk one night and beat him and his mother into unconsciousness, his first sight upon waking up was a cold, impersonal hospital room. When his mother succumbed to her injuries, Nate watched numbly from the other side of a hospital room, the doctors and nurses desperately trying to stabilise her. To Nate, a hospital was little more than a soulless purgatory where the sick and the injured went to either live or die. He hated them as much as he feared them and, until he was out of its cold halls, he couldn't feel even remotely comfortable.

As Nate located the elevator and called it up, he peered at a sign indicating that he was on the fifth floor of the building and closed his eyes. Though he wanted to find a cheap motel and fall onto a soft, relaxing bed, he knew that such an act would be nigh impossible for him until he found Iris. Whether he liked it or not, Nate had a mission he needed to accomplish. He had promised her that he would keep her safe and ferry her home as quickly as possible and anyone who knew Nate Carter would know that he never went back on a promise so long as he could help it. Iris was going to make it back to America. That much he was certain of. What happened to her after they made it back, however, still dominated Nate's waking thoughts.

The elevator signalled its arrival and the door swung open. What Nate saw in its box, however, caused him to pause. In the elevator and half-dressed in hastily donned clothes and hospital scrubs was a face that was all too familiar.

"Jay?" Nate said, his eyes widening.

"Nate!" Javier exclaimed, flashing him a relieved smile and going to give him a brief hug. "Welcome back to the land of the living, buddy."

"Jay, I..." Nate mumbled, still a little disoriented. "What? Where's Iris?"

Javier's face turned serious for a moment. "She's downstairs with a couple of nurses I work with. Nate, why are you in Venezuela with a ten year old white girl? And who the hell shot you in the chest?"

Nate moved a hand to his chest, the pain of his wound quickly flashing through his mind as he remembered. "Did you do this?" He asked, avoiding the question.

Javier gave a sigh. "Barely. You're fucking lucky you made it when you did. I had to pack you up in my car and drive you to the hospital. This whole floor's closed off for remodelling, so it was a cinch to sneak you into one of the rooms here. Now answer my questions, Nate. What the hell is going on?"

"Jay, I'll explain everything when I'm sure we're safe, okay?" Nate said, grabbing his friend's arm. "But right now, I need you to get Iris and get moving back to your house. This is probably the first place they're gonna look."

"'They'?" Javier cried, shaking free of Nate's grasp. "Who are 'they'? Nate, what the hell have you sucked me into? No, what the hell have you sucked that girl into?!"

"Stand down, Lance Corporal!" Nate shouted, quickly shutting the startled Javier up. "You're gonna have to trust me on this, okay? You get Iris, we go to your car and we hole up in your house. Then you get your answers."

Staring Nate in the eyes in an attempt to find his answers there, Javier stepped back into the elevator, allowing Nate to join him. Running a hand through his hair, he pushed the button for the ground floor of the hospital and exhaled. "Just answer me one question now: are you going to get that little girl hurt?"

Nate took a second to answer. "No. Not if I can help it."

The elevator doors swung open, revealing the lively atmosphere of a hospital at night. In the waiting area, Iris sat flicking through a magazine, a portly old nurse sitting beside her. The sight quickly calming Nate's nerves, he pushed through the crowd to get to her, instantly throwing his arms around her in relief.

"Nate!" Iris cried, surprised and relieved. "Did you know Kim Kardashian and Kanye West named their baby North? Also, who are Kim Kardashian and Kanye West?"

Nate smiled as he let her go, fondly rubbing her head as he stood upright, turning to face the nurse. "<Thank you so much. I appreciate it.>"

The nurse smiled, sweetly. "<This is a hospital, dear. Caring is what we do.>" With that she stood from her seat and began conversing with Javier as Nate sat down beside Iris.

"Are you better now?" The girl asked, concern edging in her tone. "Does your chest still hurt?"

"Pain's just pain, Iris." Nate replied. "It's there, and then it's gone. You let it get to you, and that's when the real hurt starts. Are you okay?"

Iris nodded, swiftly. "Mr. Niebla helped me. He fixed you, too. I helped by giving him tools."

Nate smirked at her. "You're a brave girl, Iris."

Iris suddenly looked down at her feet, shaking her head. "But I was really scared. I didn't know if you would be okay. You're all I have, Nate."

Nate blinked in surprise as the gravity of the situation sank in. He really was all this poor girl had to keep her going. Every mistake he made and every injury he received from this moment onwards would not only endanger himself, but would also have a drastic effect on this little girl's life. If he went down, she'd be stranded in a world of hostility with vultures circling in on her. Nate furrowed his brow with newfound resolve. This girl wasn't just a mission to him anymore. She wasn't just a problem to be solved or an obstacle to overcome. She wasn't a burden to carry through No Man's Land. She was his responsibility and he'd be damned if he was going to let her down.

"You're all I have too, kid." He finally said, holding her hand comfortingly as Javier said his farewells to the nurse and turned his attention back to the both of them.

"Let's go. The nurses can't cover for us much longer." He said. "You ready, Nate?"

"Yeah," Nate said, rising from his seat and watching Iris do the same. "I'm ready."