S.H.I.E.L.D. Barbershop Headquarters Coordinates: redacted (Midtown Manhattan)
The place has been inactive for a long time, and it shows. Chairs are covered with white sheets, looking ghostlike and eerie in the darkened shop. Everything’s covered with a thin layer of dust and is otherwise untouched. Windows badly worn, you can still make out the ‘BARBER’ painted in large, black block letters. The Director steps inside, locks the door, pushes the jangle of keys back into her pockets. A late gift from Fury, she’d never been told what they were for, but after the Triskelion fell, she’d received a text from an unknown number with the coordinates to this nondescript barbershop in Manhattan. Thanks, she’d tried to text back, but the message was spit back to her. Typical.
A switch next to one of the chairs activates the fogged windows and her brows lift. Impressive. Light switch is next, and half of the fluorescents come on. She takes the cover off of one of the chairs, shields her mouth with a curl of her fingers against the swirl of dust. Hill takes a seat- she’s not entirely sure how all of this works, but she’s spent enough time in the clandestine society to at least guess at figuring it out. Part of the armrest flips up, there’s another set of controls beneath and she presses a button clearly marked ‘DOWN’. The chair shudders, the tiles beneath her part and reveal a shaft, into which she begins to descend.
The space below the shop is cavernous, dark. It smells vaguely damp, like a subway station but with less... trash. Maria stands, brushes herself off. A S.H.I.E.L.D. base. She’d heard about this one-- there were files in the databases ( accessible only via her clearance and protocol ), but she’d never actually found time to read them. The Director moves slowly through the space, gun drawn, finger on the trigger ( could never be too careful ). It’s large, open, like a warehouse hewn from rock, a rustic underground station, of sorts. There are metal beams and scaffolding in place near the top of the room, juxtaposed with the carved out rock of the walls. From what she can tell there are barracks, a shooting range, armory, and a gym. A makeshift kitchen can be retrofitted, and it seems as though a living space already had been-- there’s a small niche that’s been stuffed with decaying couches with patterns from the sixties.
Hill pulls out a phone ( a burner, purchased at a convenience store on the way there ) and plugs in her SIM card. Service is-- wow, service is surprisingly great down here. This place must pack more of a technological punch than she can see on the surface. She taps out a quick text, hits send, takes out the card and grinds the phone beneath her heel. What was that, three in the last twenty-four hours? Mental note to email Osborn.
[ text ] >> ( Coulson, P., Fitz, L., Barnes, B., Romanoff, N. ) 40.7470° N, 73.9860° W
