Financial
wizard April Manning (a man, incidentally) leaves one of his lectures and enters
the car to take him to his next assignment: he injects himself with a drug that
rapidly increases his muscle mass….
Valerie Cooper catches up with the bored bureaucrat in Omaha who activated
John Walker/U.S. Agent without knowing he had been fired—and fires that guy….
Walker
recalls how his family left him in a burning house as a kid and Captain America
(that’s how he remembers it) rushed in and rescued him; it was actually his
brother Mike, an Army serviceman. Now he is arguing with his sister Kate Tolifson,
who is part of the team (four other soldiers, all male) guarding the Virago
building in Ephraim, West Virginia, actually a cover for a secret SHIELD
installation. They argue a lot over the baggage both of them are carrying. She
gets to the immediate problem: the local, resentful of Virago, blew up their
power plant. Now a fuel cell is missing and Kate is certain someone in the town
has it. So, they have only a little time until a) the containment field hiding
the true nature of the base shuts down and b) the fuel cell leaks toxic energy
to kill everyone in town. He heads out but his cycle breaks down and a local
fellow gives him a ride back to town where everyone takes him for Captain
America….
Meanwhile,
John’s unwanted partner Morrie Watanabe wakes up in the home of a local family
where the kids play with guns and there is no indoor plumbing….
Walker
returns to Virago and reports that no one in town has the fuel cell; Kate
thinks he’s an idiot for believing the hicks whom he identifies with. She also
reveals something he never knew: brother Mike accidentally started the fire
that night while he was drunk. And years later he wasn’t killed in a copter
crash—he shot himself. Walker throws a fit and he can’t be restrained by the
four soldiers with Kate. He leaves—and then a band of covert agents comes in
and kills the four soldiers. Then Kate welcomes her lover, April Manning, the
new U.S. Agent ….