Rogers stared at the mill complex for a long time.

It was down below him, perhaps a quarter mile away, in the mouth of a gently dipping valley that ran all the way to a glimmering glint of ocean in the southern distance. A half dozen buildings and a shed, made of cinderblocks. The main building dwarfed the others, four stories, a great metal chimney puffing white smoke into the air.

And…oddly enough there was a net ringing the building as well, frost rimed mesh suspended a story above the ground. What was that for?

The rest of the buildings seemed to be barracks style constructions for the workers to live in. Grim. Low. The snow outside of their doors was stained with mud and all sorts of filth.

There was a canal running through the complex was well. Water flowing in from the north was crystal clear and sparkling, but when it left the mill it flowed more hesitantly, sludgy and orange with pollution.

The smart thing to do, Rogers knew, would be to circle quietly around the complex of dreary, gray buildings and disappear off towards the south. But even as he made to move, to start picking his way further into the trees, a door opened down below.

Rogers froze. Pressed himself to the snow, even though he knew there was no way anyone by the mill could see him. He could hear voices drifting up the icy slope to him.

"My little girl's sick, comrade…" Came one, just barely audible, sharp with concern, crackling with barely contained panic.

"You broke from your shift for this, brother," replied a second voice, harsher than the first, "ungood…"

Rogers moved a little closer, squinted through the glare of sun on snow. Could see two men standing just beyond the doorway of the mill, both clad in gray work clothes. The man with the sick daughter was stooped and shrunken, wringing his hands. The man before him was shaking his head contemptuously, and Rogers could see a black armband wound round his bicep, a crimson V blaring out from it.

"Please comrade, all I need is half of my pay early…I can work extra shifts for it next week…" This from the stooped worker, openly begging now. Desperate. It tore Rogers' heart to watch him grovel.

"Half of your pay early…" scoffed the man with the armband, "if you disrespect the rules comrade, then soon the collapse of society is at hand. And then what will be left?"

Rogers ground his teeth, anger bubbling up to fill him with poisonous warmth. This was tyranny too. Not as blatant as the cult of personality fostered by Big Brother, but more banal. More familiar.

Rogers had seen men like the one with the armband before. Men who lorded over production floors, puffed up by what small power that gave them.

The stooped worker tried to say something but was shoved back through the door, the man with the armband following a moment later. The door shut once more. Rogers stayed very still for a long moment, then sighed.

He had to go in. This couldn't be allowed to stand. The people working within the mill had to be given the knowledge that freedom was not yet dead in this land.

Rogers stood and began walking briskly down the hill, shield in one hand, rifle in the other, not even bothering to hide himself. He was crackling with anger, face set in a frown.

And once again the mill door was swinging open, the man with the armband stepping out, this time flanked by a pair of solidly build men with clubs swinging from their hips. They were dressed in dark blue, like policemen. But Rogers had never seen policemen who wore knuckle-dusters before. Somehow he suspected that the rule of law was less important to these men than raw, senseless violence. They looked at him uncertainly, eyes flickering from his suit to the rifle in his hand.

"Alright brother, what the hell are you doing?" The man with the armband demanded. Rogers took a quick look at the upper floors. Saw more men in dark blue crowding the windows, staring down at him. Clearly he'd alerted the mill's security. No matter.

He wanted this to be public. This was going to be a message sent directly to Big Brother.

"That man you just spoke to," Rogers said, staring the man with the armband down, "he has a sick daughter. And you refused to help him buy medicine. What kind of man are you?"

For a moment the man with the armband stared, alarmed, then anger snapped into place behind his eyes.

"Put down that rifle, brother." He growled.

Rogers smiled grimly, turned over the rifle in his hands and then removed the magazine, ejecting the chambered round.

"Okay," he said, his gaze returning to the man with the armband, "I wont need this to beat you guys down." And with that he threw the rifle like a spear, straight through the fourth story window. Glass shattered, and in the half second of distraction that he'd fostered, Rogers took a single step forward and jammed the edge of his shield into the nearest man's gut.

The club wielding thug folded at the waist, face going crimson with shock and sudden pain, arms flailing out to the sides. The man with the armband tried to dance backwards, accompanied by the other thug, but Rogers was already moving to intercept them, his shield flashing, a silvery arc in the sunlight. It connected with both men, sending them through the door with a concussive boom and a squall of folding metal.

Rogers stepped in through the shattered doorway, into a welter of roaring machinery, sawdust and confused workers.

They stared up at him, shock writ en masse across lined, weary faces. Rogers looked over them, figuring that he had maybe five seconds until the goons from upstairs rushed down to engage him.

"Go to your families," he shouted over the machinery, "and know that Captain America was here!" He stepped away from the doorway and watched as the workers rushed for it, cringing away from him as he made his way further into the mill.

Already he could hear men stomping down the stairwells, shouting invective and confused orders at one another. Rogers took a deep breath and looked around him. He was at the northern edge of the main floor. In front of him was a great cluster of milling machinery, some still running. And to each side, east and west, he could see stairs leading to the upper floors.

Rogers headed west, to where he could hear the most voices.

Almost immediately he encountered resistance, a small crowd of security goons on the stairwell. They surged forward at the sight of him, still didn't fully know what he'd done to their three friends by the front door.

As he walked Rogers passed a lathing machine. Tore a steel lever free from its side, a small shower of bolts and loose parts clattering to the floor in his wake. Some of the goons paused at the sight of that, eyes going wide at that display of strength.

Rogers adjusted the lever in his hand, flipping it around so the rubber padded handle was facing outwards. He didn't want to kill these men if he could avoid it, just hurt them. Teach them a lesson about abusing their fellow man.

For a moment the scene froze, a dozen factory security men facing off against a lone figure, the workers from the second floor crowded at the top of the stairs, watching with wide eyes and bated breath, entirely unsure of who to root for. If anyone.

Then one of the security men lunged forward with a strangled cry and Rogers knocked him back into his fellows with his shield, deflecting a blow from a club as he did so. He felt astoundingly calm, utterly focused. Like he could see absolutely everything that his enemies were going to do.

There. The man to his left was tensing for a jab with his baton. Rogers broke his cheekbone with a blow from the machine lever. Over there, to his right he could see the gleam of steel as a machete was unsheathed. He dodged back, felt the sting of a baton blow hit his shoulder, threw out and elbow and sent one assailant flying back into a bank of machinery. Hardly heard the hollow boom of impact. Was too focused on other things.

Saw the machete man moving forward, face contorted, blade gleaming. Blocked the blade with his shield, heard the machete's blade shatter. Kicked the man's legs out from under him and cracked his ribs with a blow on the way down.

Could hear the security men's harsh breathing, the chaotic thudding of their hearts. Rogers was almost shocked by how obviously they telegraphed their blows. He was used to facing foes with actual training, who struck suddenly and with purpose. These men flailed and slashed, screaming and shouting, eyes wild and batons a blur of motion.

Rogers felt like a stone stuck in the very center of a hurricane, utterly unaffected by the wild tantrum the world was throwing around him.

He was on the stairwell now, men on either side of him. He protected his head with his shield, broke a man's arm with the machine lever before pivoting and taking ahold of one of the goons who ventured too close. Threw him bodily down the stairs, where he collided headlong with a cluster of his fellows.

And suddenly he was at the top of the stairs, the second floor stretching out before him, a battered handful of security goons left, breathing heavily, staring at him with unhidden fear.

"Come on," Rogers growled, "either fight me or run."

The goons opted to run and Rogers let them go, dropping the blood slicked machine handle with a clunk. Ahead of him he could see a cluster of workers pressed against the back wall, by the windows, staring at him with something akin to horror.

"I'm not gonna hurt you," Rogers assured them, "I'm a friend."

"Who…?" One of the workers began, then trailed off, shivering.

"Captain America," Rogers said, "I'm here to help you."

For a long moment there was silence, then one of the workers stood. It was, Rogers realized without surprise, the stooped man from earlier. The one the man with the armband had been berating.

"Oh thank God," he said, which elicited a discomforted mutter from his fellows, "can you help me find medicine for my daughter? She's got pneumonia, she's very ill, she…" He seemed to realize he was rambling and stopped himself. Next to him other workers were rising as well, still wary but not outright terrified anymore.

"You can break open the medicine safe, yes?" Asked another worker, eyes wide with hope. And it was then, as the workers came closer to him, that Rogers realized just how scrawny and unhealthy most of them looked. He was head and shoulders taller than every one of them, a sure sign that malnourishment wasn't exactly uncommon around here.

"Yes. Show me where it is." Rogers said, and the workers muttered amongst each other, eyes lighting up with something that looked very much like hope.

That felt good to see.

The third floor was virtually empty aside from a few desks and a scattering of papers. This was administration, Rogers supposed, while the top floor seemed to belong to the management. He couldn't wait to give them a visit.

"This is Captain America," he called up the stairwell to the top floor, voice menacing, "I'm coming up. If there's anyone up there planning on resisting then lay down your weapons right now."

A moment's silence, then a cry of defiance.

"Traitor! Criminal! Oceania prevails!"

That last part irked Rogers a little bit. He stepped into view of the stairwell, shield hefted before him, staring up at the toppled over desk that blocked the top of the staircase.

"God bless America! God bless Canada! God bless the free nations of the world!" He shouted. That seemed to have an effect on the people garrisoning the fourth floor, they started shrieking praise for Big Brother. The workers standing by him also seemed discomforted, but not nearly enough to express dissent.

A moment later the shiny gleam of a rifle barrel poked over the top of the desk and Rogers ducked behind his shield, but the bullet just whizzed wide to his left, popping dust from the wall. Whoever had the rifle was a lousy shot.

Rogers rushed the stairs, caught a second bullet on the center of his shield, and slammed into the desk like a fully loaded freight train. Even moving uphill, even burdened with a rucksack and a shield, he hit hard enough to send it flying backwards. The rifleman crouching behind was similarly flattened and Rogers casually picked up the rifle, noting that his own empty rifle was in the hands of an elderly man in a black uniform pressed up against the opposite wall, next to the shattered window.

Rogers smiled grimly, taking the rifle's barrel in one hand, the grip in the other. Grunting with effort, he snapped the weapon in half, tossed its broken bits to the floor, next to its unconscious wielder.

There were maybe ten men on the fourth floor, all dressed in black, all older and fairly healthy looking. These had to be the people who ran the mill. The man that Rogers had knocked out was dressed in blue, the very last security goon that the defeated mill had to offer. In the far corner, close to where the mill higher ups and gathered, was a row of three large safes. One of those, Rogers knew, had to be the medicine safe.

Across the room the older man aimed the empty rifle uncertainly at Rogers. Rogers raised an eyebrow.

"Go ahead," he said, "pull the trigger. Shoot me."

The older man did, flinching as the rifle produced nothing but a muted click. He stared down at the rifle in shock. Pulled the trigger again.

Click.

Rogers stepped closer, the older man's fellows scattering, blocked from retreating down the stairwell by a crowd of unhappy workers, some carrying hammers and makeshift clubs.

Click. Click. Click-click-click-click!

Rogers yanked the rifle firmly away from the older man and shook his head contemptuously at him.

"Of course you wouldn't know how to use a rifle," he said, "you've always had others do your dirty work for you. But that's over. Because now you're going to open those safes in the corner and do some good for once."

The older man let out a long, low groan. Sank to the floor, face ashen. If there was such a thing as the absolute opposite of pity, then Rogers felt it for this man.

"They'll kill me…" He muttered.

"If you open the safe?" Rogers asked.

The older man nodded.

"Yes…if I cooperate with the enemy…"

"And they'll kill you if you don't," Rogers said, jerking a thumb back at the crowd of workers staring down the mill management, "I wont step in to help you out."

At this the older man began to shiver. Hugged his knees to his chest.

"Ten seconds," Rogers said, "if you aren't over at the safes, working to get them open in ten seconds then I'm going to say my goodbyes and leave you to the tender mercies of your…comrades."

"Nobody can escape Big Brother!" One of the higher ups suddenly shrieked, "he's watching! He's watching us all!" And with that he attempted to rush through the workers, only to be seized and thrown roughly back against the wall.

Rogers could see blades making appearances now. The workers were growing restless, ready for wanton bloodshed at the expense of their oppressors. He began ticking off seconds on his fingers, making it very clear to the older man how much time he had left.

"Ten…nine…eight…" He began, and suddenly the older man was scrabbling towards the safes.

"Fine! Okay!" He cried, shooting Rogers a frightened look. He too had seen the knives. Knew what was going to come if he didn't cooperate. Even if it meant that Big Brother would come to collect his pound of flesh later.

One by one the safes popped open, revealing stacks of currency, sheafs of documents, cardboard boxes of medicine. This last sight brightened the workers' eyes, sharpened their movements.

But before they could rush for the medicine safe Rogers planted himself firmly in front of it.

"Everybody is going to share this out," he said decisively, "nobody is going to take more than they need. Got it?" He asked.

The workers nodded, a little reluctantly, and as Rogers watched they divvied antibiotics and painkillers up with remarkable efficiency. In the end not so much as a scrap of prescription paper was left in the safe. The documents they ignored, the cash was divided as well.

As Rogers turned to look out the shattered window, slightly relieved that nobody had been murdered, the stooped worker came up to him, a stack of greasy bills in his hands.

"Thank you." He said, and thrust the money into Rogers' hands. Rogers took it, staring down the bills with some slight confusion.

For some reason he had still expected to see George Washington or Abraham Lincoln…yet this money had no people on it at all. Just the V. And a denomination…

The topmost bill on the stack was worth one hundred Oceanian dollars. Rogers winced, wondering just how bad inflation in Oceania was to make the production of hundred dollar bills so commonplace.

"Now we finish this." Growled a worker, breaking Rogers from his thoughts. He looked up to see something disconcerting.

The knives and clubs had not gone away simply because the safes had been opened.

The workers were going to kill their oppressors.

But something about that sat wrong with Rogers. He cleared his throat, catching the workers' attention.

"In a free country," he said, "we always give the accused a trial before punishing them."

The workers froze. The mill managers stared. The room was entirely silent for a moment.

"You didn't give none of them downstairs no 'trial'." Protested one worker as he realized what Rogers was trying to do.

"That was different," Rogers said, "that was to give you this opportunity that lies before you. If we kill these men before you without giving them a fair shake then how different does that make us from them?"

Silence.

"How do we do a trial then?" Another worker asked.

"Somebody will represent you and your grievances against these men. You will also allow these men to present a defense." That prompted a small storm of unhappy noise, but Rogers motioned for silence.

"I'm going home to my daughter," said the stooped prisoner abruptly, "this trial stuff's too much work. I don't care what you do with 'em." He was clutching his boxes of medicine protectively and Rogers nodded slightly.

"Okay. Anyone else?"

But rather than an answer, Rogers heard the distant thrum of helicopter rotors.

...

An hour earlier, directed by Comrade Waters and his helicopter borne headquarters, Oceanian soldiers had discovered the stolen snowmobile ditched in the woods. The capitalist driving it had not been so crafty, he-

On second thought, the capitalist was clearly of the devious variety. What a scoundrel he was, using underhanded guerrilla tactics against honorable, upstanding Oceanian soldiers. Two good men had been badly injured by his machinations.

And now the brute was assaulting a lumber mill. Innocent workers were being slaughtered! The machinery destroyed! The very heart of Oceanian production at risk!

Or so said the management.

Waters turned his helicopter that direction. They would have to make their visit a brief one however. They were almost out of fuel.

...

"You all need to leave the building," Rogers said, reaching into his rucksack for a magazine, "now." The workers hesitated, but as the chop of helicopter rotors began to grow louder, they moved in a barely controlled stampede.

One of the mill managers made to move as well but Rogers shook his head.

"Stay put. This is for your own protection…you think your 'comrades' wont rip you apart if you go down there? 'Cause they will."

The managers stayed put, shivering with fear, refusing to so much as look at Rogers. That was fine. So long as they weren't trying to kill him…

Rogers moved over towards the broken window, looked out of it. At the rapidly approaching helicopter.

"Who's in that helicopter?" He asked the nearest manager. This was the man who he had forced to unlock the safes.

"That's a Party helicopter." He gasped, eyes widening.

The manager's reaction made Roger's smile. A Party helicopter had to make for a pretty juicy target. He took careful aim. From what he had seen back in the wilderness the windshields of Oceanian helicopters were not bulletproof.

Taking a deep breath he let his hands settle, his heart rate still for a moment. Pulled the trigger.

...

Two hundred yards away a white splotch suddenly appeared, dead center in the helicopter's windscreen. Comrade Waters jumped, the pilot jerked his controls and sent the helicopter arcing away from the mill. Somebody in there had just taken a shot at them.

At him!

The impudence! The rebellion! It stung, shoved a burning coal of outrage deep down into the core of his very being. How. Fucking. Dare. They!

"Loop back around," Waters snarled, clawing his way up close to the pilot, "we're killing him right now."

The pilot stared back at Waters, started to disagree, then remembered just who he was talking to.

"The windscreen wont take more than a few more shots comrade." He said.

Waters fixed him with a withering stare.

"We're going in close and raking the top floors," he said, with an icy sort of patience in his voice, like a murderously angry parent explaining some simple concept to a small child, "he wont get another shot off."

That last one had to have been luck anyhow. They were several hundred yards away, moving fast, a bobbing, weaving target. No marksman on earth could possibly manage to-

A sharp clang echoed off of the side of the helicopter and Waters felt his eyes bulge for a moment before calmness was restored. If the helicopter wasn't moving so violently he might have gone for his notepad. Added some more observations to his growing list concerning Captain America the murderous capitalist.

A moment later the remote controlled machine gun attached to the helicopter's nose began to rattle, issuing a stream of red tracer rounds. From his position at the pilot's shoulder Waters could see everything, a silky flow of scarlet zipping towards the mill building.

He smiled.

...

When Rogers saw the Party helicopter wheel around, he noticed two very worrying things. The first was that his bullet had not penetrated. It had not shattered the windshield or killed the pilot. Instead it had left a white fleck on the glass.

The second thing he saw was the bulge of a machine-gun barrel sticking from the nose of the helicopter. So when the Party chopper began to wheel around to face him once more, after he'd taken an unsuccessful shot at its rotors, Rogers began to run.

And not a moment too soon, for a moment later the room behind him was full of light and noise.

He dove down the stairs, tumbling head over heels, nearly losing his grip on his rifle and shield. A bullet tumbled past him with a buzzing hiss that made his ears itch, shrapnel from the cinderblock walls ricocheted all around, he could feel cuts being opened up on his face by slivers of flying concrete.

Then he was scrambling over the third floor. Caught sight of the helicopter dipping low to match his movements. Put his shield up, and not a moment too soon. Hammer of God against his shield, nearly knocked him over, drove him back against the wall.

Then, suddenly, he was out in the sunlight, the wall behind him giving way as bullets smashed it apart. He was falling backwards out of the building, bullets searing directly overhead.

Oh God.

Then he hit something shockingly soft, surprisingly yielding. Bounced. Was in the air once more, ice crystals and concrete flecks flying with him, rifle spinning away into the air.

You landed on the net, Rogers told himself, shocked at how calm his inner voice remained, twist and land on your feet. Otherwise the Oceanians are going to shoot you dead.

And then the ground was rushing up, Rogers hit it at an angle, rolling a half dozen times before coming to a painful half, the world spinning around him. For a moment he stayed still, stunned, then the Party chopper roared around the bullet-pocked side of the mill, a flurry of snow and ice spraying out from underneath its rotors.

Rogers whipped his shield in front of him, was nearly blasted off of his feet by a spray of bullets before twisting out of the way. He looked desperately for his rifle, saw it sticking, barrel first, into the snow just a few feet away.

The Party chopper was only a few meters above the snow, roaring like some wounded beast, swaying from side to side as it tried to get a bead on him. Rogers snatched up his rifle, was knocked to the side as a new spray of machine-gun fire slashed against his shield. Felt something carve a searing swathe of red hot agony along the top of his shoulder, then Rogers was crouched behind his shield once more, yanking back the action on his rifle.

The helicopter fired once more. Rogers bore it with gritted teeth, rolled to the side, fired a cluster of shots into the windshield of the Party chopper.

And…

Suddenly it was lifting away, curving around with uncommon haste, its windshield in ruins. Rogers stood, breathing hard, bleeding from a dozen tiny shrapnel cuts, shaking with exertion.

He fired a desultory shot after the retreating chopper but thought that he missed, it was too far away to tell for sure. Then he leaned against the rough cinderblock wall of the mill and tried to catch his breath.

Well…that had been something.

Rogers hiked up his rucksack and looked toward the road, which was still entirely empty. No sign of the lumber truck he'd seen earlier, perhaps it had already unloaded and left before he'd begun his assault.

In any case he had no vehicle. But that was of no consequence, he didn't want to be anywhere near the main roads anyway. Not after the chaos he'd just caused. Pushing away from the wall, making sure he could still walk straight after the battering that the helicopter had given him, Rogers made for the woods again.

After that he continued south.

...

In the chopper, somewhere above the vicinity of the mill, Comrade Waters was staring into the empty, glassy eyes of the co-pilot. Who the capitalist had killed when his shots had penetrated the helicopter's windscreen.

That had been an unfortunate development. Unfortunate, but not catastrophic. The helicopter was still largely functional, they had some ammunition left for the machine gun, but very little fuel. They'd have to land and pump some more. And take the chopper in for repairs.

The battle had been inconclusive. And that worried Waters. He was used to the Party winning at will, stomping the defiance out of a few poorly armed workers or a collective farm that had gone rogue. This went beyond that, to something new and very dangerous.

They had shot their mysterious capitalist out of a third story window, and yet the man had gotten back up and still managed to repulse them. How did that work? How was that possible?

It was true that soldiers of Oceania did things like that all of the time on the Malabar Front, but those were Oceanians. This was a capitalist. How was he so strong and skilled and determined?

Waters smoothed the pages of his notebook against the wind roaring in from the broken windscreen and wrote one simple word.

Shield.