Chapter 2: The Particular Silence of Poisoned Men

The shouting organized itself, the way shouting always does among people who are accustomed to catastrophe, into something resembling a structure within about four minutes. Rhodey took the east wall of the corridor and got on a comm line. Natasha took the west and said nothing to anyone, which meant she was thinking. Thor stood in the middle of the hallway like a building that had decided to stop moving and asked FRIDAY, at a volume appropriate for a great hall, to tell him what had happened to the man in the room.

FRIDAY told him it was still assessing.

Carol stood at the sealed door with her arms at her sides and her eyes on the biometric panel, which had gone from green to red to the particular amber that means *system hold, do not override.* I know that color. I've seen it on crime scenes. It means the room has decided you're not allowed in until it has finished cataloguing what happened there.