New Jersey

"Can I help you guys with anything?" "Oh, no. My fiancé was just helping me with some honeymoon destinations." "Right! We're getting married." "Congratulations. Where do you guys thinking about going?" "New Jersey." "Oh."

- Aaron, Natasha Romanoff and Steve Rogers

New Jersey is a state located in the northeastern and Middle-Atlantic regions of the United States of America.

Establishment of Camp Lehigh
Camp Lehigh in Wheaton was used by the Strategic Scientific Reserve as military training facility for the candidates sent by Abraham Erskine and Chester Phillips for Project Rebirth.

Erskine pressured himself to find a perfect candidate, as his Super Soldier Serum brought out the inner qualities of the individual. The forced use of the serum on Johann Schmidt haunted Erskine, but he would not let pressure to force a decission. Erskine reminded Phillips that he never wrote down the actual formula of the serum so Schmidt had no choice but to keep him alive, so now it was Erskine's choice to find a suitable candidate.

Steve Rogers' Enlistment Attempts
Steve Rogers, a young man from New York City, tried to enlist for military duty in World War II, as his strong moral convictions made him perceive he had no right to stay behind when men were risking their lives fighting in the war. Despite his motivation, Rogers was rejected due to various health and physical issues.

Rogers was not discouraged by this rejection, and he tried to enlist again for a grand total of five attempts. In order to have more chances, and despite being illegal, Rogers lied about his origin on the enlistment form, stating in one of his attempts that he was born in Paramus, New Jersey.

Although not approved in any of these attempts, he impressed Doctor Abraham Erskine, who allowed him to serve in the Strategic Scientific Reserve.

Arrival of Steve Rogers
Eventually, Abraham Erskine found a young Steve Rogers, who was brought to Camp Lehigh as Erskine's primary candidate, although everyone realized that he didn't match with the rest of the candidates. Agent Peggy Carter introduced herself as the overseer of every operation carried out by the Strategic Scientific Reserve, and rapidly established her authority when questioned for being both English and a woman.

Colonel Chester Phillips gave a motivational speech to the men, being distraught by Rogers' sickly and frail appearance, and explained the purpose of the Strategic Scientific Reserve and of Project Rebirth, trying to create an army of Super-Soldiers to personally escort Adolf Hitler to Hell.

The candidates, including Phillips' personal favourite Gilmore Hodge, began a hard week of training under the supervision of sergeant Michael Duffy, with Rogers being constantly obstructed by his colleagues. However, Rogers impressed everyone with his different approach to situations, such as when he managed to retrieve Camp Lehigh's flag from a pole for the first time in history by simply letting the pole fall instead of climbing it.

Phillips, disagreeing with Erskine's choice of Rogers as his primary candidate, tried to make him change his mind, and choose Hodges as the best soldier, but Erskine dismissed him, describing Hodges as a bully. To prove that Rogers was not a suitable candidate as he lacked bravery needed for a soldier, Phillips threw a fake grenade among the candidates during a training exercise. Rogers used his body as a shield to protect everyone from the possible explosion while Hodges hid himself, causing Phillips to acquiesce to Erskine's decision for Rogers' inclusion.

Erskine visited Rogers the night before the project's start-up, and Rogers wondered why he was chosen. Erskine told Rogers how the Nazis managed to seize political power in Germany, and how Hitler found about him and his work. Hitler coerced Erskine sending HYDRA's leader, Johann Schmidt, and how he was the first test subject for Erskine's formula, that, at the time, was not finished. As the serum amplified the inner characteristics of the individual, Rogers' strong morals and values made him the most suitable candidate.

Erskine then tried to drink a toast with Rogers, before realizing that Rogers could not drink alcohol before being administred with the serum, so Erskine ended up drinking both sips after making Rogers promise that he would be a good man whatever happened during the procedure.

Captain America's USO Shows
"Carry the flag shore to shore for America, from Hoboken to Spokane, The Star-Spangled Man with a plan."

- Star Spangled Singers

Steve Rogers was chosen as the new public hero of World War II due to his heroic persecution of Heinz Kruger in the streets of New York City. The event became a front page in the newspapers, and Senator Brandt realized he had potential as a public symbol to boost the morale of the nation, and promote the purchasal of War Bonds.

Rogers joined the and began touring the nation in a colorful costume as "Captain America", accompanied by a chorus named the Star Spangled Singers, who sang a song praising his qualities and heroic feats. As such, during the song, the city of Hoboken in New Jersey was named, to represent the East Coast of the United States.

Rogers' shows included Rogers' speech about the role of the common citizen during the war, a dancing show by the Star Spangled Singers, feats showing Rogers' strength, a climatic moment when Captain America punched another actor portraying Adolf Hitler and the possibility of getting an autograph or a photo with Captain America.

Angie Martinelli attended one of these shows in the city of Passaic, becoming more than impressed with Rogers' physique.

Arrival at Cedar Grove
Peggy Carter and Edwin Jarvis traveled to Cedar Grove to investigate Sheldon McFee, the usual driver of the truck used to transport the Nitramene at the Roxxon Refinery.

During the trip, Carter complained while hearing The Captain America Adventure Program in the radio, and changed the channel despite Jarvis enjoyed it, though he quickly admitted that the real events were more impressive. Carter thought that Jarvis was trying to flatter her, but he assured he was just pleased that Carter had called him to help her. Carter said that she only called him to take her to New Jersey, as he was faster than a train.

Carter asked about the car they used during their investigation of the Roxxon Refinery, but Jarvis had already disposed of it, having left in Hoboken with the keys in the ignition, so it would have surely been stolen. However, Jarvis was saddened for wasting a car in such a way, but Carter assured as it was used in the commission of a crime, it was better to dispose of it.

Carter asked Jarvis to hurry, as Agent Jack Thompson was interrogating Miles Van Ert, one of the men involved in the destruction of the refinery, and he could be quite persuasive.

Capture of Leet Brannis
Peggy Carter and Edwin Jarvis arrived at Sheldon McFee's house, and Jarvis noted the similarities and differences with their last mission together. Carter intended to enter the house alone, and told Jarvis to return home with his wife Anna.

Jarvis tried to offer his assistance in more ways than a simple driver, citing his usefulness during their visit to the Roxxon Refinery, an usefulness that Carter acknowledged, but she dismissed Jarvis again, as she intended to return using McFee's Daisy Clover truck, as it was loaded with the Nitramene.

Inside the house, McFee listened to The Captain America Adventure Program. Carter silently approached from behind, but McFee noticed her as a floorboard creaked. McFee quickly tried to grab his shotgun, but Carter easily disarmed him and managed to defeat him despite his size. Carter had unintentionally knocked McFee unconscious, and regretted never being to interrogate his suspects due to being unconscious prematurely, like it happened with Spider Raymond.

Carter handcuffed McFee to a chair, and heard a noise at the door. Carter exited the house and found Leet Brannis trying to escape with the Daisy Clover truck. Carter ordered Brannis to get out of the truck at gunpoint, and Jarvis appeared to reveal that he sabotaged the truck.

Carter was surprised and even angry for seeing Jarvis still there, but he was only following Howard Stark's orders to help her, even if she did not want it, as Jarvis thought that an ideal butler must provide his services without even being asked. Carter ordered him to fix the truck, in order to take it to a safe location.

Carter went to interrogate Brannis who, using his Voice Synthesizer, demanded protection before revealing anything. Carter acknowledged that the Strategic Scientific Reserve would protect him if he revealed information relevant to the case.

Jarvis advised Carter to ask about the nature of Leviathan, only revealing that they were his former employers. Carter deduced that Leviathan sent Brannis to steal the technology stored in Stark's vault, and then Brannis double-crossed Leviathan to sell the technology for a profit. Brannis revealed that Leviathan only wanted one thing from Stark.

Jarvis finished repairing the truck, and Carter asked him to bring McFee, in order to take both McFee and Brannis into custody. Carter then asked Brannis what was the thing that Leviathan wanted from Stark, but he reiterated his request for protection.

Jarvis found that McFee had escaped, but he took McFee's shotgun and boarded the truck with Carter and Brannis.

Shootout on the Road
Peggy Carter and Edwin Jarvis took possession of the Daisy Clover loaded with Nitramene, forcing Leet Brannis, the man who stole the formula from Howard Stark's vault, to drive the truck. Carter mocked Jarvis, as he had to travel in the back of a dairy truck, though he said the explosives were distracting from the smell of stale milk that was inside the truck, and Carter said that he was the one who wanted to help her, and this was its price.

Carter ordered Brannis to take the Lincoln Tunnel to return to New York City from New Jersey, just when the man in the Green Suit jumped from a tree over the truck. The man started shooting against the truck, and Carter climbed to the roof to stop him.

Carter ordered Brannis to move the truck and make the man fall, but the man shot back to Carter. As Carter lost his weapon, she asked Jarvis to shoot using the shotgun he took from Sheldon McFee.

Jarvis, with extreme politeness, ordered Brannis to pull over the truck or he would shoot him, but the man shot through the truck and broke one of the straps that were restraining the Nitramene devices, and he shot another bullet that severely wounded Brannis, forcing Jarvis to take control of the truck.

One of the Nitramene devices fell to the floor of the truck and become active. Carter noticed the particular of the Nitramene even before Jarvis tried to inform her, so she ordered Jarvis to get Brannis and jump from the truck, while she stabbed the man's hand to the truck and jumped from the roof.

The truck fell off a cliff, and all the Nitramene that was loaded inside was destroyed underwater in the ensuing implosion.

Arrival of the Agents
Jack Thompson and Roger Dooley traveled to Cedar Grove to interrogate Sheldon McFee, unaware that Peggy Carter had already got there. On the way to McFee's house, Thompson and Dooley came across McFee, who was handcuffed to a chair by Carter.

McFee managed to escape the house, but was taken by Thompson and Dooley. Dooley, confused for watching McFee running tied to a chair, asked him if there was need to ask what was McFee actually doing, but McFee acted as if nothing was happening.

Thompson revealed the reason of their visit, and Dooley asked if Leet Brannis was responsible of tying McFee, as they already knew that Brannis paid McFee to use his dairy truck. McFee told the two men that they would not believe the truth, but Dooley assured they would keep an open mind.

The implosion of the Nitramene from McFee's truck produced a flash light that the two agents noticed, so they went to the area in order to investigate.

Mysterious Symbol
Peggy Carter and Edwin Jarvis managed to survive jumping from the Daisy Clover truck before the Nitramene destroyed it, sustaining only minor injuries, but Brannis had been severely wounded during the escape.

Carter went on to interrogate him about the location of the weapons he stole from Howard Stark, but Brannis' Voice Synthesizer was broken in the fall. Carter begged Brannis to help her stop Leviathan, and with his dying breath, Brannis drew a symbol in the sand.

Carter heard a siren approaching, so she erased the symbol that Brannis drew and left with Jarvis to take the car.

Discovering a Corpse
Chief Roger Dooley and Agents Jack Thompson, Daniel Sousa and Ray Krzeminski arrived to the cliff where the Daisy Clover truck carrying a full load of Nitramene devices was destroyed, finding Leet Brannis' corpse next to it. Krzeminski noted that he went skinny-dipping to that place when he was a kid.

Thompson was starting to get tired that someone knew all things related to the case before they even knew them, and approached Dooley, who was examining Brannis' corpse. Dooley discovered a set of female footprints, guessing that it must have the woman whot tied Sheldon McFee to a chair and even the blonde woman that they were already investigating.

Daniel Sousa, who had been tasked with examining the pictures from the night Spider Raymond died, retrieved a key to the Hotel Cosmopolitan, that the man in the Green Suit lost before the truck fell off the cliff.

Landing in Teterboro
According to Edwin Jarvis, Howard Stark was scheduled to land in Teterboro in order to hand himself to the Strategic Scientific Reserve in exchange for Peggy Carter's freedom. However, Jarvis forged Stark's confession and he did not returned to the United States of America until a few days later.

S.H.I.E.L.D. Office
Following World War II, Wheaton housed one of the firsts S.H.I.E.L.D. facilities, as Camp Lehigh was transformed into one of them, with a main office disguised as an ammunition bunker. One of the rooms displayed framed portraits of the organization's founders: Howard Stark, Peggy Carter and Chester Phillips.

Brain of Arnim Zola
Arnim Zola, recruited into S.H.I.E.L.D. during Operation Paperclip, was diagnosed with a terminal disease. In order to preserve his mind and serving the purposes of HYDRA, Zola devised a method to save his mind in a series of computers, establishing a large room underneath the S.H.I.E.L.D. bunker at Camp Lehigh.

Zola transferred his mind to two hundred thousand feet of data banks, and the room become essentially his brain. From this room, he designed an algorithm to be used as the targeting software for Project Insight, that was later transferred to the Lemurian Star.

Attack of the Melter
James Rhodes was performing a test flight of a Drone Plane, racinig against him in his War Machine Armor to evaluate the drone's maneuverability. However, Bruno Horgan destroyed the drone as he intended to attack War Machine.

Rhodes recognized Horgan as the Melter, who attacked Iron Man two days before in New York City. In order to defeat Rhodes, Horgan attacked a truck charged with fuel, forcing Rhodes to lower his guard in order to save two airmen endangered by the burning fuel resultant of Horgan's attack.

Horgan attacked Rhodes, impressed that the metal of the armors did not melt as other metals do with his attacks, as the internal systems fail before the external armor suffered damage. Being unable to defend himself, Rhodes was defeated and Horgan escaped.

747 Flight
"I'd hide in the wheel well of a 747 flight from Newark to Singapore."

- Melinda May

Newark was the point of departure of the 747 flight where Melinda May would hide if she ever wanted to disappear, abandoning S.H.I.E.L.D. and getting "off-grid" just like Richard Lumley did. She chose that flight because it passed over 3,000 miles of land and a dozen countries, so she would be hard to track.

Friendly Confession
Steve Rogers and Natasha Romanoff drove through New Jersey in order to track the source of the secret files retrieved from the Lemurian Star, whose origin was determined to be the former location of Camp Lehigh in Wheaton. As they were driving Romanoff asked where a man like Captain America learnt how to steal a car, and his answer was that it was in Nazi Germany, though now they simply borrowed the car, so he told her to take her feet off the dash of the car.

Romanoff asked him another question, warning him that it was going to be more personal and that he did not have to answer it, though if he did not, that would be considered an answer. She asked if the kiss they had to maintain a cover and escape from Washington, D.C. was his first since 1945. Rogers asked if it was that bad, but she didn't mean to say that, she was just wondering how much practice he had. In the end, Rogers answered it was not the first since 1945.

However, Romanoff inquired a little more, asking if he had somebody special, something Rogers considered hard to find, as there were not many with shared life experience to his. Romanoff just to make them up, explained her way to live, she was never the same, it depended on who she where interacting, something she considered maybe not a good way to live, but a good way not to die.

Rogers acknoweledged that it was difficult to trust someone without knowing that someone really was, so Romanoff asked who did he want her to be. As Rogers asked he wanted her to be a friend, Romanoff laughed softly, telling him he might be in the wrong business.

Destruction of Camp Lehigh
"The file comes from these coordinates." "So do I."

- Natasha Romanoff and Steve Rogers

Steve Rogers and Natasha Romanoff arrived at Camp Lehigh in Wheaton, the source of the files contained retrieved in the Lemurian Star, and Rogers revealed it was the military base where he was trained during World War II. Rogers had flashbacks of his time there while wandering through the base, nostalgically remembering how he trained as hard as he could before being administered the Super Soldier Serum.

Romanoff found no traces of heat signatures or signals that could reveal the exact source of the data, and guessed that whoever wrote the file must had used a router to hide his signal. However, Rogers noticed a building that should not have been there, an ammunition bunker located near the barracks agains army regulations.

As they entered the bunker and turned on the lights, Rogers and Romanoff noticed it was actually a S.H.I.E.L.D. office, and wandered inside finding a room displaying portraits of Howard Stark, Peggy Carter and Chester Phillips. Romanoff recognized Stark, but asked who Carter was, something Rogers did not reply.

Rogers approached a suspicious bookshelf, feeling the wind was blowing behind it, and wondered what was the need to hide a elevator in an already secret office as he moved the bookshelf and revealed an elevator. In the basement, the two entered a room with a large amount of old computers, with Romanoff guessing the technology was too old to be the source of the files.

However, Romanoff suddenly noticed a small flash drive port, and placed the flash drive in it, activating the central computer. The computer asked if the user wanted to initiate the system, and Romanoff typed the answer: Y-E-S. As she typed, Romanoff smiled and uttered the quote "Shall we play a game?", referencing the movie , a reference that Rogers managed to catch as he had seen the movie.

Suddenly, the system started to speak, pointing a camera to them and calling both Rogers and Romanoff by her real names and revealing their years of birth. Romanoff wondered if it was some kind of a recording, but the system said it was not, and revealed his actual identity as that of Arnim Zola. Rogers revealed who Zola was, a scientist who worked for the Red Skull, but who had died years before. However, Zola corrected him, first by acknowledging that he was a Swiss citizen, and that now he was more alive than ever. Zola explained how his mind was transferred to the computers as he received a terminal diagnosis in 1972, and how he was recruited by S.H.I.E.L.D. during Operation Paperclip.

Zola also explained how he used his position within S.H.I.E.L.D. to rebuild HYDRA inside the organization, and fulfilled its original belief, world domination while removing the freedom of humanity. However, as World War II taught them that they would resist if freedom was taken by force, HYDRA fed crisis and war in the world in order to make humanity willingly surrender its own freedom, shaping history and changing it.

Romanoff could not believe that S.H.I.E.L.D. had been unable to stop them, and Zola admitted they resorted to eliminate all threats to HYDRA, such as Howard Stark or Nick Fury, whose assassinations were organized by HYDRA.

Zola continued his speech by saying that the world was finally so chaotic that humanity was to sacrifice its freedom to gain its security, and HYDRA will purify the world to establish a new world order.

Rogers angrily asked about the contents of the flash drive from the Lemurian Star, and Zola answered it was an algorithm to provide the insight needed for Project Insight, acknowledging it was fascinating, though they would be dead by the time he explained it.

Suddenly, the doors of the room started to close, and though Rogers tries to stop them by throwing his shield in between, he was too late. Romanoff detected a short-range missile thrown by S.H.I.E.L.D., and Zola revealed he had been stalling them.

Romanoff quickly retrieved the flash drive out of the port and Rogers managed to locate a small opening on the ground, where he entered with Romanoff and protected her with his shield from the explosion. Both survived the explosion, and Rogers cleared a path out of the debris to escape the facility as a group of STRIKE agents led by Brock Rumlow arrived to retrieve them. As Rumlow saw a footprint indicating they managed to survive and escape, he contacted HYDRA in order to call in their asset.