MY FINEST GIGAYEAR
Chapter 1
The ex-Avenger, Vision, reclaimed consciousness within his mechanical mind. A consciousness acquired via the evil Ultron so exceedingly long ago. A consciousness consistently withheld him for far longer than even his supercomputer senses could adequately conceive.
Standing now, in some sublevel section of the former mansion made so preeminently famous and even infamous by those super-powered persons performing so super-heroically as The Mighty Avengers…
"What has happened?" the Vision sonorously said as he immediately made a mental note of how incredibly dilapidated his surroundings seemed to be. "Though my normally impeccable mechanized memory should successfully recall all…there seems to be something wrong. My final recollection did involve Ultron in some last-ditch attempt to utterly obliterate the Avengers, however…the exact details are degraded far beyond even my mind's competency. Even my internal clock cannot accurately acquire the precise point in human history. The best estimation that I can come up with is…"
There passes several syrupy slow minutes of mental gymnastics, before the unbelievable thrust itself into the illumination of this supreme automaton's mind…
"Oh, no," the Vision gasped with that semi-emotionality made a part of him after being freed from the evil Ultron's mechanical clutches. "This…cannot be. My quick calculations must be incorrect."
Suddenly struck with the need to know, the Vision swiftly altered his molecular density into intangibility and easily lifted off to promptly pass through the hundreds of feet of rock and solidified debris before bodily reaching the earthen surface and re-solidifying himself to see…
"No," said the Vision at the sight of what should've been the site of the Avenger's Mansion as well as the what should've surrounded it at 890 Fifth Avenue in Manhattan, New York City. But was, instead, a scorched decay consisting of a simplistic and lifeless lava-hardened landscape. "The time is…more than two billion years in Earth's future!"
Such was further evidenced via the very visible, even through the greenhouse cloud covering created by the basic boiling away of all oceans, significantly larger, by between ten to twenty percent, brighter and hotter Sun.
The Vision suddenly sank into a strange mixture of emotions and computerized contemplation in respect to whether or not Humans had survived as a species long enough to leave the rapidly dying Earth or had they been brought to Ultimate Death along with whatever else had survived through the eons on an Earth that was much more comparable to Venus. Which, itself, had very probably been gobbled up by the growing-in-size Sun as had happened to tiny Mercury.
Though the question should've been made moot to the Vision's situation, since such as he was still alone on the hot-as-Hell globe…
The Vision still couldn't help but ponder the potential fate of the whole of humanity, let alone the lost-to-Time associate Avengers he still saw so clearly in his conscious recollections.
It was only then that the Vision slowly realized that such as he was doomed to remain as more eons elapsed to allow the steadily-increasing Sun to fully engulf the Earth.
"If only it were possible to locate or create a conveyance to take me out into deepest space," pensively contemplated this caped creation of green and yellow with crimson countenance. "But such would seem an impossibility as everything manmade that was remotely recognizable has been obliterated by billions of additional advancing years. And, as my own molecular manipulation in order to fly could never elevate me beyond Earth's now cloud-choked ever-thickening atmosphere, I am…trapped."
Having, at that self-same instant that such crossed his remarkable mind, made himself insubstantial enough to rise into the thicker air in order to fly across the compressed mountains now dominating the once beauteous cityscape…
"I would attempt to terminate my existence," the Vision continued to consider in near-silence, "were it not for the fact my built-in sense of subsistence forestalled such from ever being realized. And, due to my molecular makeup combined with the ability to become infinitely dense, I would, logically, survive even Earth's engulfed-by-Sun future."
Caught up in super-sonic upper atmospheric super-winds, unlike any previously possible on a still living ocean-laden planet, the Vision soon saw himself soaring over what should have been the middle of the Atlantic Ocean. Yet was, at a point two-plus billion years into Earth's eventual End-Time, merely a vast valley that stretched out for thousands of miles.
Just as insufferably, swelteringly hot as what had once been known as marvelous Manhattan.
"What a harrowing way for a superhero to meet his mechanized immortality," the Vision muttered almost soundlessly as Synthezoid eyes beheld the heat-locked landscape sweeping past so far below. "With not even a super-villain with whom to do battle."
No sooner said, as the Human maxim maintained…
"I live!"
That proud proclamation came from another automaton as immortal as the Vision. One that had been buried beneath tons of rock and rubble in a similar manner several dozen miles from the Vision's current high-flying locality.
Ultron, the ultra-robotic father from which the Vision had sprang some two Gigayears ago, stood triumphant as his stainless adamantium-plus structure stood the test of Time in the self-same manner as the super-android Avenger.
An Avenger whom his super-senses, one of many improvements made over the various versions Ultron had managed to self-devise over and over and over again, had succeeded in spying so high in the no-longer-blue skies.
"Ahhhh," said a snarling-voiced villain originally fabricated so unbelievably long ago by Dr. Henry Pym of The Mighty Avengers. "My child has also survived. Excellent. Though there remains no Humans to destroy, due to their Sun doing such for me…I can at least obliterate the Vision! Ha, hahahaha!"
END OF CHAPTER 1