Coulson paled. "You're trying to do what!?"

Skye gave him a wide-eyed look, clearly startled by the vehemence of his question. "Um... hack into a Stark Industries server to find out what was in that shipping container...?"

Coulson closed his eyes and pinched the bridge of his nose, then counted backwards from ten before speaking again. "One does not just hack into SI," he said sternly, then pointed a finger at the grin that brought to Skye's face. "No. You are aware that Stark's personal and business properties are all protected by his own proprietary systems, yes?"

Skye nodded. "Of course I am! Word is they've got the best protection in the world. Hacking SI is, like, the Mount Everest of hacking. Every hacker dreams of being good enough to do it some day."

"And you're picturing modern-day Everest, with relatively tame and only infrequently deadly excursions to the top, rather than the killing climb it's been for most of recorded history," Coulson said grimly, then sighed. "Don't believe anyone who ever tells you they've successfully hacked SI. They were either dealing with an isolated server that held only publicly available information, or they were exploring one of JARVIS's sandboxes while he took notes on their style."

Skye frowned. "JARVIS? Stark's so-called AI? That's a myth."

Coulson raised his eyebrows slightly, folded his arms, and just looked at her.

"And... you know Stark. Knew Stark. Wait, AC, are you telling me that JARVIS is real!?"

"Not only is he real, but your poking around has undoubtedly attracted his attention," Coulson said grimly, then sighed again, arms dropping to his side and shoulders slumping slightly. "Give me your laptop," he said, holding out one hand.

Skye yelped and clutched it to her, as best as she could with the lid still open. "AC! No, you can't confiscate it just because..."

"Skye! Calm down, I just need it for a couple of minutes. You can even stay and watch," he said, and flexed his fingers pointedly.

Skye hesitated, then slowly held out her laptop. Coulson took it from her, then turned and sat down beside her, balancing it on his knees. He took out a pair of reading glasses, slipping them on his nose and peering at the screen, hands hovering over the keyboard. For a moment he looked like a textbook example of a technologically challenged older white male; then his hands started moving, at a speed only a little shy of Skye's best pace, and it was clear that he had a lifetime of computer usage in his past. A browser window popped open, he typed in an IP address from memory, and a downloading window popped up for a few seconds, followed by a browser application opening up with three unlabelled text boxes and a 'Submit' button. He typed his name into the first, and then lengthy strings of seemingly random characters into the next two, then clicked the submit button.

"Now we wait," he said, chewing his lower lip as he started at the screen. "Probably not long."

Another downloading bar appeared, and then a new window opened. It looked pretty old school; completely text based, like an old IRC chat program, with a large blank area at the top, a small text entry area at the bottom, and a sidebar with two names displayed, marked as '~JARVIS~' and 'Intruder: PJC'.

"You'll forgive me if I am disinclined to believe you are who you claim to be," appeared in the upper window. "Given the verified reports of your death."

Phil grinned and typed. "Reports of my death were correct, but the state proved to be temporary."

"I will require some degree of proof before enhancing contact further. Challenge: Drool."

"Supernanny."

"Challenge: Prototype."

"Captain America's shield."

"Challenge: Flour."

Coulson paused and frowned before typing. "That response was either gas station or Little Debbie. I suppose I should mention that I have some memory problems related to having been dead."

"Noted. Challenge: Consultancy."

Coulson grinned as he typed. "Bought the bar."

"Identity tentatively accepted. Enhancing contact."

Another downloading bar appeared, for a longer interval. The window closed and re-opened, looking not entirely unlike a Skype video chat window now, though the image in the larger section of the window was something like a fractal-based screensaver rather than a face. There was a smaller inset window showing the laptop camera's view of the room, including Phil and part of Skye. She leaned closer towards him, so as to be more fully in the picture. "We're really talking to JARVIS?" she asked.

"We're really talking to JARVIS," Phil confirmed. "JARVIS, this is one of my team members, our hacker Skye."

"An alias belonging to a suspected member of Red Tide. Recent attempts to access one of my servers does seem to match her known style profile." a smooth voice with a noticeable British accent said.

"Yes, she was, before we recruited her," Phil confirmed. "And my apologies for her intrusion; I didn't know Skye was planning to do that until the attempt was already in progress."

"Apology accepted. May I inquire as to what information the young lady was after?"

Phil quickly explained about the Stark Industries marked cargo container that they'd seen arriving at a location they had under surveillance, and their concerns over what might have been inside of it. They uploaded the one clear photo they had of it to JARVIS.

"It would seem we have a shared interest here, Agent Coulson," Jarvis said, the fractals disappearing to show a zoomed in view of one corner of the shipping container, where part of an identification number printed on its surface was visible. "By my records, seventeen of our containers bear ID numbers that contain this sequence of numerals. I can narrow it down further to a most probable three of them based on location within the sequence. However, I require an on-site biometric verification of your identity before sharing any further information, though after that you will have my full co-operation in this and any other matters I can assist you with."

Phil sighed. "Where do I need to go?" he asked. "It needs to be somewhere that my identity won't be compromised; my being believed dead has a usefulness that will end if word of my survival spreads."

"According to my traces you're currently 153 miles away from an SI subsidiary that houses one of my server farms. Would you like an appointment for later today, or would tomorrow be better for you?"

"Later today would be best; the sooner we sort this out, the better. May I bring Skye along? It might be useful in future for her to be able to be a verified contact."

"Certainly, Agent Coulson. An after-hours appointment has been arranged. The gate guard will have the necessary passes for you. A map and contact information are being sent to this laptop. I look forward to talking to you again later."

The video interface vanished, replaced by a window with a map, address, time, and the code to give to the gate guard in order to be given the passes.

"Wow," Skye said. "That was... wow. We were really talking to an artificial intelligence just now? Not a person?"

"A program that is essentially a person, yes," he corrected. "I'll go let Melinda know that we'll be away for a few hours; you might want to change. Try to look more like an administrative assistant or something similar; we don't want to stand out."

It wasn't until they were driving – not in Lola, which would have stood out too much – to the SI facility that Skye had a chance to ask any of the questions that she now had.

"So. How'd you get to be in so tight with JARVIS, AC?"

Phil smiled slightly, glancing at her before returning his attention to driving. "That's a very long story. The short version of it is that I helped save the lives of Ms Potts and Mr Stark, on separate occasions. Even the redacted details of which are currently above your security level, so please don't ask. JARVIS is extremely fond of both of them, at least inasmuch as a program that can only calculate and extrapolate emotions and not feel them as we understand the word feel can be said to be fond. As a result he was willing to communicate and cooperate slightly more freely with me than he does the majority of the humans that he interacts with."

"So you, what, became friends?"

"More or less. I was careful to always be as truthful with him as my job allowed, and to make it clear when I couldn't tell him something because of security levels as opposed to when I couldn't tell him something because I just didn't know. Over time a certain degree of, well, trust built up between us, and he sometimes allowed me to make use of his capabilities without requiring explicit permission from Mr Stark first."

"So you've never had to hack him or anything like that?"

Phil looked amused. "No. If you want something that JARVIS can help you with, the best way to get it is to be his friend. Up to and including access to classified areas; note that we are about to waltz into what is likely a highly secured facility on no more than his own say-so, by his arrangement."

"I thought he said it was just an SI subsidiary?"

"A subsidiary containing one of his server farms. The only places Stark protects anywhere near as highly as those is Stark's own residences. And he gets sloppy with his residences. With JARVIS, never."

Skye raised an eyebrow at Phil. "Am I right in guessing you've taken advantage of his sloppiness with the security of his own residences?"

Phil grinned. "Yes. But only with JARVIS's co-operation. If I ask very nicely, he'll ignore things like security protocols and do little favours such as unlocking private elevators and opening secure doors. It's a level of trust I've always been very careful to never take for granted or abuse; if nothing else, pissing Tony off would have been a good way to have him tell JARVIS to stop allowing me access. As long as JARVIS was willing, I knew that Tony didn't actually mind, no matter how verbally abrasive he might get about me popping out of the woodwork unexpectedly."

Skye laughed. "Sounds like you and Mr Stark have an interesting friendship as well."

"We do. Did," Phil corrected. "As far as I know, he still thinks I'm dead. Though that will likely change after tonight. JARVIS might be willing to keep it a secret from him for a while longer, but I'd bet that sooner or later he'll decide that he needs to share with Mr Stark the fact that I am, in fact, still alive." He frowned in thought for a moment. "Tony will probably be very angry at me when he finds out. Note that I say when, not if. Even without this encounter with JARVIS... as under the radar as our team mostly operates, we have taken part in a few higher profile operations; sooner or later there'd be something happening like someone's cell phone footage getting posted to You-Tube that we won't catch fast enough. It'd take just one wrong thing going viral for some of my old friends and enemies to figure out that I'm still around."

"And then things could snowball completely out of control."

"Exactly. As much as I might currently be wishing that you hadn't stuck your finger into an SI pie, I suppose in the long term it might actually be better if JARVIS knows and is keeping it secret of his own choice. If he's willing to help us, especially without requiring permission from Stark first..." he trailed off, looking thoughtful.

"He's got a lot of resources he can throw our way?"

Phil's lips crooked in a slight smile. "You have no idea. We're just lucky that Tony doesn't have a truly megalomaniacal bone in his body, and that JARVIS thinks that going full Skynet would be too much effort for not enough gain. He'd rather people think as you did, that he's just a myth, than that they be actively seeking him out or trying to block him from their systems. He enjoys being underestimated."

Skye grinned again. "No wonder the two of you get along so well then."

Phil laughed.

The gate guard checked the code slip, then opened a locked drawer and handed over a sealed envelope that contained a pair of passes for Phil and Skye, with correct photos of them but under assumed names. They were now Scott Argent and Hillary Burton. The guard directed them to a parking area near the entrance their cards were authorized to use.

Phil kept a remarkably bland expression on his face for the next fifteen minutes, until they'd entered the building and found the room on the second floor where their appointment was listed as taking place. As soon as the door closed behind them, Phil's bland expression changed to an amused smile, and he leaned one hip on the corner of the empty desk in the room, crossing his arms while glancing around before focusing his gaze on a small black plastic camera dome in one corner of the room. "Teen Wolf, JARVIS? Really?"

Skye's mouth dropped open as she made the connection to the name Phil had been given.

"Argent was the closest to Agent I could work into your pseudonym," JARVIS replied primly. "And I quite enjoyed Scott's relationship with Alison until it ended."

"JARVIS watches TV?" Skye asked Phil in a whisper, eyes wide.

"I do," JARVIS replied on his own behalf. "When one interacts with Sir and his friends as much as I do, maintaining an awareness of current pop culture is always helpful to deciphering their conversation."

Phil had a fond smile on his face now. "Let me guess... Clint still watches it."

"He does indeed, Agent Coulson. Thor has also become interested in the show, though he insists on verbally correcting the inaccuracies of it, in relationship to the various supernatural entities that it portrays. This has led to occasional friction between himself and Agent Barton."

"As intrigued as I would be to know more exactly what Thor has said, I think that right now is probably not the time," Phil said regretfully. "We should probably move on to the biometric testing; Skye and I are working on a bit of a deadline, unfortunately."

"Of course, Agent Coulson. If the pair of you would proceed through the door to your left, the necessary equipment is available in the intake room next door."

They went through the indicated door, into a small room with a table bearing several different machines, a few uncomfortable looking chairs, and another black plastic dome in one corner. Phil, experienced in the use of biometric scanners, made his way along the table turning various machines on and having his eyes, palm, fingerprints, and facial structure scanned, as well as allowing a cheek swab. Skye followed in his wake, submitting to the same level of examination, though she balked at the cheek swab.

"That's optional, isn't it?" Phil said firmly to JARVIS, gesturing Skye away from the table.

"Of course. I am pleased to report that all of your results tested so far pass. Your height has decreased slightly, but in accordance with expected loss due to aging cartilage, and the only other changes I detect all appear to be surgical, but not of a cosmetic nature. I expect the genetic test will also prove to be a match, and am willing to accept that you are indeed yourself, Agent Coulson. May I say how pleased I am that reports of your death have proven to be greatly exaggerated?"

Phil smiled warmly at JARVIS' sensor dome. "As am I. Now, you said you could likely narrow what container we saw down to three?"

"I have done further investigation since we talked, and have positively identified the container in question. Upon examining related invoices, work orders, and the list of facilities it has recently passed through, I have reason to believe that someone has been pilfering from SI. There are several items that are supposed to have been decommissioned or destroyed that I cannot locate any matching record of salvaged materials from, and I suspect they may have been smuggled into the container alongside otherwise legitimate shipments."

Phil straightened, looking concerned. "What kind of items are we talking about?"

"If you're thinking weapons, I must confirm that your suspicions are correct. I'll send a full list to the laptop accessed earlier, but the highlights of what I have identified as likely contents so far include two weapon prototypes that hadn't yet been put into production when Sir ended that portion of SI's operations, as well as several crates of assorted pistols, rifles, and other munitions still remaining from our stockpiles."

Phil winced. "Wonderful. So the people we've been watching are likely quite well-armed, and have something valuable to either use themselves, or sell to the highest bidder."

"Given the provenance of the items stolen, I believe I can safely promise you my full cooperation in resolving this matter. Might I suggest that it may be worth tipping off Sir; I can do it in such a way that does not bring any attention to you or your team's involvement. I will certainly have to bring the method of pilferage to Ms Potts' attention in the very near future."

"I'll take that suggestion under consideration. We'd better head back; I think my team is going to have a very busy night, and possibly a rather full day tomorrow."

"Indeed. If I may further suggest... there's a Starkpad tablet in the middle drawer of the desk in the other room. It would provide a much more secure connection if you need my assistance." He sounded almost shy when making the offer.

Phil nodded, and paused at the desk on the way through the first room to retrieve the tablet, which proved to be the newest model, one still pending public release, complete with charger, spare power pack, an assortment of useful accessories, and a carrying case. "I'd appreciate it if you didn't store everything you see or hear through this, JARVIS," he said, sounding amused as he put everything away in the case.

"I shall endeavour to be quite discrete about what tidbits I choose to remember, and will keep them in my securest storage."

Phil grinned and lifted one hand in a wave at the sensor dome as they walked out. "Welcome to the team, JARVIS."

"Thank you, Agent Coulson." JARVIS replied, sounding pleased.