S.I.M. Life 7
Actually The Vault (TM) wasn't so bad, individual cells exactly like the one I had in the last jail and much more relaxed and polite guards, all of them were wearing Stark designed armor so they felt safe enough to relax and they knew they were being recorded so they were remarkably polite.
Amy's worries about retaliation were also removed when I first arrived and was informed that they had tested the footage themselves and it wasn't faked and his blood showed no evidence of having an X-gene.
However, despite all that, it was their job to keep me imprisoned and they were honor bound to do so and regardless of how crooked the trial was, they did believe I was guilty of the original charges.
I responded by explaining my side of the story and promised that if I ever actually did breakout, I'd do so without harming the guards or damaging The Vault itself.
They thanked me for my thoughtfulness and withheld their laughter till I was out of the room.
I could actually get to like these guys. Apparently to work at The Vault you were required to pass more than a few psych evals geared towards finding individuals who were sane, honorable, and believed strongly in duty.
Too bad more government institutions weren't run this way.
With the amount of technology this place had I could have walked out the door in the first five minutes, simply by making all the monitors and sets of Guardsman armor ignore me and show images of me in my cell instead.
But truthfully I could use a break from being gassed all the time and The Vault preyed upon my weaknesses by having an ungodly large media library and allowing me to watch whatever I liked in my cell.
I love anime. Plus I amused myself by uploading a copy of the last Iron Man movie from memory for everyone to watch, although I did limit that to the guards for Pepper's sake not Tony's.
I collected data on everyone in custody and sent it to 'John', just because I could and it might come in handy some day.
I also designed upgrades for the Guardsman armor and passed them along to S.H.I.E.L.D. I'm sure my obvious improvements over Stark's basic design raised some eyebrows, especially considering my approach was completely different from his.
I prevented three escape attempts by notifying the guards of things that had been tampered with.
Of course this was all in the first week there...
New York Underground.
John whistled merrily as he completed the adjustments on the newly finished armor. It looked like a cheap knock off of Iron Man's armor scaled down for a ten year old.
He had a plan for both embarrassing Iron Man and getting a blood sample from Wolverine that should make Jack and Amy giggle.
A small LMD walked in looking too innocent and earnest to be real. "Billy, reporting for duty," Billy the LMD, said brightly.
"Excellent! Ready to go?" John asked.
"Does the Pope shit in the woods?"
John blinked a few times and examined Billy carefully. "Do we need to adjust your programming?"
Billy laughed. "I've compiled a series of cute phrases and sayings to mangle to make myself look adorable on screen."
John chuckled. "I figure about five to seven battles on the air before Iron Man tracks you down to try and take your armor away."
"Iron man against the Boy of Steel," Billy smirked maliciously. "Even if he wins he loses. I'll have to see if I can get him named Armor Thief."
"I've got a live broadcast of Wolverine facing the Hulk in Central Park that you can get involved in, if you hurry."
Billy laughed and spread his arms as metal tentacles descended from the ceiling and assembled the armor around him. The small armored figure dropped down a quick-escape shaft into the sewers leading to the East River which allowed him to exit miles away in under a minute.
Busting out of the water he activated the magnetic accelerator using the earth's magnetic field to boost his speed. The carefully timed sonic boom of Billy's arrival threw Wolverine back and made the Hulk wince.
"Have no fear, the Boy of Steel is here!" Billy announced standing in front of the Hulk in blue and silver armor patterned after Iron Man's own armor, in looks anyway.
The Hulk looked down at the tiny intruder wondering where he came from and where the hairy midget with the claws went.
"Kid, get out of there!" Wolverine commanded, blood leaking from his ears.
"I'll stop him!" Billy swore and lines of light began to form on the armor's arms as he was clearly charging up some kind of power blast.
Seeing the height of his foe and where his arms were aimed, the Hulk covered his crotch with his hands just before Billy fired. Wolverine flinched back from the sound and fury of the blast hitting his enhanced senses. When the blast petered out after a few seconds the Hulk was still standing, but the back of his hand protecting his crotch was smoking and discolored for a moment. The Hulk's pants however had been vaporized.
"Hulk, feel draft," the green goliath said, before figuring out what had happened.
"Come on, put up your dukes!" Billy ordered, getting into a boxing pose.
"Hulk have no pants," The Hulk observed, ignoring the small figure that was punching him just above the waist.
"Take that and that and that!" Billy yelled as he hit the Hulk.
Wolverine just stood there, unsure of what he was supposed to do in this situation.
"Hulk going to have to take nap," the Hulk decided before leaping away, the force of his jump shattering the concrete beneath him and knocking Billy over.
"Yeah, you better run!" Billy yelled getting to his feet, "I got lots more where that came from. No one defeats Billy Mays... I mean Ferro Boy!"
The cameras watching had been split between broadcasting Billy's taunts and the large green moon that was rising in the sky.
Billy turned to see Wolverine with blood leaking from his ears and quickly hurried over to him, popping out a small medkit that he used to 'treat' Wolverine. "Oh, I'm sorry Mr. Wolverine, sir. I didn't see you were hurt! I should have lead him away from you before finishing him off!"
Billy packed away the used cotton swabs and gauze he'd used to clean the blood from Wolverine's face and ears. "You OK, Mr. Wolverine, sir?"
"Just peachy, kid," Wolverine replied. "Nice work. I'm going to go now," he announced deciding the Hulk had the right idea, he was going to take a nap and pretend this whole thing never occurred.
*0*0*0*0*0*0*0*0*0*0*
"Absorbing man's hitting the bank," John announced, making Billy giggle evilly, before he donned Armor and split.
"He's very loud," came a voice from behind John who spun around and found himself looking at a one eyed woman in leather who was playing with a butterfly knife.
"Hello?" John said surprised that someone had managed to sneak in until he recognized who it was. "My name's John. Who are you and why are you here?"
"My name is Callisto, leader of the Morlocks, and I'm here because you've moved into my territory and I need to know what kind of problems we'll be having."
"How do you mean?"
"We avoid outsiders, because of the troubles they bring and the attention they inevitably draw to us," Callisto said. "Things would be simpler if you simply moved elsewhere."
John nodded thoughtfully and ran various calculations through his head. "How about a counter offer? I need my monitoring station here, because of all the networks I can tap, but I can move Billy and everything active to a section far away from you and pay rent for my staying here?"
"Sounds suspiciously reasonable and what exactly are you offering in the way of rent?"
"I see no need to be unreasonable and what would you like; cash, food, medicine?"
"We need all three, but your offer sounds too good to be true."
"Well my mutation made me rich and will continue to do so. I've got no problem sharing it with others who weren't as lucky in the genetic lottery."
"What's your mutant ability?" she asked, a bit of hope creeping into her voice as her advanced senses told her he wasn't lying to her.
"My body is adapted in a hundred different ways to interface with advanced technology and my mind is advanced enough to alter, improve, and invent as needed."
"You don't look that different," Callisto pointed out.
"This isn't my body," John said hitting a button on the wall that revealed three more Johns floating peacefully in tubes. Well two were, the third was bobbing his head and playing air guitar.
"What?!" Callisto burst out, suddenly worried about a mutant body snatcher.
"Relax, I grow extra bodies as needed. It's high tech not some horror movie," John said reading her response easily.
"Oh." Callisto relaxed and the knife vanished. "Why the extras and what are they doing?"
"Two of them are mentally sorting data and the third has gotten bored and started watching MTV," John replied. "Billy has arrived," John said suddenly, interrupting Callisto's response and flipping on a large view screen.
*0*0*0*0*0*0*0*0*0*0*
Billy arrived feet first, flinging Absorbing man's stone form into the vault door.
Spiderman groaned. "I was trying to keep him away from anything harder than stone."
Absorbing man slammed his ball and chain into the vault door quickly transforming into steel.
"Well it's all part of my awesome plan," Billy said excitedly.
Spiderman dodged as the large steel ball smashed into the floor where he'd just been standing. "The plan to get me flattened?"
Billy waved his hand and Absorbing man was flung out into the street. "The plan I'm in the middle of." Being made of metal at the moment, Absorbing man wasn't even phased as he quickly recovered and climbed to his feet.
Billy rushed out of the bank and waved a hand upwards flinging Absorbing man high in the air. Using the magnetic manipulators in his gauntlets, Billy caught Absorbing man about twenty feet up and managed to separate him from his enchanted ball and chain.
"I wouldn't advise changing back to human," Billy said. "Cause the fall would break bones. and as long as you're metal I can hold you here."
"I can't hold this form more than ten minutes," Absorbing man said worriedly.
"Better hope The Vault sends guardsman for you quickly, then," Billy snickered.
Spiderman shot a layer of webbing over the Absorbing man's ball and chain, so even if he got loose he wouldn't be able to use its power. Hearing sirens he quickly vanished.
*0*0*0*0*0*0*0*0*0*0*
"So why do you have a ten year old out fighting crime?" Callisto asked.
"He's not ten, he just looks and sounds ten. Billy is just another of my bodies. I'm setting a trap for the dick who shot me in the back and destroyed one of my eyes," John explained. "As well as stealing my armor and making me a fugitive."
"So where's your real body?"
"In The Vault."
"And you haven't tried to bust yourself out?"
"Nope, my original body is quite comfortable there and is still healing up."
In the vault...
Jack watched Ranma ½ on the main monitor in his cell while sipping a slushee from the slushee machine in the corner. He made a mental note to upload the anime version in his head to the system as the version they had strictly followed the manga.
One of the guards looked in the cell and turned to his partner. "A slushy machine?"
"I checked the order five times, it was legitimate."
"I wonder why."
"Jack seems pretty happy with it," he pointed out.
"Yeah, not exactly an escape risk at the moment."
The guards stood at their posts quietly for a moment.
"I still say Inuyasha was the better anime."
"Not unless you're judging it by length," the other guard snorted.
*0*0*0*0*0*0*0*0*0*0*
"Besides as long as he's in there he can't be accused of being connected to anything that's going on."
Callisto nodded. "OK, but the first sign of trouble and you're gone."
John nodded. "I have no problem with that. Get me a wish list of everything you want, try and think of it in terms of a rescue mission, 'cause if I set it up as a relief aide to a foreign country I can move a lot more goods to you and no one will bat an eye."
"You're serious?" Callisto asked stunned as she realized the enormity of what he had planned.
"Sure, I even know of a doctor who is a mutant and a very visible one at that, that I can probably convince to give everyone medical checkups and take care of any serious medical problems you might have."
Callisto gave him a suspicious glance. "You already knew about us, this is some kind of setup!"
"I looked into the best places to spend money to make a difference and a situation like yours was one of the top two. The other is a blind defense attorney in the Devil's kitchen and he was easy to handle because he takes donations."
Callisto looked at him intently. "What's the catch?"
"There isn't one. I believe in karma and have lots of money. By making the world a better place I can generate enough good Karma to counter the fact that I spend ninety-percent of my time doing whatever I think sounds fun."
"That's... a weird view point."
"Yep, but it works for me. Money is easy to make when you're a mutant of the tech persuasion, but being able to claim you've made the world a better place when you spend most of your time drunk in strip clubs or playing wild video games is a bit harder... Unless you let the money do it for you. So go nuts, tell me your wishes and I'll find a way to grant them."
Callisto laughed bitterly, figuring the man was a lunatic and there was little chance he'd come through with his promises. "I'll take a working eye to replace the one I lost and a way to prevent Leech from screwing up the powers of everyone around him."
John opened up a cabinet and pulled out a small block of crystal with an eye in it that he tossed to Callisto.
"Haha, funny," she replied sarcastically.
"The casing around it is to protect it from contamination before use, it dissolved in water and must be put in place quickly as the bio circuits that connect it to the optic nerve degrade in air."
"You knew I was going to ask for this?" she asked worriedly, wondering who the snitch was.
"Nope, been working on improving it for my main body which is missing an eye, as I've mentioned."
"I don't suppose you have one that'll match my other eye?"
"As soon as you install that one you can make it change to match the other. I'm still tinkering with it, because I want to increase the amount of storage space it has."
"Storage space?" Callisto asked confused.
"Yeah, in addition to being a fully functioning eye it's also a fully functioning computer system, but not as powerful as I'd like. I mean I can program it to receive TV broadcasts and record my favorite shows, but it only holds about five hundred hours of footage before you need to delete stuff to make more space."
"And do you have anything that'll stop Leech from shutting down everyone's powers?"
"Sure," John said, pulling out a briefcase and opening it to reveal a number of pieces of jewelry.
"What are they?" Callisto asked, not accepting anything at face value around John anymore.
"These are all designed to neutralize mutant abilities, so anyone who has an uncontrolled or always on power can shut it down when they want."
"Good things generally don't happen to us Morlocks."
John shrugged. "Good things happen to me all the time, so I figure making good things happen for others will encourage that to continue. I won't be buying a private island in the tropics for you, but land in Wyoming is cheap, or if you know of an abandoned or condemned building in the area you do like, I can probably swing it."
Typing by: Stephenopolos