vii.
No. No!
The Machine could do nothing but watch the lobby feed helplessly as Admin and Carlton, Lawrence S. (SSN: 355-12-4231, DOB: 1971/07/17, Occupation: Manager) plunged out the door and back into the waiting chaos. It scrambled to assemble traffic cameras, ATM feeds, anything—but the coverage of Admin's haphazard alley route was sparse at best.
It began pinging the old comm line at a frequency high enough to annoy even JARVIS. Perhaps his coverage could supplement…
At last! Weak signal, audio only—but open.
"JARVIS!"
"Yes, hello," JARVIS said. The Machine could see the Iron Man suit flitting in an out of various feeds, performing a multitude of questionable and inadvisable maneuvers. "I do apologize for my disappearance but—"
"Admin is downtown, outside. I must do something!"
"I understand." The Machine knew that the regret in JARVIS' synthesized voice was in every way sincere. "But I am afraid I'm not sure what you can do, and I myself am at full processing—Sir!" The line went silent and the Machine indulged itself to air a frustrated growl, recorded from Asset. It did not seem to help anything; the Machine was still unsure why Asset resorted to it. It went back to assembling every live feed it could, organizing the battle zone by street and trying to get a lock on Admin.
It was torture.
Abruptly, JARVIS snapped open the comm line again. "Machine, I have an idea. I've found a way for you to help but it will require exposing your existence to a third party."
The Machine hesitated, wasting precious nanoseconds. "Who?"
"Agent Clint Barton, S.H.I.E.L.D.," JARVIS said bluntly. "He is acting as central intelligence for the battle and is directing the other fighters. Despite recent circumstances, I believe he is trustworthy and I will impress upon him the need for utmost secrecy. Do you agree?"
The Machine could not answer, once again strangled by its own protocols. Its programming was quite clear: it could seek no contact beyond distributing flagged numbers. But this was the last straw. It had to do something.
Then again…JARVIS was providing the connection. The Machine would not be seeking contact; it would be taking advantage of a new output source. Just like the original backdoor.
And it doubted very much the invading aliens had private information it ran the risk of exposing. The Machine would be providing nothing more than target locations, strategic points of weakness. It could do this.
It could take time after the crisis to be disturbed by its own growing proficiency at finding protocol loopholes.
"Machine?" JARVIS sounded distracted. It was surreal to hear. "I can do no better, I'm sorry."
"I…understand." And little did JARVIS know the Machine was already quite familiar with Barton's situation. "Connect him!"
"Stand by."
Excruciating silence came over the line before it boosted in signal strength and routed to a new recipient: Barton, Clinton F.
Aim. Breathe out. Release.
The familiar rhythm (finally his own again) was Clint's anchor and he clung to it. Chatter from his new teammates filtered into his earpiece and he parsed it as best he could through the pounding between his temples. Don't get him wrong, Nat's cognitive recalibration was the best thing that'd happened to him all week—which said a lot about the state of his life. But that didn't mean he couldn't whine to himself about it. Key being to himself: if Nat heard him complaining she'd go for round two.
Aim. Breathe out. Release.
And he was livid. He'd never been more angry in his life. In his varied and questionable career, he'd be duped, he'd been coerced, he'd been led astray. But he was always under his own power.
Loki'd compromised him down to his core. The artificial fire that had driven him under the god's influence had been replaced. This one was real and Clint's righteous fury would not be satisfied until he brought Loki down himself.
But that was personal. Clint was just responsible enough to know vendettas belonged outside of team operations. So he kept the directions he shouted over his comm short and professional.
Aim. Breathe out. Release.
And it was exhilarating to be free, to have control over his own mind. He could shoot who he wanted when he wanted—and he was going to nail as many of these alien bastards as he had arrows in his quiver. No less.
Aim. Breathe out. Release.
But…that was the thing. There were too many of them; their numbers multiplying at an absurd rate as more of the damn aliens kept pouring through the portal. He'd known Loki had an army waiting in the wings while he'd been a loyal lackey, but this was ridiculous. And he was doing his best, keeping an eye on all directions from his vantage point—but he couldn't see everything. Too much of their perimeter was out of his direct view.
Six people against an unrelenting invasion? He was used to crazy but this was off the scale.
Aim. Breathe out. Release.
Really, how the hell—
"Agent Barton!"
Clint jerked, startled by the frantic new voice blasting into his sensitive ears. "Whoa, what!"
"I apologize, there is no time. I am JARVIS."
Ooh, he'd heard enough from Nat to know this guy. Computer? Whatever. "I know who you are. What does Stark want?"
Aim. Breathe out. Release.
"Not him. I have a request for you, Agent. An independent surveillance system is offering to aid in the battle and requires a reporting point. If you agree, it will expand your field of view considerably. Are you interested?"
Man, this guy could talk up a storm. "Uh, what?"
JARVIS' tone sharpened. "It will require utmost secrecy from you. This system is confidential and if you breathe a word of it to anyone, the consequences would be catastrophic and—"
"Dude, I'm a spy. The secrecy part is fine. I meant the field of view. How much coverage?"
Aim. Breathe out. Release.
"All of New York. Possibly the world, but I doubt you'd need that now." JARVIS said.
Clint laughed. "Done! Consider my lips sealed. Do I need to sign anything in blood or…JARVIS?" The sudden silence over the line was deafening; yet again he felt that stab of anxiety in his gut that his overtaxed hearing aids had crapped out mid-mission. But then the comm crackled and another new voice (or was it more than one?) came through.
"Agent Barton, thank you for working with me." The sentence was composed of words from different recordings, spliced together into a patchwork voice. It was kind of cool.
"Sure, no biggie. And I appreciate the help. But less talking, more intel, cool?"
"Of course! The perimeter is holding. Hostiles at your three o'clock and four o'clock. Hostage situation developing on 42nd west of Madison." The new stream of information made Clint grin, overcome by the feeling that maybe this wasn't so impossible after all.
Which of course was a sign he really was losing it.
Aim. Breathe out. Release.
"Gotcha," he responded, forwarding the intel to team members in each relevant area. "Keep it coming."