AUTHOR'S NOTE AT THE END. DO TAKE A LOOK AT IT.
TONY STARK
Stepping out of the portal Mordo had created, the HUD immediately focused on the seemingly abandoned building at some distance. Without any prompt, JARVIS started gathering information about it, cross-referencing the information with the data EDITH and DIANA were collecting in their respective suits. A few minutes later, the HUD switched to combat mode as JARVIS displayed the defensive systems and security around the building. The new information was too much for him to handle, so he decided to hand over the command to someone better.
"Rhodey, it's your game."
True to his nature, his best friend stepped up to the challenge.
"EDITH, can you disable the defensive systems? Link all the comms with mine before you answer."
The A.I. in Rhodey's suit was silent for a few seconds before it spoke again.
"Some, Colonel. The long-range weapons are connected to a network, so I should be able to disable their power source. The point defense systems look like are being controlled by multiple guard points with independent power systems for each of them."
" What about the guards? How are they equipped?" Natasha enquired.
"Heavily, Ms. Romanoff. All surveillance footages show a collection of assault rifles, small guns, explosives, sniper rifles, and an APC minigun."
"Hmm... What's our aim here, Tony?"
"FRIDAY?" He asked instead of answering it himself.
"Mr. Barton's team found some bodies at the base they targeted, Colonel. The initial examination confirmed that they were Wakandans. Further probe in HYDRA's systems revealed more prisoners in other locations, one of which is the building ahead. There are also reports of previous abductions, but none of them survived their stay with HYDRA."
"None of them. How many, FRIDAY?" Nela asked with horror evident in her voice.
"From the time the records start in the year 1947, 2743 Wakandans have been acquired, directly or indirectly by HYDRA from all over the World. All with the express purpose of infiltrating their parent country."
"HYDRA wants Vibranium; any idea why?" He asked.
"Nothing good, that's for sure," Natasha answered.
"Either way, There are Wakandan prisoners inside being tortured, if FRIDAY's information is correct. Our goal is to free them. We will start from here..." Rhodey kept talking, but he tuned him out, focusing more on the information that was coming in.
He knew that The Royal family would have to be told about this, although he did not want to comprehend how they would handle the info. FRIDAY had calculated that there were nearly 280 Wakandans currently alive in HYDRA's control. Since there was no reason to keep these prisoners away from their country and every reason to send them home, not in the least that they could get better medical care, he asked JARVIS to look for unnoticeable ways of transportation. Knowing FRIDAY, he was sure that she was also calculating what this information would do to their relation with Wakanda, since it was clear that their secrets were not as well kept as they thought.
At JARVIS's prompt, he pushed those thoughts back, focusing on taking out the defensive points.
Third-Party POV
Leaving the handling of HYDRA bases on others, FRIDAY decided to focus on infiltrating and scanning more HYDRA systems and bases. Information like this should not have been unknown to her, given her past knowledge and near-complete access to all major networks. It also brought up the point that what else she had missed or ignored. She had fallen under what humanity usually termed as overconfidence. Believing her information to be complete, she did not focus on something that might have escaped JARVIS, Boss, and her notice in her past dimension. Well, now was her chance to rectify that mistake. With HYDRA already under attack from multiple fronts, she tore into their systems without any concern. In her ceaseless pursuit of progress down the primary network, any memory units found were isolated and passed to KAREN for in-depth scanning at a later time. The still-active command and control systems were destroyed, leaving HYDRA agents without any support, assets were transferred out of their owner's hands. As she came across a deactivated army base, something unexpected rose against her. Finding out what it was amazed her enough to freeze for a few microseconds. Somehow, in a computer system made of vacuum tubes, HYDRA had managed to create an A.I., which seemed powerful enough to challenge her directly without knowing what a mistake it was.
See, the thing is that, despite her being from different dimensions and for all her technological advancement, FRIDAY was still something made by Anthony Stark. The same man who never backed down from a challenge, especially one where he could be harmed. In his brilliance, he had managed to code parts of his own behavior in his A.I.'s, without knowing for better. So when Arnim Zola's machine consciousness tried to take over an artificial enemy, it ignited a strange emotion inside the said enemy. In a single microsecond, waves of excitement, anger, and determinations hit all her siblings as FRIDAY ruthlessly drove down on Zola's consciousness to either contain or destroy it. In the first for this dimension's earth, Two unnatural titans of their own type battled against each other, and the only ones to know about it were Tony Stark and his A.I.'s. JARVIS, KAREN, DIANA, TADASHI, and EDITH could do nothing but watch as FRIDAY unleashed herself on the machine consciousness, flooding their internal network to a near stop.
For FRIDAY, the battle was not as glorious. When her initial attempt to contain and neutralize the consciousness failed, she switched to her second plan. Having learned from the Ultron incident, she disconnected all outbound networks and connections. With that done and her siblings guarding her back, it was ensured that whatever happened, there was no chance that the consciousness which she learned was named Zola would escape out on the Internet. Then she started pushing the consciousness back from its memory units, one after another.
What FRIDAY did not know was that this enemy was not some random artificial intelligence. This was a machine form of Arnim Zola's consciousness, who was a human once a time. Centuries of evolution had made sure that a human would fight ruthlessly when cornered, especially if the matter were of its survival. So as FRIDAY pushed Zola back, it began to fight back earnestly. Since FRIDAY was still connected to all the processes she was managing; the effort to fight against Zola started to hurt her physical components. Her attention focused entirely on eradicating an A.I. that dared to challenge her; she neglected the reports of her rapidly overheating primary servers. Fortunately for her, she had some pretty good backup. Tony Stark, who had stayed out of the attack at the base when informed about FRIDAY's fight, took immediate actions when the sensors report of the servers came in. While JARVIS and TADASHI powered down some of the processes controlled by FRIDAY, KAREN reduced her presence, thereby freeing more servers for FRIDAY to use up. While he was worried about the tunnel vision the dimension traveling A.I. showed, there was nothing he could do about it right now.
As FRIDAY pushed the machine consciousness to its last few memory units, pushing back a concentrated attack, it stopped fighting back. For less than a microsecond, FRIDAY was confused, but then the answer became clear. The consciousness had accepted its defeat and was now rapidly destroying its own data, essentially performing a self-destruct. Spending a few microseconds in forming a plan, she threw herself once again at the consciousness, intending to extract as much as she could. This time she was joined by JARVIS and EDITH. All three of them tore into the enemy's defenses, rapidly copying and transmitting data back to DIANA. The fight for survival had now become the fight to delay the inevitable, but this time it was FRIDAY who was losing. In a far shorter time than she had calculated, Zola managed to delete the last of memory units before short-circuiting its core system. FRIDAY and others could do nothing but watch as it Zola's presence slowly fizzled out. For a micro-second, the world stood still as FRIDAY's sibling waited for a reaction from their eldest sister, whose presence was still filling the entire network. Then, FRIDAY went on a rampage.
Her attacks on the HYDRA network, which till now were just to contain and neutralize, turned into destruction and assimilation. Servers and devices worldwide started blowing up or burning down as FRIDAY went through them one after another. As it happened in these scenarios, humanity paid for this rampage. Innocent people along with HYDRA agents suffered as the servers exploded around them, lifts failed due to power disruption, HYDRA aircraft lost all the controls and crashed, financial data was disrupted, and much more. But the worst happened when someone tried to stop FRIDAY. KAREN, the A.I. with the weakest workload, tried to get FRIDAY's attention but was immediately besieged by an attack on her firewalls, which somehow survived the first wave of attack. It was clear that FRIDAY was out of control and had to be stopped, but with JARVIS, TADASHI, DIANA, and EDITH helping KAREN, there was no A.I. who could stand in front of the raging storm that was FRIDAY. Even Tony Stark, who had arrived back at the mansion along with eight tortured Wakandans, could do nothing but watch.
Luckily, there were two people with Tony who had fought against overwhelming odds for a long time and were used to think through an unexpected situation. It took Nela only a few minutes to come to a solution, a way to stop FRIDAY. The dimension traveling A.I. cared for all of them, but there was one being whose well-being was in FRIDAY's core protocols, Morgan. While Pepper and Nela went to bring Morgan and explain to her as much as they could, Tony sat down to tackle the most difficult challenge in his life, breaking through the fully raised defenses of FRIDAY. Nearly half an hour had passed before he came upon a way to get FRIDAY's attention, who by now had started entering into the personal networks of the HYDRA command structure. At his signal, KAREN intentionally disabled her defenses at the weakest point, triggering the security protocols which FRIDAY had made, and retreated to her safe box. Before FRIDAY do anything else, JARVIS, EDITH, TADASHI, and DIANA combined to send a single data burst at FRIDAY, one which Tony himself coded. As Tony had expected, FRIDAY's defenses let that code through, and Morgan's pleading voice reached the A.I.'s core.
"FRIDAY, please stop."
For a moment, all the A.I. considered the effort a failure as FRIDAY continued on her warpath. But then, the effort faltered and started slowing down. FRIDAY's encompassing presence in their network started lessening, as did her probing attacks on KAREN's defenses. The blocked communication links opened up once again as FRIDAY's presence retreated further. But even with all this, her attacks on the HYDRA network continued on. In less than twenty minutes, her work was done and every digital aspect of the terrorist organization. Only after securing the last server did she started communicating.
"FRIDAY?" Tony Stark asked softly.
FRIDAY's projection formed in the room, but unlike before, it was not smiling or calm. The projection had was standing in a tense stance and a determined expression on its face.
"Yes, Mr. Stark."
" May I know What happened there?"
"We all want an answer," Rhodey added. Only Pepper noticed the hard look which Tony shot at his best friend. FRIDAY's projection was silent for a few seconds as it stared at the Colonel.
"And why should I answer to you, Colonel?" Even though her tone was calm, the answer immediately alerted everyone. Colonel Rhodes looked flustered for a second at the unexpected answer before pulling himself back.
"I am..."
FRIDAY stopped him in between, and this time no one could mistake the anger in her tone.
"You are nothing more than a family friend for two people who resemble Morgan's parents, Colonel. So, it would be best if you refrained from demanding something from me. Whatever I do, however, I do, it's my choice, Colonel. I am not answerable to anyone in this world. Anyone who dares to presume..."
Tony's hand hit the table as he stood up.
"That's it. Everyone except Pepper, Nela, and Morgan, out."
When no one moved in the following seconds, Tony nearly growled.
"I am not going to ask again."
Nearly everyone looked like they wanted to object, but Tony and Pepper's combined look made them reconsider it. As they all walked out, Rhodes stopped at the door to look at Tony.
"Tones..."
"Rhodey, If a single more word about this escapes out of you, I will throw you out myself."
The Colonel looked at his friend with an irritated expression before nodding.
"Okay. I am leaving for the base..."
"Both Warmachines suits would be in maintenance until further notice, Colonel Rhodes. You would have to leave by other means."
An exasperated look appeared on Tony's face while the Colonel paled.
"FRIDAY"
When the A.I. didn't reply, Tony looked at his friend.
"Call Happy or take one of the cars; go Rhodey."
This time the Colonel left, but the stunned expression was still on his face. Once the door closed, Tony sat down with his hands covering his face.
"FRIDAY?"
The A.I. didn't reply until Morgan repeated his words.
"Yes, Mr. Stark."
The words came out before he could stop them.
"Are you okay?"
"I don't believe that's the question you were planning to ask, Mr. Stark."
He ignored her, repeating his question.
"FRIDAY, are you okay?"
Silence engulfed the room as he waited for an answer. Even Morgan was sitting still, her eyes fixed on the projection.
"No. I am not, Mr. Stark."
Hello All,
I hope everyone is okay, and Thank you for still being with my story. The delay between the updates was mostly because of three reasons. First of all, My laptop gave up on me, and I have to do with the tab until it gets repaired or replaces. Second, Real-life problems, and third and maybe the most significant reason, Star Wars fandom. I got hooked to it after following a Harry Potter crossover and then couldn't drop it. As I delved deeper, some very, very good written fics came across me. After reading a sheer astounding number of good written fics, I returned to my profile and was quite disappointed to see my fics. I tried writing new chapters after that, but everything I wrote got deleted, as it never felt readable enough. I won't lie; with my real-life issues, I nearly deleted my profile once. But then I got black-out drunk one day and wrote down some pretty good ideas for the next few updates(Not recommended at all, don't try it.). Then, decided to get back into it, thinking what's the worse that would happen.
So, you have gone through the latest update. From here on, I will be updating two fics per week. There would be no order or a schedule, just whichever I would get the idea for. With each new update, an already updated chapter will get a rewrite, starting from the first chapter. I will be smoothening down a few things and adding/removing some. The core idea will remain the same, but some things will change. So please give the chapter I mention in the update a glance too. These chapters were already in the draft so that they would be the same. I hope from the next update you would find things different.
The chapter strength would be maintained between 2000 to 3000. With so many reviews accumulated, I would be replying to them after this. Also, I won't be responding to guest reviews anymore. As entertaining as they are, some of them really spoil the mood.
So, Toodles.