VERONICA
She was scanning for any pattern in the movement of the leviathans when something changed. Whatever it was, disoriented her enough to not listen to KAREN's callout for a few microseconds. When she was able to focus back, the reason behind her disorientation was clear. Her every sibling except KAREN had gone silent. As she tried to grasp the situation KAREN'S call came again.
"They are falling."
From the amount of fear KAREN's tone had, VERONICA knew who she was talking about. She checked her sensors and found the Mark 47, War machine, and the Iron-maiden suits falling from the sky. When neither FRIDAY nor JARVIS took control of the suits after 1 second, VERONICA took over. She knew that the emergency parachutes were programmed to deploy after a five-second of powerless fall and by her estimate, 3.9 seconds had already gone. She had to take control of the suits soon because if the emergency parachutes deployed, every A.I.'s access except FRIDAY's would be disabled, not to mention the multiple systems that would have gone down without her siblings.
Directing KAREN to check on their siblings, VERONICA went to work.
In took her 0.9 seconds exactly to gain control of all the three suits and restore power in them. Mr. Stark and Colonel Rhodes's stabilized immediately, with their jetpack repulsers maintaining their altitude. But Ms. Stark's suit didn't get that chance. As soon as the repulsers had started powering up, one of the leviathan's tail stuck it hard. The suit was thrown down again, but this time nothing that VERONICA did, stopped it. It collided with one of the cars on the road and skidded for some distance before stopping.
Mr. Stark's scream was the loudest of the group.
VERONICA tried to connect to the suit once again, but there was no response. Mr. Stark's frantic cries drew her attention.
"JARVIS, how is Nela? What is happening? J? FRIDAY?"
She interrupted Mr. Stark.
"None of my siblings are responding, Mr. Stark. Ms. Stark's suit seems to have lost power, as none of the connections are working."
"All of your siblings? What happened to them? Find out VERONICA."
Her youngest sister interrupted before she could do anything.
"Tony, VERONICA, I have found them. Their safety protocols have been activated, and they are in their respective forts?"
It seemed FRIDAY hadn't informed him about their safety protocols, because Mr. Stark's tone was confused. "What Fort?"
VERONICA took over. "Explanation later Mr. Stark. In simple terms, it's a digital box for each A.I. which they can retreat to if their defences are ever breached."
Mr. Stark was silent for a second before he spoke again. "Then bring them back. Knock on the gates or whatever."
KAREN spoke again. "I cannot, Tony. Between handling TADASHI's, JARVIS's, and EDITH's area of control, I don't have enough processing power to wake even one of them."
Mr. Stark addressed her. "VERONICA can you do it?"
"Yes, Mr. Stark."
"Then do it."
She didn't reply for a second because KAREN had opened a channel with her.
"Tell him." Her sister urged.
"No. I cannot."
"But you may..." KAREN pleaded her code colored with sadness.
"I know what will happen, KAREN." Her tone was firm and without remorse.
After a few microseconds of pause, she spoke to her youngest sister for the last time.
"KAREN, I will bring FRIDAY up. When she comes online, inform her of everything that has happened, and ask her to take control of my module. It may not stay up there if something happens to me."
"VER..."
She disconnected the channel and spoke to Mr. Stark.
"Ok, Mr. Stark."
Her programming was not designed to handle the level of work FRIDAY's had developed to, and right now she was controlling the systems her eldest sister was responsible for along the suits. She knew that when the process of waking up FRIDAY completes; her servers might overheat and blow up. The risk was lower if she woke up JARVIS or EDITH, but FRIDAY was the one everyone needed right now. So, she proceeded. Less than a second later, alarms from the module started sending the warning signals. Only half of the process was completed but the servers had started overheating. She couldn't stop the process, so she just watched, as the temperature levels kept on climbing. She hoped that the level won't reach the blowout level until FRIDAY woke up. According to her calculations, there was an interval of 3 seconds between FRIDAY waking up and the level reaching the critical point, so she was sure she would be able to bring one of her backups online.
Half a second later, that hope broke. The process was stuck at its last phase. There just wasn't enough processing power. So she made the ultimate decision and sacrifice. Pulling back every byte of processing power from the non-essential systems of the module, she used it to complete the process. Unfortunately, the warning system was one of the non-essential systems. Just as FRIDAY's presence started filling the systems once again, everything went dark for her.
(High above the city, inside a red mechanical structure, a small flash happened. Although there was no one to notice it, a smell of burning filled the structure. As the repulsers keeping it in position powered down one by one, the silent module started drifting.)
FRIDAY
18 seconds after the suit started to fall, FRIDAY connected to her systems once again.
A second later KAREN had updated her on everything that had happened.
After controlling and pushing her emotions aside, FRIDAY went to work 3 seconds later.
(No one in the world except Tony Stark would ever know that just for a few microseconds the fictional story of Skynet was as close to becoming reality as it ever could)
First and foremost she gained access the two locked suits hovering over New York City. Even as she started talking to Boss, she had started waking up TADASHI and taking control over the module in the space.
"Boss, the suit is working now. You can start moving. I would be acting as your co-pilot for now."
Colonel Rhodes accepted her request without any question, but boss didn't. "FRIDAY what happened? Where is JARVIS?"
"Later, Boss."
"FRI.."
"Boss, please."
Boss didn't say anything for a second and then started moving towards the chitauris once more.
FRIDAY opened a channel with KAREN. "I will take over TADASHI and EDITH's systems. You will start waking up our siblings. Start with EDITH, then TADASHI, JARVIS, and then DIANA."
"As you say FRIDAY."
She felt KAREN withdrawing from the systems and started taking over. Seconds later, the disrupted sync between multiple units in the city was restored. Once the situation settled down, FRIDAY directed one of the mark 5 suit in the tower to pick evacuate the Iron Maiden suit. She had tried contacting Nela, but there had been no response. Virgil was alerted to prepare the Med bay and notify the people of the medical department.
Every bit of information about the disturbance was stored in a separate server. FRIDAY was stopping herself to check it and find out about the attacker because she knew that if she identified it as anything on this planet, the situation could go out of control. So she kept her focus on other things.
Less than 10 minutes later Boss received Fury's message. She alerted Ms. Romanova immediately, who started running towards the tower. Halfway there Colonel Rhodes picked her up and dropped at the roof. She gathered Loki's stick and waited for the missile to arrive.
FRIDAY had already dispatched the remaining Mark 5 towards the missile. The empty suit had was waiting for the Jet to fire. Once the missile left the jet, the suit followed it until it was in a clear view of the city. When she was sure that multiple cameras had captured the missile clearly, the suit latched on it and started changing its direction.
FRIDAY watched as the suit directed it towards the portal. Just before the missile entered the portal, it detached and started coming back. On her command, Ms. Romanova closed the portal. The remaining chitauris died a few seconds later.
As Boss and Colonel Rhodes landed in the penthouse balcony, FRIDAY turned her attention towards her siblings. KAREN had only been able to wake up EDITH until right now and was in process of waking up DIANA, so she started the process for JARVIS and TADASHI. Ten seconds later, every one of them started to come online.
FRIDAY started handing over the control of their systems once again, well except TADASHI. She kept the command over the SI mainframe while TADASHI coordinated the rescue efforts and created a detailed report about the disturbance.
While the fighters were grouping up in the city, FRIDAY initiated one of her plans. A handle with the name of EmployiofSi was made on multiple social platforms. Then she started posting photos and videos of different avengers fighting during the invasion. She kept a heavy focus on both the SHIELD agents, Boss and Hulk, as Thor didn't need publicity, and she didn't right now care what Captain America was seen as.
Ms. Romanova and Mr. Barton's faces were visible in each of the photos, along with the SHIELD logo on their uniforms. Since KAREN's workload had decreased, she handed over the responsibility of monitoring the public reaction to her and focused on other tasks.
The team was entering the tower when JARVIS contacted her again. It seems that he was having trouble accessing the internal systems of the Mansion and the suits present inside. FRIDAY made the check herself and found the same issue. She couldn't access any camera or suit inside the bunker. She directed one of the suits in the upper part of the mansion to proceed towards the bunker while another was directed to reboot the systems physically.
By that time TADASHI had identified the reason behind the disturbance. A concentrated attack was made on the archives of SI during the invasion, with the Starkanium and Iron Man technology being targeted specifically. The attack was powerful enough to break through TADASHI's defenses. It should have just disabled TADASHI and notified FRIDAY. But due to that common link, the attack had nearly broken through all the connected A.I.'s programming.
FRIDAY knew immediately who was behind the attack. There was only one entity on the earth who was interested in the Starkanium element and had the capability to breach TADASHI's low-level defenses.
Wakanda had made a serious error of judgment,
But as much as she wanted to act and make them pay for murdering her sister, she knew Boss would like to be involved. So she refrained from taking any action, for now.
When Loki asked for a drink, it seemed to her that the situation was under control now, and she could focus on the disturbance. But then three different reports came in. She absently noticed that Boss, Colonel Rhodes, Ms. Romanova, and Mr. Barton received the same reports on their phones or suits.
The first was from DIANA. Nela had received some injuries from her collision. Her right arm was broken in two different places. Thankfully, they were clean breaks. She was hurt but would be fine.
The second and third were from JARVIS. One of the mark 24's had fallen when JARVIS was disconnected from it, right on top of Boss lady and Morgan. Boss lady was bleeding heavily from a wound on her forehead and had lost consciousness. May parker was rushing her and Morgan towards the medical room of the mansion. She thinks that Morgan broke something in her right hand as well.
Morgan was hurt.
The primary protocol had been validated due to outside interference.
FRIDAY's control snapped.