Chapter 7
Pepper knew both Starks needed time to cool down as their tempers conflicted, and knowing that Salem could be the more reasonable one, asked her to take some time to herself before letting the inevitable conversation between them happen.
Taking her go bag and an extra bag of clothes, Salem drove the whole three thousand miles it took from New York City to Malibu in California. Salem deactivated the tracker, letting LILITH bounce the coordinates all over the world so Tony couldn't track her location.
Each time he called, LILITH straight away put it to an automatic message that told him she would be fine but she needed time. Pepper reassured him so he stopped after a dozen or so calls, texting her a message in bold.
IF YOU ARE NOT BACK BY 7 PM ON SATURDAY NIGHT, I WILL COME AND FIND YOU. IT DOESN'T MATTER IF I NEED TO GET THE AVENGERS INVOLVED, I WILL.
Since it was Tuesday night turning to Wednesday, she had a couple days still until she had to be back in New York City.
Salem replied with Good luck, before chucking her phone at the passenger seat.
)()()(
The Malibu Stark residence wasn't in use as much anymore.
Tony lived at the tower, Pepper had her own accommodations in case she and Tony argued, the avengers were at the compound and Salem stayed either out of the country at her school or somewhere in europe.
Salem didn't like changes that couldn't be controlled, so being able to find the blueprints from the original building of the house, she made necessary changes as she saw fit.
The mansion was rebuilt before summer two years ago, letting her spend the summer at the mansion for the last two years. She left for Europe a couple times during the summer, leaving completely when her presence was requested by Pepper for a birthday or a celebration.
While she had a small space in the tower for herself, Salem had the whole mansion to herself and she loved it!
Since Tony had removed JARVIS from the private servers of the mansion before he completely moved to the tower and then to the compound, Salem easily downloaded LILITH onto the servers as soon as she had perfected the AI.
After the extremely long drive, Salem stopped her jeep outside the main area of the mansion, letting LILITH take control of the car and putting it into storage.
It was getting dark, closer to evening than late afternoon as Salem got into the house and put her bags in the master bedroom. She had previously moved most of her out of season clothing here, anything for extremely hot weather was put here and cold was put in the tower in New York.
"Time, LILITH?" Salem asked as she stood by the empty fridge of the kitchen.
"Six seventeen PM," LILITH said from all around her. "Would you like me to order some takeaway?"
"Chinese will do well tonight," She nodded, grabbing a glass of water and filling it up before draining it. She rolled her shoulders backwards before taking an orange and beginning to eat it. "I'll need the energy. Can you get the workshop set up for me?"
"Of course, what's the project?"
"I want to improve my watch, I'm not liking how it sits and the screen is the wrong size for the graphics," She said. "Thanks."
"No problem. Takeaway will be here in half an hour, I'll alert you when it comes."
"What did you get me?" Salem finished the orange, dumping the peelings in the bin.
"Ribs along with sweet and sour tofu, and egg fried rice along with prawn crackers."
"Perfect," Salem grinned. "I'm gonna change and then head down."
)()()(
Known to most people who knew them, Starks didn't talk about their emotions, and if they did, it was after a long session of isolating and immersing themselves into whatever activity which made them forget the world existed.
And for her right now, it was trying to figure out how to improve the watch she had.
Salem sat in front of a long table which curved around her, letting her sit on the swivel chair and turn as needed. She wore a pair of dark red running shorts and a Led Zeppelin shirt, one bare foot hiked up onto the seat while she swiveled the chair around and around as she thought. Her hair was piled into a bun to keep it out of the way.
The whole room was silent but her earbuds kept her concentrated on what she needed to do, playing loud music so she could think clearly and without distractions.
She stared into the air, a holographic version of the schematics of the watch parts were there. Raising her hands up and outwards, the schematics broke apart and showed the individual parts and how they slotted in together.
The whole watch was forty two millimetres wide but it was enlarged about a hundred times so it was almost a metre wide in its holographic version.
The glass screen was just under thirty two millimeters because the encasing and bezel that moved around the glass took up about five millimeters all around.
The screen graphics were good but she didn't like how much space the bezel and case took up. She didn't like how bulky it would be on her wrist even though it was already small but Salem had small hands and small wrists, meaning the overall watch looked big compared to normal.
"Bring up the schematics for the private Stark phones, the newest ones," She asked, stopping the swizel of her chair as she put both feet on the floor and sat forward as LILITH brought up the new holograph next to the watch.
"Show me the casing, what's it made of?"
"Mr Stark used a magnesium based alloy, developing it from magnesium yet it is light like aluminum but as strong as titanium alloys. This material has the highest strength-to-weight ratio known to mankind."
Salem nodded. "Alright. Can you get me the recipe for it?"
"Yes, I've saved it for your later use,"
"Good."
If she used this new material, she could shave a lot of material off of the sides and get it down to close to being as glass as possible.
How thin and discrete could she make it?
"Have there been any breakthroughs with nanotechnology recently?"
"There has been a limited amount of advancement from Wakanda but I believe they have gotten to a stage where they can nanobots in large numbers," LILITH said. "I could get you in contact with the Wakandian researcher if you want?"
"If you can, yeah,"
It barely took LILITH a minute to get through.
"How have you gotten onto this server?" Princess Shuri's face appeared on the holographic screen. She looked less angry and a lot more impressed.
"Nothing is private to LILITH," Salem smiled, swaying the seat a little side to side. "I want to know about what you can do with nanobots and similar technology."
"Why?"
"I'm trying to sort my watch out and I want to try a new design. I've got a limited amount of research on nanotechnology from Stark Industries, private and public."
"Who are you?"
"Salem Stark,"
"Ahh, I saw you on the news. You're the girl with the snake," Shuri said.
"Yeah, Duke," Salem said. "I think he's napping somewhere."
"Duke is asleep on your pillow upstairs," LILITH said.
"Who was that?"
"LILITH, my lovely assistant and AI. She called you."
"Why do you want information about nanotechnology?"
"As I said, it's so I can make a better version of my watch," Salem said, showing her left wrist to the screen as that was where she wore her watch. "It's bulky, it moves but I can't make it any tighter without damage to my skin, and it hits things a lot. It's alright but I can't stand it anymore. And I need a project. If you can't or don't want to help me, tell me now and I'll leave you alone."
Shuri stayed silent for a second, carefully taking in Salem and her surroundings. "You have sensory problems."
Salem hesitated. "How can you tell?"
"You're probably listening to music with your earphones but not out loud, and the lighting is dimmed more than normal to help you concentrate," Shuri said, pointing each thing out. "You keep fidgeting in your chair and you keep your hair out of your face and away from your neck."
She smirked at that, unashamed. "I'm on the autism spectrum. But I'm still a genius regardless of that. Lazy genius but a genius nonetheless."
"I understand that geniuses can't be productive all the time," Shuri said. "Where are you? I can't help you with the technology you want if I can't contact you or send you things."
"Malibu, California,"
"Far away," Shuri nodded to herself. "Do you have a passport? I want to know how you created such an intelligent AI that it even got to Wakanda! I won't know if you're not here to tell me!"
"I've got a passport, but it's like a seventeen hour direct flight,"
"True," Shuri agreed. "I always wanted to go to California. Can I come to you? I'd have to bring a guard with me. My parents won't be happy about me leaving the country."
"I'm alone here besides Duke and LILITH. How long do you think it would take you to get here then?"
"No more than a couple hours, we have better technology than most of the world,"
"I'm not surprised," Salem nodded. "I'll send you the coordinates. There's a hill you can land nearby or you can land on top of the mansion. Both work."
"You're alone in a mansion?"
"See ya later, princess,"
"Bye, snake girl!"
Salem snorted and ended the call.
)()()(
The Royal Talon Fighter landed on top of the Malibu mansion within four hours of the call ending, surprising Salem as LILITH announced the arrival of the Wakandians.
Salem had her leather jacket around her as she watched the plane land, giving it enough space as to not crowd the newcomers that quickly filed off.
Princess Shuri was last to leave the plane, four guards came off before her and lined up on either side of the ramp.
"Hello America!" Shuri greeted, "Shuri has arrived!"
Salem laughed. "It's not as magnificent as you think."
"It's a lot colder than I thought it would be."
"Come on in," Salem gestured. "It's a lot warmer in the basement so be warned. If your guards want to do a perimeter search or whatever, they can. LILITH can give them the needed information to make sure we stay safe."
Shuri nodded to two of the guards, both women quickly walking away to do whatever is needed as the plane was made invisible. "Has there been problems with security before?"
"In the past," Salem showed the way into the mansion. "There's been a breach of security, and the house got destroyed a couple years ago. I had it rebuilt because I lived here since I was a baby."
"Aww, it is like your home away from home."
"I don't really know where I can call home anymore but maybe," She agreed. "The basement is down here, come on."
)()()(
"So what's it like being the daughter of a tycoon like Tony Stark?" Shuri asked, both of them sitting in the kitchen when they took a hunger break.
The Dora Milaje stayed close by while they ate, also partaking in some food. One of the women took a look at the kitchen earlier in the day when the teens had just begun the project, and created a meal because she knew what geniuses could be like.
It also allowed them more control of what Princess Shuri ate and made sure she didn't get injured or harmed in any way.
"What's it like to be a princess?" Salem retorted, stabbing her fork into the big salad on her plate.
"I wasn't on the news because my father hid me away,"
Salem laughed. "And then I admitted the one thing I've hid for two years. My dad didn't even know I created LILITH until I told the whole world…"
"Great way to break the ice," Shuri snorted. "Could have chosen a better time but you work with what you have."
)()()(
The four members of the Dora Milaje knew how Princess Shuri could be when she was working on a project, and this new friendship with Salem Stark seemed to rekindle a new fericity in creating, providing, and destroying things.
The four women took turns in being awake, all working six hours at different, slightly overlapping intervals that kept Princess Shuri safe and guarded. They slept as much as they could in the basement as music was blaring throughout the house as the two teens worked.
Eventually the teens had to migrate from the basement and into the open planned living room because they had created so many versions of a watch, and various other mini projects they went onto when something else caught their eyes.
LILITH kept an eye on their vitals, alerting the Dora Milaje whenever they were getting too dehydrated or unfed for too long. Though sleep was hard to come by when they got into this tangent of working so efficiently, coffee kept the teens awake.
It took almost three days, twenty eight hours without sleep at a time and just falling asleep on the couch a couple times for naps whenever the Dora Milaje gave them looks that said they needed to sleep.
Shuri and Salem finished the watch within three days.
The overall watch was a slightly grey clear glass with a width of forty millimetres, and a millimetre of the new magnesium around it for protection. The glass could give off a holographic screen that worked as a smartphone, getting rid of the need for carrying a phone.
The strap was made of the nanobots, letting it morph to whatever wrist it was on. Shuri had suggested a way to make it so that Salem's earphones could disappear into the strap, and so both of them created a completely new type of wireless headphones that was made of nanobots.
After going outside for a limited amount of sunlight during the last day, another idea popped into their heads as they both put on sunglasses.
They designed new sunglasses that could be made into a bracelet that also had various other features.
The bracelet was thin and went around Salem's right wrist, it was a dark metallic grey that was the colour of the nanobots until they painted them a silver colour.
After dismantling Salem's tracker, she added the components to the bracelet so Salem couldn't lose the tracker anymore. The bracelet was indestructible and wouldn't be able to come off even if a person tried to remove it.
While Shuri helped Salem with the nanotechnology and showed her how to create her own, Salem helped Shuri understand the mechanics of creating a viable AI.
)()()(
"You don't do a lot of projects, do you?" Shuri said as the Dora Milaje walked a couple feet behind them in civilian clothes.
Salem went to show Shuri around Malibu, going to one of the malls so they could just chat and eat after having the binge of creating.
"Nah, I improve stuff all the time but I don't create from nothing usually," Salem said. "Stopped doing it a while back."
"Why would you stop? You have a brilliant mind, why not improve the world with it?"
Salem paused. "I need validation for my work, unless the work is for myself. I don't give my work out in fear of what happened to my father's work. I'm not letting anyone take what I created and corrupt it."
"Doesn't your father praise you for your abilities to think?" Shuri asked. "My parents alway show me that they're proud in their own ways."
"When my dad found out about LILITH, he said we were gonna have a conversation before long," She said. "He's not going to take LILITH. He can't. I've put programs and protocols in so that if she was used against me, she self-destructs."
"Very clever," Shuri grinned. "I can see the tiny, tiny microchip you put into your ring. Is that where you carry a version of her?"
Salem raised her right hand, admiring the ring that sat there. It had multiple purposes and holding a version of LILITH was one.
Xoliswa from the Dora Milaje quickened her steps, leaning into their earshots. "There's been a bomb threat issued…"
"LILITH…" Salem took her sunglasses from the nanobot bracelet and put them on, suddenly being able to see several hundred lifesigns around her. "Find a route out."
"On it." LILITH took only another second to respond. "The bomb is a suicide bomb vest on the person on the third floor, we are on the fifth. I suggest this route."
A map appeared on the corner of the sunglasses, just within her eyesight and enough so she didn't have to strain herself to look at it.
"Duke? What are you doing?" Salem tried to stop Duke from slithering down her shoulders and onto the floor. For a snake, he was surprisingly fast as he slithered away like his life depended on it.
Salem put the map into the open with a swipe of her other hand over the watch, letting it hover in the air and show a way to get them out of the building.
She turned to the Dora Milaje. "Get her out by this route. It's quicker and less obstructed than the normal exits and better structural soundness if the building actually collapses. I'll get Duke before I get out."
"What?" Shuri said, surprised. She flung out an arm as Salem ran after her pet snake as he continued to slither away.
"We have to go,"
"We can't let her stay! I like this one!" Shuri pouted. "If you won't, I'll do it myself!"
Shuri evaded her guards easily, running straight after Salem as they headed into the main area of the mall as other people escaped.
"Wait for me, snake girl! Damn, she's fast…"
)()()(