A Wednesday in April 11:27 AM

EL COQUI VERDE

Terry the Life Model Decoy looked at his reflection in the rear view mirror of the Ferrari 330 P4 Berlinetta, practicing his smile, his serious face and then his wink. Riri was in the passenger seat, appreciating the classic sports car and scrolling through lists of documents on a tablet, marking some for review later. Her armor was stowed safely in the trunk, as Riri had decided this was more efficient than having the armor follow her discreetly while invisible. Using the Ferrari sound system, the LMD, NATALIE and Riri Were discussing the game plan for her partnership with her SHIELD trainer.

Terry had already rented a house across the street from the Williams home, and had arranged for training equipment to be moved in. Riri was giving requests to the robot and the artificial intelligence to work on as she had lunch with the two super geniuses that she shared a birthday and birthplace with.

"Now I have some favors to ask. I'm meeting with the Great Lakes Avengers tonight. I like them. They do good work and they're not getting much credit for it. I'm probably going to offer to join them part time. Terry, I know you got decommissioned for being obsolete but you are pretty damn impressive tech. And this car is amazing, it was mothballed by SHIELD too?"

Terry nodded as he switched lanes. "Yes. It flies via vortex beam anti-gravity for lift and ion propulsion. Powered by Stark-tech transistors and nuclear batteries. But there are faster and more maneuverable flying cars available. There's a warehouse in Kansas full of this sort of stuff."

"Ok, good. Please reach out and see whatever can be lent out in the name of supporting local government. The GLA has support from Milwaukee, they should qualify for something." Riri thought for a second. "Are you allowed to train people for me, or just me?"

"It depends, intern. I could teach them anything a civilian could learn. But I'm not going to tell them about things like World War Four. You know, the one with The Moon?"

Riri lowered her tablet and stared open mouthed. "World War FOUR?! No, wait, tell me later… anyway after tonight we will discuss it and see what may help them most. Thank you, I owe you a favor."

"What can I do, oh fearless leader," NATALIE interjected. "I have a few ideas I'm working on already but I suppose you have a plan?"

Riri tapped out a quick few notes for later. "Kinda. There's me and the GLA, but other than a few people stopping by as they go over us, I don't know of any super folks on the side of the good guys anywhere in the Midwest. I mean NONE. See if there are any flying under the radar. Urban legends, secret vigilante types, guardian angels that never take credit. There's gotta be SOMEONE else we can reach out to in case Godzilla pops out of Lake Superior."

"Oooooh, DETECTIVE WORK! On it. It'd be cool if Indianapolis had a Moon Knight type."

"Honestly I'd be thrilled if it was someone less crazy than Moon Knight," Riri replied. "I hear he's even more bloodthirsty than The Punisher. But I want to get to know about the other folks I might cross paths with."

The Ferrari came to a stop in front of a restaurant in the middle of the block, the front window brightly painted identifying it as EL VERDE COQUI - BORIKEN BARBACOA. "OK, Iron Pals. Wish me luck, I'm going to see if I can figure out this little mystery. I'll call you when I need a pickup."

"Iron Pals!?" NATALIE said with a laugh. "I love you BFF but THAT is just AWFUL!"

"I've been called worse," replied Terry as Riri got out of the car."

-—-

As she entered the restaurant, Riri scanned the customers alongside her surroundings. While most of the walls were painted a dusty orange, what caught her attention was the large mural of what she presumed was a beach in Puerto Rico. Riri could hear the chatter and clutter from both customers and workers alike, though the Spanish was too fast for her to grasp. Several tables with lunchtime diners, in business casual. Other tables with a parent and kids. A few groups of college students. And at one table off to the side, two people her age, presumably Emily Matea and Michael Burgos. As she walked back to the booth she appraised them both.

Emily wore a blue blouse with elaborate white embroidery and tan skirt, running shoes and a leather messenger at her ankle of the sort Riri had seen lawyers carry. She had long hair in a pony tail, jet black, and appeared both shorter and slimmer than average. Riri noticed they had their nails in an emerald French tip manicure.

Michael wore a blue and white plaid flannel shirt and black jeans and black six inch work boots. His navy blue Eisenhower jacket hung behind him on his chair. He looked tall for fifteen, a definite athletic build, dark hair so short his head was practically shaved. They both looked as she approached the table.

"Hi, I'm Riri Williams, you're Emily and Michael?" She was trying to find the right words to explain why she had wanted to meet them.

Emily smiled and gestured to an empty chair. "Emily Matea, January 28th birthday. You too?"

Michael toasted her with his soda bottle, and grinned. "Michael Collins Burgos, born in Northwestern Memorial Hospital. I THOUGHT I recognized you!" He laughed. "The odds against us three being child geniuses together must be near infinite."

At least I don't have to explain THAT part…

Riri sat and replied "It's even weirder. There were actually seven of us that day."

"WHAT?!" Emily shouted. Michael started choking on his soda.

Riri leaned in. "Yep. Infinite improbability achieved. Now what?"

—-_—-_—-'-

Lunch was ordered and arrived quickly. The drool-inducing smells of lechón, the pile of alcapurria stuffed with seasoned meats, and a side order of rice with small circular beans filled their noses. Stories were shared and notes were taken. All three had estimated intelligence quotients within ten points of each other. (Over 250 it's difficult to assess IQ with consistent accuracy.)

All had been speaking complex sentences by one year old. All learned it was best to hide this ability almost immediately because as Emily put it "it freaked out the normies." All three of them had total recall and photographic memory. All of them admitted to periodic manic episodes of incredible creativity followed by crushing depression when they ran out of new ideas.

All had decided that without a proper challenge they would be bored to death and all three thought the other two had chosen impossible goals. Of course THEIR personal goals were perfectly reasonable. However Emily and Michael were just as uncertain as Riri what the positive version of "playboy" would be.

None spoke fewer than four languages, with Emily the most at eight due to her interest in preserving First Nations languages. That led to a discussion of differences, trying to figure out any hints as to how so many super geniuses.

Emily had the most liquid cash at $12 million from legal work, being an author and she consulted for several Native American charities. Michael owned the most, with the scrapyard, recycling plant, machine shops supporting his research projects that he was vague about. And because of her time at MIT Riri had the most prestigious contacts in science and the business world, with everyone impressed with her recent connection with Professor Pentecost.

"We should team up. With our skills we would be billionaires in about a month," Riri said as she reached for her appetizer. All three froze and realized it was a great idea.

Riri swallowed some tea. "We can come back to that. So what about us and the other four? Any theories yet?"

"Nothing easy to prove," admitted Emily. "We live in a world with alien races messing around for reasons we can't even GUESS at. Demons, devils, angels and gods exist so calling us "magic" is entirely possible. But I can't think of any possible MOTIVE. OK, let's say someone can make seven babies grow up with incredible brains. Then we all just get IGNORED? No special school, enriched environment to make sure we all did whatever we were made for? Three of us died. One of us vanished, probably dead. Seems kind of pointless, am I right?"

Michael snapped his fingers and pointed at Emily. "You're right. We don't know who and there's no obvious reason why. I have a few ways to narrow down the HOW for what it's worth. I don't know about magic or alien science. But I know biochemistry. I could sequence our DNA, see if we all have something in common that we shouldn't. If it's all normal, nothing out of the ordinary I guess we need to find an expert in aliens, magic or general weirdness."

Riri thought to herself that as a newbie superhero secret agent in training she could probably get help on the aliens, magic and general weirdness. But she was NOT going to admit to anything like THAT to people she just met. "There are some people at MIT into some very weird stuff. I know a few people at Harvard and Miskatonic University too, I can talk to them without saying it's US I'm trying to figure out. It's a place to start anyway."

A song Riri didn't recognize began playing from Michael's shirt pocket,

¡Despierta, borinqueño

que han dado la señal!

¡Despierta de ese sueño

que es hora de luchar!

and he fished a SI-phone out of his pocket. He spoke quickly in a language Riri didn't recognize,listened briefly and replied and hung up.

"Hey, that was pretty fluent Jeringonza!" commented Emily. Michael replied in what sounded like the same language he had just spoken in.

"I have to go, there's a problem back at the family headquarters. I have a ride coming in a minute. You can stay here and finish up. All the food is on me, my family owns the place. Or you can come with? It'll only take five maybe ten minutes to fix things. Then I can show you some things in my workshop we three could maybe partner up on?"

Outside a yellow cab screeched to a halt and honked the horn three times quickly.

"Want to come?" he said standing and grabbing his jacket.

"Sounds interesting!"

"Sure, I'm curious what you're working on."

As the cab sped to parts as yet unknown, Riri spoke to NATALIE through her earpiece, to relay to her bodyguard/trainer to follow them via GPS. On her SI-watch she alerted her AI that they were headed to a possible problem and to listen in for any sign Ironheart or her bodyguard might be needed.