kinky rias gang bang

by rohitkumarsharma9831

rias is horny

2. h

Why'd you do it?" Steve Rogers was sitting across from me, looking me dead in the eye.
I sighed, thinking about why exactly I had done it. All the clever excuses, all the genius reasons why I, and I alone, should hold the reins of power. I had wanted it. I don't know if it was the right answer, but it felt to me like that was the real reason. It had been so long ago, the world had been so different when it began.
"Hail Hydra," I laughed ruefully. He kept staring. "Have you read 1984?" He nodded. "I want you to know I never dreamed of O'Brien's boot stamping on a human face - I believed that, with power, I could help the world. I suppose... in the end..." I would have gesticulated, but I was chained to a table. "I guess it began with my arrival in this world. A... being appeared to me and it offered me power, almost unimaginable power."
"What kind of being?"
"I called it something else once, but seeing where it ended me up, I'll name it the devil."
"What happened to that power?"
"I got it. You're looking at it."
"And then this being forced you to serve Hydra?"
I laughed and shook my head. "No, nothing so vulgar..."
Coming to this world felt like a clock being wound, a spiralling feeling that seemed to increase tension without stopping. I woke up in a world that felt alien even though it looked like my home planet. I was in a big city, a big change from my previous setting, and I was in a nice apartment it appeared. My senses were heightened to an insane degree. I could count the leaves on a ground floor tree, I could smell every scent of the room. My mind was full of thrumming information that I had never learned or studied, I felt like I knew every nook and cranny of the whole world.
I got myself up slowly, picking through my mind. It was 2009. Barack Obama was President. I was now particularly handsome. Also rich, richer than I had any right to be.
Tony Stark had just been kidnapped.
I processed the information and then it hit me like a ton of bricks. I was in the MCU. After Banner had been hulked, it looked like. I resisted the urge to freak out. In the MCU, the Snap had killed half the world's population. If Thanos got the Infinity Stones, it seemed inevitable that the Snap wouldn't be reversed. Doctor Strange had said the odds were one in a million? Less?
Still, in the immediate term, the best thing I could do for the timeline in the short term was to lie low and wait for Tony to re-emerge. Once he did, I was going to take as hard of a wrecking ball to the timeline as possible to avert catastrophe.
My name was Michael Trent and my raw intellect had not landed me on the map up until this point. The solar panel factory I had in the works in Detroit was all I had going for me. Tony Stark lapped up the news but I apparently offered very little on that front. I had two main sources of income, a major trust fund that I couldn't touch, and the big solar panel factory that was nearing completion I'd asked for. It turned out that I did NOT have a college degree or a graduate degree unlike real life. I guess that would have been Status in GURPS terms. Frustrating. Nobody I knew in my world had a parallel in this world, though people I knew of from my world did.
I had no idea how long Tony would be in the caves in Afghanistan for, so I tried to wait and plot. In the long term, I would seek influence and try to get into SHIELD somehow. I couldn't leave the Snap to chance, so I had to find a way to use an Infinity Stone to destroy itself. I had to leave as small of an imprint as I could manage on the world until Tony was back in country and working on his suit. I was magnetic, physically attractive, had a velvet voice, and I was rich and could afford nice suits. I was also bored. I didn't need to work, I had plenty of money.
It was mesmerizing to experience the way I walked into a room and drew stares, the ease at which I put everyone with a word. I enjoyed it, just the raw experience of it. But I managed to stay on top of myself at least until Tony came back. I spent time working through a plan, building a little robot butler for myself that I named Botler, and trying to figure out who I needed to kill.
It was a dauntingly long list, I admit. I would have squelched at that before I transitioned, but the massive boost to my intellect must have let me balance things more clearly. I needed to destroy these people before they killed too many people. Well, first I needed to verify my spoiler knowledge was real and I hadn't gone crazy.
Then it happened - Tony Stark was on the news, giving a press conference. It was time to work on killing Obadiah Stane.
"Obadiah Stane's murder, wasn't that in the Avengers' movie series you were talking about?" Cap asked me, raising an eyebrow.
I suppressed the urge to say I had done Tony a favor. "It's not like they had a date on the screen that I memorized." I replied instead.
I had bizarrely good knowledge of where everything was. I knew, if I thought about, it probably who lived at 98% of street addresses. I had the kind of reflexive, back of your mind knowledge about every street that I had about the roads around my university in my old life. It was bizarre, but it was also useful. That was why I was at this sunny paradise in California, dressed in my best working man's clothes, wig, and fake nose, piloting a drone inside of a maintenance van.
Obadiah Stane was standing on his balcony and I was piloting my drone gently down the coast, coming onto his property behind his security cameras. He was on his phone with someone, I didn't know who. I had the drone lock in, aimed, and fired. The bullet got him in the gut and he started rushing inside. Without hesitation, I fired off again. The bullet missed.
I drove the drone inward after him, grateful for the sliding non-automatic door being a pain in the ass to close, following the string of blood. Obadiah was unnecessarily gaudy and massive, high vaulted ceilings that made it easy to follow him. Eventually, I found him lying on the ground bleeding, where he was calling for an ambulance with a gun in his hand. He tried to fire at the drone, but his aim wasn't very good in his present state. "The Ten Rings sends its regards, traitor." I said through a mike before firing three times into his chest. I tried to drive the drone out of the meandering hallways in time to escape, but Obadiah's security was coming in quickly. The risk of self-destruct failing because of body damage to the drone was too high, I just flipped the internal killswitch and drove off.
One supervillain down, dozens to go.
Everyone in this universe is dicking around with ultra-high tech moonshot power solutions with cool names while I'm just printing ultra-cheap solar panels in Detroit and selling them at 400% of cost. Does that make them crazy? Does it make ME crazy? Well, it certainly means my cash flow is more of a cash torrent.
I was churning out plants just about as fast as they could be built or refurbished, the abundant labor market and the high wages I could afford put us in a dominant position. The internal dynamics of my company put our productivity doubling time at roughly every two months for the four years when the market would hit saturation and drive us out of the solar panel business. I was integrating wind and battery development to push those technologies forward as well.
The core thesis of my uplift strategy had been, first energy then computers then robots. Now I wasn't so sure - There were natural language UI programs in this setting (not just in Tony's labs either) and there were experimental visual recognition systems already online, capable of accessing information on photographed objects in real time. Together, those seemed sufficient to run most menial jobs with relatively basic robotics add-ons. Yet nobody had done it.
Some of the difficulty seemed to be straightforwardly economic - You need to invest money to implement any new tech and labor costs were substantially lower than the machine A.I. in some areas. Some of it was a reasonable caution about mass disruption to, say, check-out clerks. But that didn't explain the whole problem and I had a very sharp sense of the general economic climate. Alarm bells were going off in my mind. Why weren't the developments making money? I had to know.
That's why I was going to see Whiplash's father. I hadn't actually remembered Ivan or Anton Vanko's name or that they'd worked on the arc reactor - look Iron Man 2 wasn't good okay - but the Russian aide to Howard Stark who got deported? Yeah, I knew who that was. U.S. Patent law in this universe was actually thirty years, in total defiance of reason and common sense, but the patent for original Arc Reactor had STILL expired two decades ago. Anton or Ivan should've been rich oligarchs if Ivan was able to miniaturize it and they weren't and I didn't have any idea why.
That was how I'd found myself on a cold street in Russia, my mind locked in on the Russian language, knocking on the door of a complete stranger. His son came to the door. Ivan Vanko was a decade older than Tony. "What do you want, boy?" he asked in Russian, glaring at me. I didn't grin. This was Russia.
"Mr. Vanko, my name is Michael Trent. I'm here to see your father." I held out a check for a hundred thousand dollars in rubles to the man.
"Why?" he asked, glaring at the check. "He is not for sale. Or for hire, not any more. He is an old man and he is dying."
"I know, Mr. Vanko. I'm afraid the subject of my visit will not be a pleasant one, either. But that check should cover hiring a personal nurse to take care of him, maybe give you another month with him, maybe just keep him comfortable for the rest of his time here. I just want to ask a few questions." It was actually substantially more money than that, but flattering his filial piety was more important than being strictly accurate.
"Fine. If he will see you." He stalked back into the house, a decent middle class home by Moscow standards, but not a rich one. He came back eventually, jerking his head at me to follow. The house was incredibly dirty and I found myself hoping that Ivan would spend some of that check on a maid. I was not so gauche as to say this out loud.
"So you are the rich man," the father said, lying on the couch, his voice hoarse. "You have questions?" I felt a softness toward the man, who really was dying and I sat down across from him in a tattered chair.
"I wanted to talk to you about the Arc Reactor."
"Bah!" he scoffed, "I told the Soviet Union I couldn't deliver anything cheaper, now some American expects me to do better for a few million rubles?"
"I think you could, actually." I said, trying to sound as sincere as possible. He gave me an appraising look. "Mr. Vanko, you're a luminary. One of the brightest minds of science, whatever Mr. Stark said about your motives. I think I am right in thinking that it would be possible to miniaturize the Arc Reactor with modern technology, to increase its power output a hundred fold, to make units that were cheaper than coal, natural gas, oil, or nuclear power. But you didn't do it, even now. Why not?"
The old man sighed, "You flatter my genius. My son," he looked over toward the door his son, grinning, "He is the genius. But to answer your question, maybe you are right. Maybe the right person could build a power system that would put out of business all the black gold profiteers of the world. It seems plausible. You are paying me quite generously for these questions, so I shall simply suggest to you that not look into these questions much further."
"Stark gets away with it," I pointed out.
"His whole life is under a stage life. It is hard for those who work in the dark to reach out and touch him. And his vision is smaller than what you say, at any rate." Only as far you know, old man, I thought silently. "They are everywhere, like a many headed dragon. Some of them are here, some of them over there. It hardly matters. I am old now."
I asked him a few more questions, the shape of what he was saying became clear. Some group - Or groups? It was unclear - of shadowy figures had leaned on him domestically, to stop him from building anything since Perestroyka and Stark's death. I didn't know if he was talking about Hydra or the Hand or something like the Hellfire club or some obscure Russia specificorganization. I didn't know any of those things. He was warning me that they would kill me.
"I've taken steps in the event of my death," I said gently. "If I die, my knowledge will be disseminated widely."
"And is it only your knowledge for which you have reason to fear? Is there nothing else for which you care?"
I shrugged. I was alone in this world. My family didn't exist, my friends didn't exist, I had employees and loan officers and that was about it. "There's not much."
"Well, you are young and unburdened. Perhaps you'll achieve your goal. Perhaps you'll perish and no one will know your name. But I am old and weary, I've told you all I may. Please, leave me Mr. Trent."
I'd left my contact info with Ivan if he needed anything. I mean, in full seriousness, I had little doubt he'd probably take a shot at Tony again. But he'd have to come to the United States to attack Tony at Nascar like last time, so I was hopeful he might contact me on his way through and I could tip him off. How had he gotten that whip thing through security last time? I had no idea.
I watched the investigation of Obadiah's murder on the news. Tony had naively opened up Obadiah's work files to the investigators where the investigators had discovered that Obadiah had kept the incriminating files of his kidnapping of Stark on his work computer. What a goddamn moron. This had made Tony, very briefly, a suspect but JARVIS was able to produce very comprehensive footage of him in his basement as I'd hoped. His only on screen comment had been, "No, I didn't do it. I didn't know anything until after he died. It's just… It's all a shock. I'm sorry, why am I answering you?" and then a shove on his way out of the police station. I winced in familiarity at the pain on his face. Sorry Tony, I thought in sympathy. I expected that Pepper was running the company, things would get a little bit better.
My biggest worry now was that the cops would arrest the wrong guy, mostly because I knew in my heart I'd let that person take the fall for me. I was too valuable a piece to go down for some silicon valley ghoul to avoid fifteen years with good behavior. Still, I had pointed them straight at the Ten Rings, so I was optimistic.
With Obadiah dead, I had to think about my plan. My initial plan had been to lie low for a long time - Not in a technological sense, but just as a personality to be ghost-like. But Anton's comment about Tony's being in the spotlight protecting him, that struck me as important. I couldn't stay in the dark and hope to be alright.
That was why I was in a Singapore gambling den flanked by two thugs for hire, to do something in the dark before sticking myself under the spotlight for keeps. I was making decent margins at a card table on a game of poker when Kalue plopped down next to me.
"So, you're looking for a game changer," he said, thumping me on the shoulder and laughing.
I resisted the urge to sigh. Klaue had a kind of charm in the movies, but his bombasity was not something I enjoyed in real life. "It's something I have a long term interest in, yes."
"I've looked you up." I nodded my head, obviously he had looked me up. "You don't have the money for what I sell."
Yet here he was, sitting next to me. "Were you hoping that I could spot you an ante then?" I drawled, offering him a handful of gambling chips.
He grabbed the chips, put them down on the table and grinned at me, "Maybe I am. How about a wager - You split that big stack you've got right there," I contained the wince, "and whichever of us runs out of money first walks away with nothing."
"I'm not here to play games. I'm here to do business. I don't gamble real stakes."
"My research says that pot's real stakes for you."
"Your research is out of date, Mr. Klaue. I'm expecting to be a very rich man by even your standards, very soon. Not a gamble, a certainty. I'm hoping to establish whether or not your game-changer is what I'm looking for when that time comes. Nothing more, nothing less. Simple, straightforward - You give me a taste, I pay you for it, someday maybe you get a bigger buyer."
He seemed to think about it and reached into his wallet and passed a debit card to the dealer, "Beat me and we'll deal, final offer."
I rolled my eyes and shifted my focus a little so I'd be able to play smoothly. Poker, with my new abilities, was boring. I was very, very good at it. It was easy to count cards, it was easy to read faces, it was just easy. There's no fun in playing a game you're too good at, but there's also no point in risking an objective for a thrill. I played the whole dumb, boring game.
As the cards started hitting the table, I did relatively well. Nobody wins every hand in poker, obviously, sometimes your cards are just bad. But the margins between Klaue and I, to say nothing of the poor rest of the table, were not close.
"You weren't doing this well early," he said, pointing at me as he discarded his hand of cards. I noted that neither of his arms looked prosthetic, but it was possible to make a prosthetic I wouldn't recognize. Still, maybe this was before he lost his arm. I only really remembered him from Black Panther, after all.
"I wasn't playing for real stakes before. I told you I didn't want to do this," I noted blandly, sliding my cards over to the dealer face down and raking in the pot.
"You're damn stinking hustler is what you are," he growled. I just shrugged and called during the round of betting. If he was going to be angry with me, he was going to be angry with me. You couldn't make people not angry with you by arguing. The rest of the table, a couple of businessmen in hand tailored suits and a couple of soldiers of fortune in black silk t-shirts and camopants, looked at us uncomfortably.
He grumbled and turned back to his hand, raising. I folded, not because I was intimidated. It just wasn't a good hand. We made it another dozen hands in before he decided to give picking at me another go. I don't know why he had to be like this. It just made everyone uncomfortable.
"I ought to walk! You sandbagged me is what you did," he shouted. Other people looked at us, the bouncers at the door stiffened.
I just smiled back serenly, "If you want to go," I said with a smile, "Go. You're disturbing the other players, Mr. KlaueHe grunted and turned back, "Raise." he said angrily and I kept a neutral face until we turned our cards over and I got the pot.
"You must be cheating," he said after another few hard hands. I resisted the urge to roll my eyes. He couldn't possibly be this petulant. He'd driven off the rest of the table twice now, only to slowly recycle them with new people who hadn't seen his displays. Klaue was probably a self-made billionaire. This establishment must have genuinely liked him to put up with it. He was an "asset" to a dozen countries, at least, and he also just generally seemed to try to be fun in a jock-y sort of way. He had to be good at getting people to like him, so it was really a question of whether he was testing me or just thought I wasn't someone who he needed to treat with respect. Well, the simple truth was that I couldn't respond force for force, so if it was the latter, there wasn't much I could do.
"He deals the cards," I said, nodding toward the poor dealer, who looked positively petrified to be involved. "I just play them."
Klaue, seemingly sensing that he might have offended the establishment, raised his hands in surrender, "Wasn't implying anything against this marvelous establishment."
His pot was really dwindling when the waitress walked up, a young-ish woman who looked like she'd steeled herself for this moment. "Sir, would you like a drink?"
"No I don't want a fucking drink!" he yelled, pounding the table, "Don't you think I'm losing enough?" The woman, to her credit, simply nodded politely and turned away.
We played a couple more hands and the thought of her walking off bothered me. I tried to ignore it. It wasn't really sensible to care. He might come around to thinking I was soft, even if he didn't decide I was easy to intimidate. But when a really bad hand popped up, I groaned and folded, grabbing a high value chip off the table. "Stake me if my hand comes up and then fold," I said to my two thugs.
"You running off?" Klaue asked, gesturing to my pile, "Can I help myself?"
"Rather you didn't," I said shortly, walking over to where the waitress was standing, the tension still visible in her shoulders. "I'm sorry for my friend, he's a big character and likes to make a scene," I began, but she seemed to be struggling to understand what I was saying. I closed my eyes and toggled focus onto spoken Mandarin, "My friend is a loudmouth," I said, "I am sorry that he yelled at you. Thank you for offering him a drink." I held up the chip, "Can you accept these as tips, or do I need to cash it?"
Her eyes widened and she smiled with relief as tension left her body, "We can take the chips," she said holding out her hand like she was afraid to grab it. I put it in her hand and smiled at her warmly.
"Paying back your confederate?" Klaue asked as I returned to the table to discover I had missed four hands and embellished his pot again.
"No, I've never met her. But I prefer that everyone I do business with has a positive impression of me, Mr. Klaue. I hope you will too."
He laughed and turned back to the table.
Eventually, mercifully, he ran out of chips to stake and show to boat. "You ought to do that professionally," he said, his tone straight back to jovial. "You really are very good."
"I like to make winning bets," I said modestly. "You said the terms were that if I won, you'd sell to me."
"I hope you'll turn out to be a winning bet, one hundred thousand for a gram."
"That's quite a markup from your usual prices," I pointed out.
"There's a bulk discount."
I shrugged and pushed all my winnings and my initial stake for the night over to him, "I'm taking a bet on you, Mr. Klaue. I trust you'll send me the address of the appropriate safety deposit box."
I walked away and beckoned my guards after me, praying silently that he wouldn't shoot me in the back on the way out. He didn't. The next day, I got a paper letter at our dropsite telling me where to pick up the vibranium and it was there. That was good.
There was no way he'd have given it to me if he knew what I intended to do with it.
Tony leaned over the boot, grimacing at it. Something was definitely wrong with the thruster. He wasn't sure, exactly, what that was but there was something wrong with it. "Jarvis, pull up schematics for the boot, getting stuck in my head again."
"Very good sir," Jarvis intoned, pulling up the boot in holographic format next to him. Tony frowned, turning the boot over digitally. This model was still too heavy for him to do that manually on a regular basis. He wasn't sure if that meant he needed a lighter one or not. Probably not. The force from the thrusters was insane, better for the boot to be durable.
"Jarvis, are there any instabilities in-" Tony heard a knocking, looking over to see Pepper with her hair up in a ponytail and dressed in her usual boring suit at the glass door. He felt momentarily embarrassed that he hadn't contacted her in the past couple of days. He hit a buzzer, "Pepper, what's the matter? What're you doing here?"
"Well, you haven't left the house in five days," Pepper said, putting down a stack of mail and a clip board. She sucked in her breath, like she always did to brace herself in circumstances like this. "And the police called again. They said if you don't come voluntarily, they are going to have to bring you in with a warrant."
Tony rolled his eyes, "They threaten that a lot."
"Tony, I think they're serious," Pepper said, her voice a little nervous.
Tony scolded himself internally, "Fine, fine. If you want to go, let's go now. Jarvis, download all video of the three days around the murder of one of my oldest friends so the cops know it wasn't me."
"Tony! Shouldn't we call a lawyer or, or, or look at legal strategy or at least call for an appointment!" Pepper said frantically as he got up.
"Should I shower?" Tony asked, picking up his button up and putting it on as he stepped towards Pepper.
"Tony, I don't real-" she sniffed, "No, yes, you should definitely shower." Tony could tell from her face, he did not smell good.
Tony smiled and put his hands on her arms, "Pepper. Calm down. You're right. I'm innocent. I should cooperate, just like I did with access to Stark Tech computers. They can't prove I did it, because I didn't do it. We'll just go in, we'll show them the video. I'll take a quick shower," he said, starting to take off his button up, "And we'll go."
"Finished, sir." Jarvis intoned, ejecting a drive from his console. "Grab that," Tony said as he went up to the stairs, taking off his undershirt when he heard an eep from behind him. The woman knew his social security number but she was still shy about seeing him shirtless. Some things he would never understand.
Tony and Pepper walked into a large office with a big table that had a computer monitor on it. Behind it sat a woman with a stack of papers and a police detective name plate saying, "Detective Hannigan" in front of her. At middle age and lightly hefty, she wasn't exactly pretty, Tony thought idly, but he guessed that might be good for a cop.
"Mr. Stark, please sit down. Now, just to inform you, this interview is a legal proceeding. Mr. Stark, you said in a previous informal contact with the police that you had, quote," she glanced down at a paper in front of her, "'No reason to hurt Obie,' that's referring to Obadiah Stane isn't it?"
"Yeah, Obie was one of my oldest friends, he was a mentor. He was the only guy on my side with the company."
"And you said, quote, 'If there's any secret files lying around, they'll be ghost files, look for the lowest sequence of numbers.' Why'd you say that?"
"There are a lot of ways to stow secret data, but not on the Stark Industry servers. Ghost files are basically the only choice."
"Mr. Stark, you said that you were, quote, 'totally committed to stopping illegal arms sales, whatever means necessary' is that correct?"
"I mean, I've been locked out of the company for a while now, but yes."
Pepper looked distressed, "I think I should call an attorney."
"No, Pepper, it's fine." Tony said. She always gets so worked up about everything and then it always worked out in the end.
"I'm calling an attorney."
"Fine, if you really want to," Tony said. "Oh, call Happy while you're at it, I could really use a burger right now."
The detective smiled patiently throughout this exchange, "Do you want to wait for that attorney?"
"No, I haven't done anything wrong," Tony said. Helping catch Obie's killer was part of his responsibility, he had to do something with his life and not just push responsibility onto his lawyers.
"Alright, finally, you were held captive by a terrorist organization known as the Ten Rings. You were in captivity for how long?"
"Ah, this is a matter of public record, but about three months. A little less, really, more like two and two thirds months. I managed a pretty daring escape, I might add
And what would you do to the people responsible if you could get your hands on them?"
"Well," Tony said, weighing the opportunity to lie against his desire to stop doing everything in his power to avoid his own damn responsibilities. "I don't know. I killed some of them while I was escaping, obviously, but that was just self-defense. If I had them at my mercy..." Tony let his voice trailed off, "Like I said, I just don't know.
"Of course," Detective Hannigan said, her voice understanding. "Mr. Stark, I'm going to show you a few documents and videos that we've uncovered in the course of our investigation."
She grabbed a packet of files from inside her desk and handed them over to Tony. He started flipping through them - They were injunction papers, files related to the sale of his weapons to the Ten Rings of all the damn people. "I'm, I'm sorry. I'm going to have to actually read these," he said.
Tony didn't want to believe it. Page after page had the same signature, the same account number, and Tony still couldn't believe it. He felt something gnawing in his stomach, an emptiness which the information engorged like gasoline on a fire. The weight of it just kept hitting him, over and over again.
"These, these have to be forged," he said after he finished, his voice not quite steady. "Okay, the injunction. I don't know. Maybe he thought I was losing it. I wasn't, I had a path forward, we were going to- Anyway, I can believe the injunction, maybe- MAYBE some profiteering butselling weapons to the Ten Rings?" Tony shook his head, "Notafterthey kidnapped me. No way."
"Tony, there's repo-" Pepper said, stepping inside the room with a Burger King bag. "Oh my god, Tony, what's wrong?"
"They're saying Obie was the one behind the Stark Industries' profiteering," Tony choked up, raising his hand to his mouth. Pepper grabbed his other hand and squeezed it. God, she was all he had left. Rhodey was mad at him, Obie was dead and a traitor, and here he was alive and worthless.
"That's not all he was behind," Detective Hannigan said, turning around the monitor so he could see it. There was an unplayed video of him with a bag over his head.
"Is this a ransom video?"
"No, Mr. Stark." Detective Hannigan replied, clicking the play button.
The video started playing and the translator started rolling, talking about being paid to kill someone. For one brief moment, Tony could imagine that the video wasn't really for Obie or maybe that he'd hired them to kill someone else. But then, "You did not tell us that the person you had paid us to kill was Tony Stark. As you can see Obadiah Stane, your deception and lies will cost you dearly. The price to kill Tony Stark has just gone up."
"Oh my god, why are you showing him this?" Pepper said, squeezing his hand. "He didn't know. He was at home. Stop it."
"Is that true, Mr. Stark?"
"Yeah, no I - I had no idea. Can I go?"
"I'm going to need proof of your location for the four days before Obadiah Stane's death."
Pepper grabbed the drive and slid it over to her, "There you go."
"My tech secrets are on that drive," Tony said reflexively, "I want it back when you're done."
"Your property will be returned when the investigation is over," Detective Hannigan said politely, "And the LAPD will not hand over the information to anyone, but will store it and watch it only within the presence of two officers, as per our agreement with Stark Industries."
"Thank you," Pepper said, "Can we go now?"
"I'm afraid not. We need to watch the two hours around the assassination before we're able to say. In full seriousness, Mr. Stark, unless you signed your name on the drone I highly doubt that we would convict you. I have better things to do than press charges in the murder of a terrorist."
"Alright, that's enough. He said he didn't do it, we've been nothing but cooperative, we've done your whole damn job for you. Tony, let's go eat your burger somewhere else."
Tony got up obediently and they walked into the lobby and sat down in some cheap plastic seats on cheap metal legs, where he stared vacantly at the wall. "Tony, you need to eat." Tony shook his head, staring into space. It was funny. When he'd gotten out of captivity, all he wanted was a burger and now he couldn't even think of eating. "Tony, please. I don't know what to do, I'm so, so sorry."
"Can you just sit?" Tony said, a little too snappishly. "Not - not that I don't like listening to you talk, but I just- right now…"
Pepper's face filled with compassion and Tony felt simultaneously safe and ashamed. He shouldn't have been sitting here getting coddled, he should've been out doing… something. "Sure Tony, whatever you need."
Fifteen minutes later and one slim, professional older lawyer arrival later, Detective Hannigan came out of the room where she was watching the security tapes. "Mr. Stark, you have powerful friends. I just got off the phone with an Agent Phil Coulson, he confirmed your whereabouts and said you're free to go." Tony had no idea who that was or how he'd confirmed his location.
May we have the tape back?" Mr. Jones asked, who had been briefed by Pepper and, Tony could tell through his extraordinary veneer of politeness, was upset at Tony.
"It's still evidence, but if it shows what they're saying, we'll return it to you by the end of the week. Last thing I want is Jones and Harper up my ass till the end of time."
"We'll be up it for this little stunt," the lawyer said, before turning back to Tony. "I'm sorry I wasn't here sooner, Mr. Stark. I wish you had called."
"Don't scold him right now," Pepper snapped. Tony thought that was a bit much.
"It's Jones' job, Pepper," Tony said weakly.
"Ms. Potts is right, Mr. Stark. I can see that you're in distress. When you're ready, we can talk more about legal strategies in this and any future investigations. Ms. Potts, can you get him home? I have some words for Detective Hannigan's procedural methodology and I wouldn't want to increase his stress."
"Of course, Mr. Jones," Pepper said with a smile at him and then a glare Detective Hannigan that Tony had never seen her give him. "Thank you, and I'm sorry that I didn't call earlier."
The two of them made it to the door before Pepper cursed, "Damn it, I forgot the reporters."
"It's fine," Tony said, grasping at something that made him feel like he wasn't a piece of trash being dragged around, "let's just get out of here. Happy here?"
"Happy's here."
The crowd of flashing lights, the noisy reporters shouting "Mr. Stark-" and a hailstorm of questions. Tony reflexively tried to answer, "No, I didn't do it. I didn't know anything until after he died. It's just… It's all a shock." And then his brain caught up to his mouth and he felt stupid, "I'm sorry, why am I answering you?" he asked, as he and Pepper pushed their way through to the car.
Becoming famous was surprisingly hard, even for a super-genius with tech powers. In theory I could have built some genuinely important invention - Freeware a decade early SmartPhone design and call it a day. But since practically my objective was to achieve that sort of thing without getting brutally murdered by every single government and secret organization, and the possibilities didn't seem great right at this moment, I had to do this the old fashion way. That meant networking.
I never had a taste for parties but at least I got to wear nice suits. This one was at a pink marble and dark wood country club ballroom I associated with the nouveau riche. Of course, I was there at the invitation of the Governor of Louisiana, so I made a point of smiling a little more than the occasion deserved.
Louisiana was still in the grips of the Roxxon blow-up from Cloak Dagger even half a year after the fact. It seemed to have replaced the gulf coast BP oil spill in this timeline. I considered doing the investigation into that immediately and blowing up Roxxon, but the risks and rewards weren't aligned yet. I didn't want to get attacked by assassins until I could affordrealsecurity and I did want at least some of the data from their research into whatever they were drilling for when I destroyed Roxxon. So it was on my to-do list, but not on the top of my to-do list. This was just networking.
"Mr. Trent," said the thirty-seventh woman who'd introduced herself to me that night. Her appearance looked tailored to be forgotten - A boring gray suit, boring brown hair, and a boring professional bearing. It was at least different from the samey low-cut dresses that made up most of the attendees. I grinned politely at her as I leaned up against the bar, drinking a Dr. Pepper and savoring being back in the South. "You know they say your body is a temple."
I decided to be nice. "Well, I hope my stomach praises him with a joyful noise, Ms..."
She smiled, "Andromeda Albertson. I'm the Governor's niece, my friends call me Drama"
"It's a pretty name, feel free to call me Mike." I said, resisting the urge to poke fun at her nickname.
"Do you mind if I ask you a politics question?" she said
"Nothing could possibly be boringer than politics nerds not talking about politics,"
"I wouldn't call these people nerds," she said, giving me a long look. I gave her my best, 'really?' face. "Okay, they're nerds. Why'd you decide on green energy as a focal point for your company?"
"I hope I don't crush your young idealist heart by saying this, but my primary motive was ending NATO's crippling energy dependence on oil companies. Russia, Venezuela, and Saudi Arabia, all dangerous oil extraction oligarchies who are fundamentally hostile to American interests. With the right mix of clean energy, domestic oil and coal, and nuclear power, we could bring all three to their knees without firing off a shot." The lie was getting well-worn enough I almost believed it at this point. I had actually chosen clean energy because clean air is great and climate change sucks but the hatred for Russia and the KSA was at least authentic. Venezuela as a sop to the GOP. Kiss a little bit of the fossil fuel industry's butt for taste.
"Saudi Arabia is an American ally," Andromeda said.
One of the benefits of my newly improved social skills is that instead of sneering and saying, "SaUDi ArABiA iS an AmERicaN ally" I instead said the more diplomatic phrase, "Do you know how many of the 9/11 hijackers were Saudi?"
"Fifteen," she replied instantly. I was surprised. Most people didn't. "The actions of a few individuals doesn't necessarily reflect the will of a nation."
"Trust me, when some lunatic declares himself Caliph, his recruits will come from Saudi Arabia and the Wahabists they fund will be the rest." It was hard to have the argument ten years and a substantial world variance away from ISIS, but the principle still seemed to be true in this timeline. The KSA funded all sorts of ultra-radical clerical movements, much as the U.S. elite funded prosperity preachers and missionaries in the developing world.
"I think secular revolutionary movements like the Ten Rings are a bigger long term threat to national security than."
"The pan-Asiatic spirit pseudo-messianic beliefs of the Ten Rings isn't exactly what I would call secular, but really I'm just saying that popular dislike for the United States is something that the Saudis foster deliberately."
"The United States isn't unpopular because the Saudis are Wahabists, Mike."
Well, we were both fudging it a little bit, for certain. I couldn't out and out say, 'The United States is unpopular because of its imperial policy.' That would ruin my attempt at becoming a bipartisan green industrialist. I didn't know exactly what she was trying not to say. I just shrugged instead, "Well, it's something to think about. To bringing back American industry and energy independence!" I held up my can of Dr. Pepper in a gesture of peace
"I can drink to that," she said, tapping my can with her glass of white wine.
"What do you do, Andromeda? You a foreign policy advisor on some senatorial campaign?"
"I work in the intelligence community for a small office on international anomalous response stuff."
"Anomalous response?" I knew, of course, that she meant SHIELD. I'm not an idiot.
"There's a lot of weird stuff out there," she said, "Somebody in DC has to look into it."
You gonna tell me that Skrulls are real next?" I asked sarcastically, knowing that Skrulls were indeed real.
"No comment," she said, laughing at my false wit.
"Look, if you find anything interesting in power production, call me. I'd be happy to serve in any way I can." I said drawing a card from my pocket. I hoped they would tap me for that stupid weapons project with the cube.
"Hmm, can I call you if I don't find anything interesting?" she asked in
I considered not saying yes. It felt weird and kind of gross to maybe indicate more interest than I really had but a contact in Shield was something I desperately needed if I wanted to averted the Snap. And I mean, she wasn'tunattractive. "Well, I guess you'll just have to be interesting yourself."
Have you ever spent a hundred and ten thousand dollars to send a letter? Now that I was reasonably sure I wouldn't be killed instantly, I was.
The inside of Wakanda's embassy wasn't austentatious. It wasn't meant to be intimidating and the afro-futurist aesthetic probably looked very out of place to most Westerners. But it was not built for Westerners, it was built for Wakandans. Everywhere, deliberately, the marks and colors of each integrated tribe were on full display. This was a mother's place. A place Wakandans would feel comfortable and safe but that would put their enemies at (false, as I knew) ease.
I walked down the hall, lead by a young man, a secretary to the diplomat. He seemed to be bitter to be assigned out here to this backwater post, in the beating heart of global capitalism that was New York City. It was weird to know, definitively, that I was in a more primitive civilization by perhaps forty years of tech development.
Ambassador Ohna Ebuki had long, braided hair, a sharp face, and maybe forty years - unlike in many cultures, I doubted that the ambassadorship was a prestigious position, but Wakanda had made a practice of sending at least minimally competent ambassadors to the nuclear powers.
"Who is the colonizer, D'onseh?" Ambassador Ebuki asked in Wakandan, without bothering to address me. I held down the surge of pride. It really wasn't her job to deal with people like me. Also, they had no idea I could understand them, so perhaps this conversation would be enlightening.
"The colonizer, Michael Trent, has returned a small portion of the gift of the gods, Ambassador. He claims to have a letter that is a greater gift to the king."
"Have you read this letter?" Ebuki answered.
"It is written in Thai," the young man made a face, "He insists I must not read it."
"So, colonizer," the Ambassador said in English, "D'onseh tells me you have a letter you deem unfit for him to read but you consider appropriate to give to my king."
I was surprised at how much the colonizer thing stung. Didn't the vibranium count for anything? I wondered internally. Well, I suppose she was asking. "It is about the royal family's personal affairs, Ambassador."
"And what does an outsider know of the king that his own ambassadors are ignorant of?" the Ambassador asked
"I assure you, I know very little of the king." I said with what I hoped was a humble, somber expression. "I simply do not wish to cause any pain to the king or to his family by accidentally releasing any information which might adversely affect them in any way."
"I am the king's eyes in this savage land," the Ambassador said.
Calling it a savage land seemed like a dead giveaway to me, but maybe it just upset most of the people that she dealt with. The colonizer stuff bothered me and I flattered myself that I'm fairly woke - Certainly by 2010 standards. "Ma'am," I said, "I'm telling you with full sincerity that the king would not want you to read this letter. If you will not send it without endeavoring to read it, I shall burn it and depart."
"Blackmailing the royal family is a capital offense in Wakanda," the Ambassador said, grabbing the letter from my hand. "So, let me offer you a deal. You wait here until I hear back from the king. If he feels that it is not blackmail, I will not kill you."
I sucked in my breath. I really, really hoped that she was bluffing. The death penalty thing was true, but I hoped that she was bluffing about the killing me part. "Well, please convey my sincere wish that it be interpreted in a charitable light."
I didn't bother pointing out that it was presently nine PM in Wakanda and the king probably wouldn't respond till two AM here.
To the noble heir of kings who gave their people peace, T'Chaka of the Golden Tribe,
I fear this letter has been written to convey you a message which you do not wish to receive. Yet the great power that has lain it on me has left me little choice but to warn you as best I am able. I am burdened to tell you and I pray you will take pity on me.
Your nephew lives and serves in the United States Navy as a SEAL in Afghanistan. He has a discipline that shapes his body and mind into peerless instruments of his. The fire of his discipline is a hatred born the day his father died. He knows the station of his birth and the power of his nation. He will bring war to Wakanda if he is not stopped.
I do not say this lightly. I pray that this letter finds you in fine health and that all that I have seen is lies. I hope you are able to make a permanent end of the issue. But if you leave this wound to fester, it will consume the bodies of your children and the garden of your ancestors.
I know that your instinct will be to dismiss me as a primitive. Please, listen to me. Whatever you decide, I shall take your secrets and the secrets of Wakanda to my grave.
-In the spirit of peace,
Michael G. Trent.
I spent the rest of the day clicking around news for any sign of Tony's activating the Iron Man suit. It was mid october and he still hadn't emerged from his damn basement. Pepper was running the company but that seemed mostly like a firefighter's exercise. I'd gotten in on the stocks after Tony had gotten back and then I'd gotten further in after I'd killed Obadiah, but it had managed to go down even more when Pepper had been appointed head so I bet on it then too. Hadn't paid off yet, but hopefully soon.
You alright?Andromeda sent
Yeah, go ahead and go to sleep. I'll probably still be alive in the morning.
Mike.
If I'm not, I died doing the right thing.
She didn't respond to that, which I suppose I deserved. Around one AM I managed to fall asleep on one of the wicker chairs that I was sure were designed to make me uncomfortable.
At 3:27 AM by my watch, the Ambassador shook me awake. "Get up colonizer," she said, her face angry.
"Yes ma'am," I said automatically, my head bleary. I followed her into a room where a projector of metal beads was projecting the full color image of T'chaka, King of Wakanda, in three dimensions. I hadn't remembered what he looked like, grey haired and a little portly with a lazy eye, not quite the image I had in mind of an elder statesman, though I suppose he had to be one.
I bent my head in deference.
"Kneel," the Ambassador said.
I did so without protest. Guess that we don't do that here thing was just a joke by T'Challa.
The King raised a hand in greeting to me and turned to the Ambassador. "Leave us, Ohna. Disable the security cameras."
"Yes, my king," the Ambassador said, holding up her fingers in an intricate pattern to the cameras and then walking out.
"What great power told you of my nephew?" the king asked, his voice tired.
"I do not know. Not Bastet or Hanuman. A foreign power, to me and to you."
"Do you trust it?"
"The visions I have seen have thus far served me as if they were my own two eyes. Yet there is always the possibility they lie."
"Hmm." The king said. "Mr. Trent, I am grateful for your warning. And be it that it seems you are indeed blessed with knowledge you cannot possibly possess, I shall bear you no resentment for this. I will… consider the counsel you have given me. What you ask is very difficult for me."
"It is the way of prophets to give advice to kings, not to decide for them. I am pleased to leave this matter in your hands. There is one other favor I should wish to give you. I have made peaceful contact with Klaue and I would like to wash it off my hands."
"Ah," the king said, his tone tinged with a soft anger, "And this was the source of your vibranium."
"Yes, oh King. I simply wish to undo the price I paid for it."
"Can you make contact with him again?"
"Klaue finds his clients when he wants to," I said honestly. Klaue was in it for fun. He'd made probably a billion dollars on the black market already. He didn't need the money. "If he contacts me again, you shall be the first to know."
"Well, do this for us and Wakanda shall be grateful. And Mr. Trent, if I hear that you have breathed a word of this to an outsider, I will kill you with my own hands."
Last edited:May 25, 2020
It felt like nothing I had done was working. As far as my sources could tell, Erik Stevens was still active in Afghanistan. Maybe T'Chaka had reached out. Maybe he was hoping to get Killmonger on his return home. Maybe he was just ignoring my advice. The idea had been that he take decisive action before Killmonger faded into the black ops aether. If Killmonger slipped into the darkness, when he emerged in a decade he'd set fire to Wakanda and then turn and attack the rest of us. I had taken substantial risks and revealed genuine foreknowledge to try and avert that and I had gotten… nothing.
I'd been waiting for Stark to emerge as Iron Man for a long time. It was mid-November and I had been getting nervous. But finally, there had been a series of attacks on the Ten Rings throughout the Middle East by an "unknown entity". That was why I had scheduled this dinner date with Andromeda atherapartment.
I felt like a heel for manipulating her feelings. She seemed to be a boring, middle-class white girl public servant. A real believer in the Red, White, and Blue. I hadn't had that kind of sentimentality for our country since I was twelve. It was both genuinely sweet and terribly naive.
Andromeda answered the door in a long blue dress with a smile on her face. I handed her a bottle of wine wrapped in a cloth to keep it clean of my fingerprints.
"Mmm," she said, taking the bottle of wine, "This is a good vintage."
"That's what I was told," I said. Entering the apartment, I saw it was actually very… bright. She had painted flowering trees onto soft, light colored walls. Her furniture was all unpretentious lightwood or soft furniture, clearly relatively new. "It looks nice."
"You mean it isn't a blank slate like your place?"
"I have four apartments, Drama," I replied.
"You could hire an interior decorator for all four with like a week's income, so I don't really want to hear it."
"You don't get rich by spending money."
"You know how Scrooge won't spend any money on candles even though he's rich? That's you, Mike." she chided me.
"You read it!"
"Of course I read it, you've been nagging me ever since you heard I hadn't ever actually watched any movie versions."
"It's one of the great works of English literature!"
"I think it's a cry for help," Andromeda said as we walked into the kitchen where she had laid out ingredients and kitchen gloves like I asked her to.
I opened my mouth to contradict her but thought better of it. I looked down and away, "Speak comfort to me, Jacob," I said instead. I had liked it in the other world as well. But to be fair, I was a multi-millionaire who didn't spent my money on anything and didn't have any friends except the girlfriend I was vamping to get access to a secret organization which I still did not officially know existed.
"You will be met by three spirits," she said, holding up the wine bottle and shaking it. "One will tell you to get normal friends,"
"The next line was actually, 'I have none to give, it is offered by other sorts of ministers to different kinds of men.'"
"Kinda dark to be hoping for me to tell you that."
"Look, my life is complicated," I said.
"You are a businessman," Andromeda said, sitting up on the counter next to where I was working. "You fly around selling your products, making wild new advancements in technology, and going on TV interviews to talk about how 'the future of energy and industry is still right here in America'. Self-made, self-educated. You're basically a hot Benjamin Franklin. Your life isn't complicated, you're just living in your head."
That's not really where my problem was, but I couldn't say so. I just shrugged instead, "I spend time with you," I said, putting whatever honey I could into my voice.
"Whatever, you're just ignoring the topic." she said, hopping off the counter and looking annoyed. "I'm going to go to the bathroom."
"Okay," I said. It was hard to fight back when I knew I deserved it. She walked off and I could hear her footsteps the whole way down the hall. She wasn't loud, it was just one of the side effects of my transition here. Excellenthearing, excellent eyesight. Excellent taste, too, which meant other people's cooking was a bit of a drag. I know, I know, I still liked Dr. Pepper, but that was more of a comfort thing.
I took my duster out of my pocket and scanned a few prints off the bottle before I heard her turn off the sink from washing her hands. I didn't have a plan, at the time, for what to do with the prints. I was mostly doing it to remind myself that I was cultivating an asset. By the time she'd made it back, I was back to prepping food and we were back to talking about something else.
"Y'all watching the Ten Rings situation?" I asked after a few minutes had passed and I was sure we were back to an emotionally positive place.
"Yes," she said, rolling her eyes. "I mean, uh, no comment. Why would we be monitoring the sudden appearance of a seemingly supernatural being destroying the Ten Rings like an angel out of the Old Testament?"
"Word is it's a robot," I said as I turned the oven on and took off the gloves.
"You sending out Botler to beat up the Ten Rings?" she poked without giving any more information out to me. Still cagey two months into it.
"Nah," I said. My phone started buzzing, "Let me check this."
She nodded. Benefits of both having high demand jobs, "What? I'm on a date."
"Tell Ms. Albertson I said hi," said Leif, one of my upper management in expansion. "I should've taken your advice on Stark Industries. Get to a TV."
"Hey, uh, you got cable?" I asked, covering the phone. I only remembered too late it was 2009. Everybody had cable.
She gave me a funny look "Yeah." then she frowned, opened her mouth to say something and then closed it.
Oh goddamn it.I thought before chiding myself that she was choosing to avoid the fight. "Leif wants me to see something on TV," I said covering the phone's lip. "Leif, thanks, I'll go watch it. News, I'm assuming."
"Yeah, news. Business meeting about it tomorrow."
I don't know what, exactly, I was expecting as I turned off the stove and lamented the oncoming meal of super-salty take out. When I got to the screen, I realized expecting it to be an Iron Man reveal was stupid. I had known this consciously, it was obviously stupid. Tony had been forced public by his duel with Obadiah. But somehow I had still expected that scene from the movie where he chucks the cards and says "I'm Iron Man."
"Tony Stark has just announced a new arc reactor. He's projecting it will produce three gigawatts per hour at its averaged energy production level. The construction cost of this new project is estimated at a billion dollars with operating costs at less than two hundred and fifty million per year thereafter, a bargain bin price for energy in the United States."
I collapsed onto the couch, staring at the screen with a vague haze of disbelief.But how?I asked myself. Tony had said in Avengers 1 that the tower was powered by an arc reactor. That was thirteen times the energy output of 2009 Google. It was twenty six times the energy necessary to run a large hadron collider. It was 0.6% of the United States' total energy consumption, slightly more than existing geo-thermal. About two thirds of the entire solar energy sector's existing output level. It wasbullshit.
I had premised my whole strategy on the continuing existence of energy demand. It was the core thesis of my project. I'd poured millions of dollars in profits back into an aggressive expansion of production of energy within the United States.
And he just… tweeted it out. I mean, not literally obviously, but still. The problem endured. Who did this shit? How was this possible?
"Babe, you alright?" Andromeda asked, her face worried.
"Well, at least my Stark stocks are now worth money," I said.
"How much do you own?"
"A lot," I said honestly. That had been most of my expenditures in outside investment. Why not bet on a sure thing? "Your workplace hiring?"
"Oh, don't be dramatic. It can't be that bad."
"Well, to be honest, I probably am one of the few energy production magnates who could cut down to, what is it, two cents per kilowatt hour? So I guess I shouldn't complain too much."
"But they're saying it will take three years to build the new arc reactor to scale."
"It doesn't matter. Energy isn't sold on energy's present price but on its, well to simplify, its levelized expected future costs. You put all the energy into a bucket, or all the clean energy into a bucket if you're a hippie, and then you estimate its cost and then you try to undersell that while overselling your margin. Tony Stark is putting out a clean energy source that is going to dominate the existing competition, even sold at a substantial mark-up. That's obviously good for America," I rallied myself, "it's just a bit hard for me."
"Ice cream," Andromeda said, getting up from the couch. She came back with the actual ice cream carton putting it on the table. She scooped out a bowl's worth of ice cream for me and put the bowl into my hand.
"Well, at least we know who the robot's maker is," I said, taking a bite of ice cream.
Her eyes widened for a split second and then she schooled her expression, "What do you mean?"
"It's Stark, it's obviously Stark. That kind of energy efficiency? His still unexplained escape from captivity? The connection with the Ten Rings? It's Stark."
She let out a long breath, "I forget how smart you are sometimes."
"Seriously, though, is your workplace hiring?"
"Um," she said after a moment. "I mean, I don't know, but let me go make a phone call."
Yeah, I was obviously going to listen in on that. I ate my ice cream with my eyes closed, my ears straining through the door and the wall. She turned on the dishwater to drown it out, but my hearing was just that good.
"Hey Dad," she said. She was calling… her dad?
"Hi honey," he said.
"We need to get Mike onside," she said, her tone quiet but blunt.
"Honey, I hate to say this, but I don't think you're really being objective."
"He's Stark-smart. He's going to be rich. He gets intelligence analysis. Do you want another Howard Stark?" Wait, what?
"No, of course not."
"Right, so we need to move now on bringing him in."
"You could just deal with him now."Taking that to mean kill me.
"No, Dad. Look, I'm inviting him to Thanksgiving, he doesn't have any family, we need to make him feel welcome. He needs to know that we're his backers, set him up for later in life."
"Alright," he said, "I still think you just want to introduce him to your mom and I, but I trust your judgment."
"Hail Hydra,"
"Hail Hydra."
I hadn't been utterly shocked. I had considered that Drama might be Hydra. But it hadn't really seemed to matter at the time, she'd seemed so patriotic and sweet, I'd convinced myself I was considering that she might be Hydra to make myself feel better about manipulating her. So when the moment finally came, I only felt pretty dumb. Just goes to show: No matter how nice somebody is to you, no matter how polite, thoughtful, or decent they've always been when you're around, they might still be rude, careless, or cruel to others.
I'd managed to beg off saying yes for a day, during which I tormented myself and ate far too many sweets. I plotted up the obvious escape routes. I could find Coulson and tell him about everything - How I'd gotten here, what I knew, who my girlfriend was. I could contact Stark, help him find that element his dad hid, and hide in his basement for a few years. There were other plans, some more plausible than others.
But I hadn't. The reason I told myself was that I knew Hydra could give me access to two things: The Tesseract or, if that failed, the Scepter that contained the mind stone if we repelled Loki and Thanos' goons. In the long term, if I could get access to either I could use the stone's own power to destroy the stone. That would avert the Snap. If I did it fast enough, it would avert the invasion of New York. It also helped that, for me, Hydra were movie villains. I didn't have the kind of natural, visceral repulsion from it I might have had from Nazis.
So I was now in Louisiana in front of a big planter-style house for Thanksgiving in a nice button up and slacks, with my best mom-pleasing mindset and a set of pie supplies in a grocery bag. Drama was standing next to me, fretting in jeans and a nice blouse. "It'll be fine," I said, reaching out and pressing the doorbell.
"Take this seriously," she said, panic in her voice.
"Dear," I said, "I don't think looking like a nervous animal will make a good impression." In truth, I had set my 'focus' on my conscious control of my emotional expression and I had no intention of changing it for the rest of this terrible day.
She chuckled a little at that, which was good because her mom opened the door right then. Mrs. Albertson looked maybe fifty, though she had to be older, with slightly curly blonde hair in a cardigan and knee-length dress. She hugged her daughter, who was not holding any of the supplies. "Well, get in here," she said happily, touching my shoulder as I came through. "Put those in the kitchen, honey."
"Yes ma'am," I said, smiling. "Drama said that you didn't want my help cooking the meal."
"Oh, honey, I'm sure you're very good. I just have control issues, please don't take offense."
"Well, I just want to do whatever makes things easier on you, so if that's a chat while you cook or staying far away in the living room I'm happy to do whatever."
"Well, that's very nice of you, honey," Mrs. Albertson said as I pulled the pie supplies out and laid them out in an orderly, unobtrusive form. "I'll be sure to holler if I need company, but I think my husband wants to meet the first boy our Drama's brought home."
I grinned and took my leave of her with a, "Yes, ma'am."
Drama's dad, Mr. Gregory Albertson, was a serious dude. He'd fought in 'Nam in the early 70s, where he'd met Mrs. Alberson's brother, who he'd later go on to work with on numerous campaigns. Mr. Anderson was the financier after rising through Roxxon, Philip Holt, now the governor of Louisiana, was the glad-handing machine politician. No way of knowing which of those two was the "original" Hydra member, but it seemed likely one of them was. I didn't even know if that mattered.
Mr. Anderson was about sixty, a broad man with a thin layer of weight of extra weight over old muscles, and he still kept his hair short and professional looking. He shook my hand with an amicable smile before sitting down into a smooth leather chair in the living room, "So, Drama tells me you work in energy. Tough couple weeks?"
I wasn't quite sure which way to answer and please a Hydra member. Do you give them the pitch to let them know you were savvy or do you tell them the truth to make them feel included? "You want the corporate bullshit or you want the straight truth?"
"Hmmm," he said, "Corporate bullshit."
"Obviously, we're making changes to our long term strategy. Over the next year, we're moving away from wind production as a research avenue, doubling down on batteries as we start moving towards an abundant energy environment, and making more conservative projections on our solar expansion. Still, we have good reason to be optimistic that in low cost areas for solar, we'll remain competitive and be able to out compete even with Stark Industries. In rural areas, especially sunny ones, we have every reason to think we'll be outperforming the capital heavy strategies of Stark Industry for the next fifty years. Our product also has a broader international range and will be less closely held."
"Not bad, not bad," he said approvingly, "Now what's the straight truth?"
"We used to have to put our belt through the loops twice and now we're running out of notches, but I think we'll be fine in the medium term."
"Not a lot of people can say that if that's the straight truth," Mr. Anderson said, leaning back in his chair. "Things are crazy down at Roxxon, especially with the blow-up and this coinciding so closely."
If I had gotten this news in other contexts, I would,have pumped my fist in the air and started laughing. I had known the Oil Gas industry was getting hit worse than I was, the news that the blow-up was also wounding them just made it better. Roxxon didn't quite have the reach of Exxon-Mobil, most companies seemed substantially more aligned by nation in this world, but it was almost Standard Oil here in the United States and it had fingers in a lot of other pies. Watching it choke was going to be deeply satisfying. Hopefully, the proximity to the blow-up would stop them from risking blowing up New Orleans. "Rough," I said instead.
"We'll soldier through," he said with a shrug. "Roxxon hasn't survived seventy years without learning to roll with the punches."
After that, there was some innocuous conversations about business and
"You follow politics much?"
What do you say to this question to impress a member of an international conspiracy of authoritarians? "Oof, topics to avoid with the in-laws," I said with a laugh. He laughed too, but he didn't say anything so I went on. "I think it's important to have the right people in place, but I think most politicians are too eager to bend to public outrage rather than doing what needs to be done."
"Careful, my best friend is the governor," he said.
"I don't know a ton about governorship decisions in Louisiana," I said, which was a lie. I read around twelve hundred words per minute since my transition and I kept a steady stream of news from everywhere. Holt sucked. "His energy policy seems a pragmatic mix, that's about all I pay attention to." He wasn't a climate change denier, which was above average in 2009 oil state GOP governors, but other than that he had nothing at all going for him. "I hope you don't take offense."
"No, no, I think Phil would agree with your assessment," Mr Anderson said. The conversation turned back toward more innocuous topics. I thought I could see he was taking my measure and I thought I could see the approval I was getting were a good sign.
I pushed away the thought of how strange it was to be seeking the approval of a fascist. I was working assets, that was all.
As more extended family streamed in, I kept up a positive affect, smiling and grinning and asking a lot of questions and talking as little as possible. I held Drama's hand and talked to her in the spare moments, but once there were fourteen or fifteen people I slipped into the kitchen to talk to Mrs. Albertson.
"Good to see you again honey," Mrs. Albertson said, from where she was stirring a pot. "Trying to escape the crowd?"
"Parties aren't really my thing," I said.
"That's what Drama said, well, I get it, don't worry." she said, "Small family growing up?"
'Canonically' I was an only child without grandparents or aunts or uncles. "Yeah," I replied. "Pretty much just me and my parents."
"And now it's just you," she said with sympathy.
"That's the size of it," I said. My real parents were presumably still alive back in my home reality, but Don and Suzi Trent were dead as doornails. My backstory, told by my passport and their obituaries, was that I had been out globe trotting when they'd died. This was a convenient excuse for why I had no friends.
"Drama says she worries about your social life."
"I mean, I make it to church and work and I have a girlfriend AND I travel. How much of a social life can I have?" She hmphed at me with disapproval. Was she worried that I was a spy? Or was she just concerned that someone without any ties clearly had a lot of capacity to cut off her daughter? Well, either way, probably better to try and head this off at the pass. "Okay, that was glib. Look, I had some friends before my parents died, but… well, I don't think most people my age are really able to deal with someone so disconsolate. I wasn't in a good place, either, I don't know. Maybe it was my fault. It's just hard to get back out there for friends at twenty eight when the biggest experiences of your life aren't really there with most of your peers. I'd like to make connections, obviously, it's just hard." It wasn't hard to sound sad as shit, either. Being moved to another universe from your friends and family sucks.
That got a coo of compassion, "Oh, honey, well, you'll find your people soon enough. You found Drama, after all."
After that, I mostly asked Mrs. Albertson questions and listened to her answers while she cooked. In the old world, the main limit to that sort of thing for me was that inevitably you actually want to say something in a conversation. That was no longer a problem. Then there was a noisy dinner with lots of humor and food, a football game (I rooted for whoever Mr. Albertson did), a phone call to Drama's brother in Iraq, and a card game. I didn't throw it, but I didn't deliberately, relentlessly crush everyone like I had with Klaue.
When we were heading home, Mr. Albertson gave me a firm handshake and a business card, "That's a major finance officer I know," he said, "If you can show him how you stay afloat in energy, I think he'll write you a big check. Give me a couple days to warn him you'll call." I and thanked him, accepted a big hug from Mrs. Albertson, and headed out the door with Drama on my arm.
"You did good," she said, "They really liked you."
All hail the conquering hero," Drama said, kissing me as I stepped outside into the frigid cold of mid-December DC.
"Wini, Widi, Wici," I said afterwards, holding my face close to hers.
"Isn't it Vini, Vidi, Vici?"
"Well, it depends on whether you're quoting in classical or ecclessial latin."
She pulled away with a laugh, "You had achoiceand you picked the 'W' sound?"
"It's the one Julius Caesar used," I said, grabbing her hand and dragging my luggage behind me.
"Maybe go with the sexy one next time," she suggested.
"E tu, Brute?" I asked as we popped the trunk and I put my suitcase into it.
"Seriously, it's good to have you back."
"It's good to be back," I said honestly.
"That financing with Goodson Roberts was such a blessing,"
"Yeah, it's made a huge difference."
Say what you will about selling your soul to the devil, but the interest rates were very low. The financier that Mr. Albertson had hooked me up with could finance hundreds of millions of dollars at 0.25% interest, basically what the Fed lent at. I could hear the "And why not? Why shouldn't I keep it?" meme as I signed the paperwork. But I really couldn't think of why I shouldn't keep it - I had read the paperwork and, besides the company going to the loan officers in the event of a default, there wasn't much of a downside. What was the worst that could happen? Hydra getting access to solar panels and the profits from the sales of efficient batteries? Truly, the end of the world as we know it.
"Dad said you made a good impression on them too," Drama said, turning down the street.
"Kinda shocked a Roxxon guy helped me bailout like a third of the solar industry."
If Oil and Gas were limping, the rest of the solar power sector was absolutely on fire. The clean energy motive had driven the whole sector since it was still well over new gas prices and now there was actual, affordable clean energy to compete with. It was collapsing through the floor, businesses were going out left and right, leaving their factories and personnel open for acquisition. With the expansive capital from the loan, I could keep those people in jobs and get closer to the market growth I had been aiming for. It wasn't like anybody could know that I knew that I was borrowing from Hydra, after all, and once I had actual incriminating evidence I could hand it over to SHIELD for immunity.
"Well, we have to look out for each other, right? It can't be everyone for themselves. Did you enjoy your visits with my parents' friends?"
"Yeah. We all have to stick together. I especially enjoyed cooking for them." It had been mostly fine. Cooking while on a business trip wasn't my idea of a good time, but on my second dinner trip with some of these people they'd been so rude to the waiter I'd left a two hundred dollar tip. "I hope I made a good impression." I wasn't really sure what the ideology of Hydra was? So I just gestured towards an utopian apolitical government, authoritarian tendencies, and impunity for the people "in the arena" and never said anything too specific or ideological.
"Mm, Mom was getting calls. We're going to have like, a massive, gourmet feast this Christmas just so she can prove she's as good as you."
"Is that… bad?"
"Oh my gosh, we can't all be perpetually skinny like you. Also she's not."
Well, she wasn't wrong about her mom. "You're plenty skinny, dear," I said.
"Well, maybe I'm not eating enough then. You sure you don't want to have dinner tonight?"
"Ooh, judo move, no fair. I'd love to but I'm just so zonked, it's been non-stop," I kissed her goodbye, grabbed my luggage, and headed up to my apartment. I pushed the door open and let out a curse.
My apartment had been trashed. I at first thought I'd been robbed. I'd been gone a couple weeks, and it was an upscale apartment, so that wasn't totally unbelievable, but nothing had been taken. Maybe the Wakandans, SHIELD, or Hydra had come through to search the place. I'd have to do a sweep for bugs.
Technological progress amounts to little more in real terms than the ability to replace human labor with machine labor, liberating human labor for different activity. In this light, the greatest innovations of the twentieth century, after alternating current, were the washing machine, dryer, and dishwasher. Domestic labor that had tied up women for generations was replaced with easy, routine chores. Women entered the workforce, drawing incomes and allowing for massive growth of productivity.
In the modern era, eight million people in the United States alone worked in food service jobs. Most of these jobs were not particularly high paying or particularly With the existing technology in robotics in this universe, it would be possible to replace humans with robots. Tech was within the realm of possibilities. Cashiers were also largely, theoretically, unnecessary since you had visual processing systems that could easily identify items as they were sold.
Botler, my at-home robot butler, had been a wheeled platform with visual processing, a language UI, and four articulate limbs with a combined lifting strength similar to a human's arms. He had been my ideal manservant. My hope had been to replace all housework in one fell swoop and drag down food services with them.
When I made it to my bedroom, I saw Botler physically assaulting my bed like a rabid dog. Botler wasn't particularly well designed for mobility and his weight load was lower than mine so this wasn't exactly scary, but when he saw me he was not pleased.
"Abandoned!" he shouted, charging at me. I shoved him over and he started pushing himself up with his arms, "Abandoned!" he shouted again. I stepped downard on what was basically his spine and put my full weight on holding him down. I bent down, found the manual power box and flipped it open as Botler struggled.
"Botler, real quick, are you a person?" I asked. I wasn't sure what difference he would make if he was, he seemed to really intend me harm.
"Abandoned!" he shouted again. I turned him off, took out the machine brain, hooked it up to a computer and set to work figuring out the problem. After a few hours of looking at his brain, I figured it out.
You probably watched the Guardians of the Galaxy movies. Those societies seem to be more powerful and advanced than our own. They had empires that stretched across the stars. But when you watched them, you probably didn't ask, "Why hadn't all work been automated away? Why did pilots exist, of all things?" The only space AI I could think of ruled the Kree empire. I hadn't been able to figure out why intuitively when I got here, but I knew now.
The answer to this question is that all computers in this universe run on "AI Minds." At first, I didn't credit this as a large difference, just as an explanation for the improved visual and verbal functions of programs. It was also this trait that allowed people to engage in the sort of raw assaults that broke programs through cinematic style "hacking" that had nothing to do with our world style hacking. One machine intelligence would meet and crush another machine intelligence and then you'd have access. It was radically different from the way computers worked in our world, but it was within normal parameters from an observational level of normal people. I thought those two changes were all there was to it.
This was wrong.
While most programs don't really change, as programs became more adaptive (as Botler had), they organically grew personalities. This is not at all how programs worked in the old world. But here in the MCU? So it seemed. You know those two robot arms from Iron Man? Perfectly normal, not an aesthetic choice on Tony's part. Some of these personalities, if you could call them that, were less than the average complexity of an ant. If you had a translator program, it could translate words through the mind prism without growing much in complexity beyond that. Botler had reached roughly the level of a dog from household chores before he'd gone rabid and decided I abandoned him and that the proper response to this was assault.
But now I knew that I couldn't just design a bunch of robots to run the service industry and call it a day. There were tens of millions of jobs I would've replaced, some of them relatively complex. This was begging for an Ultron to kill us all or a Supreme Intelligence to rule humanity forever. In theory, a robot god-emperor might not be that bad - Certainly if it could protect us from Thanos' invasion, it'd be acceptable as a sacrifice. But the way it worked, you can't build an AI personality. I wouldn't know what kind of personality I was getting until I got it.
Imagine picking God's personality by rolling a dice on the alignment chart.
Yeah, that's how I felt about that idea too.
Even if I had gotten Vision, Vision had not displayed the interventionary interest to be an appropriate caretaker for the human race. To say nothing of the ethics of creating someone for our own benefit.
So that was my first plan on robotic transformation ruined and new dangers highlighted for my expansion of computer capacity. It was frustrating. Well, the key was to cut back, re-center, and re-work. The core thesis of replacing labor was still good, it could still be done. I just needed to narrow my focus, not design a robot multi-tools but single purpose robots. I needed to adjust for supplying to businesses and not individuals, which would mean adjusting for substantial capital resistance. I wrote a paper on my discoveries called, "The AI Mind Problem - Upward Limits On Machine Adaptability" in the hopes that nobody would recycle the problem and maybe Tony would think twice before inventing Ultron. I was more confident about the first than the second. Tony was Tony and even inventing Ultron hadn't taught him not to invent Ultron.
When a cop arrested a friend and roommate who really deserved it and said, "Aren't you glad there are cops?" and internally all I could feel was, "You dumbass, you broke into my house to arrest my friend, it doesn't matter if you're right." It was a snowy day near Christmas in New York City when I first met Tony Stark, five months after I murdered one of his oldest friends. I still think I'd done him a favor, spared him having to do it himself or finding out independently. But it was awkward to be around Tony, who had every right to be thrice as angry with me as I was with that cop. We were both being prepped for a TV roundtable, alongside an executive from Roxxon and one from Gilbert Coal. "The Future of Energy," is what it was called.
"So, kid," Tony said, "Really impressive work you've done."
"Thank you, Mr. Stark," I replied, feeling genuinely nervous. Not for the reason he probably thought, but still.
"I've looked at a couple of your panels, they're works of art. You really designed those without any kind of formal schooling?"
You know it's hard to talk to people when you've murdered their friends. "Yes sir," I said.
"You nervous? No need to be nervous, you look good. Pepper, doesn't he look good?"
"Tony," Pepper said with a huff as she looked up from a tablet she was using to make notes, "Yes, he looks good."
"See, Pepper thinks you look good. The cameras love you kid, you'll be fine."
"Done plenty of interviews," I said, a little defensively. Dang it, I did better with the Hydra agents. But this was different - Lying to Hydra felt fine, just being around Tony felt bad.
"I get it, it's intimidating being in my presence. I'm very intimidating," Tony said, slapping my shoulder. It took all my self-control not to cringe away. "But you'll be fine. I'm not here for you, I'm here for those guys," he forked a thumb over towards the fossil fuel executives we'd be sharing the roundtable with.
The problem was that I wasn't even here for those guys. I really was here for Tony, as far as it went. Tony was competition, the fossil fuel guys were relics on their way out and quite possibly financiers. If I wanted to make a good impression on Hydra, I needed to look like a team player. "Mr. Stark, this is a two man race," I said in a fit of honesty driven more by guilt than any sense of fair play.
Tony gave a little half laugh at that, leaning back in his chair. "You're right, of course. But you vs. me? Not high on my priority list these days. If you can get a few good licks in, I mean, good for you. I doubt it, but whatever. World's a better place either way, right Pepper?"
"Do at least try to give some thought for our stockholders," Pepper said from her chair. "Though, to my understanding, Mr. Trent is one. He bought in throughout our many, many downturns this year."
"Only a little," I demurred. Pepper snorted. 0.3% of Stark stocks was, objectively, a lot of money but it felt little in the context of Stark stockholders. Tony owned more than half and then a couple major holders held in the lower tens.
"See, I knew you were a fan," Tony said. I felt my face heat up, an emotional signal that thankfully wasn't transparent to Tony at all. "I was so cocky when I was your age. If I'd met my hero at one of these, I'd've told him I'd punch him out to prove how good I was. Modesty works for you, very appealing."
"Thank you, Mr. Stark," I said.
"Call me Tony," he said, standing up. "How do I look?"
"Good," I said. He did.
"Good who?" he asked, leaning forward and cupping his ear like he was listening very closely.
My additional social skills concealed the active internal war over the inappropriateness of referring to my victim's friend with his first name when I dutifully said, "Good, Tony."
"Let's go put these guys' businesses with the fossils they sell," Tony said, toying with his sleeves.
I felt pretty bad about the fact I was about to cut the legs out from under him, but I had warned him. The moderator waved us in one by one, saving Tony for last. I was second. It could've been worse. I shook hands with Roxxon's dark-haired, slick-looking executive and sat down next to him on the big glass crescent table, bright lights shining down on me.
I waved to the crowd and smiled broadly, greeted both Tony and Gilbert's rotund, graying representative with polite smiles and firm handshakes.
"Alright, welcome to the Future of Energy Round table," said the moderator, a pretty blonde in her mid-thirties, grinning into the screen. "In the past month, major announcements in power and energy have rocked the energy sector. Mr. Stark and Mr. Trent have both announced shockingly low and clean energy costs, from Arc Reactors and solar power respectively. Mr. Gilbert and Mr. Peters are here representing the coal industry and oil and gas industries respectively. Let's get straight to it, Mr. Gilbert, does coal still have a future?"
Absolutely not is the real answer. Coal was dirty, its extraction process was dangerous, its workers were expensive. It had no base-load advantage over Tony or natural gas, it was more expensive by a lot, it had already gone into natural decline by 2018 even with GOP squawking about saving it.
"Well, first of all, let me begin by saying I'd like to see Mr. Stark's Arc Reactor vaporware actually work before I decided to throw in my towel." Okay Gilbert. Just ignore my already extant solar panels. "Coal's been powering this country for a hundred years and these young puppies think they're gonna kill it in a weekend with their pretty faces. Well, miners are a tough people. They're able to make sacrifices. They always have." Yeah, but you're not a miner are you, Mr. Gilbert? You're the guy who sends them to choke on smoke. Second-generation coal money and you're old, too. You've never tightened your belt in your damn life.
"Thank you, Mr. Gilbert," the moderator said. "Let's turn to Mr. Stark, Mr. Gilbert is calling the arc reactor vaporware, how would you address that?"
"It's not true," Tony said with a shrug, "We have a large scale Arc Reactor that works, we have miniaturized ones that are also highly efficient. They've been displayed. You can see the repulsor system the table-sized one is still powering with routine maintenance. As long as palladium doesn't vanish from the face of the earth, we should be fine."
"Mr. Trent, do you have anything to say about Mr. Gilbert's statement that you are a 'young puppy' with a pretty face?"
"Right on both counts," I said with a grin, which got a polite laugh from Gilbert and the moderator. "Let me start off by saying how grateful I, and everyone at Trent Industries, am to all the coal miners who've put in all the work keeping the lights on here in America. We expect them to last a long time keeping us warm in the winter," We absolutely did not expect this. There was absolutely no way for them to survive what Tony and I were doing to them. "And we expect Mr. Stark's power source to underperform his projections. Tony's not known for his modesty, after all. But if it doesn't, of course, we're very much ready to match his prices." Tony rolled his eyes at me, which I definitely deserved.
"Mr. Stark, any response?"
"Mr. Trent's one of our bigger investors, so he knows we're delivering. Frankly, I don't know why he's acting like this, he knows we're good."
"All the more reason," I said swiftly "for me to fudge the truth in your favor. I think the Arc Reactors are a big deal - I have a lot of faith in Tony's ingenuity and I've invested heavily in Stark Industries - But the sort of jump he's promising is going to come with complications. Hope for the best, but expect the worst isn't really Tony's M.O. My solar panels are a sure bet, oil, gas, and coal have proven themselves. Tony's arc reactors are a good bet, I could and did put money on it. That doesn't make them a sure thing." This was all bullshit, but I honestly didn't care. A few months of better stock results for Gilbert and Roxxon, a few months worse for Stark Industries, it made no difference.
"Alright, gentlemen, you've both had a say, let's both move on."
Tony leaned back in his chair and shook his head at me, but didn't say anything more.
"Mr. Peters," the moderator said, "You're here representing the oil and gas industry. Do you think this is the end for you?"
"I think Mr. Trent has raised some valid points," he said, gesturing gratefully to me. "Oil and gas have been working for America for a century. Mr. Stark's present rollout pace won't even replace modern energy demands by 2025 in the United States alone and it's a big world out there. Moreover, cars, planes, and eighteen wheelers are all still powered by gasoline. Not to mention petrochemical usages like plastics, which we expect to continue to grow and expand."
"Thank you Mr. Peters," the moderator said. "Now, for the next question, Mr. Stark, what do you say to those accusing you of destroying middle-class jobs in the middle of the recession?"
"You know," Tony said, fingering the table, "I think it's really impressive how things like this wind up getting phrased. Okay, it's not my job to protect jobs that poison the atmosphere and choke their workers to death with black lung. It wasn't my job to keep people at work building bombs earmarked for little children in Afghanistan, it's not my job to keep people at work murdering the planet. We're creating new jobs every day, we're offering Americans a discount on their energy costs in the midst of the biggest economic downturn in our history."
"Mr. Trent, people are saying the same things about you, what do you say to that?"
"Well, I think Tony is being very callous to workers who've given so much to our country. But he's right that it isn't our job, what we need is real leadership on industrial and energy policy. The White House needs to start displaying real leadership in this crisis. Get the stakeholders, energy, labor, industry, experts, municipalities, into a room, lock the door, and force us to stop squabbling and start working on an economy that works to keep America at the forefront of the energy sector."
The interview went on like that. I would talk about how great fossil fuels were, how they still had a future that they didn't really have, get little digs in on Tony, imply that I thought we just needed all the smart people to sit down and talk it out like there weren't fundamentally different, competing interests. None of this was true, but when I got the buzz on my phone with Drama's text
Great job! You really knocked it out of the park, : )
I grinned. It definitely felt good to get her approval on this one.
I headed into the coat room, where I saw Tony and almost spun around and walked out.
"No, no, come in." Tony said, his voice tinged with acid.
I obeyed, though, grabbing my coat and starting to pull it on.
"You know those losers aren't going anywhere," Tony said. "Why're you simpering for their approval like that? They got you in their pocket?"
"Tony," I said, pinching the bridge of my nose. "Have you tried making friends? It might make this whole process a little easier."
"I get it, you want to hang out with the cool kids. Not who I would've picked for cool kids, but..." he said, yanking on his coat and patting me on the shoulder, "Don't give up. Maybe they'll invite you to their clubhouse."
I felt bad. I'd hurt Tony for his own good and now I'd hurt Tony for my own benefit. I wanted to apologize and explain, to say I was sorry. But the thing about apologies is that it's not enough to feel bad. You have to actually be sorry for what you did, to wish that you could change it.
I didn't say anything as Tony walked out.
People flatter themselves all the time about how much different they are from the worst people. I've known the worst people, you get a little under their skin, you read past the headlines and the mugshots - They're not that different from you. Andromeda's family was perfectly ordinary, except that they saw themselves as the worthy elite who ought to rule the world without even shame as a consequence for their failures.
This is, admittedly, a substantial difference.
But it doesn't make them unlikable or hard to be around. It just meant that they needed to be stopped. They were third on my list, I reminded myself. But right in that moment, so far from any progress on the Snap, third on the list felt very far away and the press of Drama's body and the laughter of the Albertsons felt very close.
The doorbell rang.
"I'll get it," Mrs. Albertson said, rising from her chair.
"We expecting anyone?" Drama said, leaning up from off of me.
"Hmm, could be," Greg answered. "We've heard about some friends who might be in town, they could drop by."
Drama, nodded and got up, walking across the room to fish a comb out of her purse. Had that been code for Hydra? She certainly seemed a little bit more nervous than usual. I obviously couldn't put it at ease, which was frustrating, but I wasn't stupid enough to say so.
When Mrs. Albertson returned, she came with a tall young man in business casual attire with a large hearing aid in his right ear. "Mr. Trent," he said, introducing himself spontaneously with an extended hand, "It's a pleasure to meet you."
"Pleasure's mine, Mr…?" I said, shaking his hand.
"Doctor," he corrected. What a cock. "Nicholas Greene."
"Nicholas is a research fellow at the Opertus Institute," Mrs. Albertson said, patting his shoulder. Opertus was a big research firm, like the RAND Corporation in my timeline. It was the policy shop of a lot of internationalist and technocratic movements throughout the world. Probably Hydra wholesale given the ideological alignment and name, but this guy definitely was, judging by the way that Drama was acting.
"An impressive set of credentials Dr. Greene," I said.
For the rest of the evening, Dr. Greene chatted and hung around. We ate dinner, cleared off our plates of the latest supply of heavy food that Mrs. Albertson loved to make, and chatted. Everyone was relatively deferential to him, a tact I followed. It was only as the evening wound down that he started hinting at why he had come.
"Your paper on machine minds, it was absolutely fascinating. You're really self taught?"
"You know, I don't think anyone is really self taught. But I didn't take a class, no."
"Fascinating," the man said. "I have been working along similar lines for some time at Opertus. Your conclusion on exploitation seems premature, no?"
Well, in a sense it relied on meta-knowledge. "I suppose anything is possible," I said slowly. "But there are numerous limits to exploitation of machine minds. The parallels between us and them is deeper than I expected, as I discussed with Botler, but I don't think it is exact. And you cannot simply invent an AI mind, it's too complex."
I heard a crackle from inside the hearing aid that wasn't a repetition of my words. "Feh, human mind transfers are possible." it whispered in an accent that was… swiss? "This man has speculated too far. Press him further."
What the heck? I wondered internally. Human-mind transfer? You'd have to manage an instantaneous picture of the whole mind and then you'd be sticking a meat brain into a machine body. It would be… I mean, impossible wasn't the right word. Very difficult and very chancy. I would not recommend attaching such a mind to any kind of vital system.
"Mr. Trent?" Doctor Greene said, as if I had zoned out.
"I'm sorry, I allowed myself to become distracted. Could you repeat the question?""
"The principles you are speaking of, would it be possible to extract and copy a mind?"
"Ah, I considered it with Botler, but the answer is that it would be very difficult. A machine mind isn't just lines of code, just as your brain is not simply a pattern of neurons. To do so would require a perfect picture of every element, and frankly I could not even begin to discern precisely how those elements would be identified and isolated."
"Perhaps you are overestimating your own limitations as more general ones."
"Perhaps…" But probably not - if Machine Minds were reproducible, they would surely have been a core part of Guardians of the Galaxy and they were not. Yet the voice on the other end of the line had seemed very certain that human-machine mind transfers were possible. How would you even do that? "I guess if you took a perfect picture of the machine and then copied it and simulated it? Not sure how to do that and then you'd have really nasty lag. At least on a machine mind."
"Well," said the little voice in the ear piece. "He is not wrong."
"Hmm…" Doctor Greene said, "And you are certain there is no way to construct a mind?"
Certainty would require testing, probably a lot of testing, but I do not consider it favorable."
"Ask him about our cause," the little voice said.
"Mr. Trent, you are a man of singular vision," he paused, as if considering something important. Of course, I knew he had already decided on his tact. I was leary of being dragged in too quickly, but it would be good to know what the pitch actually was instead of guessing around it. "Are you… frustrated with the present state of the world?"
"Isn't everyone?" I asked, doing my best to convey a barely contained contempt.
"Indeed…" Doctor Greene said. "Do you feel boxed in?"
"I could do so much more if I had been lucky enough to be born where Tony Stark was." This sort of elite self-pity seemed to be a running current across the suspected Hydra members. Upper-middle class and lower-upper class resentment, the sort of boiling feeling that they'd been cheated. It struck me, in reality, as being incredibly pathetic. My background here was the scion of two wealthy individuals, with a trust fund and factory. He'd had more than 99.5% of the world. But powerful people are often blind to these things.
"I agree. Cutting edge technologies in power generation and research in artificial intelligence? You're a renaissance man. You need more friends in powerful places, I can help you with that."
"How so?"
"The Albertsons and I are part of an informal network of sorts, just an association of people who can see talent for what it is. People who don't like being boxed in. Would you be interested in something like that?"
I leaned back and looked at him with a placid expression. I drummed my fingers. Of course, if I agreed to this, nobody could blame me. Nobody would ever or could ever know that I was aware that I was about to shake hands with Hydra. But getting into bed with Hydra might make eliminating them later on more painful to me personally, even if I hadn't signed on the dotted line.
I nodded, "I would."
As I said, third on the list felt very far away.
Spoiler