"This doesn't make any sense!" Peter said as he sat down hard on a chair, staring at the data stream that hovered in the air above them. To Steve, nothing about any of this made sense. He was looking at a window to another world.
"What we entered should fit with the rest of the code! There should be a pattern," Bruce said.
"We do know it is a hologram," T'Challa said. He stood up to stretch. He had been stooped over that computer for hours. "Of that we are sure."
"Can you recreate it?" Steve asked.
"We did, using the uncorrupted data, and this happened." Bruce swiped something, and a golden outline of Peter hovered above them.
"Captain Rogers," The image said. The sound was scratchy and blinked in and out a few times, but undeniably Peter.
"Just like something Tony would make but with no form, no interaction, nothing like Regina. She was real." As Steve spoke the words, a cold chill moved through him, an old memory, half-forgotten rose to the surface.
"Oh my God," he said the words as a prayer, not an oath.
"What, Captain?" T'Challa asked.
"In my other life, I came face to face with… someone, something, who said he stored his brain to a computer. I was in a room, full of technology Natasha said was ancient. The monitor came on; there was the face of a man who was supposed to be dead. He spoke to us, interacted with us as if he was in the room," Steve said moving closer to the image of Peter. "When we took down Hydra, when SHIELD fell, and when I found Bucky…" thinking about Bucky forced him to stop for a moment to regroup his thoughts. "In our world."
"Armin Zola!" Bruce said. "I read about that! He programmed a self AI with a face identifying camera and lots and lots of data. Did you get the impression that was actually him?"
"All I know is he spoke to us and answered our questions."
"You mean, something might be… alive in there?" Peter screwed up his face in an expression of pure disgust. "Eww… and gross."
"We were close to something similar in Wakanda. A theory we could preserve the essence of who a person was, in a mainframe. Thank you, Captain, if your theory proves correct, I think we can solve this part of the mystery." He pulled down the image of Peter and then ran his fingers over the keys. Bruce and Peter stared at the monitor with growing interest.
"Glad I could help," Steve said. Between the trio of geniuses and Wanda's efforts, he was feeling useless. T'Challa looked up at him and smiled.
Thinking of Wanda, he joined her on the other side of the room. This time she was playing with one of the coffee cups. Over and over she broke the cup apart and watched as it came together again, leaving her with no answers. She increased the force of her energy but nothing changed. She gave Steve a weak smile as he approached. This activity was obviously a drain on her system.
"How about taking a rest?" he said. "Try a different tactic in a few minutes."
She leaned back against the wall. "A few minutes," she repeated. "Time. How long we've been here? If something happens to Regina, will our world become unfrozen and will they carry on, wondering what happened to us? Will the portal close? Will we return and find its 100 years from now? Viz will think I left him…"
A sick feeling rose inside Steve. He was tired of being bounced around through time and space and just wanted to return to his life with Bucky. He hated not knowing where he was, not knowing if he was ok, but he couldn't rage out against that now.
"Why are you and Bucky keeping your relationship a secret?" She asked.
Her question was so unexpected and in line with his train of thought that it startled him."How did you…?" He asked. " You been reading my mind?"
She laughed and adjusted her position. " Not necessary. It's a cliche, like a line from a movie, to say I saw the way you were looking at him, but I saw the way you were looking at him. That's not the way someone looks at his best friend."
Steve leaned back against the wall beside her, so he wouldn't have to face her. "Keeping the whole thing quiet is Bucky's thing. He's sensitive, I don't care but he…."
"Does he think we will judge him? Or you?"
"Bucky and I are in a relationship. We love each other. That sounds simple enough, but there's more to it. He's… asexual, and he just found out. He's still getting used to the idea, and of us…"
"Oh. How, unusual. Are you both ok with how things are between you?" She asked. The same casual question Sam asked. No judging Bucky, no embarrassing questions, nothing that Bucky was afraid might happen.
"I have no problems with any of it." The pain of him being gone rose higher in his chest. I'll take him any way I can get.
"Then that is all that matters. When you see him again, tell him I won't judge him. How can I? My partner is an AI," she said. Now Steve looked at her and they exchanged a smile. When I see him…
"We'll see them again," Steve said, forcing himself to believe.
"I need to try something different," she said, changing the subject, which was smart. They had to focus on the here and now. She levitated the cup off her hand making it spin in the air in front of her.
"Maybe decrease the force of your energy bursts?" Steve suggested. "A kinder gentler exploration?"
"I was considering the same thing," she said, allowing small red sparks to escape from her fingers. The cup broke apart in slow motion. She pulled on piece toward her, her sparks floated through the air.
"Not snapping back. Maybe the thing absorbs the energy?" Steve suggested.
More sparks. This time the piece broke apart into even smaller pieces. She repeated the process, each time using a little less energy until little more than an ember entered went in. The piece of broken pottery now resembled a tiny golden ball. Wanda pulled it to her hand with the force of her mind and hovered her other hand over it. Waves of light rippled in the air as her fingers did their dance.
"Almost, natural, but, not," she said.
"I'm getting tired of hearing that," Steve said and instantly regretted his tone. None of this was her fault.
If his tone upset her, she didn't take offense. "Something infused them together. Tiny circuits!" She stood up and ran to the other side of the room, the tiny element floating alongside her. "This is programmable matter!" she announced, her face flushed with her success " Smal circuity, like a little computer. Millions of little computers!"
"Programmable matter? Like Vibranium?" Bruce asked.
T'Challa inspected the small piece of material. "That is NOT Vibranium."
"Nanotechnology?" Peter asked. "I wish Mr. Stark was here."
"That's for you to find out, but there is more to than just the technology," Wanda said. "Something I can't seem to penetrate. Something beyond my knowledge."
"I would guess that whoever programmed Regina, also programmed this," Bruce said. "They took disparate elements and fused them together to make something appear real…. almost like…"
"Magic," Steve said, then dismissed the idea as ridiculous but remembered how Bucky always came back to it. "They were able to make those portals."
"Aren't you… magical?" Peter asked, directing his attention to Wanda with hesitation in his voice.
"If this is magic, it's not like mine," Wanda replied. "I'm not… familiar with this." She carefully set the piece down on the table in front of them and the three scientific minds gathered around it.
'Now that's done, We can work on the rest of this room. Find out where the controls are. All we have to work on is this," Steve said, pointing to one vent close to the floor. Wanda nodded and knelt down beside it, allowing the slow stream of her energy to float across the opening. To her and Steve's astonishment, part of the wall peeled back, enlarging the vent. Peter, looking up from his work with the others, came over to join them. He knelt down by the larger opening.
"You know, if you make it a little bigger, I could crawl in there and look around. I'm the smallest one here… I'm flexible…"
"We're already a man down," Bruce said from his place at the table. "Tony would never forgive us if something happened to you,"
"But, he has a point," Steve said. "Damn it. We don't know where that leads…"
"I'm fast. If I sense I'm in any danger, I'll come back. I'm the only one…"
"I don't know…"
The lights lowered and brightened again. Regina was back, looking much as she did before but something was different. She had aged.
"Why have you not brought them back?" She snapped. Gone was their congenial hostess.
"We are doing our best," Steve said. She was unaware of what they had discovered. "It takes time…"
"This, this is the plague. I am alone now. After avoiding this sickness for so long, I have it, and you have failed. My people…"
"We will look after your people," T'Challa said, his voice kind.
"You will do your best to leave here and abandon them…"
"We will not leave them, you have our word." T'Challa insisted.
Her face softened for a moment, then screwed into anger.
"Why have you not brought them back!" she raised her arms and a flash of light emanated from her fingers. All of them were quick enough to dodge it but it struck a far wall. A large gash revealed what appeared to be conduits of circuitry. Before Steve could say anything, it was covered over like a wall again. Regina raised her hand again but this time Wanda stepped in front. A ray of bright light rebounded back. The lights lowered and Regina disappeared. They took a moment to recover from the attack.
"Is everyone all right?" Steve asked looking around. "Bruce, you ok?" Bruce nodded from a place under the table. T'Challa had backed up against the wall. 'Good thing we're all enhanced. I think she might have killed anyone else. There's circuitry under the wall…" It was just then he noticed Peter was missing. He must have taken advantage of the melee to disappear into the unknown.
"Peter! Damn it! Peter, why didn't you wait?"
A flash of light. The ones left prepared themselves for another attack but instead of Regina, an image of Peter flashed before them, standing in her place. The group stood still, in shock, unable to process what they were seeing.
The image waved a hand at them and smiled. "Hello, Cap!"