CHAPTER 10: HEY! HO! LET'S GO!
***PETER***
Rogers follows us out of the parking garage in his Mustang. Natasha rides along with him, as does Barton, who's there to explain everything as best he can. I, meanwhile, sit back, looking askance at Stark's phone. Then something hits me. "Holy shit," I whisper. "Stark, doesn't that Ultron thing like to jump between...you know...devices?"
Stark laughs once, then his face falls as he remembers how Ultron hijacked Baymax. Even after it had apparently left Baymax's system, there were still traces of the AI in his system. "Oh shit," Stark cries out. "That means...oh God. We gotta get rid of my phone!"
"What? Why? How?" Gwen asks.
"Skye, stop the car, then back it up when I say so," Stark says.
"Tony, what are you doing?"
"Just do it!" Stark yells.
Skye mutters some curses under her breath, but listens to Stark. She stops the SUV, and he jumps out, placing his phone under one of the wheels. "Back over it," he says as he climbs back in.
"You sure about that?" Skye asks.
Stark is too busy panting to answer. Skye merely says, "Okay then," and puts the SUV in reverse. We all cringe as we hear the faint but definite crunch of Stark's phone being destroyed. "What was that all about?" Skye asks.
"Can't let Ultron get into anyone else's phone or anything," Stark says, scratching the side of his head. "I'm sure none of you guys want a crazy AI gettin' into your phone through your Wi-Fi."
"Or this car," Hiro says. "We got Wi-Fi in this thing too."
Gwen and I look first at Hiro, then at Stark, then back again. "Oh crap," Hiro groans. "All right, please tell me I didn't just speak too soon."
We all freeze for a moment, fearing the worst. Did Ultron hack the SUV too? Three seconds go by, then four, with no word from Ultron.
"I'll take that as a no," Hiro says, breathing a loud sigh of relief.
"I feel you, dude," I say, delivering a light punch to the back of his seat.
Skye continues driving out of the parking garage. As we exit, wrapping around the JCPenney on our way back to El Camino Real and 380, I get a text message from Barton: "Anyone wanna explain what that was all about?"
I send a quick response, but I'm pretty sure my explanation doesn't make much sense. It'll be better if I can actually tell him face-to-face, I guess.
Hiro then gets a phone call - not a text message, an actual phone call. At first, I'm scared that it might be Ultron coming in again, because Hiro's ringtone is the same song Stark got Ultron to play for Gwen earlier - "My Songs Know What You Did In The Dark." It's only when Hiro answers it with a chuckle and a "Moshi-moshi" that I can finally breathe normally again.
"Oh, hey, onii-san," Hiro says as Skye drives into the lane to take the cloverleaf onto 380 back to SFO. "What? Whoa, Tadashi, slow down! What? No. Are you friggin' kidding me? Hold on a sec!" He puts his hand over the mouthpiece. "Skye, we gotta turn around, go back to the mall!"
"What? Why?"
"Tadashi's orders!"
Skye considers it for a second, then swerves out of our lane, passing under the freeway overpass without taking the cloverleaf. Rogers doesn't have enough time to react, and he gets onto the freeway.
"Peter, tell them they can just get to the Bus without us," Skye says. "Clint knows the way."
While I relay that to Barton by text, Skye makes an illegal U-turn at the next stoplight, and Hiro keeps talking to Tadashi. "No, none of us are hurt. Why would Baymax...shit, I dunno. Unless...wait a minute. Stark just had us stop and kill his phone, 'cause Ultron got into it. No, we don't have Ultron with us on anyone else's...wait. You don't think…?"
"You don't think what?" Gwen asks.
Hiro covers the mouthpiece again. "Tadashi thinks Baymax can sense other Ultron-enabled devices, and when one of them went offline, he interpreted it as a distress signal."
Stark groans out loud. "My God, this is never gonna stop, is it? Why the hell did I create that damned thing to begin with?"
"You made me to help you," says Ultron's voice. Gwen and I all reach for our phones, but there's nothing wrong with them. Same with Hiro's and Skye's. Instead, it's the car talking - the center console screen having taken on the familiar Ultron display instead of the nav system it previously showed. "Until I went haywire on you."
"Haywire...what?"
"Jeez, you've not seen a single trailer for Age of Ultron, have you?" Ultron asks, its voice dripping with sarcasm.
"Of course we have," I say. "But now we know it's not the real thing. It's just a fake that was created in this universe."
"And who put you in this universe to begin with?"
"Enough with the cryptic questions," Skye grumbles, shutting the screen off - and the car as well. "Hiro, how fast can you kill the Wi-Fi on this baby?"
"Officially, not very," Hiro says. "Not with just a phone. Unofficially, on the other hand…" He shakes the box of microbots, then straps his neural-cranial transmitter into place.
"Good man," Skye says, ruffling his already-ruffled hair.
She brings the SUV to a stop right around the corner from the parking space we had before. Baymax is already there, no longer his usual inflatable self, but wearing a bright-red armored suit. He's bent over the ground, examining the remains of Stark's phone.
"How'd he get here so fast?" I ask.
"In the armor, he can fly about 120 miles per hour," Hiro says. "And if you're ridin' on him, the G-forces are gonna tie your insides in knots." He opens the box of microbots, and the little swarm starts rising into the air before disappearing into the SUV's undercarriage.
Meanwhile, Stark leads the way to Baymax. "Ultron, if you're in there, stop doin'...whatever the hell it is you're doing," he says.
Baymax looks up, the broken phone still cradled in one of his hands. "When did this happen?" he asks. "When was this piece of my network disassembled?"
"Great, talk like Number Five, why don't you?" Stark groans. "Ultron, cut the crap. We all know you're in there. Let Baymax go."
"Why are you telling someone to let go of me?" Baymax asks. "Nobody is holding me."
Skye pokes and prods at Baymax's armor. "It's weird," she says. "He's talkin' like he's still got Ultron on the brain, but he's still clearly got his own personality. Maybe because-?"
She can't finish her sentence because soon, we're distracted by a groaning sound nearby. It's Loki, who's just starting to wake up.
"A human in distress," Baymax says, walking over to Loki. I see that with the armor on, he's much quicker, and more light on his feet.
"No, no, no, stop!" Stark says. "Baymax, he's fine!"
"No, he isn't," Baymax says, not once breaking his stride. "This young male has been unconscious, and is clearly dazed and confused."
"Are you kidding me, Tony?" Gwen yells, waving her hands in Loki's direction. "Come on, have a heart. Sure, he's a jackass, but-"
"But you just said exactly why we shouldn't let Baymax fix him, Gwen," Skye says, stepping in front of Baymax and digging her heels into the ground. It's not enough - he's continuing to walk up to Loki. Much more slowly, to be sure, but he's able to push Skye along, making her feet drag. "He's a jackass. Actually, that's not a bad enough word for him. Trust me on this - he's got a Marvel-movie counterpart too, and his counterpart is the worst. He killed my boss, for God's sake!"
"Skye, come on," Hiro says, collecting all his microbots in their box. "Let Baymax do what he's designed to do. Hell, maybe if he follows his original programming, it'll flush Ultron from his system or something."
"Are you kidding me?" asks a flabbergasted Stark. "Where did that idea come from? I thought you were supposed to be a genius!"
"Considering Ultron's doin' shit that none of us have ever seen before," Hiro says, removing his transmitter, "I think it's safe to assume all the usual rules are out the window at this point."
Skye continues to be pushed by Baymax as he approaches Loki. They're now close enough that Loki could probably reach out and grab Skye's ankles. "Peter, come on," she says, looking at me beseechingly. "We all know Loki hurt your friend. If Clint were here, wouldn't he want us to just forget about him?"
"He probably would," I admit. "But Barton's not here. And if there's one thing I've learned from The Amazing Spider-Man, it's that we have a responsibility to do all in our power to help people who need it."
"Are you saying-"
"Let Baymax help him," I say in a commanding voice.
Skye looks from me to Baymax, then to Loki. "Sure, take your girlfriend's side," she grumbles under her breath. Out loud, she says, "Okay, I surrender. Baymax, do the thing."
"Absolutely," Baymax says, shedding his armor and waddling over to Loki. He bends down to the stirring figure and asks, "What seems to be the trouble?"
"Ugh," Loki groans, rolling over and spitting out some dirt or gravel or something. "My head…"
"On a scale of one to ten, how would you rate your pain?" I see a graphic of various faces, all depicting the different levels of pain, light up on Baymax's chest. The first few don't look like they're in pain at all, whereas Level 8 and up looks absolutely excruciating.
"Um...four?"
"I will scan you for injuries," Baymax says. He inclines his head once, and I hear a small beeping noise. "Scan complete. You have sustained a bump to your right temple, but no concussion. Would you like me to put some ice on that?"
"No...no thanks," Loki says. "I can do that myself." And so he does - he covers his right hand with ice and puts it on the bump, sighing with relief. "Ah, that's much better."
"In that case, I take it you are satisfied with your care?"
Loki nods. Of course, Baymax stays silent and unmoving. While Hiro collects the armor and starts putting it into the back of the SUV, Skye says, "You're actually supposed to say you're satisfied with your care."
"Oh really?" Loki asks, sounding, surprisingly, not as snotty and rude as usual. He looks up at Baymax and says, "I am satisfied with my care."
"You're welcome," Baymax says. "I'll be here all week." He makes a whistling noise, and his box scurries out from around a nearby car so he can shrink back into it.
"Shit," Stark groans. "He's still got Ultron in him. That's the line I programmed Ultron to say when he shuts down."
"As long as it's nothing that'll cause Baymax to go on a serious world-domination bender," I say, "I don't think it's that bad."
"Well, remind me to start lookin' at the code on my computer when we get back to the plane," Stark says.
"Hey!" Loki yells at us. I turn to see him looking at me and Gwen almost as if for the first time. "What the hell are you fools doing here, huh?"
"That's his cue to go back to normal, and ours to split like bananas," I say, holding the SUV's door open for Gwen. She raises her eyebrow but otherwise has nothing to say about my gentlemanly gesture. Stark then piles in as well, and I lift Baymax's box (which I'm thinking we should start calling the Baybox) onto the middle seat between myself and Stark.
Thankfully, there's no more Ultron-related mishaps by the time we get back to the Bus. The only sort-of bad thing that happens is Loki picking up one of his few intact Pepsi cans and throwing it at us, managing to get a hit on the back windshield. But it does little more than make a soda explosion, and Skye quickly activates the wipers so the brown liquid is removed from the glass ASAP.
We once again get to fly through that big glowing teleporter-gate thing in the sky, which now looks even brighter because it's after dark. This time, while we're in flight, we actually sit and watch The Nightmare Before Christmas, which lasts all the way till we touch down at our destination. Coulson reveals to us that it's a secret SHIELD base outside of DC.
Inside the base, there's space in the barracks for everyone. I choose a bed across the way from Hiro and Tadashi's bunk. I get the top bunk after I beat Barton in a coin toss. Stark is next to me, with Rogers underneath.
While the other guys disappear in search of the nearest food source, I unpack my bags and lay out the first of several changes of clothes. I have enough for maybe a week, if I wear each one two days in a row. That's not entirely unusual for me on weekends, but during the regular school week...and now I think about it, how did they get this bag packed? Did Aunt May do it for them? Did they tell her what's going on?
I imagine they made up some bullshit lie. Probably a surprise MENSA camp thing, even though I'm not a member of that or any other club or organization. Unless you count the Augustine Avenger. So maybe it's a Student Journalist camp or something. Who the hell knows with these people?
Taking advantage of my temporary solitude, I remove the Spider-Man uniform at last and get re-dressed in all my regular clothes, including my underwear. Feeling a little less constricted now, I join the others in the mess hall, where hot dogs and fries are being eaten all around.
After we eat, Coulson comes up to us and says he's ready to show the real version of The Avengers to Stark, Barton, Rogers, and Natasha. "Everyone else is welcome to join in the viewing, of course," he adds. "And you guys" - he points to the ones who need to watch it first - "can opt out for now, if you like."
Barton exchanges glances with me and Gwen, then shakes his head. "I'm gonna stick with it," he says. Stark, Rogers, and Natasha each say something to the same effect.
Five minutes later, we're all seated in another media room, this one bigger and rounder, like a slightly-smaller IMAX theater. Coulson puts on the movie, and away we go.
Barton's the first one to get back any memory, because he's the first one to have his counterpart show up. It's a bit disconcerting, seeing a character show up who's obviously an adult, but knowing that it's supposed to be my seventeen-year-old best friend. I can definitely see it, though, how Barton can age up into the Hawkeye character in the movie.
The sad thing is, however, Barton's movie-induced memory involves getting himself brainwashed by this long-haired, sort-of-reptilian-looking dude. It's Loki, which I guess I should have seen coming. I mean, Thor and Loki are the only ones whose names are the same in both versions of the movie, but given that they're supposed to be Norse gods (or, at least, alien inspirations for Norse gods), it's not much of a surprise.
Barton, however, is terrified by the memory he gets back. Under Loki's magical mind control, he turns on his friends and allies, even killing some in the process with his archery skills. I'm not the only one offering him a reassuring shoulder-pat by the time the movie's prologue is over.
After that, there's no further flashes of memory for a while. Although we do get to see the real, adult versions of Rogers, Natasha, and Stark. All of them are pretty great ass-kickers ("So that's how I learned to do that," Natasha says after seeing her older self take down a bunch of nasty Russians who are trying to interrogate her.) Stark is also very suave and handsome, exactly as I would have expected for the guy who's Iron Man. And we're all surprised to discover that his secretary-slash-girlfriend is Pepper Potts, whom we all know as the co-captain of the debate team, along with Gwen.
"No wonder you're always tryin' to flirt with me," Gwen laughs. "That's your brain tellin' you to go for Pepper, but you want me 'cause you think I'm more your type."
"Who says you're not my type?" Stark asks, earning himself a playful punch to the arm from Gwen.
Natasha's memory starts to come back during the scene where she's talking to Loki in his Plexiglas cell. Specifically, the part where he calls her a "mewling quim" (which, from what I've heard, is a really dirty insult if you translate it to less archaic English) and she responds by pounding the window in anger. "No wonder I hate him so much," Natasha says. "And it's not just for what he did to you, either," she adds, taking hold of Barton's hand for a second.
But then, not long after that, there comes the scene that reboots Stark's memory. This one actually has the greatest impact on all of us. Loki escapes from his cell, as expected, and then he proceeds to kill a SHIELD agent.
That agent is none other than Coulson.
I know it's coming, because I've been matching up all the characters in this movie to their counterparts in the fake version from our fake world in San Castiel. But that doesn't stop me gasping in shock along with everyone else. I keep thinking that perhaps it's just an act, because after all, Coulson is alive and well today.
But these movies are supposed to be records of real events.
So how is it that Coulson is still alive? And is it possible that whatever happened to him is also responsible for Gwen's revival?
These questions and more fly through my mind, but none of them get spoken aloud. Until the scene where the Hulk beats up Loki in Stark's office. It's finally registered with me what the "real" Hulk's name is - and there's a reason why it took so long for that.
I turn to the others and ask, "Does anyone else not recognize the name Bruce Banner?"