(A/N) Hey guys, we're back again with another chapter of X-Ray and Vav! Sorry that this one has been delayed slightly, I'm back in college now and juggling my new timetable and everything else has been tricking, but I'm working it out. Things should run smoother from now on! Would just like to thank everyone that has left a review in the past – your support means so much to us, and I'm going to get better at replying to you all, starting from now!
HiveLordLusa: Ha, I'm glad you liked it! You'll be seeing more of those characters in the future, don't you worry, but feel free to speculate until then! Would love to hear your theories! And as for Bullet-Beard and his future…well, you'll just have to stick with us and see what happens!
Also guys, we're currently looking for a new writer for Agent Connecticut (Connie/C.T.) for the second half of Phase Two: Betrayal, our Project Freelancer fic! If interested, either head on over to our forum – The Freelancer Collaboration – and fill out the relevant application forms, or send me a PM for more information!
As always, enjoy!
Chapter Thirty-Two – Edgar 1.0
Ryan Heywood / Iron-Ryan
Written by Gumby1011
"People think of the inventor as a screwball, but no one ever asks the inventor what he thinks of other people."
– Charles Ketering
Iron-Ryan surveyed his little "workshop" – a defunct warehouse on the outskirts of Achievement City. Or at least, it had been before, just a little while ago. Ever since moving into this new location, paid for with funds that the FBI had lent him, the cyborg had been hard at work. First he'd started with the building: while he made little to no modifications to its outside appearance, additional security measures were in order for adequate protection of the various technologies that would soon flood the decrepit old facility.
The rusted segments of the chain-link fence had been cut out, and replaced with brand new segments that Ryan had lovingly welded into place, link by link. It had taken some time, and he had needed to put on a not-at-all-subtle-looking trench coat and hat to hide his… condition. He knew the neighbours and passers-by were staring at him. He was likely creeping them the hell out, welding without even wearing a mask.
That was good. They'd stay away.
The hazardous amounts of electricity he'd began running through the fence, immediately after mending it, would help ensure this. While it was well within his capacity to build this line of defence in a totally-efficient manner, that wasn't what he was aiming for. He was sure to leave the slightest chinks every so often in the fence – large enough for menacing blue arcs of electricity to leap between them periodically, but small enough that not much else could make it through.
Next order of business: prepare for the now-imminent visit. Ryan, in his trench-cloaked disguise, the coat's wide collar flipped up to hide the metal of his neck, visited a certain stage-makeup parlour, purchased several metallic-coloured body-paints, and made sure to use the credit-card associated with the false identity his overseers in the FBI had afforded him, after the recent services he had performed for the city. While it annoyed him greatly to rely on them, he knew he would've just hacked into the appropriate databases and done the same thing anyways.
Then came trips to several hardware stores. Wires, sheet-metal, LEDs… he stopped by an electronics store and picked up a voice modifying synthesizer. Upon returning to the warehouse, he opened the loot he'd collected, and tossed the boxes in a vacant corner of the factory. Then he emptied a few of the skin-paint bottles, chopped up some of the scrap-metal in convincing patterns, scattered them about, and took everything else and buried it in a landfill.
When the police arrived to investigate neighbour's reports of strange noises lasting through the night, they found one Ryan James. He made no attempt to hide the grotesque metal portions of his face and body from them. The poor sod had apparently recently lost his job, on account of his delusions of grandeur. According to the man's story, he was a king of a foreign nation, who'd been the victim of a coup that sent him to the States to survive. They'd called him mad. So he decided he'd show them all. He claimed to have modified his own body, exuberantly ranting how he had built himself into Iron-Ryan, the Iron-Fisted King!
While the first officer had recorded his… story… The second had found all of the discarded stage-makeup and other gear that Ryan James probably used to achieve his "transformation." As Iron-Ryan watched the two walk off, he heard them through the surveillance system he installed.
"Harmless. Absolutely fuckingbatshit,of course, but harmless."
The second officer had nodded in agreement. "Yeah, I say we go to the next one. I get a feeling "Mad King Ryan" won't be going anywhere anytime soon."
Ryan grinned as he listened. For a moment he pondered on the fact that he'd just grinned, but soon returned his attention to his plans. Perfect.The crazier his cover identity was, the less likely the neighbours would report him again. He was just the harmless neighbourhood fruit-loop, right? Sure, people might put two and two together and connect him to the recent events in Achievement City, but the Bureau had spent a lot of time hushing those incidents up, or at least minimising the information that got out about it. He felt reasonably secure in his new home, and as a result he didn't bother concealing his body from the neighbours anymore, although he still spent minimal time outside. With the locals out of the picture, and the bigger fish backing him, he could now work on his projects.
First off: Golem diversification. He built a great many of them, obtaining the materials he needed through various means. Re-routing freight trucks for tech-companies, nabbing one or two of the huge, processed steel ingots from the local foundries… He had the first golems, a construction variant, excavate a large workspace beneath the warehouse. The large, high-ceilinged chamber would serve as a passable place of work while "Ryan James" let the living-space above fall further into disrepair.
As he looked around the chamber, carrying a large briefcase (containing a super-computer of his own design) and a toolbox over to a particularly large, chrome-plated golem. "Hello, there. Time for your check-up…" he muttered, and the robot lowered itself to the ground. "Thank you."
Ryan set the toolbox down, and it automatically unfolded into a small workbench, with numerous tools organized and scrapped to it. Ryan hooked a thick cable up to first the supercomputer, then the golem, and ran the diagnostics program.
"Good, gooood." The titanium armour plating had bonded to the endoskeleton quite nicely. This golem would likely be all but impervious to just about any attacker. Except for Mogar. And possibly the Enderwolf. And possiblya sustained heat-blast from X-Ray. At least he knew there was no way for any of the Community's current roster to take down this prototype…
Well, that Ryan was aware of.
That was one of the few thing that frustrated Ryan – his lack of knowledge on whom he was fighting against. And the fact that it somehow frustrated him only frustrated him further. He thought that the creeping resurgence of his human emotions was, for all intents and purposes, a gradual, terribly glorious miracle. But it made him untrustworthy. In his time spent without them, he'd come to a certain understanding. Emotion defies reason. It defiles logic. It skews perceptions, warps purposes, and caused good men to believe they fought for a righteous cause where none existed. Just look at the crusades.
Just look at Mogar.
Ryan completed the diagnostics program. The prototype was running at one hundred percent optimum efficiency. Excellent. He would begin mass production shortly, and then negotiations would begin for distribution abroad. His golems would serve the people, fate willing. They would work in tangent with police officers, bolstering and monitoring them. In this way, the police would have both a means to combat super-powered threats, and shepherds against their potential corruption.
There was no doubt that a majority of police were totally fine. But all it takes is one rogue element to cause a downward spiral in the state of things. It had happened how many times under his cold, observant gaze?
It needs to be prevented.
Ryan walked over to the automatic fabrication machine, and watched as small, chrome microchip was forged and assembled in a flurry of sparks, lasers, and tiny metal pincers.
It needs to be prevented…by any means necessary.
Satisfied with the chip's progress, Ryan chuckled again. Then he forced the grin off his face. There was no room for smiles. Leaving the workshop, he passed by the various fruits of his quest for the true answer. Golems were all well and good, but they were only part of the answer. They needed a fail-safe. Every system needed a fail-safe. In his quest for the final check in the world's uncertain system of balances, he had made many discoveries.
Outwards expansion.
If mankind couldn't get along, maybe some of them could just leave? But his colonization tech would likely be impractically expensive for another decade or so. He'd discovered a curious, parasitic mushroom that pacified hosts. But, alas, he was unable to alter it to let hosts retain free will. There were the weapons designed to terrify mankind into compliance. But there were still rogue elements. The "heroes." Observing them from a purely logical standpoint, there was but one honest label for them.
Hazards.
Ryan truly, sincerely hoped he was wrong. But then again, hope was insufficient. Action was required. Reaching the end of the hallway, he came to a small elevator. Stepping inside, the doors closed behind him, and the metal box slowly descended. With a small dingthe doors slid open, and Ryan stepped out to inspect his latest project. It could very well be the only thing the world could depend on, some day.
He slowly, cautiously, to avoid spooking him, walked to the opposite side of the room and pushed a button. A pair of robotic servitor arms retrieved a fresh bale of hay from the pile in the corner and placed it in front of the Ultimate Contingency. It seemed an unlikely vessel for such a dramatic name, but the reason for choosing this form were manifold.
It turned out that the Mogar Gene, once properly deciphered, was only implementable on mammalian subjects. Furthermore, it induced much heightened aggression. That meant the obvious – bears, lions, boars, dogs – couldn't be used. Additionally, X-Ray vision required a suitably complex eye: One that could tolerate the myriad stresses on it, yet interpret modified input properly. Even more so than typical, given its additional need for the microwave bursts. A well-mapped and understood brain would be required to implement the heightened reflexes the specimen would need, as well as the controls that needed to be put in place. And a precisely understood anatomy in general would be needed to get it to tolerate the spatial distortion caused by the Enderwolf's contribution.
This species had been the only real option.
Ryan softly patted the creature's back as it fed. While it had pained him greatly to perform the conversions, he had no real alternative. "Good boy… Who's a good boy…" The cyborg ran his hand over the scar on the back of the beast's head. The surgery had been touch and go, but he'd pulled through in the end. He traced the beast's back all the way back to just in front of its flank, where a brand rested. It read E-1.0.
As the beast fed, Ryan walked around in and crouched down in front of it. He looked into its eyes, which glowed a soft orange, as the pupils dotted back and forth, unnaturally fast. Ryan was unconcerned by this. It was perfectly normal. By the perceptions of the creature, all was well. The world had finally slowed down to match its content, ponderous pace.
Ryan slowly reached up and tousled the fur on the top of its head. "…Sorry to go so soon, Edgar…but I have things to do."
The beast let out a slow, mournful sound as the cyborg turned his back on him. It caused the machine to pause a minute. But then he was on his way again. Ryan rode the elevator back up, and reached the workshop. There, the auto-fab machine had finished its work.
Ryan lifted the microchip from the workbench, inspecting it closely. The modification's he'd put in place seemed to have been implemented flawlessly. Reaching up to the back of his head, he removed the chip already there. And he felt a surge of emotion flow back into him. It was horrible. Ryan quickly put the new chip in place, and the tumultuous surge in his heart rapidly, and totally subsided. Then the cyborg looked dead at the older, damaged chip now in his hand.
There was no room for emotion.
Not anymore.