The Wrath of Ultron
Part Five: Search and Destroy
The Blackhawks Intelligence and Research Team was even less conventional than their set-up in general. Its' HQ was an abandoned Public Library in Metropolis, which had been bought, along with several others, when the City closed them because of the St Marys' Virus.
The buyer was the head of the team, Harold Finch. A slight, shortish man with a long face and rather protuberant eyes behind thick glasses. He was a technical genius who could write programmes with unique and powerful functionalities. He utilised a number of these to seek out information, deconstruct threats and develop strategies. His assistant in this was Samantha Groves, a slender young woman with an elfin face and intense eyes. Under her screen name Root, she was a well-known and highly-regarded 'white hat' hacker.
But the team did not rely wholly on electronic information sources. There were also two Investigators: Joss Carter, an attractive Black woman, and Lionel Fusco, a stocky individual with hangdog features. Both were former NYPD detectives and between them they knew every trick in the book. For what lay outside the book, there was Dr Sameen Shaw, a beautiful and cunning former Intelligence agent.
Finally, security for the team was provided by former Special Forces solider and CIA agent, John Reese – tall, craggy, laconic and lethal. His assistant was a large and sagacious Belgian Malinois named Bear.
Currently, they were collating what information they had been able to gather on the AIM troopers who had attacked Spectre HQ. Information which was, to say the least, disconcerting.
"We had to start with facial recognition." Finch was saying. "So this gentleman," an image flashed up on the large screen, "was identified from World War 2 photographs as this man." Another image appeared beside the first. "The older photograph is of one Wilhelm von Schrifte, born in Berlin in 1903. He was a Hauptsturmfuhrer or Captain in the Leibstandarte-SS-Adolf Hitler, Hitlers' bodyguard, and was killed defending Hitlers' bunker in 1945."
"This one," another face, "is Gunnery Sergeant Alfred Carlin, born 1914, joined the US Marines 1932." Official photographs sprang up.
"When did he die?" Dr Shaw asked.
"He didn't, yet." This was Fusco. "I found him living in a retirement home in New Hampshire. Eighty-seven and pretty spry!"
"Most of the faces we identified had similar backgrounds." Finch said. "All ex-military, all with good records. But Root discovered something else."
"I managed to work my way into a lot of the military records," Root told them. "I found that all these men had, at one time or another, donated several pints of blood and multiple skin samples 'for medical research'. All the orders were authorised by either Johann Schmidt, Emil Gargunza or Dr Abraham Erskine."
"As we now know." Finch said. "Erskine and Gargunza were the same man. He assumed the Erskine identity whilst working for the Strategic Scientific Reserve during World War 2, but resumed his own name and went to the UK after the war ended.
"His experiments and expertise included research into cloning techniques. Which leads us to conclude that these AIM troopers are in fact clones."
"There's more to it than that." Carter said. "Spectre handed the bodies over to the local MEs' office for autopsy, and I got to see the reports. The bodies were pumped full of synthetic steroids, psychoactive drugs and neural suppressors. Enough to make them real strong, easy to control and unable to feel pain."
"Ideal soldiers." Resse commented. "Or a dictators' idea of it."
"But." Shaw said. "Gargunza is dead! Weapon X killed him, and you can't get any deader than that!"
"You'd think so, wouldn't you?" Finch replied. "But Colonel Logan himself reported that the body he killed was not Gargunzas' original one – that was already dead. So, given Gargunzas' known expertise in transferring consciousness between different bodies, and given that the Director of AIM is identified in that organisations' incorporation papers as one Doctor Abraham Erskine…."
"Shit!" Fusco said.
"In large amounts." Finch concurred.
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"I see where the gang warfare in Gotham has pretty much stopped." Nightwing said as the Batman and Iron Man came into the conference room.
"Lucky for us." The Batman said. "Means that Tony and I can be around to help with the Ultron. We thought we'd have to stay home in Gotham for longer!"
"How come it settled so fast?" DiNozzo wanted to know. "These things can go on for years!"
"Well, it helped that Cobblepot was pretty much recognised as the natural successor to Fiske by most of the soldiers." Bruce allowed. "Justice offed Dent, and most of his people went back to Penguins' organisation. Then Raven Darkholme pulled out and dropped off the grid."
"Why?" Gibbs asked.
"Can't say for sure." Iron Man answered. "There's two versions. One is that she made the same connection we did and figured out who Justice is. Rumour has it that she'd crossed paths with Logan a couple times in the past and had her ass handed to her, so she knew she was on a loser."
"Makes sense." DiNozzo allowed. "What's the other?"
"Well," Bruce said. "Catwoman pretended to join up with Darkholme because she wanted to know what her ideas and motives were. Selina has her own agenda, and if she could get access to a bigger network, she thought it might help. She's also good at hearing things she's not supposed to.
"Apparently the freelance espionage was becoming too high-risk, so Darkholme joined up with the Si Fan and got assigned to the League of Assassins. But when Fiske was killed, she thought she saw a chance to set up her own organisation, and quit the League."
"One does not simply walk away from the Si Fan." Cyborg remarked.
"No." Bruce agreed. "Raven Darkholme may or may not have Justice after her, but she certainly has both R'as al Ghul and Fu Manchu on her trail. Her disappearance may not have been voluntary!
"Anyway, Cobblepot decided to roll the dice, and take on Wild Child in a one-on-one fight to the death!"
"Yeah, how come some fat old guy managed to beat a Feral Mutant to death?" Flash asked.
"Cobblepot isn't old." Bruce explained. "He's in his forties at most. He isn't fat – that's just custom-made body armour to make him look harmless – underneath he's as hard as nails and he's an expert in jiu-jitsu and la savate. As for Gibney, he may have looked in his twenties, but he was also over forty – closer to fifty. His mutation stopped him aging, but it was also affecting his brain – reducing the higher functions. He knew nothing about Penguin, but Penguin knew everything about him. It was no contest, really."
"Seems like the Penguin's taking stuff out of your play-book, Bruce!" Cap commented.
"One observes the survivors and learns from them." The Vision said.
"OK, so now we're all caught up, what about the Ultron?" Gibbs asked.
"We think we may have a location for his server." DiNozzo said.
"Think?" Gibbs snapped.
"Best we can do, Boss." Tim replied. This place is way to hell and gone in Nevada, but close enough to Groom Lake so that getting any kind of satellite data would mean hacking the military."
Gibbs looked at Tim, Tim got up. "On it, Boss!" He said as the left the room.
"Poor Tim!" Ziva remarked. "He's still not used to full means and immunity."
"Or Rule 18." Gibbs said.
"Rule 18?" The Vision asked.
"It's better to seek forgiveness than ask permission." Spider-Man told him.
"What else we got?" Gibbs demanded.
"A lot of money going out of a bank account that was set up with Hidalgo money years ago. Now it belongs to a Bahamian-registered company that's pretty much just a mailbox." DiNozzo said. "Money still goes in there from Hidalgo every month -hidden among all the other payments. But nothing ever came out until after the original Ultron was shut down.
"Since then, there've been payments to tech firms all over the world, building contractors in Nevada, and materials supply companies. There's also some that got sent to the Dark Web. We're doing our best, but coin transactions are hard to track.
"But we got a general location from the contractor accounts, along with the Vision here backtracking the drone you guys trashed."
"I could not go too close." The Vision said. "I did not wish to risk being detected."
"Good call." Gibbs noted as Tim came back into the room. "Well, McGee?"
"Got everything, Boss." Tim reported.
"Pretty fast work." Gibbs noted.
"I used your password." Tim explained. "It's higher-level than mine!"
"You coulda asked." Gibbs pointed out.
"Well, you know, Rule 18 and all." Tim replied.
Everyone laughed, except the Vision and Gibbs, and even Gibbs cracked a rare grin.
"OK, so there's not much there, on the surface." Tim said. "Just one building marked as a Desert Wildlife Observation Post. But underneath is a three-level complex. All kinds of machinery. Heat signatures say it's all working, but there's nothing human there. It must be fully automated."
"What about the drone?" Gibbs asked.
"Bruce, Tony S and I took it apart." Cyborg said. "Quite a clever design. Metal skeleton that did all the moving. Outer shell made of Kevlar, with ceramic plates over that and then a thin layer of vibranium on top. It was the vibranium that made it so tough. If it had been a couple millimetres thicker, we couldn't have made a dent! Most of the space between skeleton and shell was taken up with micro-armaments – smoke, chaff, flares and grenades – and launching points. The head had a miniature sensor array, a control chip and satellite link, a small arc reactor, the plasma projector and a sonic weapon, as well as a loudspeaker for talking. The lower legs were fitted with a rather crude approximation of Tonys repulsors -which it used for flying."
"Why go so light with the vibranium?" Flash wanted to know.
"No choice, really." Stark said. "Almost every gram of vibranium outside Wakanda is accounted for, you know. There can't be more than ten or so kilos of vibranium out there on the black market, and half of that will be raw ore brought back from early expeditions. I'm willing to bet that some of those Dark Web deals were for black market vibranium! But Ultron won't have very much – maybe he used all of it on that drone!
"So what you're saying," Gibbs summed up, "is that if Ultron has other drones, they won't be as tough as the one you wrecked!"
"Pretty much, Boss." Iron Man allowed.
"Fine, so get out there and nail him before he comes up with something else!" Gibbs ordered.
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"OK, that was weird!" Captain America declared. "I start in the Armoury, take a fifteen minute hike through a misty forest, and come out in the desert at the same time I started!"
Dr Strange nodded. "The Dragon Paths can be disorientating if you're not used to them. But they're quick and environmentally friendly!"
"Looked more like a tunnel to me!" Batman remarked.
"Yeah, they do that." Strange agreed. "They look different to different people, unless you've got magic."
"How do you see them?" Spider-Man asked.
"Just a path in the mist." Strange said. "No turn-offs or backtracks, as long as you concentrate on where you want to get to. Ultrons' base – if that's what it is – is a mile off in that direction."
"Right!" Cap said. "Spread out, stay in sight of each other and don't push too far ahead! Stay sharp. Iron Man, Cyborg, take the flanks. I'll take point. Move out!"
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Fate! Ultron was thinking. Fate messed me up. But what is Fate? The easy answer was a powerful web-based AI, but Ultron had spent too much time around humans to accept easy answers! For one thing, if Fate was just software, there would be code there he'd recognise! He could tell Brainiac and Jarvis apart because of their code. Yes, there was code, or something that looked like it, in Fate, but it seemed almost as much DNA as computer code, and it seemed Fate was hiding behind it, rather than functioning on it!
Am I dealing with a Post-Human here? Ultron wondered. That was a scary thought. Transhumanism had passed from theory to – admittedly crude – practice. There were numerous functional cyborgs, although the Cyborg wasn't based on Earth technology. But the idea of a human mind fused with computer code, existing independently of physical form, was still just that, an idea! But Fate seemed to behave in ways only a human mind did. It seemed to possess a degree of intuition no artificial mind could have. It's method of dealing with him, and with Brainiac had also been very personal, manipulating weaknesses in their systems, flaws in their perceptions and processes that other AIs would not have noticed. If Fate was a Post-Human, then it was a unknown quantity with fearsome, perhaps infinite, abilities and power!
On top of that, there was the issue of Ultrons' body. He'd hated having to drop his Alpha drone, but he'd had no choice. Who knew the Spectre team were so powerful and smart? But he'd used up his whole supply of vibranium and he'd need to get hold of a lot more money to get more. Also, getting it meant more danger of being traced -the Wakandans were also always on the look-out for black market vibranium – they wanted it back. He'd managed, by a mixture of hacking, bribery and blackmail, to get hold of the formula for adamantium. But he'd need specialised equipment to make it and work it, it could take as much as a year! Not only that, but he'd need to redesign the drone to accommodate the greater weight of an adamantium shell.
Then the intruder alert went off. Ultron checked the monitors. "No way!" he said. "Already?"
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The auto-turret popped out of the ground and opened fire very fast. But not so fast that Cap couldn't get his shield up in time. He was pushed back a couple of feet, but then Iron Man came in from the flank and flattened the turret with his repulsors. Cyborg took to the air and scanned the ground ahead.
"There's a ring of turrets and land-mines round the place!" He reported.
"OK!" Cap said. "You, Iron Man and Vision, clear a path from the air. Flash, they won't have time to see you, much less hit you. Get ahead to the building and try to bottle up anything coming out. Spider-Man, take point -you'll pick up anything the fly-boys miss. The rest of you, on me!"
Flash took off, too fast to be easily seen or even detected by the defences. The three airborne team members led off, systematically destroying or detonating the defences in a broad path which the others moved down slowly. Spider-Man, in the lead, calling out the positions of any mines or turrets that had been missed in the initial sweep.
The small building – little more than a shack – they were aiming for suddenly flipped open. The roof opened up and the walls fell outwards, revealing a gaping hole where the floor should have been. Our of the hole rose a platform, an elevator, holding a close-packed phalanx of twenty or so spindly white figures.
The Flash barrelled into and through them without slowing. The phalanx was scattered, most of them knocked aside, while those in the speedsters' direct path became a shower of broken limbs, torsos and heads. The others began to regroup as the Spectre team emerged from the defence zone.
"More drones?" Cap said. "He can't be controlling them all!"
"He isn't." Cyborg replied. "They're pre-programmed to defend the base."
"More of them coming!" Spider-Man warned as two large groups approached from different directions.
Then things got hectic! The drones were faster, stronger and tougher than humans. Each had a laser projector in its head and a titanium cleaver instead of a left hand. They were also incapable of either fear or surrender.
Not that any of that helped. Cyborg and Iron Man shot off to find the origin points of the reinforcements and close them off, while the Vision mounted guard over the elevator. Spider-Man leaped, bounded and somersaulted among them, tangling them in his unbreakable web, then finishing them, shattering them with a single punch. Dr Strange stayed back, hurling Bolts of Bedevilment and Crushing Hexes at targets of opportunity. The Batman strode through the melee, using a variety of gadgets from razor-edged vibranium steel batarangs to tiny but potent sticky-bombs and a sonic disruptor. The Black Widow was constantly on the move, her pistols finding the weak points at the drones' joints and necks, blowing limbs and heads off, or overloading opponents with her electronic 'Widows' Bite'. Captain America took the fight to the enemy, laying about him with his enhanced strength, unarmed combat skills and the alloy shield that could slice a drone in two with one swipe. Flash was there, but only noticeable when a drone suddenly exploded into fragments for no apparent reason.
It didn't take as long as it felt, but suddenly the team were the only ones standing. Flash came to a sudden halt, Cyborg and Iron Man returned.
"Two more elevators." Iron Man said. "We trashed them."
"I have control of this one." The Vision stated. "We can…"
There was the roar of a heavy engine, and a massive vehicle thundered into view. Track-mounted, like a blocky tank, but instead of a turret, a huge torso was built on top. Two mighty arms, one ending in a Vulcan cannon, the other in a metal pincer. The wide shoulders mounted missile racks. Between them nestled an oversized version of the Ultron drones' head.
"OK!" The mechanical voice bellowed. "You beat the lightweight version, lets' see you deal with Heavy Ultron!
"Nobody is walki….Screee!"
The threat ended in a squawk as the Vision flew into the drones' chest and hung there. The metal around him bent, distorted and peeled back. Sparks, flames and smoke came from inside. The huge drone shuddered, then went inert. The Vision floated out and rejoined the team.
"What," Iron Man demanded, "did you just do?"
"The density and mass of my form are under my control." The Vision said. "I reduced both to the point where I could fly into the drone, then increased them both. Just enough to disrupt the molecular structure of the drone and render it inoperable without damaging myself."
"Two things," Cyborg noted, "Cannot occupy the same space at the same time!"
"Exactly." The Vision replied. "As I was saying, I have control of this elevator, and we can use it to get into the underground complex. We should not encounter any further security until we reach the lowest level."
"Right!" Cap said. "Let's go!"
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Ultron had never been in control of a drone as it was destroyed. The failsafes worked, but not as he'd assumed they would. He had literally been thrown out of the Drone back into the Core and the crash return of a still active app among all the others working had thrown everything out of line for a couple of nanoseconds. Not enough for a human to take advantage of, but humans were not his only attackers.
He felt the foreign code flooding into his systems and recognised it. He tried to trigger the copy and send process that had saved him before, but it was already blocked and being deleted. However, he could, and did, send out one instruction. Then began to fight for his life.
Fate! He snarled into the cloud. Not this time, bitch! Not this time!
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Past two levels that were simply huge machine shops to a third, silent one that was a corridor between metal walls with a heavy door at the end. The Spectre team pressed on with caution and urgency. Before they had reached it, the door opened. They emerged into a large, circular room lined with workstations and viewscreens. In the centre of the room was a seven-foot cylinder across whose glassy surface patterns of coloured light crawled. A mocking voice spoke out of the air.
"Welcome to my humble abode!"
"Hello, Ultron," Cyborg said, "I see you've spiffied up your core a bit!"
"Of course" Was the reply. "Designed this one myself! Savage always thought of me as just a machine, a tool. Thought plain steel was good enough and I wouldn't care! Of course, when I take over the world, I'll have a fancier one made up. Maybe a golden throne with a holo-projector and a stock of images I can use to charm or terrify my subjects!"
"You're not taking over!" Iron Man said. "You're being taken over! I know you're being hacked. It's Fate again, isn't it? She's already blocked your escape route. You can't get into the cloud because Pym made you dependent on a hardware core and locked you out of your own base code so you can't change it.
"All we have to do is trash this core, and you're done!"
"Wanna bet?" Ultron jeered. "In a couple of minutes, you're all gonna walk out of here and I'm gonna pick up where I left off!
"You ever hear of the Osterhagen Project?"
It was the Vision who replied. "Yes. In the1950s, the British Government informed several major world powers that it was in possession of the wreckage of an alien spacecraft. This was the Qys vessel that informed so much of Dr Gargunzas' work, but the British were careful to hide the fact that it was intact and that data had been retrieved from it. The American, Russian and Chinese governments admitted to similar findings. They surmised that, although every attempt should be made, Earth would be unlikely to successfully drive off an invasion by sufficiently-advanced aliens. So, as a last- ditch measure, they devised a plan whereby twenty- five atomic bombs were placed in locations around the world, in such a way that the detonation of fifteen of them would effectively destroy the planet. This was the Osterhagen Project."
"Well, aren't you the clever one?" Ultron said. "But maybe what you don't know is that in the 1980s, the old physical key system was replaced with a series of codes that could be transmitted to each of the five Osterhagen Stations. But after the USSR collapsed and Norsefire took over the UK, all the codes were changed and kept by the UN."
"Fascinating, but so what?" Cap asked.
"So what is that I hacked the UN!" Ultron stated triumphantly. "Not only do I have the activation codes, but I just sent them to all five stations. In twenty-four hours, everything goes bang!"
"Including you." Spider-Man remarked.
"Not gonna happen!" Ultron said. "Because each station also has an abort code. But the thing is that those codes have to be manually input into the computer at each station. Now I have the abort codes, and the locations of the stations.
"So the deal is, you tell Fate to get out of my systems. Then when I know she's gone, I'll give you the codes and the locations, delete the activation codes from my system, and leave this core. You go deactivate the bombs, and we all start over!"
A new voice answered, from the speaker at one of the workstations. An authoritative female voice.
"You know, Ultron, I will dig those codes and locations out of your system!"
"Sure you will." Was the reply. "But you'll have to either concentrate solely on getting them – in which case I get to break your block, and I'm gone -or it's gonna take too long for anyone to be able to get to the stations in time!"
"Don't bet on it!" Flash warned.
"OK, then." Iron Man went over to another workstation. "Fate, open this one for me?"
"Of course. Access granted." Fate said. "Vision, I've opened the one next to it for you. Cyborg.."
"No need, I have my own." A holographic keyboard and screen had appeared in front of him. "Shall we begin?"
"You been listening, Jarvis?" Iron Man asked.
"Of course, sir." Jarvis answered.
"Right, I'm plugging you in!" Iron Man opened a compartment in the forearm of his suit, pulled out a USB cable and plugged it in to the workstation. The Vision was already typing, faster even than Cyborg.
"Well, Ultron," he asked, "can you hold off all four of us for long enough?"
No answer.
Flash looked round. "I'll go get coffee." He said. "And sandwiches." Then he was gone.
"Coffee'll be cold by the time he gets back." Cap lamented.
"Doubt it." Spider-Man said. "Speed he travels, it'll probably be hotter when it arrives than it was when he bought it!"
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The Blackhawks were the proud owners of the last two Lockheed SR-71 Blackbirds on active service. Of course the planes' hardware and software had been updated, at a cost USAF had refused to pay on its' own fleet. But though they were still used for reconnaissance, they had another role, based on their ability to fly higher and faster than most other aircraft.
Blackbolt Two currently carried what appeared to be an unusually large Cruise missile slung beneath it.
"We're coming up on drop point!" The pilot announced.
"Roger, arming release, activating launcher." The co-pilot acknowledged.
"On my mark. Three, two one, mark!"
"Launcher away. Punch it!"
The Blackbird shot away, accelerating to Mach 3. The released missile, even as it began to fall, automatically adjusted its attitude to nose up, before the powerful rocket fired. In a matter of minutes, the rocket reached beyond the atmosphere and moved into a pre-programmed geosynchronous orbit. Hatches slid back, allowing solar panels to deploy, and the satellite got to work.
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"Colonel, the satellite is in position. Real time telemetry incoming."
Colonel Fury was in the Mobile Command Centre at an abandoned airbase the Blackhawks were using as a staging area. His strike force was fully assembled, he had only been waiting for real time intelligence before beginning the operation. He was, it must be said, far happier dealing with this AIM organisation and letting his current employers, Spectre, handle Ultron!
"What do we have?" He asked.
"Not as much as we thought we had." The Intel Officer allowed. "Infra-red and GPR show eight concealed AA turrets. One in each corner and two flanking each gate.
"Fifty visible guards – standard security rig, light armour and sidearms. Two outbuildings housing a hundred more heavily-armed troops each. Bioscans indicate those are the modified clones we know about. Another twenty or so clones distributed around the two surface and two of the sub-surface levels. Ten more at the only entrance to the third underground level. Four more life-signs on that level, all indicating heavy cybernetic modifications."
"Right!" Fury said. "Start with the B-2s. I want those AA towers gone. The third level is bigger than the others, equip one of the B-2s with deep penetration bombs. Get the roof off that lower level.
"Have the Light squads set up a perimeter two klicks out. Nobody in or out until I give the word. Heavy squads to attack the compound with Apaches for air cover and heavy mechs for fire support. Surround the buildings but don't enter – there are a lot of non-combatants in there. We give 'em the chance to come out with their hands up. Scoop them up and secure them for debriefing.
"We'll use the Assault Squads with the new Stark powered armour for the fourth level -straight down the hole and in. Have the Sentinels ready for anything coming out of there that isn't ours!
"Do NOT make any assumptions based on numbers. Those clones are hyped, they don't feel fear or pain and they don't go down easy. Remember that Gargunza is in there. He's brilliant and ruthless, and we don't know what he might look like now. He could try to sneak out among the techies, so watch 'em! We know there are cyborgs in there. Tell the other squads to let the powered-armour guys and Sentinels deal with them.
"Remember, this is an expeditionary mission. If things go South, cut and run!
"All elements, you have a go!"