March 6th
As it turned out, Peggy kept true to her word, arriving at the shores of North Brother Island in the dead of night, under the cover of darkness as all the lights on their small boat had been shut off, and the two supersoldiers made their way towards Othrys without the use of flashlights.
I knew they had arrived the moment Radcliffe's expansive sensor network picked up their boat when it approached the island, and despite their impressive stealth skills, I easily tracked their progress as they crawled through the underbrush. As such, when they arrived, they found the truly massive front gate of Othrys wide open, with no guards in sight.
Of course, this unexpected welcoming sight only served to make them more paranoid, and they spend a good fifteen minutes hiding in the same spot as they examined the looming shape of Othrys, seemingly unbothered by the pouring rain. However, I didn't exactly have the time to pander to a superspy's paranoia, so I did something a little bit mean.
I woke up Susan.
The T-Rex, which had grown to be about as large as a van in only three months, had her own paddock inside the thick walls of Othrys, but spent most of her day outdoors, terrifying the local bird populace whenever she wasn't pestering my people for attention and treats and the like.
This meant that she had made a nest for herself roughly in the middle of the island (seems instincts die hard, even in technically extinct animals) where she spent the night whenever the weather wasn't too bad, which considering her internal body temperature, was most nights.
Including tonight.
Using the sensor network that covered the island, I made an alarm go off right next to Susan's nest, waking the dinosaur from her sleep with a start. As the overgrown lizard looked around in confusion, a small trail of barely noticeable lights lit up, forming a trail from her nest towards Othrys, like the wisps of legend.
Susan, as intelligent as she was, had become used to this method of bringing her back to base in just a couple of times, and she usually went along with it because whenever she followed me or my people's commands, she got treats. So, seeing the familiar trail of soft lights, the firebreathing lizard got up and started making her way towards the fortress.
Here's a fun bit of trivia me and my people discovered:
Apparently, T-Rex could sneak.
They were pretty damn good at it too, if Susan was anything to go by.
All of this meant that two supersoldiers, lying in the dirt as they looked warily at the open gate of Othrys, failed to see the 3 ton dinosaur creeping up behind them (though in their defense, the pouring rain did a lot to mask the sound of Susan's approach). That is, until Steve picked up the faint sound of heavy breathing coming from above them, and looked up.
Straight into the grinning maw of a T-Rex with glowing fiery eyes looking back down at him.
In an impressive feat of speed and reflexes, Steve didn't utter a word, or even an embarrassing yelp, instead grabbing Peggy by the arm and bolting from their hiding place, hauling ass towards Othrys' gate in a dead sprint that would leave Usain Bolt befuddled.
Susan, always eager to play, gave a challenging roar, and started chasing the supersoldiers.
Here's another little bit of fun trivia for you:
The top speed of the original T-Rex is estimated at around 17 miles per hour, or 27 kph, as the rest of the world would say.
And they didn't have superstrength.
Meaning that I was nearly laughing my head off as I saw Steve do an incredulous double take when he realized that the enormous lizard was easily keeping pace with him and Peggy, the dinosaur's smirk unmistakable.
In a matter of seconds, Steve and Peggy had burst through Othrys' open gate, emerging onto the open plaza between the front gate and the actual fortress itself, blinking in surprise as they saw me casually leaning against the wall, giving a jaunty little wave as they stared at me in shock.
Peggy quickly mastered herself when we heard Susan's footsteps rapidly approaching, reaching out to me and grabbing me by the arm, looking up at me with a look of determination and the very slightest hint of fear.
"Close the gate! Close it now!"
Whatever she expected, it wasn't me chuckling in response.
"Close it? Whatever for?"
Before Peggy could recover from her shock, Steve approached us, his trusty shield already on his arm and ready to throw.
"Because of the monster!" the supersoldier hurriedly explained as he took his place in front of Peggy, obviously intent on making his stand there.
"Monster? Susan isn't a monster, Mr. Rogers. She is a valued member of Titan Solutions, and I'll thank you for not using such degoratory terms in the future." I said imperiously as I walked around the two supersoldiers, walking at a leisurely pace towards the still open gate, right as Susan slid inside.
Her eyes literally lit up when they landed on the two interlopers, but before she could chase them some more, I raised my hand, lighting it up with Extremis, waving it back and forth a little.
It immediately got her attention, so I let my hand drop as I took a relaxed stance, staring the dinosaur straight in the eye.
"Thank you for bringing my guests to me Susan. Sorry for waking you, you may go back to bed now."
At my words, Susan slowly turns to look at the still on guard Peggy and Steve, before she turns to look at me again, and I can clearly see disappointment and annoyance rise within her.
Shooting me a look that clearly said 'this is what you woke me up for? Really?', Susan turned on her heel, and began making her way back towards her nest, but not before making sure that the tip of her tail smacked me in the head.
Had I been a baseline human, that would've sent me flying, but Susan is careful to only pull such moves with people she knows that can take it, so I'm not that mad at her.
Still, I intent on raising my firebreathing T-Rex right and proper, dammit!
"HEY! Don't think I'll forget that! That's no more treats tomorrow for you, young lady! And don't bother begging Melvin for any this time Susan, I'll tell him not to give you anything either!"
Looking over her shoulder towards me as she stalked off into the rain, she let out a dismissive chuff that could only be translated as 'whatever'. Sadly, she was right not to fear any retribution. I could tell Melvin a hundred times over not to give Susan any treats, with him earnestly nodding along every time I did, but all it took was Susan tapping him on the shoulder and he'd have one ready for her.
Turning with a sigh towards the gob smacked Peggy and Steve, I gave a shake of my head as I shrugged, walking past them towards my floor atop Othrys.
"Teenagers, am I right?" I say blithely as I walk past the supersoldiers, and it takes a full five seconds before I can hear their footsteps hurry to keep up with me.
It's a relatively short walk to my office (only about five minutes at my pace), and as I take a seat behind my massive desk, I can't quite contain my smile as I see the two absolutely soaked people in front of me warily sit down, eying my dry clothes with some envy.
With a body temperature like mine, soggy clothing is a thing of the past.
"Well then, Mrs. Carter. I am surprised to hear from you so soon. I trust my information proved valuable to you?" I say smoothly as I lean forwards on my desk with a smile.
Briefly, Peggy and Steve share a look, before the 90 year old soldier gave the 90 year old spy a subtle nod, clearly telling her to take the lead on this. Giving a slight nod in return, Peggy gave me a serious look, and the mood in my office turned a lot sharper.
"We didn't follow up on your intel until about a week ago. We went over it five times with the finest comb we could manage, and tried to verify as much as we could. We then planned a mission towards Camp Lehigh in such a way that not a single person on your list would be made aware of it. That took a depressingly long amount of time, to be honest."
"And the Camp?" I asked as I leaned back in my chair.
For a moment, Peggy falls silent, her lips pressed close together to form a stern line.
"Brought back a lot of memories. For the both of us." She finally said, and it was clear from her tone that she disliked talking about what came next.
"We entered the camp, found the bunker and inside it we found… Zola. He… I don't know what the hell he did, but he managed to put himself inside a computer, just like you said. That's when things started to go wrong."
"Oh?" I asked, perfectly feigning shock as I sat up straighter in my chair, giving the spy an inquisitive look.
With an angry growl, she slammed the stick I gave her onto my desk with enough strength that, had it not been reinforced, she would probably have cracked it.
"Your stick didn't work! We questioned him, and then when we heard enough, I tried to kill him, and it did nothing! He wasn't deleted! He called a missile strike on us McCole!" Peggy ground out, her eyes blazing with anger, and as I look closer I can finally spot the subtle signs now that I can see them in the light of my office.
Their clothes are caked in mud, but now I can spot the rips and tears in the fabrics. Their faces are smudged, but only now are the slight wounds and faint scratches visibly underneath the dirt. Looking at Peggy's hand on my desk, I see that she's lost a fingernail, as well as the skin on her knuckles.
"Still. You are here, and since I doubt he was mobile when he called in the strike, I assume he is dead?" I ask with a raised eyebrow, to which Peggy finally lets up, giving a tired nod as she leans back into her own chair.
"We believe so, yes. Unless he escaped into the internet somehow, which is a possibility, considering he managed to remotely call in an airstrike, and Zola was never one to make the ultimate sacrifice. Very un-Hydra like in that aspect, to be honest." Peggy mused as she stared up at the soft light coming from the ceiling of my office, Steve sending her a concerned look, to which she responded with a genuine, if tired, smile.
Ignoring the by-play, I feel ice crashing through my veins at the spy's words. Zola's death had never quite sat right with me back in my old universe, but I had never been able to put my finger on just why. But this…
Sure, everything from what I remember from the MCU pointed towards Zola being truly dead, but as Killian and the Mandarin had shown, my knowledge wasn't absolute and infallible.
Zola in the internet… that was a truly terrifying possibility.
Which made my next Step that much more important: no matter what, Othrys must never be hacked.
Leaning forwards, I reach over towards the stick that Peggy had slammed onto my desk, twirling it between my fingers as I try my hardest not to let any excitement I feel over the fact that I now have most (if not all) of Zola's tantalizing secrets in my hand, from showing on my face.
Since neither Peggy nor Steve suddenly tensed up when I picked up what they believe to be a faulty stick, my efforts were apparently effective.
"You say that it didn't work? Did you insert it the moment you reached Zola's remains?" I ask, as I pretend to be puzzled over my stick being 'faulty'.
"No, not immediately. Like I said, we interrogated Zola first. There were questions that needed answers before we killed him." Peggy said stiffly, and I can only imagine what a shock Zola's revelations must have been to her.
"I doubt that he was all that willing to give you the answers you sought. Am I correct in thinking that you used this stick as a threat in order to force him to cooperate?" I ask sternly as I glance over towards Steve, hoping that the earnest soldier will allow more of his emotions to show on his face than the now closed-off Peggy.
Still, I should've known better than expecting a man who spent his entire military career in the top branch of Special Forces to crack so easily, and Steve's face remains as impassive as Peggy's.
"Yes, we did. It was the only way that he would be willing to talk. Or at least, answer our questions: he was more than willing to talk, but it mostly involved the standard evil monologuing, and some vague threats about how the world shall in time be cleansed." Peggy said sourly, probably still haunted by the revelation that Hydra killed her close friend Howard Stark.
"Ah. Well that would do it. I imagine that, by showing your hand, you allowed Zola enough time to put up firewalls which would stall my program long enough for him to escape." I say gravely, as I place the stick on the desk with a practiced look of grave disappointment on my face.
Peggy gives a soft curse, while Steve merely frowns at my words. Leaning forwards in his chair, the supersoldier gives me a serious look, his face set in grim determination upon hearing that one of his greatest enemies might have escaped.
"Can you get anything from that device? We talked for a couple of minutes with Zola, and judging from the way he was boasting, Hydra's got something big coming. The stick didn't manage to kill him, but maybe while it was in there it might have picked something up? Something that we can use to track it down and stop it?" Steve asks, though he's clearly still a bit out of his depth in regards to modern-day electronics, or even 70's electronics for that matter.
Placing a carefully considering look on my face, I narrow my eyes as I gaze at the stick lying on the desk, before slowly giving a nod.
"Yes. Perhaps. I can make no guarantees I can pull something usable from it, Captain Rogers, but I'll do my best. The fact of the matter is, any information we may learn from it will be limited, simply because it was never designed for such a purpose."
It was specifically designed for just that purpose, but I'm not going to tell them that. I'll see just what Hydra has got planned, and release bits and pieces to Steve and Peggy, essentially pointing them in the directions I want them to go.
"We understand. Anything you can glean from it, anything at all, no matter how minor, might help us in the fight against Hydra. Whatever it is they got planned, if it's as big as Zola made it seem to be, then the entirety of the world is in danger." Peggy says as she leans forwards, fixing me with an earnest look.
"Of course. I'll do anything in my power to help in fighting the good fight alongside you, Mrs. Carter, and you as well, Captain Rogers. Still, as moving as your trust in me is, I cannot help but wonder about something." I say as I casually pocket the stick holding some of the most valuable data in the world.
"Which is?" Steve asks this time, and turning towards humanities' greatest soldier, I allow a small smile to grow on my face.
"Why come to me? Why not bring this information back to S.H.I.E.L.D.?" I muse out loud, and after a brief silence, it's Peggy who speaks up.
"Don't pretend to be ignorant about this McCole. You know about Zola, you know about Hydra's survival, and Nick told me that he saw you recognized him on the spot, just by his face alone. It's clear that you somehow know more than you should, so don't try and push it by pretending not to know well over half of those names are S.H.I.E.L.D. personnel. With the Agency compromised, and with you clearly working against Hydra for some reason, you were our next option. That being said, don't try to play coy with us ever again. We're willing to look past your unusual amounts of knowledge as long as we share a common enemy, and because of the enormous debt the both of us personally owe you, but don't do anything to make us reconsider that." Peggy says sternly, clearly unamused.
Making my eyes glow brightly in the dim lighting of my office, I fix the superspy in place as I gaze over towards her, my face neutral, but my voice hard.
"Careful there, Mrs. Carter. Those are some very strong words, and I do not appreciate being spoken to like that in my own office. As you said, we are allies in this fight, there's no need for there to be any animosity between us. I admit pretending not to know about your quandary regarding S.H.I.E.L.D. being compromised was in poor taste, but I think we should look past that faux-pas, and instead focus on our true goal: stopping Hydra from burning down the world in order to rule its ashes." I say sternly, my rumbling voice easily filling the room.
After a short but tense pause, it's Steve that first speaks up, clearly trying to defuse the situation without setting either one of us off.
"I agree. We should be fighting Hydra, not accuse each other. Peggy?" he says, looking over at the silent woman, who's clearly still not entirely comfortable with trusting me as much as they were about to do (and with good reason, honestly).
Still, eventually she was pragmatic enough to realize that with my help, fighting Hydra would be far more doable than going at it solo, and with one final searching gaze, she acquiesces.
"Fine. I'll lay off as long as you promise to be more open with the knowledge you possess. Deal?" she says, holding her hand out towards me.
Without hesitation, I reach over and give it a firm shake, a determined look on my face.
"Deal." I say.
I have absolutely no intention of holding up my part of the deal, but there's no way for either of them to really verify that, so let them believe the lie I'm selling them.
"Now then, with that out of the way, allow me to ask if either of you require accommodations for the night? Othrys has room to spare, so it won't be much trouble." I say, but Steve denies my offer with a shake of his head.
"We can't stay, I'm afraid. There are still people within S.H.I.E.L.D. that need to be told the information we've uncovered, so that we can start recruiting allies. We'll be on our way, Mr. McCole." He says as he rises from his chair, me and Peggy following suit (I amusedly notice that Peggy seems somewhat disappointed at Steve denying them a warm room to share for tonight).
"Call me Michael, please. And I understand, no rest for the wicked unfortunately means that the good guys get depressingly little downtime as well." I say with a big smile as I open the vault door of my office with a wave from my hand.
"Simply follow the signs that will appear on the walls, they will lead you to the gates. From there, I trust you can make your way back towards where you moored your boat. I'll start decrypting the information on the stick immediately, I will contact you should I find anything of use." I say, extending my massive hand towards the door.
Peggy and Steve share one final look, before both give me a curt nod, and then they're gone, presumably on their way to inform Fury of their findings.
As the enormous door falls closed with barely a whisper of a sound, I lightly tap against my desk, which calls up two screens, one with Sterns' face on it, the other showing a picture of Radcliffe. After a few rings, the pictures are replaced by a live feed from the scientists themselves, who look at me with equally sleepy expressions on their faces.
"Michael? Wuh's happening?" Sterns mumbles, as he blinks a couple of times at the screen.
"Yeah. Do ya have any idea what time it is?" Radcliffe adds groggily.
"Sam, Holden, get dressed and meet me at the lab on sublevel four. I finally have Zola's secrets: it's time to initiate Operation: Respawn." I say with a grin, seeing their faces lit up as they're suddenly wide awake at my words, before I shut the screens off, hurriedly making my way down towards sublevel four myself.
Time to get to work.
March 9th
While the three of us began parsing through the information the stick had managed to copy from Zola's databanks (which turned out to be practically everything) in search of how he managed to upload his consciousness, I still had other projects going on.
Which was why, at three in the afternoon, a screen suddenly appeared on one of the walls in the room where Sterns, Radcliffe and I were doing our research, showing Jessica's caller ID.
With a quick swipe of my hand, I took the call, Jessica's face appearing on the wall. Judging from her surroundings, she was on one of several boats used by Titan Solutions for travel to and from the Island.
"Hey Michael. I got Pangborn with me here. We're about fifteen minutes out, where do you want to meet in that big ass fortress of yours? And don't say your office again, do you have any idea how exhausting it is to walk to the top of Othrys and back again every time you want to talk to one of us? It's almost like you're overcompensating for something…" Jessica trailed off, raising a challenging eyebrow as she smirked.
Ignoring Sterns' and Radcliffe's snickers, I placed the enormous server I had been carrying gently onto the floor, before I walked over towards the wall, crossing my arms in front of my chest.
"Ok, first off: you can literally fly up to my office. Two: we have installed this radical new technology called elevators, you may have heard about them? So just quit your bitching Jones, and bring Mr. Pangborn to the main hall, I'll meet you there. Oh, and FYI, I'm not compensating for anything, thank-you-very-much." I said, seeing Jessica grin in response right before I shut the screen off.
Turning on my heel, I saw Radcliffe and Sterns giving each other knowing looks from the corners of their eyes, smirks on their faces as they didn't even pretend to not have been listening.
"Oh shut it you."
Pangborn and Jessica were already sitting in my lobby (and I had a proper lobby this time, instead of the cleared space with two couches and a sad potted plant, like in the old headquarters. I had simply taken Burstein aside, shown him a picture of the halls of Moria as I remembered it from the movies, and the scientist had gone wild.
Of course, my hall was much smaller in scale, but it still had proportions that could rival cathedrals, while still retaining a distinct sci-fi feel to it, due to the materials used to build it and the furniture that occupied it.
Pangborn, clearly impressed, was so busy with gawking at his surroundings that he barely noticed my approach until I was only a couple of feet away, whereas Jessica merely lifted her head just enough for her eyes to peak over the edge of the magazine she was reading.
"Mr. Pangborn! A pleasure to meet you! I'm so glad that you decided to accept my invitation." I called out, and the man somewhat nervously stood up, looking warily at my outstretched hand, before he visibly steeled himself and gave it a frim shake.
"Well, after I heard your offer of healing me, how I could I say no? To not have to continuously focus in order to merely live like everybody else…" the sorcerer said softly, gaining a compassionate nod from me.
"I understand, Mr. Pangborn. With the technology at my disposal, I see it as both a solemn duty as well as a privilege to help innocent people regain the quality of life that they deserve." I say gravely, masterfully ignoring Jessica's eyeroll at the bullshit I'm spewing.
"However, if I may be so bold to ask for something in return? I'm not going to ask for money or anything like that. I merely wish to learn magic, as you have." I say casually, enjoying Pangborn's shocked look as I reveal that I know that magic is indeed real.
"Magic? I'm sorry, what-"
"Perhaps this will show you that there's no reason for you to hide your abilities, Mr. Pangborn." I interrupt him, summoning my Meteor Fist, the bright glow throwing his face in clear contrast.
"You are the Iron Fist?!" Pangborn asks with a gasp as his eyes remain fixed on my flaming hand.
"You know about him?" I ask in surprise.
I mean, yeah sure, it wasn't exactly as if there were that many different mystical hideaways in the world, so it made sense that they at least knew about each other's existence.
Still, to immediately recognize it on sight…
"The legendary protector of the Seven Capital Cities of Heaven, who plunged his fist into the heart of Shao Lao the Undying, the Last Dragon? Yes, I know about the Iron Fist. Despite the isolation of K'un-Lun, his legend is well known amongst the Masters of the Mystic Arts. It is said that Agamotto himself was taught there, before he decided to become Earth's protector, and founder of the Sanctums." Pangborn gushes as he hesitantly reaches out towards my hand.
Seeing no harm in allowing a Master Sorcerer to study a power that I don't fully understand yet, in the hope that he can give me some answers, I allow him to softly run his fingers over my glowing skin, my eyes widening with interest as I see a familiar orange glow dimly light up from Pangborn's own hand.
"What's happening?" I wonder out loud as I study the glow coming from the sorcerer, its color starkly reminding me of the effects of spells and the sling rings as they had been shown in the Dr. Strange movie.
"Your chi… your very lifeforce… I have only ever felt this level of power from the highest ranking masters in Kamar-Taj, but never so concentrated… I can feel its healing energy press onto me just by touching you." Pangborn says with amazement, a grin coming to his face.
'Healing energy, huh? Now that sounds useful'
"I'm sorry to interrupt, Mr. Pangborn. But I am unfortunately not the Immortal Iron Fist."
My words clearly shock Panborn, who looks at my flaming hand with wide eyes.
"But… this power… I have never heard of anyone managing to unlock their chi to such an extent. How did you come by this?" The sorcerer asks flabbergasted, and I allow a small smile to form on my face.
"I too, punched a dragon in the heart, awakening this power. I call it the Meteor Fist."
Hearing a snort come from beside us, I roll my eyes.
"Oh shut up Jessica, it's a cool name and I'm sticking with it." I say tiredly, getting an amused shrug from the woman as she keeps on reading her magazine.
"Whatever you say boss. They do always tell you to agree with crazies after all."
"Now listen here-"
"Ah, excuse me, but you said that you punched a dragon?" Pangborn cuts in, unfortunately sparing Jessica from my truly magnificent tirade.
Turning towards my guest, I give him a nod, which causes him to frown in confusion.
"But… how? Shao Lao is the Last Dragon on Earth… on any Earth. If you did not defeat him in order to become the Immortal Iron Fist, then how-"
"Now that's an interesting tale. One which I feel might be best told by someone else. If you'd please follow me to the lab of Dr. Hansen? She has had a hand in the creation of the dragon I defeated, and indeed in much of what you see here at Othrys today."
Getting a nod from the crippled sorcerer, I prepare to leave with him in tow, before I can hear Jessica get up from her lounge chair as well.
"Wait, I'm coming with. Hansen still hasn't told me when my Extremis will be ready, and I've been patient long enough. I want to breathe fire too!"
"I pity New York. Truly, I do."
"Oh shut up, you're way worse than me."
It was a thankfully short trip towards Hansen's wing of Othrys, though Pangborn was looking relieved when I said we had arrived, clearly tired from the endless back-and-forth between Jessica and me (as grouchy as the both of us acted around each other, I quite enjoyed it whenever we did that, as it always allowed me to relax a bit from the manic rollercoaster my life had turned into for the past year).
Approaching the double automatic doors, I waved my hand next to the wall, and a red strip briefly blinked before turning green. With a hiss, the doors opened-
WHOOSH!
-and a burst of flame slammed right into my face, with Pangborn yelping in surprise at the sudden light and heat.
For a moment, I think that Susan's been playing hide and seek again, before a woman's voice calls out through the thin veil of smoke.
"Sorry! Sorry! I'm really sorry about that, I was working with the squirting cucumber, and something must have set it off- oh, hi Michael." Came Hansen's voice, and as the dust clears, I can see the scientist sitting at a desk, on which several different species of plant are placed in glass boxes.
One of the boxes has shattered, and a flaming piece of greenery is lying on the floor, which Hansen fearlessly picks up with her bare hands, before securing it in a fireproof container for later study.
What? You though I wouldn't have the scientist who'd be primarily working with volatile energy and intense heat enhanced with Extremis the moment I could?
"Wait, hang on. There's a plant called the squirting cucumber? Seriously?" came Jessica's voice, and I feel dread pool in my stomach at the clear amusement I can hear in her tone.
Hansen appears completely oblivious though, intent on clearing away the shards of glass, careful not to agitate the plant any further.
"Oh yes. Well, that's what it's commonly known as. It's real name is Ecballium elaterium, and it's the only species in the genus of flowering plants in the family Cucurbitaceae, which-"
"Yeah, yeah, whatever, that's not important."
"Jessica." I say warily, but the woman gleefully ignores me.
"There's something far more important."
"Jessica. Don't."
"Hey Michael. Guess what?"
"Jessica, I'm asking you not to."
"You just got squirted on by a plant! Ha!"
"… Goddammit Jessica."
"What the hell are you doing with that green thumb of yours, huh?"
"You done?"
"For now. Until I figure out more gardening puns."
"You're never going to give up on this, are you?"
"Nope! Sterns has the metal bones thing, and now I have your tantalizing relationship with plants!"
"… fuck my life."
For a moment, I just stare tiredly at the grinning Jessica, until Pangborn speaks up behind my massive frame.
"Crazy. All of you are absolutely crazy."
March 12th
Hansen had quickly explained that, since Extremis had clearly worked as intended on human subjects, she had gone back to her earlier research on plants, with some nebulous idea in mind regarding possible organic defenses for Othrys Island, and even farming and the like.
After carefully ignoring the unusually active looking Venus Flytraps that were swaying in their boxes (but not after firmly pointing Hansen towards the plaque I had hung in every lab in Othrys, detailing the rules of SCIENCE!) I asked Hansen to tell Pangborn what happened at New Year's.
After she told the sorcerer her story, and revealed to Jessica that the specialized Extremis would be ready in a few days (after which Jessica thankfully decided to leave. She had been searching gardening puns on her phone the whole time), Panborn and I started talking about magic, while Hansen prepared her measuring equipment and specialized monitoring rooms.
With Zola's procedure in mind, I was unfortunately forced to skip the basics (such as, what exactly the difference was between chi and magic) and instead jump immediately towards the subjects of souls and consciousness.
While clearly somewhat uncomfortably talking about such advanced magic with someone who had never even set foot inside one of the Sanctums, Pangborn nevertheless tried to answer my questions as best as he could, citing his rank as Master as giving him the authority to share his knowledge with whoever he wished.
As it turns out, yes the soul is very much real, and is tied to a vessel. In most cases, this vessel is the body, and once the body perishes, the soul is released, and travels to the afterlife, which may change depending on the life you lived (if you were Wakandan, than Bast would guide you to the Green Valley, if you were a vile enough person, you ended up in Hell instead).
Occasionally the soul may remain tethered to the Worldly Plane, and inhabit a new vessel. This new vessel may be another body, or it may be an item, in which case it is referred to as a phylactery. Both cases are heavily frowned upon by everyone who isn't part of the very darkest of cults and it usually takes immense amounts of magical energy in order to fully bring back a soul from the Astral Plane to the Worldly Plane into a vessel it wasn't meant to inhabit, which is why rituals concerning these acts often require a sacrifice of some kind (hence why they are so frowned upon).
It was a testament to the Ancient One's enormous amount of power that she could use herself as an anchor to send someone's soul (or spirit, the two terms are pretty much interchangeable from what I gathered from Pangborn's lessons) from their vessel into the Astral Plane, and then return them as well, though she's helped by the fact that the soul returns to the original, healthy body after only a short time, meaning that the connection between vessel and soul is about as strong as it can possibly be, meaning that less power is required to unite the two.
With those two notions in mind (1: a vessel must be constructed for the soul to inhabit, the closer to the original body the better, and 2: magical energy is required to transport the soul into the vessel and bind the two together), I finally had the last requirements in order for Zola's procedure to be fully successful, instead of merely creating an identical copy, which I think is what Zola had done.
Radcliffe and Sterns and I had worked tirelessly ever since Peggy had handed me the stick, just going over all of the intelligence it had managed to copy from Zola's databanks, before we finally managed to find the data on how he transferred his consciousness from his flesh and blood body to an electronic mainframe.
The process was horrendously complicated, but thankfully for us, Zola was a perfectionist: even after the procedure had worked, he had not stopped going over the original process, and in the past forty years had gradually added small changes and improvements, which should allow us to pull off Operation: Respawn, especially when taking Radcliffe's and Sterns' genius into account, under the supervision of Pangborn.
I hadn't asked Dr. Hansen for this because, even though she was heavily involved with the magical research Titan Solutions was doing she was still fairly new, meaning that I didn't fully trust her for this, and because she had been Brain Boosted so recently, it hadn't allowed her yet to fully grow in fields outside of her specialization.
Sterns had gone from a geneticist to an omnidisciplinary scientist because of his original gamma mutation granting him unparalleled raw genius, but the other scientists, while admittedly reaching amazing levels in their original fields, were much slower to branch out as much as he had.
They did it far easier than most, and even after only a few months, Hansen was already at least competent even in fields widely outside of her own expertise, but they never quite managed to reach the same level of genius as they did in their original field.
It's why I hadn't asked Burstein for this. With the Brain Booster, the man was not only one of the premier geneticists on the planet (if it weren't for Sterns and Hansen, he would hold the top spot), but as his invention of ferrocrete proved, he was also becoming an accomplished chemist and engineer.
And still his skills paled when compared to Radcliffe's and Sterns' when it came to programming and the like. I was fairly certain that in that regard Radcliffe would've outshone most of my Think Tank even before he was Brain Boosted himself.
Despite his recent addition to my company, I had no choice but to include Pangborn in the process as well. I was the only person he taught magic to (though he allowed Hansen to monitor my attempts for her research) meaning that he was the only one with the skill necessary for the job. Still, curing his body and hiring him to consult at Titan Solutions for a very generous fee meant that I could count on at least enough loyalty from him to not sabotage the procedure.
I hope.
I was there mostly because I my power would be necessary for the successful completion of the process and because I was the leader of the project, though admittedly I was somewhat out of my depth regarding the scientific mumbo-jumbo that Sterns and Radcliffe were spouting based on Zola's notes (though to be honest, I was something out of my depth regarding the magical mumbo-jumbo as well). I was smart, easily smarter than at least 98% of the total population in fact (and that was a very conservative estimate, considering that still left roughly 140 million people smarter than me), but I was nowhere near on the same level that my superscientists operated at.
Still, I was clever enough to at least comprehend how Zola had gone about cheating death, or at least the general basics of it.
The first step was just transfer of information. In a move that eerily reminded me of the Memory Halls shown in Ready Player One, which I saw only a month before I switched universes, Zola had digitally stored every single aspect of his life that he could remember, which basically amounted to just about everything, with exception of his earliest childhood and some surprisingly wild years in college.
Once the foundation had been laid, he had written thousands of programs, which were designed to mimic his behavior based on the available data (his extensive memoires), mainly dealing with situational responses. They could be fairly simple (how would he react to someone saying 'hello') to ridiculously complex algorithms (how would he feel about that someone saying 'hello', factoring in the weather, that person's ethnic background, the day he had had so far, the location he was in, the people he was with, and what he had for breakfast that morning).
After basically creating a copy of himself in programs and algorithms, came the truly genius part of Zola's masterplan. As I said before, Zola is a perfectionist; he wouldn't be content with himself dying and a mere copy surviving, a program pretending to be him. It had to be him. So he recreated his brain. An entire military bunker, filled from wall to wall, and floor to bottom, representing the layout of his very brain, recreating it down to individual neural clusters.
And after the foundations had been put in place, the software created and the infrastructure laid down, Zola, in his final stages of life, had holed himself away after telling everyone he was terminally ill, hooked himself up to an advanced EEG, and recorded his brain activity during every moment of every day, which was flawlessly copied and integrated in the earlier created software, which was basically a primitive form of an AI user interface.
And so, on April 23rd 1972, Arnim Zola died in his bed… and on April 23rd 1972, Arnim Zola was born, in digitized form.
Thankfully, it seemed that my fear of Zola escaping into the internet was at least somewhat unlikely to come true. Yes, Zola had access to wireless (that's how he managed to call in the airstrike) but those databanks inside the bunker were his actual brains. Just digitizing all of it and sending it out onto the internet as a data package was just as likely to kill him as that missile would've, since there would be no 'brain' to form the infrastructure for all that data to actually recreate him. At most, he managed to unleash a host of smaller programs onto the internet, which, while still capable of doing enormous amounts of damage, was less of a concern than Zola going Ultron on all of us.
Still, I couldn't bring myself to be worried: with Zola's secret, I now had a proven method of cheating death, and that knowledge caused me to walk around all day long with an enormously smug grin on my face.
Of course, there were risks involved, and not just with the procedure failing because of one of a million things potentially going wrong. No, there were risks involved with the procedure succeeding, the most pressing one being: what would happen to my soul?
Which is why I wasn't going to perform the procedure on myself.
"Sam? Talk to me, how far along are we?" I ask my friend as we stand amidst a chaos of wires, coolants, databanks, and more, all connected to what could be mistaken for a shrine in the middle of the enormous room, where Radcliffe is bent over something that was sitting on the thick pedestal, which was about the size of my torso and had two large indentations at its sides.
The object Radcliffe was working on so intently appeared almost as if one of the artificial brains in Ex Machina just up and switched universes as I had.
Now there's a scary thought.
Pangborn was also intently studying the pedestal, which was covered in runes, his hands lighting up with magical arrays as he double checked the mystical side of things. Healing his injury meant that he was no longer constantly focusing his magical energy through his body (something similar, but also vastly different, to the way people enhanced themselves with chi), which allowed him to actually put his large amount of magical knowledge to practical use.
During the process, he would be monitoring the soul of the subject, as well as keep an eye on my chi, in order to see whether or not the soul would fully transfer from its original body to its new vessel, helping it along if needed.
Sterns himself is typing away on a frankly gigantic computer, his eyes fervently scanning a waterfall of code, which passes too fast for even me to make any sense out of it.
"We have all but finished creating the infrastructure for the 'brain'. Because of Zola's notes and the much higher tech level we have access to, not only will it take up less space than his brain did, it will be far more powerful. Instead of roughly copying the neuronclusters, we have managed to map every single neuron instead, recreating the brain down to the tiniest detail. This should make the transfer go much more smoothly, and allow for more of the original personality to be retained. As such, we probably don't need to upload raw data first, like Zola did with all he could remember from his life in order to run his algorithms, but instead we can copy entire memories." Sterns absent-mindedly explained to me in a torrent of words, talking faster and faster the more exited he got.
"Did you know that the effectsoftheBrainBoosterallowfor-" Sterns started to rattle off as he turned towards me with an exited grin on his face, until I gently placed the tips of my fingers on top of his giant head, and smoothly turned him back around so he was facing the screen again.
"Focus Sterns. I know you're nervous, I am too. But this has to go right, so we can't afford ourselves to be distracted. Alright?" I said easily, and after taking a few calming breaths, Sterns nodded in agreement.
"Alright. Like I said, the groundwork has already been laid. All that's left now is inserting the biological brain into the modified CAT-scan/EEG device we've built so that the artificial brain can start copying the neural activity of the original. During the copying, you shall infuse the pedestal with your chi, activating it as a spiritual anchor with your lifeforce, allowing the soul to transfer as well. After that, all that's left is to wait for the transfer to be complete, and the artificial brain to 'boot up'." The egghead explained, gaining an understanding nod from me.
"So he's ready to be removed from cryo then?" I asked, and for a moment Sterns hesitates.
It's clear that he wants to run more tests, to be absolutely sure the procedure will work, but he knows that it won't really add anything to the chance of it succeeding. We have done the theoretical research for this for over three months, we've been building this room ever since construction for Othrys began, even before we got confirmation on how Zola did it, just cramming it full with stuff we thought we might need, we've been decrypting and recreating Zola's methods for the past five days non-stop, putting all our other projects on hold.
During those days the only contact any of us had had with the outside world was me telephonically giving Harper the go ahead to start closing in on Kilgrave, and allowing Jessica to go with him after she had gained her Extremis and wanted to take it out for a test ride (I'd much rather have Kilgrave as her training dummy than me, since no one knew how strong she now was. Besides, seeing a scumbag like Kilgrave in action would automatically paint me in a good light, strengthening her loyalty to me).
We're as ready as we'll ever be.
"Right. Get him out of cryo. Let's start Operation: Respawn." Sterns eventually says with a nod, and with those words I stalk off towards the back of the enormous room, where a huge sarcophagus is resting against the wall, which is connected to a host of thick tubes, and covered in a slight coating of frost.
Opening the smooth metallic grey lid, a hissing noise ringing out through the room as billowing vapor rolls down the sides and over my legs, I briefly look at the body inside, before I gently pick it up and place it on a special rune-encrusted gurney placed beside it, closing the lid we attached to it, though it only goes across the body, leaving the frozen head out in the open..
I then wheel the gurney towards the sarcophagus, where Radcliffe is apparently finished with the artificial brain, since he steps away as I approach, instead grabbing a helmet that looks somewhat like Cerebro off a stand next to the huge pedestal.
Pangborn steps up, one arm outstretched to the short pillar with a magical field springing to life at his fingertips, the other arm repeating the process as he aims it towards the body, monitoring the spiritual/magical state of both.
As I place the futuristic looking gurney next to the pedestal, the artificial brain on top of it is slowly lowered inside, before a hatch slams shut above it, locking the brain inside. Pressing a button on the side of the gurney, heat starts to come from the lid and the gurney itself, as Radcliffe places Cerebro's twin on the frozen head.
"Thawing has begun, scanning starting now. Once circulation picks up again, sedatives will be administered in order to keep the subject unconscious. Brainwaves expected to return in under five minutes, though subject will not regain consciousness at any time until the procedure has been completed. Procedure will be regarded as completed until no more new data is copied into the artificial brain, meaning a full transfer has occurred, or until the biological body… expires." Sterns says out loud, the room recording each and every word, though Radcliffe and I don't pretend to notice the hitch in his speech when he mentions the subject dying.
Keeping an eye on the monitors, which show all of the subject's vitals, I press yet another button when I see that there's an extremely faint heartbeat, administering the carefully measured dose of sedatives. The heartbeat strengthens, but not by much, remaining worryingly weak.
"Data transfer has begun." Radcliffe calls out to Sterns, who calmly repeats the words, the room recording them as he does.
With that done, I walk over towards the pedestal, placing my enormous hands on the indentations on the sides, before I light them up with chi. Manipulating my chi so that my Meteor Fist also appeared in my other hand had been extremely hard, and had required me to spend days back to back doing nothing but sit in a lotus position and try to master the energy inside me.
Even after all that, I hadn't been fully successful. I could call up my chi in my other hand, but it wasn't the same as my Meteor Fist, lacking that extra something that punching Alexandragon in the heart had done to my right fist. Still, it was sufficient enough to funnel my life energy into the pedestal, which lit up like a golden Christmas tree.
Glancing at Pangborn, I saw the sorcerer focus on the feed he was getting from the pedestal, before he gave me a nod.
"Keep it at that level, Mr. McCole."
Giving a nod in return, I focus inwards again, and keep pumping the same amount of chi into the pedestal.
"Infusion of artificial phylactery with chi has begun." Sterns dutifully called out.
However, after a few minutes of this, I feel that my body can keep this up for quite a while, even without my conscious input, so I look up at the scientists in the room.
"So what now?" I ask, even as I keep channeling my chi.
For a moment, the scientists share a look, before Radcliffe turns to me with a resigned expression on his face.
"Now? Now we wait."
And after they made seats from hardlight, projected from the various strips in the walls (me and Pangborn were forced to remain standing), we settled in and did just that, all of us keeping our eyes glued to the various screens that showed the slow activity of the original brain, and the copying done by the artificial brain.
Pangborn occasionally gave us updates on the spiritual side of things, saying that the life energy I was pumping into the pedestal and the brain inside it was turning it into a suitable phylactery, and that the soul, which was slowly starting to leave its failing vessel, was naturally being drawn towards it, recognizing the copied brainwaves and rebuilt brain as something both familiar and compatible.
All of us barely remembered to breath (I actually stopped breathing entirely. After ten minutes Sterns harshly elbowed me in the side, explaining that I was freaking him out when I turned to glare at him) as we expected the procedure to halt at any moment, the original body dying before all of his brain activity was copied, meaning that we'd lose him, or that the soul instead just departed to the Astral Plane.
But after more than an hour (during which I definitely began to feel my power being heavily taxed, a hollow feeling pain slowly growing inside my chest), we finally got the message that made us give roaring (if exhausted) cheers, as Pangborn said that the soul had left the body and had almost immediately occupied its new vessel, while the screen detailing the information of the artificial brain stated that no more new data was being copied, whereas the original body was still alive, if extremely weak.
It would probably not survive to see the night, but now that the procedure had been successfully completed, that wasn't exactly a problem anymore. The four of us quickly crowded around the pedestal, which was now housing a fully copied, artificially made human brain inhabited by a soul, waiting with baited breath for it to finish essentially booting up.
Compared to the nerve-wracking hour long wait, this was completed in mere minutes, after which various lights and lines on the pedestal started glowing brightly, showing that the brain inside had woken up, the runes on it shining with a strong yellow-golden light. The hologram on top of the thick pedestal suddenly lit up, and in an explosion of light, a figure was projected from it, all of us looking up at it in awe-
…
…
"Phineas. Why did you photoshop your head on top of Kevin Sorbo's body?"
"What? I said I was really into Xena when I was younger, okay? Just let me have this!"
Grinning from ear to ear, I look up at the holographic representation of Phineas Mason, projected from the pedestal that now holds an artificial brain housing his consciousness and soul.
"Well, I suppose that does settle the question on whether it's actually you or just a copy. It's good to have you back, Phineas." Sterns says warmly, and Mason's hologram actually turns in order to face him, despite the fact that the pedestal is covered in sensors on all sides.
"Oh hi Sam. Yeah, it's good to be back. I admit, not exactly what I expected, but this is pretty cool." Phineas' hologram says excitedly, giving a little wave when he spots his fellow scientist.
"Indeed it is. You don't know me, but I'm Dr. Holden Radcliffe. I helped transfer your consciousness from your body to your artificial brain." Radcliffe says with an enormous grin, and I can tell that the transhumanist is just relishing saying that.
"Oh hey dude. Nice to meet you." Phineas says as his hologram turns to face the other scientist, his head still placed on top of Hercules' body.
"And I am Jonathan Pangborn. I am a Master of the Mystic Arts, and I used my magic to instruct your boss on how to transfer your soul from your original body to your spiritually attuned phylactery, as I monitored the procedure." Pangborn said with a tired smile, and instead of the slightest hint of skepticism, Phineas leaned towards him with wide, inquisitive eyes, a massive grin on his face.
"You're a magician?! That's, like, so cool dude!"
Bringing the conversation to more urgent matters, I spoke up.
"Phineas. I know that this is a weird question, but how are you feeling? Are there any gaps in your memory, or do you have trouble interpreting the new sensory feedback? If you want, we can shut the sensors off until there's only two pointing in a single direction, like eyes-" I begin, only to be cut off by Phineas as he stops his wondering examination of the room, his eyes falling on his original body.
"Nah, it's okay. This all feels amazingly natural, so don't worry about it. Is that…?"
"Yes. It's your body. At the moment, it's alive, but nobody's home." I gently try to explain, seeing that Phineas cannot take his eyes off it (holographically speaking, that is).
"What happened? I remember an attack… Susan saved me… you found me…" Phineas softly wonders, and judging by the frantic blinking of the lights on the pedestal, he's searching his databanks for answers.
"You were dying, Phineas. You lost your leg, and almost all of your blood. You had massive trauma all over your skeleton, a fractured skull, a punctured lung, and about half of your vital organs had already shut down. I couldn't give you Extremis, because you were too weak to survive the changes, and I couldn't wait for you to get a bit better because you were… you were already dying in my arms, Phineas. So I did whatever I could to stabilize you, while I had every single person working for TS create a cryochamber under Burstein's supervision as fast as we could. Once Sterns and Radcliffe got back, we upgraded the chamber, but at that point, keeping you frozen was the only way to keep you from dying. We spent every moment we could spare since then preparing to transfer your consciousness and even your soul to an artificial brain, because there was no way of saving your body." I explain slowly and softly, and as I do, I can see that the lights on the pedestal slow their blinking as Phineas takes it all in.
"So… my body… it's…?" the man trails off in a hesitant voice, gesturing weakly towards where his biological body is still resting on the gurney.
"I'm sorry Phineas. It's unlikely it'll survive for another two hours, three at best." Sterns softly says, and Phineas' hologram slowly sinks to its knees as its 'eyes' remain fixed on the dying body in front of him.
"Why? Why did you bring me back? Like this?" Phineas slowly asks, and after a short pause, I speak up.
"Because there was no other way, Phineas. You were too weak to survive Extremis, you were too weak to survive any serum we had that might have dealt with the damage to the point that you could take Extremis. It had to be done like this."
"So now I'm trapped here, huh? Not cool, dude. I mean, like, I get why you did it, and being an AI brain is pretty cool, but this… this is…" Phineas trails off again, his 'eyes' shifting towards one of the screens, which shows the heartbeat of the body steadily slowing.
All of us remain silent, until after a few more weak beats, the line goes flat.
Phineas' body has died. All that remains of him, is his consciousness stored in a piece of silicone gel, surrounded by and interacting through extremely advanced electronics.
For a moment, none of us react as we stare at the corpse in front of the pedestal, its pervious inhabitant gazing at it with a morose look on its digitized avatar, the only thing about him that now appears human.
Slowly I reach out, my massive hand coming to a rest on top of the squat pillar. Taking into account Zola's notes on sensory deprivation and the shock it had brought with it when he had awakened, we made sure to even install pressure sensors in the pedestal, giving Phineas a rudimentary sense of touch.
His hologram didn't so much as twitch, while the various lights on the pedestal didn't change the rhythm in which they were blinking, showing that the digitized scientist barely even acknowledged I was there, but still I forged on.
"You're not going to be trapped, Phineas. We built you a brain, what made you think we're going to stop there? We're going to build you a body, hell, we'll build you bodies, if that's what you want! If you promise to behave, we'll even hook you up to the internet! And there's one other, very important thing I want to ask you." I say proudly, and seeing Phineas' face turn towards me, I give him a reassuring grin.
"Phineas Mason. How would you like to become the Gatekeeper of Othrys?"
For a moment, the room falls silent, Radcliffe and Sterns both looking at Phineas with eager grins on their faces, before Phineas' voice once more comes from the speakers in the pedestal.
"You want me to stand outside the gates of what-now?"
AN: I really should promising things about when or what I'm going to write, since I seem pathologically incapable of fulfilling those promises. I had originally meant to take this chapter all the way to May, so that the next chapter can immediately deal with the invasion. However, I just thought that this was the perfect moment to cut the chapter off, so next chapter we'll get to May instead, meaning that we'll have to wait one chapter more until the Invasion happens. Yeah, sorry 'bout that. But Mason's back! Yay?
AN2: So, rewrite is up, now including Pangborn and magic so that there can be no doubt that it is, in fact, Phineas that was revived, and not just a copy. I felt that it was moving a bit fast, but in all fairness, Pangborn was just walking around New York, without protection and not trying to hide. There's no reason that Jessica cannot find the man in a few days, especially if she's Brain Boosted. Also, on a more meta note, this story is now 200k. I think I can get away now with kicking things into gear a bit more, especially since we are still not even at Avengers at this point. As for Hansen and her plants, credit goes to reader vabbie, for giving me the idea in the first place.
Fun Fact: Lionsgate nearly made a Black Widow film in 2004. They had planned to give the character superpowers from an experimental suit and she would have a secret identity as a gardener.
As I do at the end of every chapter, I want to extend my thanks to my amazing Patrons, AndrewDC_MAC2, Thordur hrafn, Daniel Dorfman, ReaperScythe and Miu! I cannot thank you all enough for your continued support, it really does mean a lot to me! The same of course goes to the rest of my readers as well, thanks so much for all the comments and reviews!