88 Interlude #8.2
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Interlude VIII.II
Technomancer in MCU
Stark Tower
–Tony "Iron Man" Stark
While they were unable to secure a meeting with Ed and the others, their worst fears did not come true. But the aftermath of the assembly could not be described as anything less than disastrous.
Not only did Ed not even listen to what the US and the other permanent members of the council had to say, they came in guns blazing and left with even more gun blazing.
When he thought of the city-sized base that was floating just above them, it still gave him chills.
Seriously, how did something of that mass even float? And even if it did, how did it stay together without it crumbling under its own weight?
More and more questions to which he had no answer to.
Luckily, he had just the source to turn to for all his questions.
"Jarvis, any closer to cracking the website?" He asked Jarvis while looking at the screen which showed code that looked more and more alien as the time passed by. It was as if it was adapting to all the hacking attempts that must have been happening to it in real time since he was sure that Jarvis was not the only one who was repeatedly hammering away at the website's defenses until it all crumbled down.
But, honestly? What did he expect from the likes of people who managed to make a literal floating space city?
According to Jarvis, it would take him millions of years to crack the current code using the state-of-the-art processing power he has access to, ignoring the fact that the code is ever-evolving. Honestly, it was like they were trying to hack Alfred or something.
"Alright, Tony, we both know Jarvis is not going to succeed so why don't we just use the website the regular way instead of trying to break into the property of someone who walks around with their own personal city that they can just drop on anyone that annoys them? I for one would like to remain non-squished." Bruce said to him and closed the monitoring window.
No matter what anybody said, he did not pout and even if he did, it was a very manly pout.
"Okay, let's see," Bruce said while opening up the website on the hologram and typing the very first thing that he was looking for, "What was the ship that followed you guys after the UN assembly ended?"
Then, the screen asked for verification in the form of a photo. Bruce looked at him quizzically but he didn't hesitate to give the required access from his control console, making Bruce sigh exasperatedly.
"Welcome, Dr.Danner, and why yes, the ship that followed us was the highest level of technology we can make right now, and internally, it is called the superclass carrier. We have yet to name it but once we do, we will update it on our website." Chimed a happy voice from the web page, answering all their questions.
Followed by the answer were really detailed schematics of the ship, which was entirely wrong since nothing with that much space inside it, could be called a ship. The more he looked over the schematics of the ship, the more his mind became numb to the shocks he had received today," Tony, are you looking at this?"
He didn't even receive any answer since Tony was way too busy furiously going through the schematics of the engine bays that powered the entire ship. He kept getting 'Access denied' messages in red block letters but kept on searching for the engines that would allow for such a large city to float.
Before Bruce could say anything though, Tony turned to him and said, "They have a city they can put in space and I can't even put a small building with my name on it. This sucks."
Pepper sighed, "Tony, can we focus on the important things now? This is probably the best way to search for information. Look, millions of people must have already used it and got most of the answers we were searching for. Why don't you look for that?"
He and Bruce both looked at each other at the suggestion. Why didn't that thought pop into their minds?
As if given a signal, both of them began furiously searching for any hidden chat boards where AlfredGPT was being discussed. IT wasn't really hard since all people could talk about right now was AlfredGPT but it was difficult to find websites with actual answers to them since it would seem that the website required authentication and based on that, granted access to information.
"Hey, what's your name?" Tony asked the bot.
"My name is Victor, Designation - Pepper's Boy Toy '' the bot replied, making Pepper nearly choke on her drink. "Wh-What did you say?" she asked in between coughs. Tony cackled in the background.
"Wa–Wait, does it mean th-that," Tony said in between wheezes, "in your database, my name is Pepper's Boy Toy?" He then promptly doubled over in laughter.
Completely red-faced, Pepper yelled, "Tony! This is not funny. Who knows how many people have access to that information now." Tony tried, he really did, but he just ended up wheezing some more.
"Alright, so I have some good news. Apparently, the chatbot requires facial and biometric authentication, based on which it designates a certain level of authority upon you. Using that authority, your clearance level is decided and consequently, the level of sensitivity of the information you have access to," Bruce said while sighing in relief. He was extremely worried that giving anybody access to information that Tony could access would most certainly lead to disaster. Fortunately, that was not the case.
"Yeah, I see it. People have asked about their organisation, their technology which went mostly unanswered, their current and future plans, list of members, events where they were involved, and so on and so forth. Bruce, most of these answers are really vague and most seem incomplete. It would seem that we would have to do this ourselves." Tony said while going through the list of replies that people had managed to gather from the chatbot.
"Let's see, verification done, and let's see if it gives us some sensitive information. How about a list of secret civilisations that Fury told us about?" Tony said while typing the question into the chatbot. Soon, the reply came and it was as follows -
Absolutely, let's add a touch of wit to it:
"Well, Pepper's inquisitive boytoy, prepare for a journey through the clandestine realms of our planet! Whispered rumors speak of Wakanda, the technological marvel hidden in plain sight, the elusive Atlantis beneath the waves, the subterranean Moloids carving their own world beneath our feet, and let's not forget the cleverly concealed Skrull settlement, silently observing us from the shadows."
"Wakanda? The really poor African country? How is that a technological marvel at any rate? And Atlantis? That's real?" Bruce whispered.
"That's got to be false, right? They are tricking us. Since when did Atlantis become real and what is this of Moloids?" Pepper said, panicking as she thought of the changing world and the role of her boyto-Ahem boyfriend in it.
"No, they are not the type to lie and I don't think anybody else would get access to this type of information. They are telling this to us for a reason. Uh, Victor, was it?" Bruce said while cleaning his spectacles, a nervous tick for him.
"Yes, Dr.Banner, what can I do for you on this fine day?"
"Uh, can you please elaborate on the hidden civilisations you just spoke about?"
"Certainly. There are multiple hidden civilisations that inhabit Earth and some of them are - "
Then the webpage shifted to show a scene depicting a certain utopia,
"This is Wakanda, the most technologically advanced country on the planet. They boast of the third largest vibranium reserve(second being us and first being a secret) on the planet and as such, were able to advance their country much faster than the rest of the world. We are talking about microchips when the rest of the world still ran on steam engines and the first plane had yet to take flight."
"Son of a bitch, Dad said that they were all out," Tony whispered while Pepper took his hand into her hand for comfort.
"Next is Atlantis, the underwater gem where another subspecies of humans live. Another palace with an abundance of Vibranium, this country boasts of a similar technological level as Wakanda but due to the fact that their King is able to command marine life and outfit the animals with their advanced weapon, they are clearly superior to any country on the planet. Contact is ill-advised as they are extremely hostile and only respond to brute force so should you have the strength of the Hulk while underwater, you may proceed,"
"Moloids are a race of human hybrids that are the results of an unfortunate experiment conducted on early humans and the animals found in that time period. They live in subterranean colonies that help them hide from the rest of the world. Their common characteristics are…"
On and on, it went about the various hidden civilisations that the planet Earth housed.
Looking at the pictures of Mole-Man, Namor, and his people, he couldn't help but say, "Oh my God. So, this is what Ed and the others have been dealing with."
Pepper looked at him in confusion, "What?"
"Look," he said while pointing to the figures of Namor and Mole man, "These people, they are the rulers of their respective civilisations and the fact that they have managed to stay hidden for so long is probably not a coincidence. I mean, just look at their attributes. Namor somehow has the strength to match the Hulk in terms of physical prowess and get this, he has unlimited stamina while underwater. Not to mention, all marine life listens to him. The threat he alone poses is unquantifiable but add in an entire advanced civilization behind him, no wonder Ed and the others don't put us in their eyes."
"The Invasion, the battle at the Triskelion, we keep thinking that they should be held accountable for this but what about the fact that they are probably the only ones keeping people like these," he pointed to Namor and the Mole Man where the webpage automatically shifted to show their attempts to harm the surface world, "at bay. What if they are the only reason why we are not worrying about survival and the world is not at war with a civilisation that has essentially unlimited soldiers and whose defeat is so intrinsically linked with ours that even fighting the battle is futile." Tony continued while the webpage continuously changed to show the different instances where Alfred or Ed came in clutch and stopped their attempts to damage something and reveal their existence to the world which would have ultimately led to war.
"Tony, what should we do with this information?" Bruce asked him as he kept on looking through the cache of information he had access to.
He hummed as he thought of the various options he had in front of him. From the favoritism shown by the generous gift of The Lab, he was acutely aware that not even the military could have access to this information and while he did think that people should know about the various hidden gems of the planet, he was also aware of what people behaved like when confronted with the unknown and how politicians could twist that unease over and over until all that remained was hatred and nothing more.
So, he chose the only option that seemed right to him. He swiped and deactivated all the instances and said, "Jarvis, see if Wakanda has a publicly available airport and if they do, tell them we are coming. Bruce, pack your bags, we are going on an African Safari or at least that's what we'll be telling them."
Bruce chuckled nervously as he kept on looking through the wealth of information they had access to. They could see the overall structure of the organisation. The number of enhanced people they had. The overall capabilities of their superclass carrier and all sorts of fascinating information was accessible to him. He hadn't been this excited ever since he finished the serum for Jen's treatment.
When he did not receive any reply, Bruce looked up and said, "What? I thought you were joking."
Tony rolled his eyes and left the room along with Pepper who looked incensed that they had booked another work trip without even consulting her.
________________________________________________________________
White House
–Matthew Ellis–
Throwing the report that had been compiled for him on the table in front of him, he looked up and saw that none of his staff was willing to even look him in the eye. For some reason, that pissed him off more than anything he had read in the goddamned report in front of him.
"So, gentlemen? Mind telling me how we have been unable to shut down that intelligence goldmine and how the hell did they conduct so many activities while being completely off the grid?" he asked everyone who was sitting in front of him and he was expecting an answer since the people in front of him actually had the gall to ask for hundreds of billions in budget and when the time came, couldn't even speak a single word.
"I said, speak dammit", he said while slamming his hands on the table, his disheveled appearance a haunting reminder to them that they had not slept ever since the announcement. The announcement that opened up and humanised the Ascendency organisation and destroyed all their plans of turning the public against them.
"Sir, the servers the website runs on are unreachable. Our best people have only been able to come up with a theory that is unproven at best. We have no possible way of shutting down that website without shutting down the entirety of the internet.", the deputy chief of NSA said.
He scoffed, "I understand that none of you can kill the website. What I want to know is why are they giving out information for free that you people cannot find after spending billions of dollars."
At that question, all of them shrank even more in their seats. Cowards, he scoffed inwardly.
"I want all the data that can be extracted from the website and I want it here yesterday, confirmed, do you understand? This Ed character needs to be dealt with. They have stolen everything that S.H.I.E.L.D ever gathered in its long life and we have to brand them as terrorists or if not that, then thieves at the very least for that. Gentlemen, with the show that everybody saw, my PResidency is all but gone and I would like to remove this hidden danger to America as my last act. You will have everything you might need. Dismissed"
Everybody shuffled quietly out of the room and once the office was empty, he let out a huge sigh that seemed to deflate him.
He was aware of why none of the heads came themselves and sent their second in command instead. They were aware that his presidency was a sinking ship and already, his competitors were running on supporting this GPT agenda and the running numbers shown had already confirmed his fears.
The next President was going to be someone who was going to replace S.H.I.E.L.D with the Ascendency and sell the power of America to these strangers.
The only thing left was for the Ascendency to overcome a seemingly undefeatable evil and they were set to elect the President who would say yes to their every decision.
________________________________________________________________
Atlantis
–Namor–
He rubbed his neck as the phantom pain from his fight with Alfred still lingered on. He was reading up on the daily reports in his office when a golden portal opened up in front of him and a strange hand simply plucked him from his office and tossed him into another one. One that led to an area void of life on the seabed.
There, he met with the true body of Alfred who gave him the beating of his lifetime. He had not been bested since he ascended to the Throne. Not even the champions of Poseidon could have hurt him this bad as the machine-made flesh did.
And then, to add salt to his wound, the machine healed him up completely, all by reattaching his wings and arms that had been torn apart during the course of their battle.
Alfred never said anything during the fight but to someone at their level, there was no need to say anything. He was quite aware of why Alfred had done so. It was because of his war mobilisations. He had gotten the news from one of the Mystics nearby that the Singularity and his guardian were indisposed of and it was the best time to take over the surface world but somehow, Alfred came back and beat the shit out of him.
His generals were confused but they would follow his orders. Attacking the surface world while it was being guarded by the Singularity would only result in needless bloodshed.
Besides, it was not as if all was lost. Alfred had left behind a detailed document that spelled out how they were going to basically destroy Ocean Pollution and when they were going to do it. If they were going to be half as successful, he would happily take another beating in exchange.
But the only reason his pride was not the one taking decisions and declaring war on Alfred and the Singularity was due to the fact that the person who was thrashing him, while being underwater, as if he was but a babe, was a mere clone. After beating him up, Alfred's body began shimmering and soon, it revealed itself to be a mere mystic clone, kept solid by the user's prowess in controlling dimensional energy.
For now, he would bide his time and safeguard his kingdom's borders for Namor knew when he was outmatched.
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Word Count - 3065
If you guys would like to read ahead, you can head onto my P-atreon. It is the same name as my username.
You know you want to, why resist?
I already have up to 15 extra chapters uploaded there.
A/N - I didn't want to make a part 3 but the damn ideas kept on coming and so we now have a 3k chapter. Even then, I have kept it short and cut out many of the snippets I wanted to write here.
This is also mostly a filler for now but in future chapters, I will link them to this interlude(like tony's impending visit to Wakanda and the can of global geopolitics that will open up there.)
Namor's POV is important because his country too will play an important role in the final battlefield.
