Technomancer in MCU #48

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Chapter 48

Technomancer in MCU

Previously

He leveled a confused look at her in return and after taking one look at Eric, Frank shook his head and said, "He is the captain of the superclass carrier. You wouldn't have reached Asterisk alive if he wasn't with you."

She turned towards Eric, her eyes wide and unblinking.

Then, Eric had the gall to actually bow at her and say, "At your service, madam."

She was going to kill him.

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–Frank Castle–

"Where could he have gone?" Maria asked herself as she continued to pace in the visitor's room in the VIP medical ward.

He chose to not reply to that question, not wanting to light that particular fire.

"Do you think he abandoned us for some reason?" Maria turned to him, unshed tears in her eyes.

His eyes softened as he immediately closed the distance between them and hugged her.

He knew that Alfred's absence was particularly hurtful for Maria since she considered Alfred one of her kids. It was evident in the way they interacted with each other and the reverence that Alfred held for Maria and the obsession Alfred had with the safety of Maria and even his kids. 

Even he thought that Alfred would go overboard in some situations.

Suddenly, Maria ended the hug and started pacing again, "Shouldn't we call the Ancient One then? She knows everything already. So, no harm will be done if we call her here."

He sighed and replied, "Honey, she already knows. Probably knew about it in advance years ago. The only reason she wouldn't be here was if she thought that this was the best way forward in the hundreds of scenarios she must have foreseen. No point in calling her now."

A golden portal opened up in front of Frank and a rolled-up mini scroll fell from it.

He gestured to the scroll as if telling Maria - 'See, I told you so' and then picked it up while shaking his head exasperatedly," Let's see what it is."

He read the document and scoffed under his breath immediately.

"What is it?" Maria asked him.

"See for yourself." he offered the scroll to her.

She took it and read it, "Quite Astute, Mr.Castle. Yes, you are correct in your assumptions."

She sighed as all the energy left her as she seemingly ran out of all her options.

He sighed and said, "Don't worry too much about it. Alfred will return, I know it in my heart. You know it too so stop needlessly stressing about it."

He said so but he was incredibly worried about the situation on the inside.

Nearly all of the advanced operations of all their bases on Earth and even off-world were taken care of by Alfred almost exclusively.

Almost zero people knew how to operate the more advanced tech that Alfred had incorporated into the newer bases.

He couldn't even begin to comprehend the know-how of using the Danger Room.

It was fortunate that almost none of the agents(save for the contractors they hired from other species) were off-world and in the middle of an operation.

Almost all operatives were present on Earth when they initiated the recall of non-essential personnel.

Aside from the exception of Agent Yo-Yo reaching the Asterisk (which he will be having words with Eric about), no one had managed to breach Earth's atmosphere.

Nobody on Earth knew about it but the planet was effectively on a space lockdown.

The next were the coordination systems between the bases and the different military assets that each base had. Alfred had managed to create something truly revolutionary in terms of creating a system that could effectively use each and every asset they had whilst accounting for downtime and Staffing issues.

Alfred did leave multiple VIs responsible for the smooth running of the multiple departments but they fell incredibly short of the required goal since all the systems were built from the ground up with the assumption that a single entity would be running everything simultaneously. The VIs started breaking down within hours of Alfred leaving and within 12 hours, almost all AI-dependent functions were functionally unusable within all the bases.

They already had to quarantine some of Alfred's personal labs that were fully automated as they had no idea what was inside the labs and what procedure was to be followed in case of such an incident. 

It was worrying how, as an organisation, how dependent they were on Alfred.

He would have to rectify that as soon as Ed or Alfred returned to operational capacity. It galled him to leave such an incredible weakness to the overall operations of the organisation.

He would have to talk to Ed about it when he decides to wake up.

He was discussing Ed's condition with Maria and how to break it to their children who were on their way to the bunker in New Jersey. They loved and adored Ed and Alfred. Especially Alfred since he is an ever-present friend in their lives.

It was astonishingly easy to establish an armoured area just outside the suburbs of New Jersey where they had carved out a whole emergency base since according to Ed, New York seems to be the host for most world-ending events, and from what he has seen till now, he agreed with Ed.

The city was a hotspot for villains, megalomaniacs and madmen hell-bent on world domination. According to Alfred, something ancient and evil must be buried under the city for it to be so cursed.

Of course, ancient evil or not, the enhanced activity in the city was being monitored by the organisation and being actively curbed by the agents permanently stationed there.

In fact, over half of all exotic dangerous artifacts they have in the vaults are courtesy of the various dangerous people that roamed the streets(and sometimes below) of New York.

Thinking of the dangerous activities that always seemed to happen around New York and Maria's propensity to go full ballistic when it came to her kids, he was about to cautiously ask Maria to take a ship and go to the base in New Jersey to be with the kids when the door opened and someone barged in unceremoniously.

He looked over to give whoever it was a piece of his mind only to stop midway when he saw Elena "Yo-Yo" come through the door.

He watched in silence as his wife hugged Elena.

Before they could start talking in their own little world, he asked Elena, "Agent Yo-Yo, how did you get here? I thought that all space travel between the Earth and Asterisk was banned by my order."

Instead of Elena, it was answered by someone who he didn't expect to see on the base at all, "Ah, don't sweat the small stuff, Commander. I thought it prudent to personally escort a high-value asset to the base. You know, for safekeeping." 

He didn't believe that reason one bit. Eric was here for some other reason.

He sighed and replied, "Eric, I thought I taught you better than that. Now is not the time to start acting in an immature manner."

He watched on as Elena was shocked when he mentioned Eric's station.

He had the unnerving habit of being incredibly unpredictable and that instead of his enhanced abilities made him incredibly dangerous. Even Ed was against his posting but relented when he vouched for Eric's credibility. He had spent years with Eric in the army before and powers or no powers, he could recognise loyal people when he saw them.

Before he could make any more of a scene though, he cleared his throat and said, "Eric, why don't you escort Elena to Daisy's quarters and report to the security booth for duty while you are here. Wouldn't want to waste another useful asset now, would I?" He smirked at Eric's face tightening.

"Yes, commander." Eric saluted and left after herding Elena out of the room against her wishes.

He was about to advise Maria to go after them as well when his watch began beeping loudly.

His and Maria's eyes widened as they realised what it meant. They immediately rushed to Ed's medical ward, joined by multiple doctors and nurses on their way.

Opening the door, he came face to face with Ed in his medical gown trying to get up.

"Easy! Easy! What are you doing? You shouldn't even be up right now." he said while pushing Ed back on the bed.

It was alarmingly easy as Ed's exoskeleton seemed to have no strength to it. That spoke volumes about Ed's mental status since according to his little knowledge about Ed's body suit, it had a backup program that worked according to Ed's mental commands but its strength was dependent on the strength of the mind piloting it.

It was salvaged from faulty mind control tech purchased on Knowhere by some of their procurement agents way back. It still had some of the original flaws but Alfred had managed to remove all of the fatal side effects.

With the sheer prowess of Ed's mind, the only way that the program would register a low mental strength level would be if Ed was feeling incredibly low or sad.

He fell back as the Doctors started checking the various readings available to them through the smart bed.

One of the nurses did something and raised the bed level, making Ed sit in an upright position.

Soon the doctors declared that outside of extensive testing that has been forbidden in his medical files, they won't be able to assess the true damage done to his body.

Forbidden?

What did the doctor mean?

He was about to ask the doctor what he meant by that but he stopped when he saw the look of calm acceptance on Ed's face.

He knew that look and it never meant anything good for the people involved.

"You know why, don't you? You know why he left," he asked or rather told Ed with absolute certainty.

Ed nodded at that but didn't say anything about that.

"Doctor, you have my permission to override the lock on Ed's medical files," he ordered the Doctor and gave him his badge for authentication. The doctor nodded and tried to access the file only for it to flash red and destroy itself.

"Won't work," he heard Ed whisper, almost to himself.

He then seemed to come to a decision and sighed, "Doctor, can you please give us a moment? I'll tell you how to access my file later on."

The doctor opened his mouth to object only to stop when Ed said, "Please". The doctor nodded and left the room, locking the door behind him.

"Can you please tell me what is going on, Ed? Because your actions are not making a ton of sense here," he asked Ed, desperate for some answers at this point.

Ed smiled a sad smile at us and said, "I'm dying, that's why."

He deadpanned at Ed and said, "We know that, Ed. And we will find a cure for your condition. We want to know why Alfred chose to leave now, at this critical stage in our plans?"

Ed coughed, shook his head, and said, "You don't understand Frank. I'm not dying in a couple of years." 

His eyes widened in realization as Ed continued, "It's only a matter of months before my body gives out."

Maria gasped as she began sobbing.

"You don't know that," he said to Ed, in denial of Ed's statement.

Ed said, "I do know. For the split second I was connected to our servers, I was able to find out that for the first time in his entire existence, Alfred's main partition had left the base's servers and the one present in the servers was just a temporary partition that would have broken down in a matter of hours. Upon further digging, I found his encrypted files where he kept the real updates on my health condition. Participating personally in the Battle of New York probably shaved off years off my life that I didn't exactly have. I understand now why Alfred was so adamant about me resting inside the base."

He staggered back at the news and then swiftly left the room, uncaring of Maria's shouts.

He had to get away from there.

From the place that signified the death knell of his saviour and leader.

And he had a job to do. 

He had to find Alfred before he did something he would regret in his quest to save Ed.

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Word Count – 2113

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