44 Technomancer in MCU #37
Disclaimer - I don't own anything. Please support the official release.
Chapter 37
Technomancer in MCU
Previously
I had a meeting with Black Bolt that I needed to prepare for.
It's time I had a meeting with the strongest Inhuman and either brought him into the fold or eliminated him.
Also, "Alfred, do remind me to take care of Maximus permanently while I am there, will you?"
_________________________________________________________
The Asterisk, Moon
–Ed–
As I was nearing Asterisk, I gave the order to Alfred to prep the Inhuman resurgence protocols.
It was a set of instructions Alfred had made way back in the day and improved upon as we came upon additional data regarding the Kree's experiments on humans.
He had seen my memory of the Kree crystals being spread through the oceans and millions of Inhumans being spontaneously turned into their enhanced forms.
To prevent that and also to contain the Inhumans on the moon if the time came, Alfred put Inhuman Extinction devices on his list for weapons development.
Upon centuries of research in simulated time using the time stone, Alfred had found out that the Inhumans as a species were unstable.
How the Ancient One continued to favour and dare I say, dote upon Alfred and not even letting me access the tomes was just hypocritical. It never fails to make me jealous.
For God's sake, he has access to time-stone energy stored in Vibranium ingots and even access to all but the most vile tomes of magic.
It was just favoritism at that point.
What made that defect worse was their marriage systems.
There was no genetic diversity in their genome pool.
Perks of being sequestered away in a hidden city on the moon, I suppose.
They had immunity figures reaching just 10% of an average human's.
It was pathetic compared to even the mildly enhanced, let alone to the likes of Dr.Banner and Steve Rogers.
The funny thing was, Alfred didn't need to do research under a time-dilated environment but he was so excited to finally use the time stone energy that he didn't think of the importance of the task at hand and just went on ahead.
At this point, the protocols consisted of a variety of options to deal with the Inhumans.
They ranged from exposure to the common cold to a genetically engineered virus, developed in the future by Alfred, that would systematically target and eliminate subjects with a specific gene.
In this case, it was the Inhuman gene that was targeted by the virus.
"Oh, and Alfred, make sure that the more genocidal parts of the protocol are left aside, alright?" I ordered Alfred.
"..."
"..."
"Alfred?", I asked him again.
"Order Received," came a completely robotic voice, devoid of any emotion or trace of similarity with Alfred's original voice that he had chosen after scouring the internet for audio samples.
I sighed at that.
Seems like he was still holding on to the incident of Dr.Lawson.
I might have taken his side but at this critical juncture, he must know some limits.
Shaking my head, I temporarily ignored his tantrum and pushed the switch to open the ramp.
The plane landed but it seemed unnecessarily jerky as it seemed to take a second to find its position.
Sighing at yet another sign of a tantrum from Alfred, I said in a stern voice, "Alfred, just because I tolerate your actions does not mean you get blanket permission to jeopardize mission-critical equipment. Restrain yourself or I will be forced to. Do you understand?"
Came a muffled, "Yes", from the jet speakers.
I nodded at his response and disembarked from the jet.
The first thing I see upon exiting the ramp is a spic and span Frank Castle with a crooked grin on his face.
That only meant one thing to me.
That before this, he was completely covered in blood, his or his enemies'.
Seems the Vampire assignment went a bit sideways then.
When I was nearing him, he handed he swiped his hand toward me and a hard light projection came into being right into my hand.
Frank waited for me as I sifted through the report.
While it did go sideways once Frank went all Punisher on the vampires, both elders and the thralls under them were killed and the humans who could be saved, were rescued and the ones who were beyond saving were given a painless death.
Something fierce burned inside me when I read the number of lives that were lost to become the blood bags for these elder vampires despite them having an accord with most governments of the world.
Before I could give Frank his next orders though, he beat me to and said to me in a gruff voice, "I've already been debriefed and I volunteered myself for the Attilan mission, Boss."
Giving him a deadpan stare, I said, "Noo, I have a deal with Maria. You don't go on back-to-back missions that involve death and destruction of this degree. If you don't go back to her, she might just come here and try and drag me along with you."
His excited demeanor wilted at the mention of his wife and he shot me a betrayed look at the mention of the deal I made with his wife.
I raised my hands in mock surrender and said, "Hey, it's your wife. Go talk to her. What are you looking at me for?"
He grumbled something to himself under his breath and turned around, waking to the road that went to the colony we had established for the full-time employees and their families under the rock surface of the moon.
Once I was sure that Frank was out of listening range, I ordered Alfred, "We need to send a message to these Elders. Preferably, directly to Dracula. Send a few of our teams along with a full-size carrier to Romania. Kill a few of the elders and remind Dracula as to why they are still alive and not hunted down to the darkness of the world."
After getting the confirmation from Alfred, I finally head to my rejuvenation pod.
I had had a very hectic day and needed to get some shut-eye.
The good news was that with CHI crystals, I barely needed 2 hours of sleep for my mind.
The bad news was that my body was a different story as it needed to be submerged in CHI infused liquids for at least 10 hours for it to be even remotely functional for the next 14 hours.
_________________________________________________________
[1 hour later]
The Asterisk
–Daisy Johnson–
Seeing your team leader who is a 6'4 absolute hunk of a man being manhandled by an absolutely petite woman, no more than 5'1, is always a shock to the system.
Of course, none of the squad members dared to make fun of Commander Castle for that. The terror of Maria Castle was well known throughout the base and even beyond it.
It is rumored that even Big Boss Ed could get an earful of Maria's legendary temper if Commander Castle comes home injured.
She shuddered to even think about what Big Boss must get scared of.
Finding out about the first assignment where she would be going in alone, especially with just the leader of their organisation would have made her faint by now if it wasn't for the many many enhancements she went through under Alfred's supervision.
Nowadays, she bet she could take a head-on punch from the Hulk and come out the other side unscathed.
In fact, she was by far, the strongest on the team. Of course, she had no delusions of besting Frank freaking Castle in combat but she was certainly no pushover.
Her records proved that.
Perfect combat records with a 100% mission completion rate and a pesky 95% recommendation level from Commander Castle.
That was the only blemish on her otherwise perfect record.
As she got the mission parameters, she came to a screeching halt on her way to her quarters.
Raising her hand to look at her smartwatch, she said, "Alfred, what are these parameters?"
The smartwatch projected the hologram of an old man in his 70s with a bespoke three-piece suit, the preferred avatar of Alfred and he said with an air of finality, "What of them? You are given your orders. Follow them."
She glared at him for his smug way of speaking. He knew what she was talking about and was being an ass just for the sake of it.
Sometimes, she wondered how did Alfred turn out like this if, according to the rumour mill, he was based on the thought patterns of Big Boss.
He is like the dream man come true and then there is this Turd.
Of course, She let none of my thoughts even remotely show on her face as she didn't want to get sucked out of the airlock of the base again.
She knew She could survive, but you know, why go through the hassle?
"I meant that the parameter section of the mission is empty. I don't need to tell you how that is unusual, do I?"
"There is nothing wrong with my mission parameters. Those are the ones personally given by Ed." He said and then rolled his eyes as he continued, "According to him, the mission parameters could change wildly at a moment's notice in response to minute changes in the situation so the ones who should accompany him must have the capabilities to respond to said changes effectively and actually keep up with him."
A smile began to form on her face as she heard his answer, "And you chose me? Aww, Alfred! You do like me then!" She said in a babying voice, knowing that it absolutely drove him nuts when she did that.
His face contorted into a grimace of rage as his hologram turned red and he said, "Be glad that I didn't insist on Frank accompanying you as he would have extracted all the excitement out of you. As a matter of fact, why don't I just tell him about the half-assed training you have been doing since he was assigned the training of the new generation of Inhumans?"
her face paled at that and she hurriedly said to him, begging and pleading, "Please don't do that. The last time I tried to skip training, I couldn't feel my limbs and my powers for a month, even under constant CHI bombardment."
He smirked triumphantly at her as he said, "Well, of course that happened. The power negation aspect of Frank's power is said to be matched only by reality warpers and the current Sorcerer Supreme, who can also be called a reality warper. He can temporarily negate even the Hulk's powers, let alone yours."
He had no reason whatsoever to speak that disdainfully, especially the part about her power.
As she was about to launch another tirade against him for speaking ill of her power, she remembered her mission.
Her first mission alone with the Big Boss. The shining knight of her dreams.
She swiftly deactivated her watch and skipped hurriedly toward her quarters, determined to look her best for tomorrow's important mission.
_________________________________________________________
[10 hours later]
Captain's quarters, The Asterisk
–Ed–
Waiting for my body to wake up, following a dip in the CHI tank is always a very constricting feeling.
My mind, being supremely more powerful than my body, wakes up immediately compared to my sluggish-feeling body.
Upon waking up, I ruthlessly crush the instinctual attempt by my powers to scan for any technology nearby, to scan, combine, and create new technology. Even a light ping of nearby-enabled technology will dip my lifespan by hours.
I have had to rely on Alfred to connect to any of my technology.
Using them manually, like a peasant.
How embarrassing.
If there are any variants of me with a perfectly fine body, they must be laughing at me, struggling to use the very technology I built with my own powers and having to resort to using them like everyone who isn't a Technomancer.
Hearing the hiss of the tube being opened, I prepare myself for the situations ahead of me.
Alfred had informed me yesterday that Daisy "Quake" Johnson herself was selected to be my partner for this particular excursion.
According to Alfred's hilarious reports on her, the only reason Alfred recommended her was because it would be funny for him to see her fail.
Oh, and also because Frank gave her his glowing seal of recommendation.
She's a natural, he says in his reports.
I don't think that will ever happen again.
Then again, she is impressive. So are her powers.
They differed a bit from her canon powers.
In canon, she was shown to generate vibrations from her body, which actually harmed her own body at first, before she learned how to control and direct those vibrations to use them for offensive purposes.
The current Daisy can not only generate vibrations but can also control macro vibrations to some extent.
According to Alfred, continued dosage of CHI would strengthen their bodies and increase the chances of getting a much better-suited power for the recipients.
Multiple Terrigenesis events later, Alfred was proven right.
All of the Inhumans that underwent Terrigenesis on the Asterisk were exposed to concentrated CHI for months before they were exposed to the Terrigen mists.
The Terrigen mists, as it turns out had multiple components, most of which we were unable to identify, but the one component we could identify was Celestial Brain matter.
It made sense for the Kree to use the matter mined from Knowhere and use it to make a species of weapons. They must have hoped to replicate the Celestial's powers but they failed. But, In doing so, they created a species with the potential to match one of the celestials by themselves. It was a remarkable achievement. Good thing they abandoned their experiments and left too early otherwise we would have been born in a Kree-dominated galaxy.
Post-terrigenesis, none of the Inhumans came out crippled or deformed, as was the case with over half of all Terrigenesis procedures on Attilan.
And to add a cherry on top of that, all of them were able to use their powers safely, albeit at a low level initially.
But, Daisy, was the strongest of them all.
She was smart and Alfred had taken a personal interest in her education, making sure she came up to her full intellectual potential.
This allowed her to use her intelligence to use her extremely potent and versatile powers in increasingly creative ways.
She had so far showcased both defensive and offensive use-case scenarios of her powers.
Upon further testing, it was concluded by Alfred that her vibration-deflecting shields should be able to take normal punches from Hulk and hit with nearly the same force as Thor with her offensive punches.
That somehow lit a fire under Alfred's digital ass. He pulled out all the enhancement tech we had on hand and re-engineered it all to map it to her genome specifically.
Even going so far as to use the Time Stone energy to accelerate the research and turn her into the physically strongest person in the organisation.
After me, of course. I still believed in the supremacy of well-built technology against raw brute force.
The Hulk would disagree but he was not here so I can count this as my win.
"Alfred, let's go meet Blackagar Boltagon, shall we? Inform Daisy to meet us in the hangar in an hour."
"Affirmative, sir."
_________________________________________________________
Word Count - 2603
A/N :
So, here it is.
I am soon going to share a doc link in which I log all the stats of my chapter and generally plan around for the release schedule. In that, I have a cell for Average words/chapter and from now on, I have decided that I am going to at least maintain the chapter average for every chapter I write.
Don't know if it will work or not but here we go.
Thank you for reading!
Toodles!
