CHAPTER 68 - SARAH'S DISCOVERY

[Vision POV]

As expected, the days following the disaster were hectic for everyone else as hundreds of calls from the White House, Congress and Senate came flooding in every single minute of the day.

It got unbearable to the point that Steve had to ask me to reroute the system's network to divert calls coming from specific IPs before we managed to secure enough breathing room.

On my end, since I know that Raven will be working her ends while having Emma's backing, I wasn't too worried about her failing.

All she needed to do was give me an opening, a single reason, to crash and burn whoever she picks as her first target.

Out of the members of the Inner Circle, some would prove a hard assignment if she were to try to usurp their throne and the prime example of those people would be the two Kings and Queens.

She was more than wise enough to steer clear of Selene's path so that left only three big cakes in Shaw, Frost and Buckman. Trying to take down Shaw as the first target without diminishing his influence would destroy the Club, so he was automatically out of the target list meaning only Emma and Buckman were left.

Since she had some dealings with the White Queen, Buckman was the only one who would fit her prime target criteria.

… But all these speculations were based on the fact that she went after one of the main powers, and knowing Raven, that was exactly what she would do.

That aside, it seems that the recent mutant terrorist attack had forced some small-time heroes and vigilantes to pop up from every corner of the state.

From the rumors and blog posts that were caught in the algorithm I had set in place, it seems like Daredevil and Luke Cage are now up and about. Hopefully this is all for the best.

Since it was given that we couldn't ignore the constant calls coming from the government offices forever, Tony, Sam and Steve were out running damage control and giving our perspective of the attack to the press.

Right now I was currently in the lab with Sarah and Banner after Sarah had called for us.

"I got your call. Something up?"

She excitedly beckoned us to follow her and we did to a spot where some culture tubes were kept.

"Sooo, what exactly are we looking at?"

"This." She pushed a petri dish into our hands and gestured for us to check it out.

I looked at Banner but he just shrugged at me showing his ignorance on the matter. He took the petri dish and placed it under the microscope and zoomed in to observe it before turning to look at Sarah in confusion, not understanding while she gave him a human DNA sample to observe.

I could see what he was seeing and even I failed to understand what she was trying to tell us but as we both looked at her for an explanation, she became more visibly excited.

We waited for a few seconds to let her ride off whatever high she was on and finally asked her what she was trying to tell us.

"First of all, that's not a human's DNA. At least not specifically." She said.

"What do you mean 'not specifically'?" Banner asked.

"Because that's not a pure human DNA but a mutant's." She finally revealed and while Banner was gobsmacked, I took the dish and placed it under the microscope just in case my interface made a mistake. And yes I know exactly how ridiculous that sounds.

I took a good look at it and made a detail of every outline and placement of the cell structure… and then I saw it.

Humans have 46 chromosomes, 23 paired chromosomes, and while mutants too have the same 23 pair of chromosomes, it is the last pair that makes them entirely different.

In humans, they have 22 autosomes and a pair of sexual XY or XX chromosomes. For mutants, they have 21 autosomes, a pair of either XX or XY sexual chromosomes and then a pair of unidentified 'X' genes.

But what I was seeing now was different. The one that was supposed to be the X-gene was taking on the appearance of neutral autosomes.

"How?" That was the first thing that escaped my mouth as I looked at Sarah as if she suddenly grew another head.

She then proceeded to explain to us and show us her research and the records of numerous trial and error she carried out.

Not just me, but even Banner was impressed with her intelligence. I mean, I knew she was intelligent but not this intelligent.

Why is this such a freakish thing? I don't know, maybe it's because she just cracked one of the scientific mysteries concerning the mutant race.

The only thing that made my nonexistent heart calm down in its crazy rhythm was that it wasn't permanent. For some reason she still was yet to figure out, she couldn't fully suppress the last pair of chromosomes as it slowly reverts back to the X-gene over time.

"You really outdid yourself this time, Sarah. You could even win a Nobel Prize if you make your achievements known and publish it as a thesis." I said after trying multiple times and finally managed to get over the fact that my employee just created a mutant cure, although a temporary one.

"Well as much as that is the dream of anyone who majors in the sciences, I'm afraid I can't push this out to the public. Least of all right now when everything is tense." She said with a disgruntled expression before looking in my direction and scoffed. "What? You really don't think I was actually thinking of putting this out there and letting the government have unbridled access to it, right?"

Weeeell, it's not as if it was such an outlandish thing to expect.

If word of this got out, the situation with mutants will become a hundred times worse overnight. I don't even want to think of the rubbish and retarded reasons they'll give just to force the administration of this serum to any mutant who made the wrong decision of signing the Registration.

"So what are you going to do to the research?" I asked her.

"Well, it's all saved up in my head but we should upload one in yours as a safe backup. We can delete the original data and I'll just continue from where I stopped and try to unravel the mysteries of the X-gene."

I couldn't help but have a newfound respect for Sarah and her decision to shelve something monumental like this.

She was throwing away something countries will actually go to war for, and that was no exaggeration.

Banner looked at her in fascination as he couldn't believe she would just throw away a breakthrough discovery like this because he knew without even needing to look deep down that if he were in her shoes he wouldn't have given up his research for anything.

After all, it was that same stubbornness that made him into the monster he was today.

"I understand what the both of you are thinking of but I assure you I don't need to think much about it before making my decision." She said with a small smile as she looked at me. "My daughter is still a little girl and a mutant at that. I'll be damned if I contribute to destroying her childhood with this."

"With a reasoning like that, I don't think I have anything else to say otherwise." I said with a wry smile, understanding a little bit about why the decision came easy to her.

"Well if that's all then I'll be taking my leave. See you guys later."

Upon leaving Sarah's lab, I received a text that just made my day progressively brighter.

{>Raven: Got something you will want to take a look at}

[Information successfully downloaded]

[Proceed to assimilate?]

'Yes.'

With a mental command, a block of foreign data was added to my steadily increasing pile of knowledge.

'So Shaw and Buckman have recently started working together on a secret project, huh? What are the odds?'

It's times like these that I regret not reading much of Marvel Comics because apart from knowing some of their names, affiliations and moral alignment, I knew nothing else about these people.

People like Shaw, Selene and Emma were the ones I knew of to an acceptable degree as they were prominent characters in the franchise but apart from being stupidly rich, part of the Hellfire Club and doing some shady deals that all successful businessmen do, what else was he?

Well it doesn't matter as Raven already picked him as her target and she's doing well so far, but I guess that much is certain given who she is. Her ability was specially tailored for blending into any environment after all.

'Now then, what am I to do?'

There are quite a few things that require my attention but I think I can have some fun at the expense of Buckman.

'Pull up a list of all known companies under Edward Buckman's ownership, sponsorship and shares.'

Even if I know I can't get all of them, the ones I have access to should be more than enough to drive him mad with despair and disbelief.

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Just a simple vote:

Originally I wanted to use Wanda as the love interest but then I started having thoughts about Natasha and giving her a good romance after re-watching Black Widow.

It's not going to be a harem because it's only Wanda and Natasha as the love interests, the latter if that's your choice.

- Add Natasha to the romance?

- Leave it as is. Wanda for the win!