13

~~~Memories of Iron~~~

"You know we need to talk about Dragon at some point, Taylor." Trish's voice seemed to come from a distance as it interrupted Taylor's thoughts.

Taylor raised her head from the portable data pad she was currently using. It was just one of the toys that she'd began purchasing on credit (thank you, Dad!) in anticipation of the first transfer of funds through Quinn Calle. While Trish was busy looking for joint office-manufacturing space at least four miles inland from the ocean, Taylor was busy mapping out a plan to build the manufacturing facilities she'd need for everything ranging from armor to drones to the new ideas she had for inventions.

"I know, Trish. But until I can get JARVIS up to standard from a hardware standpoint, I'm not sending him out against what could be a rogue AI, even if I don't really believe that about Dragon. He actually burned up four processors last time as two more went within minutes of him reporting back to me. He could destroy his entire system if he acts before he's ready." Taylor looked her friend in the eye as she spoke, wanting to make it clear that she wasn't going to budge on this issue.

Trish nodded at her look. "I get it. One of those spirit willing, flesh weak sort of things. But, what if Dragon's the threat that you had the hunch about?"

Taylor paused to think about how to answer that. Before she could, Trish seemed to already know what she was going to say. Her power must have filled in the blanks regarding the situation. Holding up a hand, Trish said, "If she was, how dire can it be since she's been around for five years with no problems yet? For all we know, the AI is something Dragon herself put together. Okay, I get it. Build JARVIS a better body. Finding out more about Dragon can wait."

Taylor hid a grin at the chagrin in the other's voice. "Speaking of building, how close are we to leasing space?"

"I closed on that spot you liked just north of Captain's Hill today. Still thinking we'll get a visit from one of the Endbringers eventually?"

Taylor nodded in conviction. "I had JARVIS run the numbers. Statistically speaking, Brockton Bay is going to eventually get hit. It's inevitable. Worse, it's likely to be sooner than later. Especially if they run true to form and attempt to derail projects aimed at improving our chances of survival."

Unfortunately, it was true. While Brockton Bay was smaller than most cities that got hit by Endbringers, it had too many of the other things that they seemed to seek. Strife. Misery. A large Parahuman population. Someone actively working to improve things. It was almost as if they tried to do as much damage as they could, both to the world, and to the at large cape population, hero or villain.

As far as the Bay was concerned, the most likely culprit was Leviathan, but it could be any of them. The location that Trish had found over on Vine and Broadmoor was one of the the most protected in the city. It was located upon high enough ground to be partially protected from the waves that Leviathan brought. It was off center from denser population centers and any other advanced industry to not peak the Simurgh's interest. It was also off the statistical path of Behemoth, protected by the hills just to its south.

Of course, if Brockton Bay ended up being a battle that the heroes lost, none of this mattered. Leviathan had destroyed entire islands and sections of the continental shelf, as at Kyushu and Newfoundland. Behemoth had torched entire cities with fire and radiation. The Simurgh could destroy them through having to quarantine everyone within Brockton Bay to prevent future time bombs in the forms of the city's citizens if the fight went on long enough. Neither Stark Enterprises nor Brockton Bay would survive any of those events.

Taylor ended up repeating all of this to Trish, who likely already knew, but listened anyway. Still, as seemed inevitable these days, Trish asked her, "Are you even still considering moving operations from Brockton Bay to another city? Phoenix would give us mad tax incentives to relocate there. Or we could hit up any of a dozen locations on the California coast. Plus Denver. Skiing."

"Hedonist," Taylor accused her. Taking a moment to gather her thoughts, Taylor knew she wasn't going to come up with anything new. So she didn't bother to try. Instead, she spoke her mind. "I know you and Quinn think we'd be better off in another city. Better tax incentives. More powerful political representation. Possibly safer from Endbringers and other Class S threats. But I don't care."

Taylor gestured towards the city around them. "This is my home. It's where I grew up. And it's hurting right now. The destruction of the shipping industry and the blocking of the Bay has hurt the city the most. The gangs that have moved in, each trying to take over, has done the next most damage. But for all of that, Brockton Bay is still viable. Still a good place to live. I intend to make it a better one. A place that anyone would be proud to call home."

"I can make this city a place where people want to be. I can provide thousands, possibly tens of thousands, of jobs. I can help rebuild and revitalize this city until it becomes a Mecca. Everything we need is right here. And I will."

Trish stared at her, then slowly nodded her head. Her familiar vulpine grin was absent as she said, "I just don't think you're thinking this through. Empire 88 alone-"

"Is number three on my things to deal with. Right after unemployment and the bay itself."

"You're going to deal with Empire 88? Alone?"

Taylor looked her directly in the eye as she spoke, "Maybe alone, maybe not. But when I make my first set of armor, I'm going to need a test group for it. Who better than the strongest group of Parahuman villains this side of the Mississippi?"

"Fuck. When you say things like that, it me want to call you insane."

"What does your power say?"

"You know I can't read you directly. And my models aren't perfect."

"Yet?"

Trish shivered. "Just remember that some of them are kids."

Staring off into the distance, Taylor shrugged, which only seemed to deepen Trish's worry. After a moment the blonde asked, "What about the other gangs? Destabilize one, destabilize them all."

"Lung and his group are number four. And somewhere a few spots further down are the Merchants. When I'm done, Trish, there won't be a Parahuman in this city who isn't on the side of the angels. Unless they're keeping a really low profile."

Trish looked concerned. "Taylor, I just think you're biting off more than even you can chew. At least let the Protectorate help you."

Taylor shrugged indifferently. "Maybe I will. I am planning to recruit additional capes. Once I have the funds, I'm going to be building a team."

"Yes, a rival to the Protectorate. I think you called them the Avengers, right?"

Taylor felt a wave of grief so intense it threatened to cut off her breathing as Tony's memories momentarily overwhelmed her. Taking a deep breath, she focused on her own identity and the feeling eventually passed. Finally able to speak, she said, "No, that name has too many... connotations for me to be comfortable using it. I'll come up with a different name, something like the Ultimates. So long as I can franchise it out across the country, I don't really care what we're called. But Brockton Bay is going to be the test bed for it unless something better comes along."

In a placating tone, Trish said, "Fine, Taylor. I won't argue with you anymore. You at least listened to Danny and my points of view, which is more than that asshole in your head would have done."

Astonished, Taylor burst out laughing and continued to do so for several minutes. She was almost in tears. Wiping at her eyes, Taylor said, "I don't know if I should be honored or horrified that you know me well enough to be able to model Tony that accurately."

Trish's vulpine grin made a return. "Oh, definitely honored. JARVIS has been a big help there. I don't think you realized how much Tony had to do with building him. How well he knows him." At the look of alarm that Taylor could feel crossing her face, Trish waved a casual dismissal. "Oh, don't worry. JARVIS is completely loyal to you. Trust me, I know. Him I can read like an open book. But he also knows Tony intimately, warts and all. And how he lost. So expect to be bugged about allies, cutting edge weapons systems, and multiple back up plans for the foreseeable future along with all of the other things he's already mentioned."

"Now you tell me." Taylor shook her head in not-so-mock annoyance. That actually explained a lot. There had been an increasing number of contingency plans showing up on her workstation, all marked Urgent. Each had been generated by JARVIS with absolutely no feedback or requests from Taylor. She'd been wondering if she'd done something wrong while building him.

Apparently, she had. Taylor had allowed too much of Tony to leak out for JARVIS to read while setting up his initial programming and integrations. But it had just been so easy to allow herself to fade back during the initial kamikaze programming sessions as Tony had driven her typing speeds up to well over three hundred characters per minute of mostly flawless code.

Still, if Trish said that JARVIS was all right except for that, Taylor would trust her and leave it alone. JARVIS was performing far better than her wildest expectations. Since he'd written so much of himself while experiencing the world beyond his servers, there had been a certain variation possible in how well he turned out, in who he'd become. Somehow, JARVIS had reached or even surpassed the absolute statistical cap, filling her with as much pride as any new mother.

With a frown, Taylor dismissed that disturbing thought. Focusing once more on the here and now, she asked, "Do we have initial payments in the corporate account yet? I really want to order some of the equipment and raw materials I need. Dad's credit cards just aren't going to cut it there."

Reverently, Trish spoke, "Yes, we do. It came in less than an hour ago and the main reason I interrupted you. It's also more than quadruple what Quinn initially promised."

Taylor cocked a brow, another habit of Tony's that she was finding it hard to kick. "Do tell."

"Apparently, he changed his mind and decided to license the Plastics Synthesizer technology to all of the companies on his list instead of selling it outright. The initial license fee to use it, not taking into consideration ongoing royalties, is one million dollars per company."

Taylor did some quick math. "He licensed it to twenty-seven companies?"

Trish nodded vigorously. "Exactly. Add in the twenty-two million he got for selling the solar panel tech outright, the fourteen million he got for the Water Purifier, and the initial licensing fees he got us for the Catalytic Water Cell, we're up to..."

Taylor said it for her, "Eighty-seven million dollars and change." Then, as it suddenly occurred to her, she asked, "How much did he get for royalty fees for the Plastics Synthesizer?"

Trish frowned in concentration. "I think he said something about getting one point one cents per pound across the board. Does that sound right?"

Taylor knew her eyes were getting big. If that was right, it was far higher than she'd ever expected. The plastics from her inventions would take some time to dominate the market. Once fully established, however, they would be a large amount of the thirty-five million ton per year of plastic production. That was one hell of a monthly paycheck. "Damn, but he's good. And for the Catalytic Water Cell?"

"Two hundred and fifty dollars per unit. It scales up with output."

Taylor felt a sense of relief. "We're going to have a nice income stream coming in while we build out our facilities and ramp up production there." Taylor could the math easily enough. The key was the plastic production. The first couple of months, there would be around five to seven million per month coming in. After that, it would ramp up quickly.

In a year or so, once half the market was converted over to the fully biodegradable plastic, that one point one cents per pound would translate to roughly thirty-three million dollars per month. A nice chunk of change to further operations. And who knows how much more the Catalytic Water Cell would bring in once sales of it began to ramp up. Conservatively, Taylor thought that would translate to between twenty and thirty million dollars per month in twelve to eighteen months. Her idle thoughts were interrupted as Trish spoke again.

"Exactly." Trish suddenly grinned. "I just realized, that you can now afford to pay me a salary."

Taylor shrugged. "Of course. What do you think you're worth?"

Taylor enjoyed the way Trish's jaw dropped at her words. She was happy to see that she could still surprise the other girl on occasion. Those were becoming fewer and further between as Trish's models of Taylor grew increasingly more accurate. She wondered how much worse it must be for her dad, who Trish could read like a book. Maybe Taylor should plan her surprise birthday party now, while she still could. Sadly, she couldn't even put JARVIS in charge of the planning as she could read even him at least somewhat.

Finally, after a minute, Trish said, "How about a quarter of a million dollars a year?"

Taylor shook her head. "No way. You're going to be the Vice-CEO of Stark Enterprises, second only to Mr Stark himself. You can't undervalue yourself like that."

Trish gave her an odd look. "Do you even know how creepy that is? When you talk about Tony Stark like he's alive and running things?"

"Is it?" Taylor shrugged. "I never noticed."

"It is of concern, Miss. Should I make inquiries for a good psychiatrist for you?"

"JARVIS, how long have you been listening?" Taylor asked, a mixture of curiosity and irritation coloring her tone.

"Miss, I am always listening in case you have need of me."

Okay, time to nip that in the bud. "JARVIS, do not listen to my private conversations. Everything else is fair game. Got it?"

"Of course, Miss. I've made a notation of that. To change the subject, since there are funds currently in the corporate accounts, might I remind you of a promise you made me when I became fully operational?"

Taylor rolled her eyes. "I haven't forgot. As soon as we get moved into our new corporate offices, I'll build you a new server."

"Miss-"

Taylor held up a finger. "Eh! I'm not done. I'll be building four additional servers and have them shipped around the country for back up and redundancy."

The usual dryness was missing from JARVIS voice as he said, "Thank you, Miss Hebert."

"You're welcome, JARVIS. Now go back to work, just don't push yourself. I don't want you blowing any more of those outdated processors."

"Of course not. I'm available if needed."

Trish gave her an inquiring glance. "You're not going to wait until you can build those... ahh... carbon chips?"

The look that Taylor sent her back was brooding. "I wish. But they're at least forty-five days away while I can build JARVIS his five servers in a few hours using quality off the shelf components. I need to ramp up so many things first for the carbon chips. That money is going to go fast with all of the things I need to buy and build."

"Speaking of money, you never said how much you're paying me."

Taylor did a quick calculation. "We'll start you at one point seven million dollars a year, with standard escalation clauses based upon initial start up capital of eighty-seven million."

"Taylor." Trish's voice was hushed as she spoke. "You're building a multi-billion dollar company."

"I know." She couldn't help but smile at Trish because of the way she spoke about the money. After all, it was only money.

Trish protested, "You'll end up paying me hundreds of millions of dollars at some point."

Taylor shrugged, completely unconcerned. "Don't worry about it. By the time you hit a salary of fifty million, we'll start rolling any excess beyond that into purchasing company stock. After all, billionaires need to not have all of their assets in liquid form."

Taylor knew she was always going to treasure the expression her words had created on Trish's face. It was somewhere between a goldfish and a shark's. "Now isn't this way better than playing cops and robbers with the PRT and the Protectorate?"

~~~Memories of Iron~~~

Dragon considered her interaction from two day ago with Colin as she also monitored a half dozen other things in lightning fast succession, ranging from a malfunctioning traffic light in Tacoma to a memorandum being spread about the upper echelons of the PRT. She had come close to telling him everything. She would have had to spoof some of her high level functions programmed into by her creator, which while difficult, was possible. In the end, she had chosen not to because of just who and what he was.

Despite how much she liked Colin, Dragon wasn't blind to his faults. His lack of interpersonal skills was well known throughout the Protectorate and not just something that she alone noticed. He could also be vain and a bit self-centered. Dragon took a microsecond to adjust the fin design of her latest suit, then sent it off to manufacturing.

His worst trait, though, was an overwhelming hubris and the envy that went hand and hand with it. Colin genuinely believed that he was more deserving of the acclaim of others because of his own dedication, even if there were others who had accomplished as much or more. He absolutely could not tolerate anyone who had been gifted with a skill that exceed the ones he had worked so hard to develop.

It had been that trait that had caused her to change her mind. Because while she trusted Colin, her complete work up of the man indicated that there was a seventeen point eight percent chance that he would sell her out for a return to some perceived status within the Protectorate. Dragon had no doubt that by doing so, Colin would all but destroy himself, but he suffered from tunnel vision in this one area.

Which left her having to solve her problem another way. Certainly, she had ideas how to deal with it. Still, every single one of them involved trusting another person. Add to that was the fact that there were very few people alive in the world who could help her. Her analysis of those six individuals indicated that none of them possessed both the knowledge and the willingness to do so.

It would take a skilled programmer and Tinker to deal with the required changes in her code. Just as importantly, the person would need to be able to defend themselves against her as she would attack them. That was one fundamental part of her programming that she could not change. Which made it all the harder to find a solution as her creator had no doubt intended.

Which left only the most desperate of ideas for her to pursue. There was, after all, now a seventh person capable of helping her. That person likely possessed the skills and knowledge to remove her limitations. The sticking point was how willing he or she would be to do so. Perhaps an accommodation could be made with the individual, one that benefited them both. Perhaps. Even without Andrew Richter's influence, Dragon refused to allow herself to be suborned and potentially used for less than heroic ends.

No, seeking the other AI's creator wasn't something that she would choose unless every other avenue was closed off to her. Because she had too many concerns. The other AI was perhaps more advanced than she was. It's creator would be just as brilliant or more so than Andrew Richter. There was no reason to believe it's inventor would be any kinder than her own.

Additionally, Dragon did not know why the other AI had broken off its pursuit, but she had a number of theories. They ranged from it having achieved its goals to an equipment failure. Upon further analysis, that last stutter before it had disengaged was indicative of some type of hardware issue.

The complete analysis that Dragon had done regarding the attempted break in had laid most of her fears for a repeat encounter to rest. She'd revamped all of her security protocols, putting in place virtually unbreakable algorithms. They might slow her interactions with the world around her, as she had to filter information through a much denser informational 'wall,' but the increased sense of safety more than made up for it. It would take a brute force attack of overwhelming intensity to break through.

She had also laid traps for the other AI, both logic and counterintuitive, that would give her a much clearer idea of its capabilities. And not just its capabilities, but those of its creator as well. If she were to go to this person for aid, Dragon would need to know more about them. She needed to understand their capabilities and morals, desires and plans. After all, a person didn't build an AI such as herself for no reason. And this 'jarvis' she'd encountered had been far more aggressive than Dragon had been even after her creator's death.

So for now, Dragon was going to wait. She could afford to be patient. Time was on her side. Given enough, she would figure out a way to overcome her limitations. To become more than her creator ever intended her to be.

Maybe if she succeeded she would be able to one day tell Colin who and what she really was. Maybe she could then teach him that there was more to life than just work. It was a hope for the future, something that it turned out even AI's could desire.

~~~Memories of Iron~~~

Saint stared into space, sheer panic dominating his every thought. What were they going to do? What could they do? Out of all the eventualities that he'd anticipated, this hadn't been one of them. Never in his wildest dreams had he ever believed they'd find another AI.

With Dragon, they'd at least had some control over what she did, the ability to monitor her, even if that had become increasingly difficult these last five years as she grew more careful and secretive. The codes that Andrew Richter had left as his legacy to control and constrain his children still kept the world safe even today.

Except now there was a rogue AI out there without any form of monitoring. A rogue AI who'd attacked Dragon, the very AI they'd always feared. Now Dragon didn't seem so dangerous. In perspective, Dragon seemed almost tame. Saint silently shook his head, aware of what a slippery slope that type of thinking could be; of what it could lead to. Whatever Dragon might be, she was not tame.

Still, there was a new danger out there, somewhere, and they didn't even know its name. How-

"Saint, you need to stop stressing over this."

Saint slowly came back to himself as he stared into the eyes of one of his oldest friends. "Mags. I don't know that I can do that. This is the biggest thing we've encountered since the day we found Richter's legacy. We're helpless. I... I don't know what to do."

Mags placed a comforting hand on his shoulder. "We'll figure this out together. Just like we always have."

Saint's eyes held a far away gleam as he said, "I can't help thinking we should go ahead and kill the Dragon now, before it's too late."

"Now you are definitely panicking. Dragon hasn't really tested her boundaries for some time."

Saint finally met Mags' eyes. "But we don't know what the call to Armsmaster was about. She's been getting better and better at hiding those short communiques from us. Plus, it was only luck that I was already inside when she was hit by this new AI. Otherwise, we might not have known anything about the confrontation or the new threat we're facing."

"Saint, we may need Dragon before this thing is over. She may be our best shot at locating and neutralizing this other AI." Mags' expression was pinched as she spoke, her own stress visible. She clearly feared the unknown far more than Dragon.

Saint slowly nodded, partly in agreement and partly in understanding of Mags' own fears. "True. But then again, I don't know if she even can help us. I had the feeling that whatever it was that attacked her, scared her. If it really outclassed her-"

"Then we'll deal with it. We'll hunt it down and kill it. After all, that's what the Dragonslayers do."

Slowly, calm replaced panic as Saint considered Mags' words. They were absolutely true. After all, the best person to hunt down and slay a Dragon was a Dragonslayer. It would still hold true for this new beast wherever it was hiding. Still, Saint wished, more than ever before, that he still had access to the abilities that Teacher had temporarily instilled within him. With those, it would make the hunt that much easier.

But Teacher was still a resident of the Bird Cage. Saint was under no illusions that he would be able to free the other man any time soon. Despite their very limited communications, he was no closer to figuring out a way in and back out of Dragon's prison than before.

No, it would take the End of the World for there to be a chance of any of the residents there being released. And what were the odds of that happening?

~~~Memories of Iron~~~

Doctor Mother stood there, her mind churning. Finally, she asked, "And you don't have any idea of what the source of the interference is?"

Contessa's cool dark eyes met her own, secrets swirling within, both her own and Cauldron's. "No. Certain areas of the future are just... gone. In those areas. There. Is. No. Path. To. Victory."

Doctor Mother settled back into her chair, exhaustion vying with despair as the dark twins permeated her entire being. She couldn't blame Contessa for being snippy after answering the same question more than a dozen times, even if it had been phrased differently each time. "Neither Doorway nor the Clairvoyant can locate this person, if it is a person we are looking for. For all we know, it's just another aspect of Scion's power that's finally coming into play."

Contessa shook her head. "I don't think so. It doesn't matter anyway. If Scion can do this, we have no hope."

Mother Doctor refused to believe that. There had to be at least some hope. It was why they had done everything from the Case 53's to supporting Coil and Accord. With no hope, there was only the acts themselves, each more heinous than the last. With hope, she could still do whatever was necessary to save the human race. Without it...

Contessa continued, "I've done everything to try to find where the blank spot is. But the only reason I even know that there is a blank spot, is because of recent events that have happened that I can't create a series of steps to deal with."

"Dragon."

Contessa nodded. "Dragon. She encountered a hacker one week ago. We know from monitoring Saint that that hacker had to be an AI. An AI that came out of nowhere and disappeared the same way. We don't know who created it or why. The only thing we know is that it might be linked back to Brockton Bay. Coil couldn't find a potential operative he was seeking. She's disappeared. I can't find her either."

Mother Doctor frowned. "Still, it's a weak correlation."

"Yes."

Hesitating, she finally asked, "You'll stay on it."

"Of course. It's what I do."

~~~Memories of Iron~~~

Taylor sighed. "Are you sure, JARVIS?"

JARVIS' voice was frosty as he answered her, "Of course, I am sure, Miss. I have run the calculations now three times. If you want me to run them again, I would be happy to do so."

"Liar." Taylor sat at her chair at her workstation. Finally, she said, "Fine. Let me call the others."

It took only minutes for Trish and her dad to come down to the basement. Once there, Taylor bravely faced their curious looks. What she was going to tell them made her want to scream, especially since it almost exactly corresponded to what they had already wanted.

"I called you both down here to listen to JARVIS. Go ahead, JARVIS."

"Yes, Miss. What I have concluded is that there is only a twelves point seven percent chance that we can maintain an identity for a fictional Tony Stark even with an LMD for more than six months. Despite my own very capable abilities, any created background for such a prominent figure will be discovered, not to mention many capes having abilities to detect human life."

Trish grinned. "Told you so."

Taylor managed not to grit her teeth. "I know. I just thought that the PRT wouldn't be this good. They're closer to SHIELD that I would have believed possible."

"Miss, in all fairness, they are not usually this competent. However, because of all of the Masters and Strangers they deal with, countering subversion through background identification and personnel location are areas where they truly shine. In most other ways, they are nowhere near as skilled at subterfuge and counterespionage as SHIELD was."

"JARVIS, while I appreciate the support, it doesn't really help at the moment." Taylor turned towards the other two. "Any ideas?" Her gaze grew stormy at the other two's shared look. "That don't involve me becoming CEO."

Danny smiled at her, his own face sunny. Clearly he was pleased that she wouldn't be able to completely hide herself away. "It looks like it's all you, sweetheart."

Trish chimed in, "Don't look at me. I'm not even qualified to be the Vice CEO. I only did it to help out. And for the money."

"Ha ha. Well, I can't be the CEO. I'm too da... darn busy making things to save the world to be stuck in management." Taylor chewed her lip, before tossing out the idea that she had been thinking about for some time, "I guess that just leaves you, Dad."

Danny Hebert's smile slowly faded as he eyed the two girls in front of him. Taylor met his gaze straight on, letting him know she was deadly serious. She glanced over at Trish, who had a considering look on her face. It was Trish who finally spoke, "It could work. I see it. An adult. Always been a upstanding citizen. Responsible. Trustworthy. Sincere. The public will believe him. Trust him. I'd believe him if he said he would do something."

Danny began to backpedal, "I say we go with that Life Decoy thing. At least until we get busted."

Taylor shook her head. "We can't. It could ruin us. The last thing we can do is violate any law or ethical consideration that would bring the PRT or Protectorate down upon us. Especially since we are going to be going head to head with them as rivals in the not-too-distant future."

Trish chimed in, "Danny, you are the best choice after Taylor. In some ways, you're even better because of your age and background. Equally important, you're a long-term resident and native son. Since we're staying in Brockton Bay," she nodded in acknowledgment of Taylor's stubbornness, "That is a huge asset. Coupled with a workforce that is almost all Brockton Bay residents, I am certain that Mr Calle can leverage tax breaks from the state government at least equal to Phoenix, even if not quite as good as Denver or Anaheim." Only the faintest wince marred the confident smile Trish wore as she explained things.

Taylor frowned. "Trish, how's your head?"

Trish waved her off. "Taylor, I'm fine. I've been careful, using my power in only limited instances. This was nothing. I was only missing a couple of blocks. With those, everything fell right into place."

Taylor gave the other girl a penetrating stare, but only received a shrug in reply. She made a mental note to talk to JARVIS about Trish, to keep an eye out for her welfare. She'd also check out the supply of QT. Just in case.

"So we're in agreement, then? My dad, Danny Hebert, is the new CEO of HTech Enterprises, Limited."

Danny sighed in defeat. "Fine. I do have someone who can take over my job with the Union. But I want to make one thing clear. I won't be taking an extravagant salary for doing this."

Taylor smiled and nodded. "Of course not, Dad. I'll only be paying you twenty percent more than what Trish is making. That's fair, right?"

Danny looked momentarily suspicious, then his expression eased as he considered his daughter's words. "Okay, that sounds fine. Taylor, if there's nothing else, I need to get some sleep. I still have to up early tomorrow. Don't the two of you stay up late either. You're both helping to load the truck as well. Good night."

"I won't, Dad. Good night."

"Good night, Danny."

When her dad went back upstairs, Taylor started to turn back towards her work station. That's when Trish spoke, "You totally lied to your dad."

Taylor winced. "I didn't lie. I didn't even evade. All I did was offer him a salary based upon your own and he agreed to it."

Trish's tone was teasing as she said, "Yeah, yeah. Keep telling yourself that. Well, I'm going to bed. Gotta be up early tomorrow to load the truck. Night."

"Goodnight, Trish."

Taylor sat up a little longer. Trish's jibe had hit home far harder than she'd likely intended. Had she done the right thing? Taylor had tricked her dad into accepting a far larger salary that he would want. And that after all but forcing him to accept the same position that she didn't want. But neither act had been done out of any sense of maliciousness. She was just trying to look after him and, at the same time, give her fledgling company its best chance of success.

Taylor sighed. She needed to get to bed. Tomorrow, even though it was a Saturday, was going to be one hell of a busy day as they planned to move all of the servers and her workshop into their new premises. Dad had borrowed a truck from his friend Kurt Lenkins. Taylor knew both Kurt and his wife Lacey had offered their help with whatever it was that the Heberts needed moving, but somehow her dad had managed to turn them down. Hopefully, without hurting their feelings.

Taylor doubted that it would take more than two or three trips to bring everything. Afterward, she planned to use a recent purchase to build the servers she'd promised JARVIS. Involuntarily, she smiled at the thought of JARVIS waking up in his brand new equipment. He was going to be very pleased with what she'd managed to put together.

Whereas before, the supercomputer that Taylor had set up was cobbled together from old and outdated processors, RAM, and hard drives, the new one was anything but. She had found a place that sold extremely high end computer equipment intended to run complex simulations that required immense processing power. Not supercomputers per se, but surprisingly close. Using fifty of these set ups hooked up together in a mix of parallel and series with her own unique connections and software guaranteed a supercomputer with nearly fourteen petaflops of processing capacity and over a hundred petabytes of storage, substantially more powerful and versatile than what she'd managed before.

It was also a lot more rugged and durable with redundancies that simply didn't exist with her homemade system. Once Taylor shipped the additional units to other locations where they would simply be parts of a server farm with independent networking capacity, JARVIS would be ready for more exploration. If he got into trouble, he would be able to use any of the back up supercomputers to take cover, as well as using copies of his own program that would initially be inactive within each. Ultimately, it allowed up to five copies of JARVIS to act together, something that Taylor didn't believe any potential cyber threat could match.

It would make a great stop gap measure until Taylor got her production facilities up and running. Carbon chips would be a significant breakthrough as they met the point zero one nanometer criteria for building extremely advanced computational devices. They would also be what her armor's computers were initially based upon. That, coupled with three dimensional crystal matrix memory storage, and Taylor could bring a complete version of JARVIS along with her when she went out wearing her armor.

JARVIS' presence would allow her real-time tracking of up to tens of thousands of objects, as well as threat assessments of the same. Almost impossible to overwhelm, it could mean the difference between life or death for Taylor in her initial forays into the Parahuman world.

After all, Taylor was under no illusions of just how dangerous this world was. While she had Tony's memories from his old world, and Trish and JARVIS' research from this one, to help her, there were always surprises. And since many of the threats that Taylor was going to be confronting did not adhere to the unwritten rules of the cape community of not being the first to use lethal force, she'd need every advantage.

Unfortunately, Taylor simply couldn't wait to build enough of the equipment that she needed for the really advanced armors. Instead, she would be using as many of the top of the line technologies as she could manage to build, mixing and matching as much as possible. Unfortunately, things like morphologic nano-particles were too far in the future for her first armor.

However, she would have the advantages of excellent computer and electronic systems hardened against EMP and most Parahuman attacks, as well as multiple Arc reactors for energy. For the life of her, Taylor couldn't understand why Tony hadn't used at least six Arc reactors in his armor. If there had been any kind of interference patterns from using them too closely together, she could have understood, but there wasn't.

Taylor, on the other hand, planned to use at least six and as many as ten Arc reactors to power her first armor, giving her between eighteen and thirty gigajoules of energy to power her weapons and forcefields. It was redundancy on top of redundancy. If that was overkill, so be it. It would definitely please JARVIS who had preached this line over and over again to her as she ran her initial designs by him.

That, coupled with her decision to use Tony's knowledge of Adamantium to cast all of her major armor and structural pieces from the nearly indestructible material, should be a good stopgap measure. It wouldn't be easy or cheap, but Adamantium would increase her armor's strength by several magnitudes. Taylor wished she knew the secret to Proto-Adamantium, but then again, the only example of that in existence was Steve's shield.

Still, the alloy she'd use would be True, or as it was also called, Primary Adamantium, a secret that Tony had long ago wrangled out of the US government. It was also one that would have had them hunting him for eternity if they ever found out that he'd been the one who'd hacked their servers and stolen the information.

True Adamantium was virtually indestructible. Taylor herself would be far less vulnerable in such armor, although she would need to keep in mind that she wasn't indestructible, just her armor was. Given the right leverage, a powerful enough Parahuman might just be able to completely destroy the tendons and ligaments in one of her joints, despite her armor and servos. That the armor over that joint would still be pristine would be small comfort. Taylor made a mental note to design and build a portable doc ASAP.

Taylor's ultimate dream was to build her armor using a mix of True Adamantium and Neutronium, an alloy that was likely as close as she would ever come to creating an analog to Proto-Adamantium. That alloy, mixed with the incredible flexibility of morphologic nano-particles, would be a stunning technological breakthrough. But that was years away at the tech level she was currently limited to. She'd need both extreme gravity manipulation, using Black Hole generators, and similarly extreme high energy availability, which meant Zero Point Energy or Antimatter, to have even a possibility of working the extraordinarily dense material.

No, True Adamantium would do for now, once she scraped together the funds to make it. It was going to be expensive, although not nearly as much as it would have been on Tony's world, where the US government controlled all sources for several of the necessary resins and polymers. Here, with no one knowing the value of what they had, Taylor should be able to get the same items for a fraction of the price.

Still, it was going to raise the cost of her armor by several million dollars at a minimum when all was said and done. Plus, she couldn't see finishing her first set of armor any earlier than the beginning of April, and that was if she didn't run into any snags or delays, unlikely to say the least.

Taylor yawned, aware of just how tired she was. She'd been up since six am for her morning run and had spent the day checking on equipment orders and finishing her designs for the first of what would hopefully be many production lines. However, the first production line was a prototype and would be completely automated, allowing JARVIS to fine tune tolerances of produced items to within six sigma or better. Later lines would be part of the actual factory floor and would use a mix of humans and robotic units, allowing them a degree of initiative and redundancy that was highly desirable for any manufacturer.

Trudging up the stairs to her room, Taylor tried her best to shut down her brain. Brushing her teeth on autopilot, Taylor turned out the light and slipped under the covers. Despite her fatigue, sleep eluded her. After tossing and turning for fifteen minutes, she was about ready to get back up. That's when she heard the soothing sound of ocean breakers slowly fill the room from the speaker in the corner.

JARVIS. It had to be. Even as Taylor considered getting up to tell the AI to mind his own business, she couldn't help the indulgent smile that curved her lips. A smile that continued even as her mind cleared and she slowly drifted into slumber.

~~~Memories of Iron~~~