The rest of the day we spent relaxing. I took Betsy around New York, seeing the sights. We visited the museum and went on a tour. At some point she opened up about her time as Captain Britain and Psylocke. She spoke like it was all in the past or like another life.

“Would you go back? If I could do that,” I ask.

She looks up and thinks. “Maybe. But my time is here and now. New adventures await me. New friends and enemies. I’m actually looking forward to it.” She looks at me, her eyes twinkling.

After that we grabbed dinner to go and brought some for Oliver.

“Thank you,” he says. “How was your day out?”

“It went well,” Betsy says. I nodded along as she explained the sights we saw as we all eat dinner.

After we’re done Oliver says, “Alright, I’ve been thinking about some things.”

We look towards him. He’s leaning forward with his elbows on his knees.

“First thing is about gear and upgrades. Now that you have enough credits, I believe we should all take the super soldier serum, or something like it.” He puts up a hand to forestall our complaints/input. “Let me finish, please.” We nod. “Thank you. Maybe Betsy wouldn’t need it, and maybe you won’t after you synchronize with your template, but I think I could definitely use it to better myself.” He lets that sink in before continuing. “Next is gear. I know there is some sort of costume maker machine in there and, while expensive, it’ll help us greatly.” Another moment of silence. “Last but definitely not least,” he turns towards Cortana, “we can get you a body. If you’d like.”

We all looked at him, wide-eyed.

I never thought of that. I had just sort of ignored the problem. Sure, we talked with her while we were out on our tour, but I just thought she needed some space. I never thought of why she got mad and how to fix it.

I frowned. Some friend I am.

“Thank you, Oliver,” she turns towards me, “Would that be alright, Brian?”

I smile. “Of course.” I look through the store. “Hmm, there’s a bunch to choose from.”

“Don’t worry,” she says, “I can narrow it down.”

I turn towards her, questioningly. “Oh?”

“Yes, get a ‘sleeve’ and a ‘stack’ from ‘Altered Carbon’ please.”

“I don’t know if you’ll be able to transfer yourself over,” I worry.

“Maybe not my functions and data,” she concedes, “but I believe I’ll be able to figure it out.”

“Well, maybe just the stack first, and then the body.” I buy it and set it down next to her chip so they’re touching.

“Oh, ye of little faith.” She blinks away.

Oliver and Betsy look at me.

“What?” I ask.

They shake their heads.

“Next is gear,” Oliver says. “We lookin’ good on prices?”

“Yea, the sleeve and stack are cheaper than most androids.”

“Okay, so for gear… maybe we should wait.”

“Why is that?” Betsy asks.

“If we’re seen with gear that shouldn’t possibly exist, then we’ll arouse suspicions.”

“Yea,” I say, “Nick Fury is already suspicious enough of new individuals. We don’t need him thinking we are some Skrull.”

“Exactly.” Oliver says. “And, that isn’t to say you both won’t need suits. I just think nothing too advanced will be fine.”

“So…”

“So.”

There’s an elephant in the room (metaphorically speaking).

“You think we should take the super soldier serum,” I say to Oliver.

“Yea, I do.”

“I don’t disagree.”

“Really?”

“Yes, I think it will benefit us greatly.”

“But…”

“But I think we should wait until we have a proper place to set up and do it.”

He thinks on that for a moment.

“Yes, I suppose that makes sense.”

“Care to share?” Betsy asks us.

Oliver looks to me.

“When given the serum, not only did it require equipment, energy, and manpower, but Rodgers also screamed in exertion from having his body reshaped.”

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“So we need somewhere private,” she concludes.

I nod. “Yes, your idea of a villa could certainly work.”

“Quite. I even believe you could set it up like Xavier for all the summons you provide.”

“Ooh, and I could buy a jet and we could fly around doing missions-”

Oliver not so subtly coughs.

“What? It would be cool,” I say.

He shakes his head, then looks at Cortana's chip.

I follow his eyes. “She’ll be fine. I think she's just making sure whatever fits in the stack won’t blow up or short-circuit.”

“Yea, I know,” he says, scratching his head.

I never expected Oliver to be like this. It’s not like I don’t expect him to worry, I just thought he might brood more.

“How about a night off?” Betsy proposes.

Oliver looks at her askance, like ‘where did that come from?’

“It’s not good for you to work so hard,” she continues.

Maybe that’s why he’s pushing for the serum; he’s exhausted. Minus one more point for me I guess.

“We could do a movie night?” I suggest.

He looks ready to deny us, but then he must’ve seen how serious and concerned we were because he agreed.

That night we had popcorn, other snacks, and watched a couple movies.

-The next day-

I had decided to sleep on the couch. Not only because there were only two bedrooms, but also to keep an eye on Cortana. Come morning we were all up.

“How’d it go?” Oliver asks Cortana.

“Well I’d say.”

“Issues?”

“Like we anticipated, the stack wasn’t able to handle many of my features and data.”

We nod.

“However, I found a workaround.”

We’re on the edge of our seats.

“I can split apart my personality and some mundane memories, then plant those into the stack. Then have my chip act as a hub that the stack will constantly update with information so as not to lose core self.”

“So you’ll be like that immortal guy from the story?” I ask.

“Exactly.”

“Immortal?” Betsy asks.

“Yea,” I say, “if you think about it, as long as she can have infinite stacks and sleeves she can live forever. Or something like that.”

“What about the soul?”

“Who knows?”

We all think on that for a moment. If you have a body and mind but no soul, then what are you? How can you even measure the soul?

Quite the pickle.

“Anyway,” I say, “what about the body?”

“A gynoid, please,” Cortana requests.

I nod, looking for an adequate “sleeve” for her.

“Oh, look, I can take a picture and it will model that with other parameters. Say cheese.”

“Cheese!”

“Great, that’s face done. Hair, dark blue. Eyes, light blue. Apparent age, 21. Height, five even-”

“Ahem!” she interjects.

“Yes?” I question.

“I would like at least 5’10” please.”

“Sure you don’t want to be fun-sized?”

“No.” She looks dead serious.

“Cheh. Fine.”

After giving the body some clothes, I ask Cortana to partition her mind so I can combine the sleeve and stack in my inventory.

“Right. I’ll see you soon,” she says, saluting.

The light from the chip dims in color, from blue to gray and nearly black, then blips off.

Thinking everything is going to plan, I take the stack and put it in my inventory then combine it with the sleeve.

I pull her out and set her on the couch. She slowly blinks awake, takes a deep breath, and smiles widely.

“Hello,” she says.

We apprehensively smile back.

“Hi,” I say.

“Yo,” Oliver says.

“Good morning,” Betsy says.

She stretches her arms, breathes deeply again, and stands up.

“Ah. It feels good to be alive. Thank you, Brian.” She hugs me.

I hug her back. “You’re welcome.”

“Let’s go someplace. Ooh, let’s go to Coney island!”

“Sure,” I say.

-Later that day-

The pier and attractions were fun. But I think the most enjoyable experience was watching Cortana’s expressions as she tried different foods and rode on rides. I realized, at the end, that these moments were something to cherish. I would be facing all sorts of evil in the future. Finding time for moments like these would prove to be difficult.

“Whatcha thinking about?” Cortana asks, in between bites of her cotton candy.

“The future,” I say, bluntly.

“Oh, yea?”

“Yea, I was thinking how rare these moments will become.”

Oliver and Betsy turn solemn.

I wonder when was the last time they were able to be out like this.

“Well, we’ll have to make time. I’ll be sure to fit it into your schedule.”

“Since when are you my secretary?”

“Since you first got me, duh.”

“Oh… Uh, sorry.”

“It’s fine. I’m determined to be the best secretary ever!”

“Well then, miss secretary, what’s on my itinerary?”

“After we get home, you’ll slot Pietro. Then you’ll go out with Oliver as his sidekick. During the day tomorrow, and moving forward, Betsy and I will look into buying a villa upstate. After we’ve gotten the villa and some time has passed, we’ll make a team of heroes that secretly takes down Hydra. That… will probably take a few years, so I think we’ll be ready for 2012 by then.”

The three of us look at her.

“Interesting,” I say.

“Sounds great,” Oliver says.

“An apt plan,” Betsy says.

“Glad you like it. Also, I’m thinking of changing my name to Tanya and the A.I.s to Core,” Cor- Tanya says.

“Okay, Tanya,” I say. She smiles widely.

And so, with a tentative 5-year plan in place, our heroes embark the path least traveled and go to claim their place as Earth’s Mightiest Heroes!

“You’re thinking something stupid aren’t you,” Oliver says.

“Damn mindreaders,” I mumble.