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Chapter 45
Technomancer in MCU
The Asterisk
–Ed–
I was working on the energy retention capabilities for the nano-sized N-reactor that Alfred was going to put in his body.
He didn’t ask me to but recently, he has diverted a lot of resources to this project from other non-emergency projects.
Being the helpful buddy that I am, I volunteered to help him. I just waltzed into the lab where his body was being made.
It was still incomplete but the finished parts of the body were absolutely the best of the best.
It was a culmination of centuries of time-dilated original research from our organisation along with the amalgamation of technology ‘borrowed’ from multiple advanced civilisations from the outer cosmos.
To be honest, I was glad that he was finally focusing on his body rather than fruitlessly searching for a cure for my condition.
It would have been nice to see it through but defeating Thanos and making sure that Humanity thrives would be enough of a consolation prize, I guess.
The major parts of the body were already done but some of the auxiliary systems were taking longer than expected. Even then, they could have added those things as they went but then Alfred went ahead and added the magical ability stuff.
The weird thing was that Alfred had loaded all of the runic work on the Masters from Kamar Taj. Normally he would be thrilled to do all of that on his own but something had happened a while back.
Alfred had started acting weird since then. He stopped discussing the magical applications of runes with anyone. He would normally chatter off the Master of the Mystic Art’s ears when it came to Runes.
“Ed?” a voice broke him out of his reverie.
“Yes?”, he turned towards the person who asked him.
Normally, he would be pretty much left alone but as soon as he was found working in the lab, he would be approached by the junior engineers or the fresh joinees. Mostly, it would be due to a dare or maybe to satisfy some of their idle curiosity.
Today, however, was different as he was actually approached by Helen Cho of all people.
She was the head of the Bio-manipulation department.
Her work was invaluable when it came to reducing the rejection rates of the enhancement procedures for the Inhumans.
Her work was what allowed us to turn Daisy from a mid-level powerhouse to an absolute S-class monster or at least it will allow us to when Daisy becomes proficient enough with her powers that we can remove the final seal on her powers.
She was also responsible for making sure that the mish-mash of all the technology we were going to utilise for making Alfred’s body didn’t just turn him into a cancerous blob or worse, damage his personality matrix.
That would be disastrous.
We wouldn’t need Thanos to kill off half of all Humanity then. Alfred would do the job just fine.
I would have preferred someone of Shuri’s caliber when she was a little bit older to work on extracting Alfred’s personality matrix and install it into the body but Alfred had become oddly obstinate regarding any delays pertaining to his body.
“Do you know what is going on with Alfred?” she asked me.
“What do you mean? I mean he has pushed this project up ahead of schedule but that is hardly a reason to worry, right?” I asked her back.
She shook her head, “I don’t mean that. Um, How should I explain this? Just come with me.”
I followed her to her office and was pretty startled when the first thing I saw in her office was Alfred’s personality matrix and his source code just displayed openly on her desk for anyone to barge in and see.
“What the hell is this supposed to mean? I don’t remember authorising this. Nobody and I mean, nobody is allowed to look at Alfred’s source code. At least not until the final stages of the project. Shut it down immediately.” I was extremely angered at what I was seeing and immediately, without thinking, activated my powers and hard shut down the access of the entire lab to the central servers.
If you spot this tale on Amazon, know that it has been stolen. Report the violation.
I regretted that almost immediately as I felt a shock in my chest and started coughing out black blood immediately.
The suit started blaring and I could feel the suit's thrusters activating automatically.
I felt like I was going to die when even the CHI injections couldn’t stop my coughing.
That was the last thing I remember before opening my eyes and seeing the conventional white ceiling of a hospital room.
Damn, what a depressing colour.
All the advancements we have made in the medical field and even now we are stuck with the standard white ceiling drab rooms.
My first order for Alfred now would be to change the colour of all hospital rooms to hot pink. Man, I must be delirious.
Speaking of Alfred, I had to call out for him. For the split second that I connected to the systems at the base, I found several anomalies that should not have been there.
Before I could do so, however, I could feel my eyes growing heavy.
Damn, what a drag.
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–Helen Cho–
When she saw Ed cough out blood in her office, she was sure that she was going to die.
Especially since she was the one who invited him to her office to show something that she was worried about.
And then, instead of listening to her, he freaked out when he saw that she had access to Alfred’s source code and did something to cut off her access and then began coughing out black blood. That was a textbook sign of poisoning.
And what was up with Ed not knowing that she had access to Alfred’s source code? Alfred had assured her multiple times that Ed was the one who had granted her exclusive access to his source code so she could go over the personality matrix and source code to prepare for the eventual transfer to his body.
She still counted herself lucky that she was only confined to the hospital ward and not in a straight jacket and on her way to some top-secret prison that Ed kept to lock up the most violent of criminals.
She was going to ask Alfred about Ed’s situation again when she heard a clicking sound and then she felt something cool and hard press against her neck.
And then someone said in the most menacing voice she had ever heard in her entire life, “Give me one good reason why I shouldn’t blow your brains out for what you’ve done?”
Terrified for her life, she stiffened and couldn’t move her lips.
He shoved her forward and shouted, “Tell me!”
She turned around to see Commander Frank, the one with the highest authority on the base with a team of soldiers behind him.
The normally gentle Maria was also there, looking at her with an ice-cold gaze. She never thought it would be possible for Maria to look at anyone like that, let alone her.
Gulping, she raised her hands and stammered, “Uh–u-Ahem, I don’t know. You have to believe me, please. I don’t know what happened to Ed. If I had kno–”
“We know what happened to Ed. We are asking you what you did to Alfred?” Maria interrupted her and asked in a frosty voice.
“Wh–What? Alfred? What do you mean?” she asked, absolutely confused by Maria’s question.
Frank advanced towards her with his gun aimed at her face only to halt when Maria placed a hand on his shoulder.
Maria then said, “Daisy, report please?” She asked Daisy, the rising star in the combat list, for something.
Daisy came forward and started reading from her tablet, “The last time somebody spoke to Alfred and he gave out an answer was last night. Many of the advanced functions of the base like the Danger Room have stopped functioning altogether and many other functions are now operating at suboptimal efficiency.”
Daisy then glared at her, clearly accusing her of doing something with Alfred.
She spoke out, “What do you mean by that? I have been speaking with Alfred today during the project. Sure, the responses were a bit robotic but he assured me that his main partition was busy some–”
Frank glared at her and said, “Alfred’s main partition is not just busy it is missing from the base.”
“Yes, and the one you spoke to was one of the hundreds of VI that Alfred made to run the base before leaving somewhere,” Maria said.
“So, I will ask you once again. What did you do? Because the logs clearly show the last person to speak with Alfred was only you and nobody else.” Frank threatened her.
She started crying, “I don’t know, alright? I don’t know how to prove it. I have done nothing but work on the project I was assigned to. Alfred was the one who assured me that Ed had approved my access to his source code. And I was the one who approached Ed with the intention to actually confirm it because it seemed fishy to me. You ha–”
“I don’t fucking care, alright? What matters now is that all of our operations are in jeopardy and the one person who could explain is in a medically induced coma in the room behind me and guess whose fault is that?” Frank thundered out.
Frustrated at her replies, he ordered, “Guards, take her. Make sure she doesn’t step out of her quarters until this mess is sorted out. I’ll be there soon. We need some answers.”
‘Wa–Wait, you can’t do this to me. I didn’t do anything wrong.” Her cries fell on deaf ears as the guards used hard light technology to project a bubble around her which isolated her voice from outside.
Then they effortlessly lifted her and took her out of the hospital ward.
The last thing she saw before the doors closed as she banged her fists on the bubble wall was the cold hard eyes of Daisy and Maria.
The doors of the bubble closing felt like the death knell of her career in the organisation.
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Word Count - 1730
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