章 2580: 5
Chapter Five—Memories of Failure
Chapter Five—Memories of Failure
~~~Memories of Iron~~~
Tony Stark flew as fast he possibly could, his armor surpassing Mach Six as he raced back to New York. South America had been but a feint, and the Celestial was actually landing in America's largest city, not Brazil's. He had to get there. To help stop the terrible being who was seeking nothing less than the extinction of the human race.
No one, even Reed Richards, understood why mankind was being targeted now. There had been so many close calls, rough scrapes all, but they had somehow muddled through. But not this time, not against a Celestial. Beings that were just steps down from the greatest powers of the cosmos themselves, it would not be easily stopped.
There had been a warning. From somewhere beyond the Milky Way, out in the direction of Andromeda. That it was coming. !uhara~ was it's name. A rogue perhaps. Certainly this Celestial did not follow the others. Not that it mattered. The only thing that mattered was surviving its onslaught.
It was times like this that Tony cursed his caution. He had been to careful, too slow to push the boundaries with his armor. Tony had so many designs that only existed in his own head. Even his Mark V armor was basically a toy compared to the things he could build. Armor made from a blends of Adamantium and Neutronium, powered by zero point energy, armed with anti-proton weapons, isomagnetic disintegrators, and quantum disrupters. Weapons that could boil seas and shatter the very space time continuum. He could have built that suit, but he feared the arms race it would engender as it would single-handedly outclass every other weapons system on Earth, even those used by villainous geniuses like Dr Doom.
Now Tony was left with arc reactor technology and repulsors to somehow stop a Celestial. He had an idea for a Reality Nullification Projector that should be able to destroy even a transdimensional cosmic being, but how to power it without zero point energy? Maybe if he talked to Reed. He...
Tony's thoughts shut off as he still couldn't reach any of the other Avengers or the Fantastic Four. "JARVIS, where is that line? I'm still not getting anyone."
"I'm sorry, sir, but there appears to be enormous amounts of electromagnetic interference in the Earth's upper atmosphere. It's playing havoc with all communications."
Tony was irate. "Bounce a whisker laser off a satellite, then, if you need to."
"Sir, there are no satellites left to bounce a signal off of."
Tony gritted his teeth, fresh alarm filling his mind. He forgot all about possible weapons and focused on trying to get another fractional increase in speed out of his armor.
Taylor sat up, breathing heavily, her thoughts chaotic. At least she wasn't screaming out loud, but just in her head. Tony Stark's despair as he realized he was likely to lose had been terrible. His worry over his teammates and the others in his life had been stifling. But it had been his self-loathing that had hurt the worst. His belief that his own weakness and cowardice was the reason for everything terrible that had happened.
Tony lied to himself, even in the memories he'd given her. The real reason he hadn't built those terrible weapons had nothing to do with escalation; an arms race. Instead, it had everything to do with a man who could not manage his own vices. If he couldn't control those, how could he trust himself with what was virtually absolute power?
No one could build the things Tony Stark could. Even Reed Richards, for all of his genius and brilliant ideas, couldn't actually engineer and build the things that Tony could and did. It was almost as if his mind worked on a more impractical scale than Tony's. Of course, therein lay the problem.
Tony could always figure out a way to build something if he really wanted to. If he could comprehend the principles behind something, he could build it. Just discussions with other geniuses gave him hints, glimpses into realities from which he drew insight to allow him to create the most amazing designs and devices.
Tony could have single-handedly leveraged mankind into a Golden Age, a technological paradise where everyone was safe and given the best possible life. He could have also done the opposite, led mankind into a war torn future where nothing and no one was safe, death always just a breath away.
In just the short time she'd possessed these memories, Taylor had learned all this and more. She yearned for that Golden Age, to be able to care for people, keep them safe, and build better lives, not just for others, but for herself as well. But how could she trust herself to reach for it?
Like Tony, Taylor was damaged. The bullies at school, her mom's death, the betrayal of her best friend. Each had left it's mark with her, making her a little less open, a little less trusting, and a lot less capable of hope.
Reaching for that golden spire, it wasn't falling short that frightened Taylor. No, falling short only meant things weren't quite as good as they could be, but were still improved over how they were today.
No, it wasn't falling short. Rather, it was falling completely off the pinnacle and plunging so deeply into the abyss that the other world was the inevitable result. A world of death and destruction, weapons wielded that were so terrible no one could survive them. Where even beings like the Endbringers and the Slaughterhouse Nine would just be more wheat to reap.
Taylor sat up in bed, hugging her knees as a sensation of coldness settled into her. It was at times like these that she wondered if she was a good person. How could you know one way or the other?
She'd helped Trish, saved her from an unknown fate, one that was likely less than stellar for the blonde girl. The aid had been motivated more by guilt than any overriding desire to do the right thing. But Taylor couldn't depend on guilt to help her built a better world. She needed something more than that.
Taylor needed to find something inside herself. Call it hope, optimism, or whatever made sense to a person. But it was something she desperately needed because the entire world was absolutely depending on her. She could make the calculations. See the end results. Only the individual variables changed, although not enough to matter.
The world would end in fire and flood, death and destruction. Only she could stop it. And only if she was willing to embrace the destructive side of her knowledge. To build the things that would either leverage that Golden Age or end its possibility forever.
To make things even more difficult, there was something she wasn't seeing. Some terrible 'trick' this universe was playing on her. A greater threat was the most likely possibility, masked by the lesser ones around her. Taylor could sense it, lurking within the numbers, but needed so much more data if she was to figure it out. JARVIS was a step in the right direction, just the first of so very many.
Taylor fumbled for her glasses on the side table. Putting them on, she got up. Glancing at the alarm clock, she noted with a sigh that it was almost four am. There would be no more sleep this night.
Padding through the dark halls of her home, Taylor allowed the stillness to quiet her thoughts for a moment. It was funny in a way, how nothing that she thought about situations liked these really mattered. How none of her agonized worry meant a single thing. Because the decision had already been made.
Bypassing tea for black coffee, Taylor sipped at the bitter, scalding beverage, an homage to another life. There really wasn't a choice. The choice had been taken away from her as surely as if someone held a gun to her head. After all, she had hostages to fate as much as anyone else in this fucked up world.
Her dad was number one. Taylor would no more tolerate allowing the fate of the world to descend upon him than she would jump in front of a bus. No, she would keep him safe, no matter the cost to her or the world.
There were a few people of far lesser importance who also influenced Taylor. She wasn't so naive and foolish to think that there wouldn't be others in the future who did as well. People she loved. Family. Children, perhaps. She'd do whatever was necessary to save them. Everything else was just foolish angst.
In a lot of ways, the very self-destructiveness that Tony possessed was an advantage to Taylor. She knew most of the failure paths. She remembered them in every sick and disgusting detail. She would not stray down those paths.
Alcohol and arrogance. Isolation and loneliness. Guilt and self-loathing. These were the things that made Tony weak. That denied his world its safety and future. Taylor would choose different paths in her journey towards the future.
She didn't have the answers to everything. Clearly avoid drinking alcohol and doing drugs. Maintain her relationship with her father and slowly bring others that she could trust into her life. Hopefully, some of those others could keep her humble. Help her understand that she couldn't save everyone. That kind of hubris would destroy a saint.
Taylor turned on her computer and began meticulously typing away. She immersed herself in code, to the exclusion of all else. Taylor allowed the entire world to fall away until nothing else existed.
She worked silently for almost an hour. Until she was interrupted.
"What are you doing?"
Taylor looked up, blinking in the light from the overhead fixture. Trish stood in the doorway, wearing a pair of her pajamas, the ones with the little fish on them, her arms folded over her chest. She was staring unblinking at Taylor, her gaze intense.
Taylor shrugged. "What do you mean?"
Trish came further into the room, almost cautious in her approach, a hunter after big game. "I mean, what are you doing? I figured it out, you know. What you are. You have another personality inside of you. Working with you. But I don't understand what you're doing. What you're trying to accomplish."
The girl paused to take a breath, then rambled on, "I can't figure you out. It's like there's something interfering with me. I did what I did with my own brain, but it's not enough. I need to know. So please tell me. What are you doing?"
Taylor stared long and hard at the other girl, her shyness, her social fears forgotten in light of what was happening. Trish was a threat. Tony Stark understood how to deal with threats. Because of his memories, now so did she.
But Trish was also an opportunity. The little clues that she'd given were now confirmed. Taylor had a grasp of what kind of threat the other girl represented. More importantly, she understood the kind of opportunity that lay within her as well.
Trish could be a tremendous resource if she was the Thinker that Taylor imagined. Trish could help shore up the weak points in her plans, while at the same time discovering those of her enemies. Maybe she could be one of those people who kept Taylor humble. Maybe something even more important.
So instead of denial, or subtle threats, Taylor bargained, "I'll tell you what I'm doing if you'll tell me what you are."
There. All laid out in front of them as plain as day. Taylor watched as Trish's eyes grew wide, her breath hitching. The arms that were hugging herself tightened, then relaxed as if she didn't want to give her reaction away. Trish almost took a step back, then stopped, her weight on the balls of her feet as she if would flee at the drop of a hat.
Tony Stark could read people, and through him, so could Taylor. She saw the myriad of emotions that passed over Trish's face. She recognized doubt and distrust, fear and uncertainty. How Trish's body language spoke of a need to protect herself. When the other girl seemed about to respond with a negative, Taylor spoke first, "Call it a leap of faith."
Sudden understanding blazed in the other girl's eyes as her head stopped in mid-shake. Trish's breath hissed out and she sagged more than sat on the arm of the sofa nearest Taylor. She shook her head. "You don't even know me. How can you..." She trailed off, clearly struggling.
For a moment, Taylor felt her old self creeping back, filling her with doubts of the path ahead of her, making it start to cloud over. Ruthlessly, she dispelled those doubts, likely channeling far too much of Tony, but saw no other way to proceed. Inwardly trembling, she mentally chanted, I'm Taylor, Taylor, Taylor, even as she drew on Tony's strengths.
After several seconds, Taylor regained control of herself. "If you were to join me? We could accomplish so much. But it requires trust. Your trust. With your damage, I don't know if you can extend it. You don't know me well enough. Yesterday probably wasn't enough, either time or actions. So..."
The blonde echoed Taylor's earlier words, "A leap of faith."
The two sat in stillness for several minutes and Taylor could feel the opportunity slipping away. She would lose the other girl, who wouldn't stay any longer in such an uncontrolled environment, Taylor a perceived threat aimed directly at her. And the danger of discovery would increase. Another person out there with knowledge of what she was. Should she kill Trish now? It would be so easy. All she had to do was hammer the side of her hand into the bridge of Trish's nose, then follow up with a palm strike, driving the bone fragments into her br-
Suddenly, Trish spoke, "I'm a Thinker. At least level six. I figure out missing pieces, holes in puzzles. People, ideas, plans. My power gives me migraines if I use it too much, or the puzzles are too hard, too many pieces missing. But I'm getting better at using it. A lot better."
Then Trish paused, waiting for Taylor to reciprocate. Taylor, who could feel her gorge rising as she viciously stamped down on her monstrous thoughts. She slowly unclenched her trembling hands. It took a moment to regain her composure and reply. But finally Taylor did so, choosing her words for the maximum impact. "The easy answer, the obvious answer, is that I'm writing code that will eventually become a true AI. The complicated answer, the more accurate answer, is that I'm working on one of the steps of my plan to build an international company and become a superhero. The true answer, the answer that encompasses everything I'm trying to accomplish, is that I'm going to save the world."
~~~Memories of Iron~~~
Trish stared, stunned into silence. Was the other girl kidding? Just staring into those determined hazel eyes, Trish knew that she wasn't. Instead, Taylor, despite her somewhat flippant words, was serious as hell.
Save the world. What did that even mean? From who, or rather, from what? Did she mean to battle Endbringers and other Class S threats like the Slaughterhouse Nine? Did she expect Trish to help her? Even if she wasn't kidding, the other girl was surely mad.
Trish hadn't missed the clenched hands as the earlier tension had ratcheted. Even she hadn't known what she was going to say right up until she said it. Now she was almost regretting telling Taylor. What was going through her head? What was that other personality telling Taylor? What to do about her? Trish was afraid, the failure of her power only exacerbating the situation.
Because she couldn't read Taylor. Trish had known that Thinker powers sometimes interfered with one another. Her power had mostly seemed immune, because she filled in the missing pieces rather than coming up with massive strategies. So her abilities weren't often in contest with another Thinker's.
With Taylor, Trish just couldn't use them at all to figure out the girl. Her headaches only got worse the more she tried. If she continued, they would grow crippling. Trish needed to know more, and if her power wouldn't tell her, then she needed to get the information from Taylor.
Her own tone was blase as she asked, "Save the world, huh? I thought it would be something hard." Please bite, Trish begged. Answer the implied questions,
Taylor's voice was seemingly detached as she asked, "Do you know what is going to happen if the Endbringers keep up their current rate of destruction?"
Cautiously, Trish said, "No, but it can't be good." She hadn't tried to figure out the Endbringers. They weren't beyond a Thinker, but just looking at the problem obliquely, it seemed that their targeting wasn't random. A lot of people who might have helped save the world ended up dead at their hands. Trish didn't plan to be one of them so not gaining their attention seemed the smartest thing to do.
Taylor nodded. "It isn't. Roughly twenty-three years before civilization falls. A little over fifty before the only humans are in smaller encampments scattered around the globe. By that time, we'll be well on our way to extinction."
Trish could feel her pulse pounding. "You can't know that. The best Thinkers alive don't have numbers like that. They wou-"
"Maybe they already know. Or maybe they don't. But I do. Tony showed me how to figure it out. I did it without even using Reed's Social Engineering Programs. Because I'm smart now. Scary smart. Terrifyingly so, really."
"So you're like a Thinker? Is that it?" Trish asked, anything to distract herself from considering the end of the world.
Taylor shook her head. "I don't think so. I woke up in the middle of the night almost a week ago and my head was full of memories. Memories of a man named Tony Stark. But it was more than that. I knew things. I understood things that I had never considered before. My brain was on fire. I had become very intelligent. Beyond genius level. It nearly scared me to death. It still does. But I'm slowly getting a handle on things."
It had to be a Trigger Event of some kind. Definitely different than most. Trish wasn't even sure where to go, but her curiosity was peaked. "Who is Tony Stark?"
"Was, actually. He's dead now. Tony was... well, he was an inventor of sorts. The third or fourth most brilliant person alive on his world. And when you consider that world includes people like Reed Richards, Victor Von Doom, and the Mad Thinker, that's saying something. But Tony had something the others didn't. He had the ability to take a concept that was so esoteric and theoretical that only a handful of people alive understood it and build something to use it. To take advantage of it.
"He built battle armors of unbelievable power and versatility, fighting as a costumed hero named Iron Man. He built amazing items that helped make his world a much better place to live. He accomplished so much, incredible things, even though he was so self-destructive that he probably would have found a way to kill himself in a few more years. Then again, maybe not."
Trish was fascinated by the story, glad that it distracted her from Taylor's first question. "So he was a Triggered Tinker? On another Earth?"
Taylor began laughing. It was especially eerie because it didn't even sound like her. After a moment, she stopped, almost choking. Finally, she explained, "Tony thinks this world is so ridiculous and messed up. He can't even grasp the concept of Trigger Events. Of Tinkers that build things only they can maintain. These things simply don't make sense to him. In his world, if one person can build something, anyone can copy it. Use it. So long as they're smart enough to grasp the science behind it. There, people gained powers a variety of ways. Cosmic radiation. Gamma Rays. Radioactive spider bites. Chemical spills. Every one of them had one thing in common. They tapped into some genetic potential the human race of his reality possessed. So these people gained superhuman abilities.
"But they're definitely not the Parahumans that we're used to. I don't think that I'm one either. Tony thinks that someone interfered. One of the primal powers of the multiverse. Only they would have the power to shift his memories so far through the quantum layered realities of the multiverse. To one that his universe has never encountered."
"What do you mean?" Trish asked, by turns stunned and intrigued by Taylor's story.
"Humans from Tony's world had the surrounding universes mapped through several thousand. Nothing like us existed in any of them. Many of those universes had superhumans, but they were all similar to the ones in Tony's world. Whatever is happening here, in this chain of the multiverse, it's different. And it's far, far away from his."
"So what happened to this Tony? How did he die?"
Taylor's voice was strange and contemplative as she answered, "He was killed by a cosmic being that burned his world down to the bedrock, destroying every single bit of life on it. A being as far above an Endbringer, as we are above a single-celled organism. Literally millions of times as powerful."
Trish could feel her gorge rising at the very thought, by turns horrified and intrigued. "I guess there was nothing he could have done, then."
Taylor's laugh was hollow. "Not true. Tony could have fought. Could have made a difference. But he was too afraid of himself. Of what a drunk like him would do with power like that. He never built the things he needed to win. As he lay dying, Tony had designs in his head for weapons that could alter reality. That could shatter the space-time continuum. Weapons that could erase entire sections of the quantum strata of the universe, rendering it null. Weapons that could have killed even a Celestial, if killing is even the right term for it."
Trish was terrified. If this Tony knew how to build these things, that meant that Taylor likely knew as well. The thought of that power in the hands of this strange, half-mad girl scared her more than anything she'd ever experienced in her life. From the look she received, it appeared that Taylor knew what she was thinking.
"Don't worry. I don't plan to erase the universe anytime soon. The last thing we need is another Big Bang. Or a Bigger Void. But I am going to stop the Endbringers. I'm going to destroy the other S-class threats. Then I'm going to figure out what is really behind all of this."
For a moment, Trish's power leaped forth, hunting for the various answers to an immense question. Almost instantly, she was punished as the beginnings of a crippling migraine hit her. She managed to blank her mind before it grew worse.
Trish felt the other girl easing her down off of her perch to a more secure seat on the couch, her head leaning back against the cushioned surface. Then a hand gently rubbed her temples, occasionally stroking the hair back from her face. It was oddly soothing and slowly her migraine receded to almost bearable levels.
Trish knew she needed to rest. While on the run, she'd overused her power far too long. But it was the only way to be safe. How else could she trust anyone she met?
With Taylor, though, Trish was virtually blind. She didn't understand how Taylor could be so hard to read if everything she said was true. Not unless this Tony was right and a cosmic being had done this to her. Had rendered her immune to Thinker and Precognition pow-
Trish's breath hissed as her head pounded. For a moment, it hurt to breath, each movement, no matter how slight, feeling like it was a spike being driven into her brain. As if from a distance, she heard Taylor speak, "Stop thinking. You're making yourself sick. Give me a few days and I'll make something that should help with that. But for now, just relax and don't think."
Trish managed not to vomit all over the other girl as Taylor eased her down into a horizontal position on the couch. "Don't worry, Trish. I'll figure out how to fix things for you. After all, compared to saving the world, how hard can it be?"
The last thing Trish heard before passing out was another voice, which she vaguely recognized, saying, "It's going to be pretty damn hard from where I'm standing as you're going to be grounded for the rest of your life."
~~~Memories of Iron~~~
AN: I wanted to thank everyone for their great ideas for inventions for Tony!Taylor to sell with the help of an attorney. There were so many wonderful suggestions. You'll find out in future chapters what I decided upon. In this chapter, please let me know what you think about how events unfolded between Trish and Taylor. Is it too fast? Should I back off the big reveal and go back and rewrite the chapter? I had my reasons, but I want to make sure it feels right. Feels in character for them both.
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