Capítulo 2577: 2
Chapter Two—Remembrance of Identity
~~~Memories of Iron~~~
AN: Okay, to anyone who has written a fic with someone experiencing another's memories, I have nothing but respect for you. Its damn hard. So here's another chapter. Let me know if this is believable or too over the top. Thanks.
~~~Memories of Iron~~~
Taylor awoke for the second time to renewed pain as memories assaulted her. A city that dwarfed Brockton Bay lay in ruins around her, its skyscrapers only broken stumps. Most of its citizens lay dead as a being that stretched into the stratosphere slowly tore the planet apart while she lay dying, having failed the people she'd always protected.
Slowly, Taylor sat up, her thoughts jumbled. What the hell had happened last night? Had she triggered? If so, it was the oddest one that she had ever heard of. Regardless, somehow, someway, she had acquired the memories of a man named Tony Stark. An inventor. A billionaire. A playboy. And the wearer of a suit of armor that was beyond anything she'd ever dreamed possible.
Taylor remembered unibeams and repulsors, force fields and morphologic nanoparticles. Memories assaulted her from every side, making her head split. She didn't know what to do. How to handle it all. What do you do when you remember everything about someone else's life?
If it was just the memories, Taylor might have tried to ignore them, toughing them out just as she had done a year and a half of bullying. But it was more. She knew things. Like how to calculate pi to a hundred places. Or how cosmic inflation was self-sustaining through inflation of quantum-mechanical fluctuations.
Taylor didn't know she knew. Because her memories of Tony Stark indicated that he hadn't known. Or rather, he hadn't cared to do the calculations. But he could have figured it out fairly easily if he had wanted. So could she now. Taylor's brain seemed on fire as she registered the world around her.
The world was brighter and harder and colder than it had ever been before. Taylor finally understood. Why the sky was blue and the place that Raleigh scattering had in it. How zero point energy worked and how dangerous a reactor made to use it was. How a man could kill others and betray friends, if the cause he believed in was just.
Fifteen-year-olds weren't supposed to have this level of understanding. They didn't have the wisdom that life granted you over time. Of life and death. Of the world around them and how little they really mattered. Of how to talk a centerfold into bed in less than five minutes and how to make her...
Taylor bolted for the bathroom and vomited until nothing remained inside of her, not even stomach acid. It was horrifying to remember having sex with women! So incredibly many women! She hadn't even ever kissed a boy and she was remembering doing things that she wasn't sure should be possible from the contortions involved. She could remember smells of mingled sweat and other bodily fluids.
Taylor's gorge rose and she firmly pushed that thought aside. No, she needed to focus on something more concrete. Something visceral. Like an arc reactor. The thought of building something that could produce three gigajoules per second or the equivalent power of thirty barrels of oil a minute was fascinating. Taylor's fingers literally itched to put one together. To create something wonderful.
But first she needed palladium. Taylor could get that by robbing junkyards of catalytic converters. She would have to pound out the ceramic honeycombs and deal with impurities, but she could do it. It would only require a couple of simple chemical processes to purify the palladium, plus she would get other, equally useful metals...
Taylor reeled. What was she thinking? Why the hell did she want to make an arc reactor? The next thing you know she would want to build a set of armor and fly around fighting villains...
If she had reeled before, it was as nothing to how she felt now. Her mind was assaulted by hundreds, thousands, tens of thousands of memories of doing just that. The thought made her feel half excited and half terrified. It was like living and dying at the same time. It was utter madness and she wanted it so much that agony raced through her chest as though she were about to fly apart into a million pieces.
But who was the she that wanted this? The she that had memories of being Tony Stark, tinker extraordinaire, of living his life and battling his enemies? Or was it the she that was Taylor Hebert, bullied sophomore student, who was just trying to survive the rigors of high school from day to day, and maybe find some hope for tomorrow?
Taylor took deep breaths, then tried to slow them down as she hyper-ventilated. She breathed into her hands in lieu of a paper bag until some semblance of control returned. Taylor had so many questions, starting with: Who am I?
Unfortunately, Taylor couldn't answer a one of them. The world around her had stopped making sense the moment that this 'blending' had started. Or maybe it was better to say it had started making sense. Taylor understood too much now, and she knew there was no going back. She'd eaten the apple, involuntarily in her case, but there would be no return to paradise regardless. No more 'bliss,' as ignorance allowed her to ignore the future fate of the world.
Taylor could see the terrifying world that she lived in, one that would only last another twenty-three years, plus or minus five percent, before civilization crumbled and the Endbringers hunted the vestiges of mankind in the wreckage. Roughly fifty-one years until mankind was for all intents and purposes extinct.
The vision that the numbers gave her was so intense that Taylor screamed at the top of her lungs. Screamed as if dying. She muffled her cries with her pillow as agony ripped through her mind. Taylor wanted to cry so badly, to somehow vent the intense feeling tearing her apart, but she couldn't. She had no tears left to her. They had been burned out of her by three people who had tried to break her. And Tony hadn't been able to find a tear in twenty years, even when attending the funeral of his best friend.
What she really needed was a drink, Taylor decided. A nice twenty-five year old scotch would really mellow her out right now, blunting the worst of her anguish and allowing her to think. Maybe then she could make heads or tails of what was happening to-
Taylor stopped, hands slowly forming fists at her sides. She didn't drink. She never had. So why was she craving alcohol so badly it left a pit in her stomach a mile across? Taylor could literally taste that smooth, sensual burn as the scotch slowly warmed her from the inside out, something blunting the trauma of memories that felt like stabbing knives inside of his chest. Shivering, she realized that she'd thought of herself as Tony Stark just then.
She had to get a hold of herself. Do something to distract herself. Okay, Taylor decided, she would build the arc reactor. Hopefully, it will get her out of her head enough to get her through the day.
Glancing at the clock, Taylor saw that it was a little after nine am. She would need to be back by noon to talk to her dad and find out how his discussion with the school had gone. She didn't hold out much hope, but she had armed him with her notebook tallying every single instance of bullying and who was responsible. Maybe he could use it to some effect. Tony's memories whispered to her that someone like him would not be the most effective speaker. That she should have gone along to coach him. To...
Taylor shook off her doubts and crazier thoughts as she headed down to the basement to grab the tools she'd need. Her dad still had a fair supply from his years to working the docks, and she was able to find a pipe cutter and a hammer. That should do it. Now to hit the nearest junkyard.
~~~Memories of Iron~~~
Taylor opened the back door to her house, completely exhausted, dragging a canvas bag whose contents were ridiculously heavy. The bag was completely full of ceramic blocks that contained the palladium, platinum, and rhodium of a couple of dozen catalytic converters.
All were metals with which Taylor needed to build things, so she would be keeping them all for herself, once she chemically removed them from the ceramic honeycomb material that was currently their home. Oh, but she wished she had access to her company as being a billionaire had its perks...
No. Taylor took a deep breath and carefully blanked her mind. She needed a quick shower before her dad got home. After stashing her goods in the basement along with her tools, Taylor got undressed.
Staring at her nude figure in the bathroom mirror, for the first time Taylor could see her future potential. Or rather Tony could. His memories showed her that it was likely she'd bloom in her late teens or early twenties after she reached her full height. For now, she was the proverbial ugly duckling, small boobs, long skinny legs, no butt, and a slight paunch. Taylor didn't see how those things could one day equal beauty, but Tony could.
Getting into the shower, Taylor made a decision. Tomorrow she would start exercising. The one thing that today had taught her was that she needed a level of fitness far greater than what she currently possessed. Her memories only reinforced that idea, as she considered how badly a certain spoiled rich man had suffered at the hands of terrorists who wanted her... his technology.
Cutting off the catalytic converters, then breaking up the ceramic insides with a hammer to get the metals out, had been mindnumbingly brutal on Taylor's physique. The hot shower soothed the aches and pains of her tired muscles as well as the dozens of bug bites she'd gotten. Getting her loot had been a dirty job. She'd even run into a fair number of spiders, although none of them poisonous. Taylor shivered as she thought of a particularly large hairy one that had almost crawled across her face when she was under that one Ford. She forcibly pushed the thought aside with a shudder.
If Taylor's calculations were correct, she'd need three more hauls like this one to get the palladium she needed, plus a little to spare. After that, there were certain chemicals that she'd need to remove and separate the metals. Fortunately, Tony knew of several processes that allowed separation of these metals from their ceramic bondage using 'cold' chemical catalysts. He had invented those processes, after all, in his endless pursuit of building the best suit.
As Taylor dressed, she heard her dad come in. After a moment, she headed downstairs. She actually hoped she was expelled as she no longer really needed school, except as a cover. Taylor had so many ideas and plans for the future. He would rebuild his company, bigger and better than before. He would-
Taylor hit herself on the side of her head as hard as she could. I am Taylor Hebert, she chanted in her mind. Taylor Hebert! Not Tony Stark. Taylor! If I build a company, it will be as me! Fortunately, her mental cries went unheard as she stood there for a few minutes, shaking like a leaf.
After a while, blinking hard, Taylor rubbed her aching head. Not going to do that again, she thought, wishing again for a drink. Then she heard her dad call her.
"Taylor! Can you come down here, please?"
Taylor called, "Coming, Dad!" She hated the artificial brightness she'd injected into her tone, but she needed to keep what had happened to her quiet for now. But maybe not forever.
Taylor trotted down the stairs, wincing as abused muscles and an aching head protested. She saw her dad as she reached the bottom. "What's up?"
Danny Hebert wore a somewhat abashed expression as he looked at her. He began, "I've got some good news, and some bad news from my meeting with your Principal and teachers."
Taylor said decisively, "Give me the bad." After all, once she heard it, she could plan how to deal with it. What steps to take to minimize the damage going forward. The good news was mostly irrelevant as it already indicated a success. That is, other than to add another check to the win column.
Her dad's face wore a faintly disturbed expression as he slowly nodded. "Okay. The bad news is that your suspension stands. You won't be going back until the second of January."
Taylor nodded. Almost a month's vacation was great. She could use the time to get a lot accomplished. "And the good?"
Her dad smiled in triumph. "Principal Blackwell and your teachers agreed to allow you to take all of your midterms when you get back. So on that day, you won't attend class, but instead spend the day in a room with a monitor taking tests. They will also allow you to turn in any missed homework assignments at that time, but not allow you to redo any that you already turned in. How's that sound, kiddo?"
Taylor was surprised at the flash of rage she felt at the news. Those bitches were going to get away with it again, while she wasted time doing make work that a three-year-old could do! She was going to make them regret ever messing with her once she went back. She would-
A feeling like being immersed in icy water traveled down Taylor's spine. This wasn't her. She wasn't this angry and vindictive. Okay, maybe this angry, but she didn't want revenge. Did she? Her thoughts were interrupted by her dad speaking again.
"Taylor? You all right?"
Taylor forced a smile, aware that it likely appeared as fragile as blown glass. Forcing it to firm up, she nodded briskly and said, "I'm fine. That's great news, Dad. Thanks so much for talking to them for me."
Her dad's answering smile was surprisingly tender. "That's what dad's are for. I've got one more thing. I got the school to change your schedule a little. It takes you out of every class you have with the three of them. This way, you don't have to worry about being in the same class as them."
Just their minions, she thought darkly. Still, her smile grew more genuine. "Thanks, Dad. You're the best."
Taylor went to hug him, and it was only after her dad's arms went around her that she registered how alien it felt. It was as if she didn't recognize her own father's touch. Determinedly, she thought, I'm Taylor Hebert, as a red and gold shadow lurked somewhere in the depths of her mind. She leaned harder into her dad's hug.
~~~Memories of Iron~~~
The next morning, Taylor was up at six. She headed out for a run, although after the first half mile, it turned into more of a shamble. But she forced herself to reach the park, a halfway point, as well as to do at least one set of the katas afterwards. Those had been developed for Tony by Steve Rogers, who had also instilled the idea of physical fitness in he... in Tony. From her memories, the man was an imposing figure, and she would be hard fought to pick out any current Protectorate member whose sheer presence impressed as much, although perhaps Eidolon or Legend came the closest.
Arms and legs now limp as noodles, Taylor finished up the katas, then returned home at more of a walk than a run. Still, it was a good first effort. After a shower, which she refused to consider wasted time, Taylor headed back to the junk yard.
Entering cost her another twenty dollars as a scrounge fee, allowing her to take anything she could carry in one load, but it was well worth it. This time she wasn't just going for catalytic converters. Yesterday, she had spotted a pile of hundreds of old PC's that had been thrown out. Even if the chips inside were slow and underpowered, Taylor could easily daisy chain a few hundred to build a crude version of a super computer. It wouldn't be a tenth as good as the real thing, but that would need to wait for real manufacturing facilities.
Afterward, laden down with her treasure, she trudged home, then took yet another shower her thin arms shaking. After drying off, she headed down to the basement and began the laborious process of breaking up the ceramic honeycombs into pieces small enough to more easily fit into the glass cookware she was planning to use for the chemical synthesis.
When Taylor was done, she had at least sixty pounds of the off white material and arms that she couldn't raise over shoulder level. Momentarily, she toyed with the idea of beginning the processing for metals now, but decided as she had already done once before, that it would be a waste of time until she had the entirety gathered. Not to mention, she was physically exhausted.
Instead, Taylor would spend the rest of the day at the library, doing research on a variety of subjects from attorneys to patent law. She was going to need a good attorney, preferably one with either an expertise in patent law or who was a member of a firm that possessed that expertise. With the number of ideas that Taylor had, getting patents was going to be the single most important thing she did from here on out.
Taylor had figured out the day before what the single biggest difference between who or what she had become versus the usual triggered Tinker. Her ideas were mass producible, while a typical Tinker's were not. It was actually a crazy concept, but nevertheless, a true one. Every single one of her ideas could be mass produced in a factory and used and maintained by ordinary people.
Tony's memories assured her that this was the norm rather than making items one at a time that required constant specialized maintenance and upkeep. It was those items that were the aberration. It was almost more than Taylor could tolerate, having her understanding of the world turned on it's head. But it was true. She could remember building such things, an example of which was the Mandroids, powered armor possibly more complex than anything that existed on this world, and they had been operated and maintained by a group of army grunts possessing only high school diplomas. Well trained army grunts, but still...
Taylor tore her eyes away from the section of text on Quinn Calle, an evil attorney specializing in supervillain defense law, and rubbed her eyes in wry amusement. It was still happening. Her every other thought seemed to be full of Tony Stark's thoughts, memories, likes, and prejudices. It was daunting how much he was influencing her.
Today, she had eaten a lunch of tuna, mustard, and onion sandwiches, something which she couldn't imagine liking. But she did. Or at least she remembered him liking them, and the fact that she still liked them could mean that she wasn't Taylor anymore, but instead, a pale shadow of Stark.
Worse, when Taylor had entered the public library earlier, she'd exchanged her usual smile with the young librarian on door duty. Except this time, she'd noticed how cute the twentysomething was and wondered how hard it would be to get her number. Taylor had nearly hurled her oddball lunch as the thought registered.
I am Taylor Hebert, she thought grimly. Stop telling me we can't trust an attorney just because he represents villains as well. Stop making me see women as attractive. I like boys, she thought again. But how did she know? Would she have to experiment to see which she preferred now? Could she even know if she was or wasn't being influenced one way or another?
Focus, Taylor told herself. Attorneys. Patents. If we're going to save the world, we need to stop sweating the small stuff, she thought, then broke out in a cold sweat as she second guessed her own thinking processes.
Taylor wrestled with her inner turmoil for a few minutes, her mind nowhere near the text on the screen in front of her. Finally, she whispered, "I'm Taylor Hebert. I won't go down without a fight."
~~~Memories of Iron~~~
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