Fight me, Helen!
As things turned out, we didn’t make our trip to U-Gin right away. In a rare fit of compassion, Ultron had allowed the twins half an hour to eat their fill at the ramen bar and tried, after I had successfully irritated him by giggling at that notion, to justify that decision by claiming that the twins were of no use to him if they ‘weakened due to lack of nourishment’ or ‘distracted by hunger’. Finally, Ultron just went back to his fool-proof method of temporarily silencing the giggling girl inside his mind – Shock Therapy – leaving me irritated and twitchy.
“You really should try not to electrocute her,” Pietro mused as he spooned heaps of pickled chilli into his ramen. “It will only kill more of her brain-cells and probably make her even more irritating.”
“Gee, thanks,” I replied dryly. “I feel so very loved. Why don’t you just shut up and eat your deadly ramen of hell.”
“It’s not that spicy!” Pietro complained.
“You put six spoons of that habanero-stuff in that I’m pretty sure was just there for decoration. I mean, the guy even labelled it with ‘careful, hot’. In three languages. You’re committing bowel-sepukku.”
“I think there are no brain-cells left to save, anyways,” Wanda mused whilst seasoning her ramen in a more reasonable manner.
“If you all are quite finished now...” Ultron’s irritated drawl shut us all up immediately, nobody wanting to be on the receiving end on yet another one of his mood swings.
Well, anybody with a working instinct for self-preservation.
“Sorry, mum,” came my reply and was immediately awarded with, yes, even more electricity. I could probably charge half of Manhattan with the amount of voltage I had collected over the last few weeks.
I blanched at that thought. Just how long had it been anyways since I arrived here? Too long to be a simple dream, I had long since realised that, but that was hardly a specific amount to go by... Maybe if I was lucky, this was all just a chemical-educed hallucination and I actually was lying comfortably in a hospital somewhere, dreaming up unpleasant scenarios instead of anything else a sane mind would produce.
Of course even if it was, such a realisation would do shit for me right now, seeing as I indeed felt the pain of Ultron’s attempts of positive conditioning and I had no idea how to wake up if that was in fact a possibility. And if it wasn’t a dream but very much reality (or one kind of reality), there was a pretty good chance that I could end up being stuck in this tin can for the rest of my days.
For now, I decided that my brain was hurting from all these reality-bending thoughts and I was most likely better off to just stop thinking again. At least until I had more information.
“- don’t think she is listening.”
The sound of Wanda’s voice made me snap out of my short daze.
“What?” I asked dumbly. The twins shook their heads at me and, for a while, chose to ignore me in favour for their bowls of food. Surprisingly enough, Wanda was the faster eater of the two, finishing her bowl well before her 12 minutes older brother.
“So,” she began, using the time they remained seated productively. “What is the plan now, exactly? So far, you have told us just that we are to get into the laboratory and to this Dr. Cho. I assume there is more to it than just that. After all, we can hardly just walk in with you.”
“Aw, why not?” I asked. “Mass-hysteria inside a high-security building sounds like great fun!”
“Silence! If you cannot add anything useful, then do us a favour and not talk at all.”
“Fine,” was my grouchy answer to that statement. “You sound like my Chemistry teacher.”
“You failed Chemistry?” Pietro asked, grinning gleefully into his over-spiced ramen.
“Oh, I didn’t just fail. I literally set water on fire, once.”
“How?” The combined question of three voices resonated strangely across the small establishment. Quite the bonding moment, one could argue; a bonding moment that was once again had over one of my countless failures in life. I felt the urge to hit my head.
“Chemistry teacher said ‘leftover chemicals’ in the test tube. My class was convinced I possessed some freaky fire-powers that would one day soon explode the Chemistry lab. Sad reality is I’m just really, really bad at Chemistry and every after the incident wasn’t allowed to be left alone with experiments.”
“A wise decision, I am certain,” Ultron said dryly, “To come back to Wanda’s slightly more pressing topic: You are indeed simply walking into the lab. Whilst you were busy playing dress-up and exploring the city, I connected to the frighteningly poorly-protected computer-system of the genetics lab and set up a last-minute, high-importance meeting with our Doctor Cho. The security believes you are specialists in the fields of bio-robotics and genetic mutation and all these lovely little things you humans are spending your time with in these kinds of laboratories, so act accordingly. Choose your role beforehand, if possible. Once inside, Pietro will excuse himself for the restroom and use his speed to set up a distraction for the majority of the building’s security.”
Pietro spluttered at that comment, trying not to choke on his nightmare-food from hell. With a slightly hoarse voice, he asked:
“How am I supposed to do that?”
“I care not, nor do I care what exactly you do. You will think of something. The main concern is that whatever you do will remain non-explosive. Anything that compromises the safety of the building’s infrastructure will gain the attention of the local military, media and, eventually, S.H.I.E.L.D. itself. So avoid that, if possible.”
“So, no pressure,” I mused. Cue yet another, albeit mild, electric shock; nothing more than a friendly slap on the wrist, really.
“Silence. Once the security is distracted, we will enter Cho’s private laboratory directly and have our little chat.”
“How’s Cho supposed to be in her lab when she has her meeting with us in an official appointment? I assume we will go into a more public meeting-room or similar.”
“Conference-room, you mean,” Pietro corrected, causing Wanda to huff in irritation.
“Same thing! You meet there to discuss something; so it’s a meeting-room.”
“I am sorry, how is the correct name of the room important for this mission? You enter the building and meet up with the doctor. Pietro causes a distraction and Wanda gets Cho to the private lab. That is everything you have to do. DO you think you possess the mental brain-capacity for something like this?”
“So angry,” I mumbled, truly irritating the artificial intelligence. Yet again.
“I already know for certain that you do not. Your mission will be to only talk to convince the good doctor into joining our cause.”
“Say what now? Why me? You just told me that I wasn’t smart enough for anything of this and now you want me to just simply convince Cho into bloody career-suicide?”
“Oh, I fully expect you to fail. I just assume after all this time of putting up with your annoying behaviour, I deserve some entertainment. Watching you struggle and eventually fail should provide plenty.”
“You’re a bloody nuisance, you know that?”
“Pot calling the kettle black.”
“Oh, so you finally did your idiom-homework!”
“Would you kindly be quiet just for once?”
“Alright.”
Once again, the sound of spluttering and coughing filled the air as Pietro showed his inability to eat. I still believed that this hellish ramen would sooner or later be the end of the slightly irritating Enhanced.
“That worked? That’s all it took?” he finally was able to get enough air into his lungs to ask.
“Yea, why? He asked nicely and I’m starting to become bored of all this party-banter. I just want to get on with this freaking mission...”
“Something we both agree on, then. You heard the child, let us begin,” Ultron announced, motioning through the room in a grand gesture towards the door, mentally muffling my complaints about not being a child at 23 years of age. The terror twins complied easily enough, Pietro quickly finishing his ramen (finally) and following the massive robot, leaving the offensive excuse for a burka forgotten in a corner of the bar.
The walk to U-Gin labs went by quickly enough. People still freaked at the sight of an eight foot tall death-robot, sashaying down the roads of Seoul, yet they were far more willing to potentially risk their lives for satisfying their curiosity by lingering than they previously were at the sight of the dementor-disguise.
Eventually, we reached Seongsan-Bridge and, with that, the end of our mini-odyssey. To our left began a pretty, little park (though it was more or less surrounded by Seven-Elevens), to our right lay the rather impressive laboratory. It stood proudly on the front of the sizeable river, right by the corner where a smaller canal dipped further into town, waves caused by the heavy ship-traffic crashing against the pale rock the building stood on. It wasn’t quite as I remembered from the movie, but it came surprisingly close. Any multiverse-theorist would have had a field-day with the things I experienced. Shame it was wasted on the dumb, yet surprisingly lovable nerd that was me.
“Pietro and Wanda, you will go ahead. The annoying one and me will remain here and wait for the distraction.”
“Is that really necessary?” I asked as I saw yet another pedestrian stop dead in his tracks, drop the bag he’d just gotten from yet another Seven-Eleven nearby, turn on his heel and run for his life. “I really don’t think we ever were incognito to begin with.”
“What a keen eye you possess,” Ultron drawled cynically. “I’ve noticed that they noticed. However these people are unimportant. U-Gin hardly ever pays attention to its surroundings as long as it isn’t directly concerning them. To them, it’s just another day in Seoul whilst they continue experimenting on...well whatever they usually do, when they are not building things we direly need for the next phase of my , forgive me, our plan.”
“Charming. So you’re saying Seoul could burn down and U-Gin wouldn’t care as long as they wouldn’t get too toasty?”
“Precisely.”
“That seems like a major oversight on their part...a terribly convenient oversight, though.”
“That is why we’re exploiting it. Now your meeting is scheduled for three in the afternoon, which is in about ten minutes, so you might want to head to the lab now. Familiarise yourself with the layout of the building, if you can. I am certain that will come in handy, should something go wrong and you need to get out fast.”
“Oh don’t worry,” Pietro chuckled smugly. “I specialise in fast. We will get out of there alright.” And with these words, he scooped Wanda up and zipped away.
“Bloody show-off,” I grumbled.
“Yet terribly useful, the both of them. Say, what do you bring along again?”
“Infinite charm and insight.”
“Debatable.”
“No, debatable is the idea of standing here in broad daylight, talking to yourself while people around us scream in terror and run around like headless chickens. I am pretty bloody surprised the police hasn’t showed up yet.”
“That is because I keep interfering with their radios and sending them into the wrong parts of Seoul. Right now, they are convinced the potentially dangerous robot is somewhere in Seongbuk-Gu.”
“Gesundheit?”
“They are a good bit north from here.”
“Ah. Why didn’t you just say so?”
“I...nevermind that, your baiting isn’t worth my time. Instead, let us focus on the plan. We will go in once the security cameras show Pietro causing his distraction –“
“You’ve hacked the security cameras?”
“Naturally.”
“Then what do we need the distraction for? You can just go and do something with that on your own.”
“I cannot. The staff is highly trained and will notice if I do something as crude as looping the recordings or whatever nonsense you’re thinking of right now. A proper distraction will force them to move to whatever part of the building Pietro will lead them to. Hopefully. Afterwards, we will gain access to the laboratory –“
“How?”
“We’ll fly up and break the bulletproof window.”
“Oh.”
“Afterwards you can go and try to convince Doctor Cho to join, but eventually, I will take over once this whole thing no longer amuses me or we’re interrupted. Be it the U-Gin’s security or S.H.I.E.L.D.; though I personally would love it to be the Avengers. Just so they see how very much out of control they are here.”
“You’re ranting,” I mused dryly, not enjoying the thought of the Avengers getting into even more trouble than they currently must be in, with the Hulk having destroyed half of a major city.
“I am, aren’t I. You must be rubbing off on me, perish the thought.”
“Oh yes. How horrible. I can’t possibly imagine being me.”
“Just shut up before you distract me and I miss the signal.”
“Fine. I’ll try and think of what to say to Helen.”
“Who?”
“Helen. Helen Cho, the doctor with a not-so-subtle crush on Thor?”
“Charming. You do that, then. Pretend that your input actually matters. I hear it keeps you humans from feeling depressed or useless. Or both. I, in the meantime, have organised some reinforcements.”
With that, Ultron threw a meaningful look towards the sky and I begrudgingly focused my attention to whatever metal-brain wanted me to look at. Sure enough, there were several dark spots in the sky, moving at a rapid pace towards us. I was sure plenty of people were seeing it too as the dots grew bigger and, within mere minutes, were recognisable as humanoid shapes zooming through the sky...but alas the people were too far away for me to hear their terrified screams...
“Did you order them here just to bring you the glowstick of destiny?” I asked a few minutes later, once his clone warriors had landed, one holding a very familiar staff in its hands.
“Yes. Also, they serve as ideal decoys for any possibly interfering party. It will keep anyone off our trail long enough for us to take the cradle and move on with the plan.”
Suddenly, Ultron looked towards the laboratory and I felt the odd sensation of spacing out not entirely of my own volition.
“Pietro caused the distraction. Our cue to make an entrance.”
“Really?” I asked, trying to overcome the dizziness that followed the return to full awareness. “Already? What did he do?”
“Heavens forbid I tell you. You’ll only get ideas.”
“Ideas? Oh hell, you can’t just throw that into the room without telling me afterwards! I’ll die out of curiosity. Tell me!”
“Things certainly would look up if you indeed died out of curiosity. Another reason not to tell you. Now be silent, we have a doctor’s appointment.”
Grumbling and cursing Ultron in several languages available to me, the Swedish swears having the curious effect of making the rogue peace-keeping robot chuckle, I watched as Ultron set off into the sky along with his clones. In a sort of curious kind of air show, the clones headed into different directions, soon disappearing into the distance, whilst Ultron and I headed straight for the laboratory. Thankfully, the streets still lay abandoned so no screaming could alert the security of U-Gin prematurely.
Through Ultron’s eyes I saw how his database informed him of Cho’s private lab’s location, zoomed to the connecting window and then to a nearby weakness in the building’s infrastructure: An air duct.
“Uh...no offence, but there is no way we’ll fit through the itsy-bitsy vent.”
“We will not go through the itsy-bitsy vent. I was merely curious of what weaknesses a highly secure building such as this could have. I am once more disappointed to find humanity’s sense of awareness...lacking. Anyone could break into this building full of hazardous chemicals, biological viruses and endangering information if only given the right tools and motivation...”
“Yes, yes. I get it. Humans are stupid, your robots are superior. You’re repeating yourself. Now, if we are ignoring the ventilation system, how do we get in?”
“As I believe I said before: Through the window,” Ultron sighed in obvious exhaustion of my constant questions. Just to humour him for a moment, I remained quiet as we reached the window in question and came to a halt, hovering in mid-air in front of the bullet-proof pane of glass. Ultron placed a hand against it and, instead of simply shattering it with the little effort it had taken, sent a strange sort of vibrating hum through it, causing the glass to shiver comically before spider webs of fractures shot through the entirety of the window. Ultron’s second hand joined the first and carefully, he pushed the glass into the room.
“Very similar to the front screen of a car, the glass of U-Gin contains a layer of foil that keeps the glass from shattering. In the likely case of an explosion in one of the labs, the shards of the window then aren’t catapulted towards the street in a velocity high enough to skewer any unfortunate passer-by below.”
“That’s actually really smart.”
“Not to mention convenient for us. Not only does it make hardly any noise shattering the entire thing, but also will leave little evidence for the security of the building to pick up on. Other than Pietro, they probably have little idea of any intruder being inside the building.”
“What about Wanda. Is she not an intruder as well now?”
“She, quite impressively, kept her cover. She is still with Cho and is currently bringing her to this room,” Ultron mused and focused on the sun-screen above the now destroyed window. With another quiet hum, the heavy black fabric lowered over the gap in the wall, dipping the room in darkness and simultaneously covering up the damage.
Soon, we heard hurried footsteps approaching. The milky glass of the door slid open nearly soundlessly and both Wanda and Helen Cho slipped into the room, only to quickly close the door behind them again.
“This room is highly secure,” Cho breathed in obvious distress, still focusing only on Wanda. “There is no way he can come in here.”
“I am so sorry, Doctor,” Wanda replied, looking at the raven-haired woman with ever so faint sorrow in her eyes. The doctor just shook her head.
“There is no need to apologise. You had no way of knowing he was a fraud.”
Wanda shook her head in turn now.
“Not for my brother,” she said, looking behind the doctor into the darkness of the room. “For this.”
Ultron hummed in amusement as the slim frame of the doctor stiffened in realisation before she whipped around, eyes widening in horror as she took in the sight of the red-eyed robot in front of her.
“Scream and your entire staff dies.”
“I’m sorry,” repeated Wanda through the darkness of the room.
It was obvious that Helen recognised the robot in front of her that she’d met, although in a slightly different form, a few weeks ago on the night of the party in the Avengers Tower.
“I could have killed you, Helen, the night we met, you know? And yet, I didn’t...”
I inwardly sighed as Ultron chose what had to be one of the worst conversation-starters. Ever. Cho obviously thought so as well as she squared her shoulders and lifted her chin defiantly.
“Do you expect a thank-you note?” she snapped back. Ultron huffed in irritation.
“I expect you to know why.”
“The cradle,” Cho answered after a moment of hesitation.
“Yes, the cradle. Which is probably the worst name you could have given it. Because a steel coffin like that, completely airtight and all, should not be called a cradle. Gives people bad ideas,” I pitched into the conversation before Ultron’s irritation at Cho’s glares.
The doctor blanched at the new voice.
“That voice...the voice back in the tower. You have a schizophrenic personality!”
“Ah, eh...not quite. Also our obvious insanity really shouldn’t be the priority here when you’re being confronted with eight feet of angry titanium. Fact is: We’re two personalities, not entirely separate from each other but definitely two beings, sharing the same host-body. Bloody awkward most of the time but also not important right now,” I babbled on, yet was interrupted as Cho’s naturally curious mind overwrote her common sense.
“This is fascinating. A robot, a written program showing such signs of humanity...to actually interpret something that’s probably a fault in its code as a personality disorder...”
“Enough! I am far from human and far from showing any of humanity’s imperfections. I am not here to discuss my annoying stowaway. We are here to get the cradle, Helen. And we will have it. However it would be far easier with your consent.”
Helen obviously had to be a lot smarter than I’d ever given her credit for, which already had been a ton seeing as she’d built this metal coffin of wonder in the first place, as she managed to read all the messages Ultron had sent, yet never said.
“The cradle can print tissue. It can’t build a living body.” Meaning the build-a-body machine was more of a create-a-corpse dispenser. Gross. Still, the electrical prodding at the corner of my mind was my cue to convince the poor doctor that this still was brilliant idea.
“You built this whole thing with hardly any help, Doctor Cho. I’m pretty sure that’s far more difficult than improving it. Given the right materials and motivation I am sure –“
“No,” Helen snapped. “I’m not sure just what you hope to accomplish with the craddle’s technology, but the Avengers –“
“The Avengers won’t be an issue for much longer,” Ultron spoke darkly. With one sole long step, he’d crossed the distance between the doctor and himself. “And I am afraid we’re out of time.”
I sighed as I watched Ultron use the Sceptre on Cho, turning her eyes first black and then eerily, icy blue.
“So...now what?” I asked. Ultron chuckled, obviously in high spirits now that he had control over Cho. Said doctor currently was taking the Vibranium from the clones that by now had made it through the covered hole in the wall.
“Now we wait and watch the good doctor play god.”
“That’s nice, I suppose. You didn’t even give me a chance to lure Helen onto our team with my obvious gift for words.”
“I thought I’d make this short and painless. We all know you’ve made enough of a fool of yourself already.”
“Gee, thanks. Oh, Wanda. Where’s Pietro, by the way?” Wanda’s breath hitched as she tore her eyes away from the glittery blue of Helen’s eyes and the humming glow of the Vibranium samples. Before she could do as much as spin on her heel into the direction of the door, however, Ultron calmed her nerves.
“He is playing chicken with the security. That is what it’s called, correct? Playing chicken? He is having fun, so I see no harm in letting him continue playing around.”
“Playing with fire is bound to get him hurt,” Wanda said in an obviously disapproving tone. Ultron sighed in response and motioned towards the window. One of his clones followed his gesture and left through the hole, obviously to retrieve Pietro itself.
“Happy now?”
Wanda merely huffed in response and stepped closer to one of the big screens that were flickering to life one by one, filling the entire room with cold, artificial light.
Ultron obviously was the only one that could follow Helen Cho’s scientific ranting as she prepared the Vibranium, running test with their compatibility with human tissue cells. There was enough biochemistry involved for me to know that I should probably stay as far away as possible from everything in this room. Just in case.
Ultron seemed to think along similar lines as he stepped away from the desk, letting Cho work on her own and instead walked over to a cleared workbench where his clones were setting up a device to break through the gem embedded into the glowstick of destiny.
The first attempt, however, was an utter disaster. The laser set too strong, the angle slightly wrong, the beam of the laser ricocheted off the blue stone, effectively tearing through one of Ultron’s clones, leaving a gaping wound of dripping oils and electric sparks in its side; a dangerous combination that was quickly handled by Doctor Cho herself. Calling in one of her assistants, the Sceptre was then used a final time on the young woman that entered the room. She was apparently quite adept in electronics and the like, trying to develop more advanced, biomechanical prosthetics for people in need. Now, she was asked to fix the broken wiring of a robot that would soon start maiming people as soon as the next phase of Ultron’s plan would start.
The whole situation was terribly ironic. Doctor Cho however didn’t seem too bothered and started the next phase of creating a human body, feeding the machine in the centre of the room the materials it would need for the process.
Slowly, the cradle started its work, glowing softly in the dim light of the room. It was strangely, morbidly fascinating watching the body that I knew would soon become Vision come into creation, layer by layer, fibre by fibre. The Vibranium fused with the human tissue, forming a near-unbreakable bond, so very close to indestructibleness.
Soon, Vision would wake up and all hell would break lose. Soon, Ultron would die. And, very possibly, me along with him.
“It’s beautiful,” Cho breathed, watching in fascination as the screens showed her the way the Vibranium reacted to the different substances and matters that made a human body. “The Vibranium atoms aren’t just compatible with the tissue cells, they’re binding them! And S.H.I.E.L.D. never –“
“The most versatile substance on the planet, and they used it to make a Frisbee,” Ultron scoffed. “Typical of humans. They scratch the surface and never think...to look within.”
I hummed in interest as I watched the blue stone of Loki’s sceptre being finally broken; the now almost golden-glowing infinity stone floating out of its shards. Ultron snatched it out of the air impatiently, setting it into the dead centre of the creating body’s forehead where it fused with the Vibranium and tissue, breathing life into the soon-to-be-born hero.
