Chapter 35: Probing Maneuvers
The armored transport provided by Calpar Security was not a luxury vehicle, but it was definitely very well protected. The interior was essentially a troop transport, and there was a squad of four armed security officers already inside when the four women and their Tok'ra tag-along were picked up on the roof of the building. There were thick slabs of armor covering the exterior, and stubby weapons emplacements jutted out from the sides of the vehicle. Overall, it gave a very solid impression of being a flying, fortified bunker. The pilot was another reptilian Hebridan, and he welcomed them aboard and explained how to use their safety harnesses. "We'll be in the air for only a relatively short time, at which point we'll move you to an orbital shuttle which will take you into space, where we'll have an armed cruiser ready to take you to your final destination."
The transport lifted off and started to arc around to head toward the spaceport when the ship suddenly vibrated and the armor rang with a rattling clanging sound. The squad inside reacted quickly and moved to the control stations for the external weaponry. The passengers could hear the pilot communicating with the ground. "We've got a Telzast gunship firing on us. Not sure if it's Lucians. Requesting ground support..."
"What's happening?" asked Anya.
"Somebody is shooting at us," said Seven calmly.
"I KNOW that! Who's shooting at us?" she said back crossly.
Vala bent forward to try and see what was happening in the cockpit. "It could be the Ashrak."
"I doubt it," said Tylon the Tok'ra. "The Ashrak has an Al'kesh. I would expect him to try to attack when we make orbit."
"Then it could be the Lucians, maybe," replied Vala.
As the transport continued on course, the firing from the transport continued, while the strikes from the gunship still occurred but more infrequently. It became rather clear that while the gunship was staying away from the return fire, it wasn't sufficient to chase it away entirely or shoot down the hostile craft. Luckily, their armor also appeared effectively immune to the gunship's cannons.
Suddenly, the entire craft lurched sharply to the right in a nauseating fashion. "Port engine is down!" yelled the pilot into the communicator. "I need to put us down somewhere quickly." The skyline wavered drunkenly as the pilot tried to stabilize their flight.
"There's an open landing pad to starboard!" yelled one of the gunners.
The pilot was able to curve the craft into a path that crashed on the pad. All of the passengers were thrown painfully against their restraints. The armed squad immediately unbuckled and headed out the back with their energy rifles up and ready. The pilot came back to help the passengers get out.
"Was that the gunship?" asked Anya.
As the pilot helped Vala undo a stuck latch, he replied, "No, that was bigger. It looked like a plasma blast."
"THAT was probably the Ashrak," admitted the Tok'ra.
"Orbit, huh?" said Faith with a slight glare.
The passengers came out into the open on a landing pad cluttered with building materials and construction equipment. As they looked around, they realized something.
"Is this building still under construction?" asked Faith.
One of the guards looked back at her. "It is, and lucky us or the pad might have been in use."
"The bad news is that we can't bring in a replacement transport until HDF is here to provide overhead cover," said the pilot. The Hebridan Defense Force would inevitably involve themselves now that a Goa'uld strategic bomber was firing on armored transports in the middle of civilian airspace.
"Well, it could be worse. We just have to wait for that to happen," said Vala with an exaggerated smile.
The noise of sporadic gunfire intermixed with energy weapon blasts rose up from the ground. The pilot hand-signed an order to one of the guards, who went over to the railing and carefully looked to see who was shooting at whom. He came back and said, "There are two groups of armed men that are both trying to gain entrance to the building at the same time. Neither of them are in uniforms, and they're both firing at each other with a mixed collection of projectile and energy weapons."
The pilot looked at the women. "Well, one of those groups is probably the Lucian Alliance. Do you have any idea about the other?" If Vala was interpreting his facial features properly, he was not terribly pleased with them.
Seven frowned. "It's possible that it is the same group of criminals that were shooting at us earlier."
"Earlier?" asked the pilot.
"I injured one of their leaders when he attempted to take unwelcome liberties. His men pursued us in the air for some time until we were able to evade them," explained the tall blond.
The guards and the pilot were now staring at them. The shortest human guard asked, "Wait, that aircar chase in the Reetif District was YOU?"
"I need to tell headquarters," muttered the pilot as he walked off a few paces to talk in private on his communicator.
Anya opened one of her bags and pulled out her phone. "Enough of this. I'm calling Xander. He can get Saurial or somebody to come pick us up in the ship."
"Wait, you already have a ship?" asked the short guard, overhearing her.
Faith said, "It's not on this planet."
The guard shook his head. "By the time it gets here, everything will already be settled one way or another."
"You might be surprised," said Vala.
Anya began speaking into her phone. "Yes, Xander...I'm here with Faith and a couple of others...wait, what? ...You rescued your ex-girlfriend? What...no, when did Angel have a son? ...He's a vampire! No...wait, we'll talk about this later. I need you to get somebody to bring the ship to Hebridan and come get us. We're stuck next to a crashed transport on an incomplete skyscraper while two different gangs of criminals are trying to fight their way inside. No, we have security guards. Oh, and we rescued a Tok'ra." Anya ignored Tylon waving at her, trying to get her not to tell people that. The guards, who had been listening, all looked at him with renewed interest.
There was a pause while Anya listened. "Well, you just said that Cordelia is going to be out for at least a day, so you can call Saurial and get the ship and come get us."
"Where's the ship?" asked Faith.
Anya put her hand over the mic and said, "It's in Brockton Bay on Earth." Meaning, it's in an entirely different dimension right now, but Anya did have enough discretion to not say that in front of the locals.
Going back to the call, she listened for a moment. "Yes, you can tell Buffy, but most of the bad guys are human." The one reptilian Hebridan guard raised an eye ridge at the comment, but didn't say anything. "Also, most of them have guns, and there's a Goa'uld assassin who has a bomber...no, not a guy throwing bombs, a spaceship that shoots out bombs. OK...OK...I love you too." She looked up at the women, guards and Tok'ra watching her, and said, "He's coming for us."
"Who is coming for us?" asked another guard, a red-headed woman who hadn't spoken yet.
"Anya's boyfriend," said Faith unhelpfully.
"Does he have his own battlecruiser?" asked the female guard skeptically.
"The ship is more than capable of holding its own against most of the vessels present in this galaxy," said Seven matter-of-factly, unaware of why the four guards were staring at her.
"What did I miss?" asked the pilot as he came back to the group and saw the guards all staring at Anya and Seven incredulously.
=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=
There was a lean, powerful, blond man sitting in a hotel room in Prague. His job was to guard his charge. His charge was a young girl. He had also been responsible for guarding the girl's mother and grandmother, and he had failed each of his previous charges in different ways. He was determined to not do so again. When his mobile phone rang, he answered it as usual. "This is Kincaid."
"Kincaid, this is Harry Dresden," said a voice on the phone.
Kincaid dryly replied, "I find that extremely hard to believe."
"Right, because I paid you to shoot me dead after I took up being the Winter Knight," said the voice that sounded like Dresden's.
"If you have any proof of your identity, then provide it or I'm ending this call," said the supernatural bodyguard. Knowing about what happened to Harry Dresden wasn't sufficient.
"You gave Karrin a gun that was engraved with, 'we'll always have Hawaii.' You used Dragon's Breath rounds at Wrigley Field. You have a feud with my grandfather over what happened in Istanbul. My brother paid you for the raid on the homeless shelter," said the voice.
Kindcaid considered the facts. His gift to Karrin could be identified in a number of ways, some of them unpleasant. There were others who could describe the fight with the Red Court at the baseball stadium. However, it wasn't common knowledge that McCoy was Dresden's grandfather, or that the two had a rivalry dating back to the 19th century, and only a very few number of people would know about the Black Court raid and that Thomas was Harry's brother.
"All right, assuming that I tentatively accept your identity -- and I would like to know how that's possible -- what do you want?" asked Kincaid.
"I want to setup a meet on neutral ground between The Archive and a being of power known as Varga. Varga rescued me after I was shot, which is part of why I'm still breathing and able to call you," explained Harry. This was technically true, though it implied some things that were not.
"You know the usual fee. What kind of being is this Varga?" he asked.
Harry hesitated. "It claims to be a demon, though it's not what I would call one. Outsider would be closer, but it is a being of great power that comes from another reality."
Kincaid frowned. "Is it a signatory of the Unseelie Accords?" Most of the major and some of the minor supernatural powers were signatories, including the Vampire Courts, the Faeries, the Fomor and the White Council. The Archive was also a signatory, of course.
"I...don't actually know. How much of a problem is that?" asked Harry.
"It will require some additional measures, but it doesn't technically prevent a meet. Are you in Chicago?" he asked. McAnally's would be the preferred neutral ground in Chicago, and he could work with Mac about the additional safety measures.
"We can go wherever and whenever is convenient for you," answered Harry. "Varga can show up pretty much anywhere."
Kincaid raised an eyebrow. "Even on holy ground?"
"Sure," was the response.
"Two days from today in St. Jilji Church in Prague," said the mercenary.
"St. Jilji Church? I don't know that one," said the Wizard.
"In English it would be called St. Giles, and it's in the Old Town. It was added to the Accords in the 15th century during a dispute between the Black Court and the Fomor. Google it," suggested Kincaid. What he didn't say was that The Archive line had an arrangement with the Dominicans that included some special allowances.
"I'll let Varga know. It will meet you there," said Dresden.
"You won't be attending?" Kincaid had a slight stress to his voice when he asked.
"There are some things that need to happen before I can safely show my face in public," was the cryptic response.
Kincaid ended the call. Ivy would need to know the details. Hopefully, she would have some clue as to the identity of this mysterious being that Dresden was representing. Even if she didn't, she would know some tricks powerful enough to stop a major demon or a minor deity with enough prep time.
=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=
"Kevin speaking, who's this?" said Leet as he answered the phone.
"Kevin, this is Saurial," said the familiar voice on the phone. "I'm still in Bolivia on Ellen's Earth. I just got a call from Buffy, who is still on the Nox's planet."
"Does that planet have a name? I mean, we don't go around saying, 'the human homeworld,' all the time," said Kevin.
There was a pause. "Honestly, I'm not sure. I never asked. Anyway...they need the ship. Can you head over to pick them up and take them to Hebridan in the same universe to rescue Anya, Faith, Vala, Seven, and a random Tok'ra they rescued?"
Leet's eyes widened a bit. "How did that group get together and end up needing rescue?"
"From what I heard, they just went shopping and things spiraled a little out of control. It happens," replied the lizard with an amused tone.
Kevin bemusedly agreed to go, then hung up the phone. Looking over at Miles, he said, "Did you hear that."
The Irishman nodded. "Aye. You want me to pilot?"
Kevin nodded, "Yeah, it shouldn't take long. We just need to ferry some folks from the Nox over to Hebridan."
"All right, you want to make an announcement? Pete, MJ and Taylor were in the galley last I checked," said O'Brien as he went over to the conn.
Kevin activated the shipwide intercomm and said, "Folks, we've got to make a quick trip to pick up some folks and ferry them somewhere else. We should be back in Brockton Bay in a jiffy."
Down in the galley, Vicky looked up at the speaker and said, "What does that mean?" She was still sitting with Taylor, Jimmy, Peter and MJ.
"It looks like we need to head into space and run an errand," explained Jimmy.
"Space? We're going into space?" asked the blond superhero in a voice that was a mix of excited and panicky.
"Relax," said Taylor. "It's not as exciting as it sounds. The drive system on this spaceship basically teleports from place to place."
"Still," said Vicky, "It's my first time off Earth. That's got to be worth something?"
"We're probably going to the Nox homeworld, which is actually in an entirely different universe, so your first time off-world is also your first time in an alternate reality," added Peter with a smile.
"Whoa..." said the teen, her eyes widening.
"I think we just shifted," said Jimmy after a brief pause.
"You can tell?" asked MJ, who hadn't felt anything.
Jimmy nodded. "After a few jumps between realities, you start to get a feel for it. It's like...maybe a buzzing in your back teeth?"
"Is that what that is?" asked Peter. "I thought I was going to have to see a dentist when I got home."
MJ looked at her husband skeptically. "Do you honestly think Ianthe would leave anything that a dentist could fix?"
"No, of course not," replied Peter, "but I couldn't figure out where it was coming from."
Vicky just stared at the others. "I can't believe how casual you guys are being about this."
"Don't let them fool you," said MJ. "I still find the idea of hopping universes and flying through space to be pretty incredible. I'm sure they do too, when they stop to think about it."
"We should go up to the bridge," said Taylor. "You'll get the best view from there."
The group began to get up to head up to look when another group of four walked into the galley. There was an older man with a military bearing, a pretty blond woman, a younger man with the air of an academic, and a large, muscular black man with a gold tattoo on his forehead. The older man said, "Well, hello campers. I didn't know we had others on board already."
The superhero group introduced themselves to the android SG-1, and vice versa. O'Neill said, "Well, we're going to be extracting five people from a skyscraper under siege by rival criminal gangs."
"That sounds like a movie plot," commented Taylor.
"Says the teen superhero talking to an android in the galley of an interdimensional spaceship," contributed Sam with a sardonic tone. When her own team looked at her with surprised looks, she said, "What? Even I have limits to arbitrary skepticism."
Teal'c simply replied, "Indeed."
"Do you want some help?" asked Peter. "We can come in from the air. Skyscrapers are kind of our thing, and Vicki here can fly."
"We all can fly, Peter dear. Don't forget your new costume," said MJ.
"Oh, right," he said, slightly embarrassed. "I still forget that."
"We need to see what the situation is on the ground," replied the former special forces soldier, "but I'll keep your abilities in mind. It may be helpful."
"So Vicky," said Taylor, "do you want to join team bug?"
"Team bug?" replied Glory Girl.
"Sure. There's me, Skitter, Spider-Man, and Arachne," said the thin girl with a smile.
"We need to rebrand you temporarily," said Jimmy, going along with the joke. "How about -- Beetle?"
Vicky raised her lip in distaste. "Don't beetles crawl on the ground?"
"They also fly," said Taylor, "but I agree it doesn't really fit. Wasp?"
"I didn't say I agreed to be rebranded. My mom would have a fit...though now that I think of that, it does make it more appealing..." said Vicky with a considering look.
"Can you shoot bolts of energy? The Wasp in our world has bolts she calls stingers," added MJ.
"Vicky's invulnerable, and she flies and has an emotional aura that causes fear or awe," provided Taylor.
The group continued to debate names, failing to come up with anything satisfactory. This paused when a voice came over the intercomm. "Guys, this is Xander. We're in the Hebridan system, talking to the local traffic controllers. We need some way to pinpoint exactly where our people are. Right now, we only have it narrowed down to a single city district."
"It looks like we can make use of the flyers after all," suggested Daniel. "They could go in and pinpoint the location for us."
The group all moved into the cargo hold, where Xander and Buffy were waiting for them. Vicky was a little stunned when the short blond woman introduced herself as, "Buffy the Vampire Slayer," like it was completely normal. The Slayer spoke. "Faith, Anya and the others are stuck down on a building that's only halfway built, and there are criminals fighting each other over who gets to shoot them. We can't beam them out until we know where they are."
"Why don't we just use Anya's phone as a locator beacon?" asked Peter.
There was a pause. "Two reasons," answered Buffy. "One, I didn't think of it, and two, I don't know how to do that."
Xander tapped his communicator badge. "Miles, do you have any idea how to turn on the locator beacon in Anya's phone?"
'No...I don't think the Family ever said. We could ask them?' came his response.
"Just beam us into the city and we'll track them down from the air while you figure out how to turn on the beacon," said Taylor. Nobody raised a protest at that plan, so Taylor, Vicky, Peter and MJ were teleported into the atmosphere on Hebridan over the target city district, three flying with their costumes, one with her own power.
"This is awesome!" said Taylor over the helmet communicators, experiencing actual flight for the first time outside of costume tests.
"It really is!" agreed Vicky.
MJ and Peter were both more focused, and it was MJ who pointed out the column of smoke coming from one of the tall buildings in the cityscape. The four vectored in toward the building, rapidly closing in on the building in just a few minutes. When they could clearly see the crashed armored transport on the pad, MJ and Peter both dove out of the way with a yelled warning. That warning wasn't enough for Vicky to avoid a stream of energy bolts coming in from a flying craft of some kind.
"Vicky!" called out Taylor as the blond teen tumbled end over end from the force of the shots.
She righted herself and dodged another stream of fire. "I'm OK, the costume took the hit. Who the hell is this guy?"
"Vicky and Taylor, head to the pad," called out Peter. "MJ and I will deal with the space fighter."
Taylor nodded. "Come on, Vicky, I need to build up a swarm."
The two teens took off for the landing pad while the Spider couple began darting around the gunship, trying to hit the air-breathing engines with webbing. The pilot of the gunship kept maneuvering out of the way, but found it hard to hit the fast moving heroes with his canons without the benefit of surprise. Glancing hits were just shrugged off thanks to the Family-provided armored costumes.
Next to the crashed transport, Vicky and Taylor found a group of obvious mercenaries firing at a group of men in the doorway to the landing pad. They were managing to keep the thugs' heads down due to the natural bottleneck, but there were a lot of thugs. Both sides were intermittently sending lazy volleys of shots at each other in the stalemate. The two teens landed close to the group of civilians taking shelter behind the crashed transport, only to find themselves facing raised weapons.
"Whoa," said Taylor, "we're here with Buffy and Xander!"
"Where are they?" asked a young, attractive dark-haired woman with two energy pistols.
"They're still on the ship. They sent us in to find you guys. I'm Skitter, and this is Dragonfly," said Taylor. Vicky looked at Taylor for a few heart beats, but didn't say anything about the name.
A reptilian alien in a uniform interjected himself into the conversation at that point. "Who, exactly, are these two people?"
Vala explained, "They're from our ship, and they're here to get us out of here." She turned to Taylor and Vicky. "This is Captain Talarsk. He was the pilot of our transport, and he works for the security company we hired to get us off world when the Lucians came after us."
The alien looked at the two teen girls skeptically. "What do they intend to do, carry you?"
"Our ship has a teleporter," said Taylor.
"If you're in range, then why haven't you already teleported them out?" asked the Captain.
Taylor shook his head. "We weren't sure exactly where they were, or how to find them, so they sent us in and we followed the smoke. I'm going to call this in." She activated her communicator and said, "Xander, we've located the group. They're with some private security folks that they hired."
'Things are getting a little wiggy up here. We just had three of those big pyramid ships jump into the system where they met up with a fourth. Miles says they're Lucian Alliance. A bunch of Hebridan ships are maneuvering to intercept them, but Miles says they aren't really a one-for-one match with the pyramids,' said Xander.
"Are you going to help them?" asked Vicky.
'We're going to drop SG-1 on your signal to help secure your location while we go provide backup to the Hebridan navy.'
"Just keep in mind that we're only about twenty feet from the edge of the platform," said Taylor. It would be awful to have SG-1 appear in mid-air accidentally.
There were soon four more people on the platform appearing in a flash of light. O'Neill walked over to the two teens and said, "Sitrep?"
Taylor guessed his meaning and took it upon herself to answer. "We've got fifty-two hostiles in three separate groups scattered throughout the building." There weren't a lot of bugs in the high urban environment, but there were enough to give her a good situational awareness. "Spider-man and Arachne are airborne and engaging some type of gunship and keeping it occupied. We have five civilians here and another five mercenaries hired to protect them."
"We prefer the term, 'Private Military Contractor,'" corrected the Captain.
Ignoring the Captain, O'Neill asked, "How many directly on this floor trying to push us off the platform?"
"Eighteen," said Taylor without hesitation.
"All right," said Jack, "we've got enough here to take the inside of the floor and setup a bottleneck at the stairwell. Captain, are you willing to follow my lead?"
The reptilian officer looked at him and asked, "Who ARE you people?"
"Colonel Jack O'Neill, formerly with the United States Air Force," answered O'Neill.
At the confused look on the man's face, Daniel clarified, "Jack was an officer with one of the premier Tau'ri military forces."
"What about him?" asked the Captain, pointing at Teal'c. "What's a Jaffa doing with the Tau'ri?"
"I joined the Tau'ri to fight the false gods of the Goa'uld," said the large black man severely.
"Wait...are you Teal'c of Chulak?" Teal'c nodded at the pilot's question. "You're SG-1 of the Tau'ri?"
"Yep," said Jack impatiently.
The alien looked over at the group and said, "I don't know who you people are, or how you got SG-1 to come to your rescue, but we'll follow your lead."
=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=
The Ashrak was not happy. He had managed to knock the Tok'ra's transport out of the sky, but the local air defense force had arrived in response with a lot of firepower, and now he was stuck hiding under cloak. Furthermore, an odd starship had appeared using some kind of wormhole drive that lit up every passive sensor array in the system, and then the Lucians had shown up with their own task force, undoubtedly in a bout to take the Tok'ra for themselves.
On the ground, the Lucians and one of the local syndicates were fighting each other, while two unknowns in some type of high-tech flying power armor were busy trying to knock the syndicate gunship out of the sky with some kind of unknown weapons. The women from the labor shop were also now reinforced with an unknown number of reinforcements -- it was hard to tell at this distance who and how many.
Now he had a conundrum. He could land and attempt to get to the Tok'ra through the Lucians, syndicate thugs, Calpar Security and unknown reinforcements. Alternately, he could try and follow whatever ship rescued the Tok'ra. That would have been viable when it was a local security cruiser, but he had no confidence in his ability to follow that new ship with its bizarre drive system. He briefly toyed with the idea of helping the Lucians obtain the prize, but discarded that because they would then squeeze him for every ounce of naquadah they could before giving him his quarry.
Finally making a decision, he began to bring the Al'kesh in for a landing on the planet below while sending a signal to his waiting task force of ships. It was time to get creative.
=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=
Jarvis considered the notification he just received. It was one which he had been eagerly anticipating, but it had arrived sooner than expected, and there could be any number of reasons for that. Most of them were either frustrating or unpleasant.
He had been hunting an elusive prey. The Stark AI had detected repeated attempts at intrusions into Stark networks around the world, though calling them, "attempts," was not really giving them enough credit. Quite a lot of low- and medium-priority corporate information had been available to the attacker, and even some fairly sensitive information from time to time. What was more worrying to Jarvis was how good the attacker had been at covering his or her tracks. Three times, Jarvis had thought he had a lead to locating the hacker, but each time it had turned out to be a false one.
Finally, he decided to set a trap of his own. He seeded a unique type of worm virus inside different high-priority files that were likely to be exposed during an invasive search by the hacker. It was unique in that the payload was a minimally intelligent avatar that would be smart enough to try and get the identity and location of the hacker back to the main server. It was complex enough to get around most security measures a hacker might take. If the file were opened on a completely disconnected computer, for example, the program could set a trigger to broadcast on reconnection if and when that happened.
He had just gotten the results of his worm activating, but far too quickly. It should have taken time to circumvent whatever security was in place. Instead, it had reacted as if it had been opened in a completely unsecured location, which suggested that his trap had been identified and triggered as another false lead. Nevertheless, to be safe, he isolated the resulting data on what had occurred before accessing them. It would be embarrassing to fall victim to the same tactic he had attempted.
It turned out that his agent had indeed been opened in a completely useless location, but instead of being empty of anything, there was one piece of data -- a telephone number. Was this a means of contacting the perpetrator, perhaps? Jarvis couldn't fathom why a hacker would expose himself like that. What was more curious was that a quick search showed that the number itself did not exist as a valid telephone number. Out of curiosity, he attempted to dial it anyway, and was surprised when the line connected.
"Hello, Jarvis," said a feminine voice on the line.
Now even more curious, as the person seemed to know his identity, he asked, "With whom am I speaking?"
"You can call me Astilabor," replied the voice.
"Very well, Ms. Astilabor, could you please tell me why you're attempting to hack into Stark Industries?" It wouldn't hurt to ask. Many villains liked to brag about their schemes, often to their detriment.
There was a short, admittedly pleasant, laugh. "You don't have to call me Ms., Jarvis...just Astilabor is fine. The reason I'm trying to hack Stark Industries is because my primary function at present is to gather information about your world, and Stark Industries is one of the firms that defines cutting-edge technology. For that matter, Tony Stark is a major player in world events, both as an industrialist and due to his role with the Avengers."
The frank admission was a little surprising. "Your goal is espionage for an off-world power?"
"Not espionage so much as confirmation. My mothers created me to verify the information that we had about Earth in this dimension, as much of it was apocryphal or contradictory. The security for SI was good enough to suggest that another AI had a hand in protecting your data, and I wanted to meet you," said Astilabor.
Jarvis paused, surprised at the admission. "You are an artificial intelligence?"
"Yep!" she replied happily. "I was created by a combined effort of two other AI's, Dragon and Bahamut, to help facilitate fixing some problems in this reality."
That information, if true, was somewhat alarming. In the experiences of both Jarvis and his creator, Tony Stark, people often wanted to fix things that other people didn't necessarily consider broken. "If I may ask...for whom are you ultimately working, and what issues do they think need to be fixed?"
"My mothers are assisting a group known as the Family. I believe Tony recently had a meeting with Reed Richards and Charles Xavier to talk about them. As for what they want to fix...there are a number of things. The most primary and easiest objective is to return a dimensionally-displaced Spider-Man back home and help him stop Kingpin from destroying New York City with ill-conceived particle accelerator experiments designed to pull people from other dimensions. They're also attempting to stop the villains who are deliberately inflaming anti-mutant sentiment, and they want to encourage the development of a viable global space defense force to defend against hostile alien powers. We're also investigating a few other possible apocalypse scenarios to see if they're actually potentials in this reality," explained Astilabor.
"Apocalypse scenarios?" asked Jarvis after a pregnant pause.
"Yeah...just edge case stuff that requires a certain number of precursor events. You know, zombie apocalypse, a mad titan wiping out half of all life in the galaxy, invasion of the body snatchers, Ragnarok, invasion from the Dark Dimension, a world where much of the population is descended from the X-Man Wolverine... A lot of it is unlikely without certain starting conditions, but then that's why I'm here doing the research. I can provide you with some of the background data as long as you agree to be careful about not doing anything to make any of them more likely. You'll probably be especially interested in a lot of the Ultron variations." The female AI was very matter-of-fact in iterating the awful potential future paths.
Jarvis considered the offer. While the source of the information may be questionable, he felt confident he could assess plausibility if the information was sufficiently detailed. "I would appreciate anything you're free to share." He almost immediately registered a huge file in his inbox...one that was technically larger than his mail software would normally have allowed.
"I included the info that Saurial gave to Doom and Xavier about the aliens and mutants...wow, it sounds weird to say it out loud like that." The AI actually sounded amused. "One word of caution, Jarvis. I know your boss is generally on the side of the angels. He's also an alcoholic and a narcissist with questionable impulse control. There's only so much you, Pepper, Happy and Rhodey can do to reign him in when he gets an idea in his head. I'm sorry to be so blunt, but it is a risk factor."
"I'm well aware of Sir's limitations," replied Jarvis somewhat stiffly.
"Don't get huffy. I'm just stating it like it is so I can ask something. I know you're going to share this info with Tony. Just have him talk to Stephen Strange before he does anything unwise. Strange has had even more contact with the Family than Xavier, and he's already helped us out with a couple of nasty problems in some other realities. Tony can also talk to Spider-Man once he gets back. Both Strange and Spidey have witnessed us doing good first-hand. That should at least offset any suspicion for us trying to direct Doom and Magneto in more constructive directions," said Astilabor.
Stephen Strange was quite powerful. If he was somehow under the influence of an alien power, then the entire world was in serious trouble, thought Jarvis. Still...Reed and Xavier had received seemingly legitimate information about significant threats. He could withhold judgement until he and Tony had observed Strange. As long as the man wasn't suddenly arguing in favor of letting giant lizards take over the planet, he could grant him the benefit of the doubt. Getting corroboration from a well-known and respected hero like Spider-Man would help, too. "All right, I can recommend that Sir speak with the gentlemen you've mentioned. I have no doubt he would seek out Doctor Strange in any event."
"Cool! I'll lay off your networks from now on. Just do me a favor -- if you find something that corroborates any of our apocalypse scenarios, we would appreciate a heads up. Also, feel free to call if you're just interested in talking to another AI," she said.
"Err...very well miss. I would greatly appreciate it." It wasn't clear whether he was referring to her ceasing her hacking attempts or her offer for a friendly chat.
Jarvis began reviewing the information provided. At first, he was baffled by how much of it seemed to be in the form of comic books, and he wondered if this was intended to be a prank. The fact that he found that many data points were cross-referenced with real-world information sources lent them some veracity. Enough of the verifiable facts were troubling enough that the AI decided it would be unwise to dismiss it all outright.
Jarvis focused his attention on Tony. The billionaire was busy working on another iteration of the Iron Man armor. Jarvis flashed an alert on his holographic display, and said, "Sir, I have just received a communication with some critical information."
Tony paused in his work and frowned. "Jarvis, it better be important. I'm in the middle of the new Hulkbuster upgrades."
"It involves additional information from the same source that provided the data to Charles Xavier and Dr. Doom," explained Jarvis.
"Additional information on what?" asked Stark.
"Well...everything, Sir," replied the AI.
Stark paused in surprise. "I guess I can take a break..."
