You threw the wallet into the footwell, slammed the door, and
ran. You were out of the parking garage and in the air within thirty seconds, heading for Brooklyn as fast as you could.
"Call Justine!" you ordered, but the phone was already ringing. The three rings before she picked up were the longest seconds of your life.
"
... hold on, I need to take this. Athena, what's-?" Justine sounded distinctly disoriented. You needed her alert for this.
"Arachne. Emergency summary: Your boyfriend's ring is a potential apocalypse. I've put it in a wallet which will shield it from their satellites, and it has to stay there until we understand what the fuck's going on. I'm getting clear so nobody tries to track it through me to you. Understand?"
"... n-no?
Erik, sorry, it's for work."
"Athena is somebody from work?"
"He's right that it's technology from Wakanda, but it's not just that. It's the thing, or one of the things, that created and controls Wakanda's technology. It's a link to the same source of technopathic power that I have, wearing it grants you access to the tech-sense," you explained.
"This is that universe-sized computer in your brain you were telling me about? That's what you call it? The
tech-sense. Not like…
The Infinitron Matrix or something?"
"Again, this is for work? With 'Athena'? White people names, man…"
"I… have never had to say it out loud to anyone else," you confessed.
"
Yeah I know, It's… I told you, I'm doing animatronics for TV, remember? Sorry, so what do we do?"
"How many ys did they put into Athena, I need to know."
"
Call on the other line. It's Barton."
"
Lie to him. Fuck's sakes, too many voices. I don't know, that's up to him, but you need to impress on him that this shit is incredibly powerful and incredibly dangerous. He is not to take the ring out of the wallet except inside a larger faraday cage unless he is willing to fight the most powerful country on Earth to the death, because it's an unmitigated security disaster for them, and also involves some stupid monarchy shit. Understand?"
"... that's a lot to drop on me. And him." Justine muttered.
"Great power, great responsibility, great pain in the ass," you summarised. "You got this?"
"I got this." She hung up, and you dove for one of your favourite niches in the half-finished skeleton of Brooklyn Tower, just out of sight of the renewed construction crews. "Athena, what'd you tell him?"
"
That your lead was a bust. I told him you've been keeping an eye out for artefacts from the CIA collapse, you had tabs on a potential object of interest, and you rushed to check when he called. Turned out it was just a piece of Metal Flappy Bird."
"Got it. What's he saying?"
"
It sounds like he has his own leads to follow up on, I don't have details. He also wants the fictional bit of MFB for containment."
"Well, he can fuck off about that and he knows it. What do we do now?"
"
Get something to eat." The worst part was, you actually were hungry. "
I have explained this before. These processes take a lot of calories."
You sighed and drew out a Cliff bar from your kit, pulling up your mask to chew on it and focusing on the drones buzzing around the city, ready to turn any cameras away.
"
I have a question," the symbiote continued.
"Sure," you muttered.
"
The ring revealed a great deal of information to you, and represents another instance of your otherwise unique power, the one that lets you protect your identity and contest the out of control technology of your world."
"Yes?"
"
Why did you let somebody else have it? Denying others power is equivalent to holding greater power, as these things are relative." The fact it was getting more articulate didn't seem to change its priorities much.
"I don't… care about being more powerful," you lied, and it could tell. "No, that's not it. That thing is a target, and I'm a target. Me having it makes it much,
much more likely to be discovered than if Erik from California has it, like, he's just A Guy among millions, and means the response will be larger and possibly get more people hurt."
"
He has 24 Twitter followers," Athena added helpfully, pulling up @killmonger_2009 on your smart glass. You snickered, scrolling through a few tweets.
"Welp, I'm glad I can trust Justine, because I suddenly worry he might not be the most reliable steward of this thing based entirely on his use of Moaist Standard English." Your amusement dried up slightly as you remembered that Norman had done it too... for about five minutes, before you mocking him for being unable to spell had put a stop to it.
"
Hey, it's okay. And... yeah, this raises the possibility that Erik might actually be willing to fight the most powerful country on Earth to the death, as its not exactly a new element of his worldview."
"Or try to return the ring, possibly getting himself killed over stupid monarchist politics."
You paused for a few minutes to contemplate that, chewing thoughtfully on the energy bar. It wasn't going to be enough. You felt the symboite's hunger pressing on the back of your brain, leaving a burger-shaped void in your soul.
"
Well, Justine has looped me into their conversation, and I don't think we have to worry too much. His reaction is more along the lines of What-Do-You-Mean-They-Are-Real-And-Have-Supertech-And-Let-All-This-Happen Variety."
"
I feel I am missing a lot of context," the symbiote muttered in the back of your brain, temporarily displacing burgerthoughts.
"
We're not the people to explain it and it's so outside your entire conception of the world you wouldn't understand it either," Athena said. "
In any case, what we need to do now is lay low and wait for this to blow over or get worse in an actionable way. As you said, you are a target and a suspect; it would pay to be less visible for a while."
"
But we have a mission. The Life Institute," the symbiote reminded you. "
The rest of me is somewhere being experimented on as alien nanotechnology, which also means they are experimenting on other human people in a lethal way. Which is a thing you care about."
Okay, maybe he
was learning.
"I know, it sucks, but that mission won't mean much if we end up dead by laser poisoning," you summarised. "I have a feeling this is going to come back and haunt us, but you're right. Engage laying low protocols. Urgh… well, we
do supposedly have covid, which is a decent reason to stay locked in our room and work on something. Ideas?"
"... I suggest we work on something to make money," Athena said. "Something legitimate. Suit upgrades have been expensive, and you'll need date money to make things up with May after you 'recover'."
"Smart," you said, utterly resentful.
---
[ ] You could make a quick bit of cash chasing bug bounties. It's a risk because companies are more lawsuit-happy than ever these days with hackers who find the wrong kinds of bugs, but Stark Industries knows who you are and already wants you to work for them; you could probably make a decent chunk of change pulling apart their crappy life organiser apps. Not the lowest profile, though.
[ ] Your music apps have been a slow but steady source of passive income for a while. They're simple, easy, and involve actually doing something novel with machine learning. Making another and staying atop the algorithm might not be a bad idea; you have a cute idea for one which'll provide a dynamic soundtrack for any game you're playing.
[ ] Just set up a few dozen accounts on a gig work website to do freelance programming. It's hit or miss what you'll get, but you can take on more jobs than anyone else and deliver quickly making whatever apps people need. Besides, it doesn't get more low-profile.
