Torch Bearer 6 (Edited)

Part 6

(Kisara Lawson)

Landing on Ganymede’s surface, I took the metal case containing the sensor instruments from my power ring’s pocket space. Those are supposed to become an early warning system just in case some alien ships entered Sol; it was also full of sensors and connected to my Quantum Entanglement network and as a bonus it would help to study the local cosmology. I choose the darkside of Ganymede to avoid Earth’s astronomers to work in peace, away from SHIELD and HYDRA. Those people were rather nosey after all.

I buried the metal case with the sensor suites into the nearest mountain, and once installed it began transmitting and connecting to the network at home. This was the third time that I did such an operation around the Sol system. Now that I have my early warning system, it is time to go mine some precious metal earths.

My power ring scanned the area, geological data appearing on my HUD. I found a good spot to mine near a volcano not too far and flew toward the area and as I floated over the area, I willed a construct in the form of a drone equipped with a laser drill and an ore collector adoration system with my power ring and started digging. The mining spot  discovered was rich in Helium 3, Iron, gold and silver and titanium. 

The drone mined for over 2 hours while I busied myself with the sensor data I was receiving. I have enough material to actually build the shuttle I plan to build with Toni's help.

Everything was being stored into my Power Ring.

# # #

(Felicia Hardy)

December 02nd, 1999
New York
Manhattan
Empire State University

Felicia stared at the green ring at her finger, it had taken a lot of cajoling and trust for Kisara to give her a power ring. Then again, this one was restricted to some basic ability such as the forcefield, environmental control, cloaking, phasing, flight, FTL communication and full body strength assist; the power ring's charge was set at 400% and needed to be recharged only one time a month.

It was for Felicia’s safety. And to go fly with my girlfriend and have some nookie time in the sky. 

She smiled smugly, Felicia can fly now and turn invisible. She was also working on her own outfit for herself, based on the one she drew the sketches for Kisara.

Felicia stopped drawing and stared at the figure wearing her future costume. She wasn't satisfied with the chest piece she drew for the suit, it looked like it would block most of her arms movement. Felicia liked the base suit, so she copied it and stored the paper sheet in her sketchbook. Maybe she should go without the armor piece? Why not a jacket? But if she does add one, she must add a belt and matching boots for balance.

Fashion was a delicate balance between colors, accessories and utility; whatever they showed in Paris and Italy in those shows was pure bullshit. Felicia wouldn't be even sorry for them when her girlfriend made them go bankrupt. Kisara intended to sell high-tech fabrics, and hire young fashion designers for her Ice Swan brand to make durable and unisize clothes.

People not finding clothes in their sizes would be a problem of tomorrow. Speaking of Kisara, Felicia was tracking her thanks to her power ring, she was currently in space doing something. The platinum blonde decided to contact her.

Looking around herself, Felicia checked that she was alone in the art room. There was no one at the tables, the windows were open and the sun was lighting up the room. Felicia fished her cellphone out of her bag and made it look like she was calling someone when in reality she used her ring to contact Kisara.

“Cortana, please connect me to Kisara.” I spoke into the ring by willing the communication to happen.

Felicia was a woman of focus, commitment and sheer will; if Kisara didn't invite her to go on a date when they met the second time… Felicia would have been willing to go through a lot of hoops to be with the gorgeous and sexy nerdy girl. She found it weird that Kisara was so taken with her, despite discovering her obsessiveness. 

Geniuses like Kisara saw things and thought differently; maybe she thought that everything Felicia did had a certain logic. Felicia herself knew that someone normal would have already broken up with her after discovering her quirks. 

It has already been almost six months since they were together; this was the longest relationship that Felicia has had. She was happy! But as if to douse the flame of her passion with cold water, she heard Cortana's voice reply, “Kisara is busy.”

Felicia glared at her ring… and called the AI's name with frustration. “Cortana…”

Before the platinum blonde could rant, the AI continued to speak. “She's in orbit, setting up the Cygnus satellite network around the planet. Right now she's working on the last one.”

Felicia was surprised, the last time she saw Kisara she was working on some kind of skin-suit made with synthetic materials and was conversing with Toni on the computer while dodging any of the older woman's flirting. Kisara was active like that, one moment she's on the east coast and the next she's working in space… 

Felicia could feel her common sense slipping away from her. “When did she start doing that?”

It seemed that there were things happening that Felicia wasn't privy to. Cortana's tone was dismissive as she said, “Pretty much since last month, why do you think we have a big sensor dish on the roof at home?”

Felicia glared at the power ring, it was strange that Cortana wasn't manifesting an avatar to talk to her. They might be really busy with what they're doing in space. “Oh, you don't have to be so rude.”

“You…! Know what? Kisara will call you back.” The AI's voice sounded angry.

Felicia could understand why the Artificial Intelligence was so short with her, Kisara was a great girl. Cortana was there first, but Felicia came along… “You're just jealous that I stole a march on you…”

Cortana manifested her avatar this time, and she flipped the bird at Felicia. “Am not.” Next she disappeared with a huff.

Felicia giggled, not even mad by what just happened.

# # #

Back with Kisara…
Orbit/North Hemisphere 

I was in orbit over the Northern hemisphere of the planet where I was assembling the last of my stealth satellites. They were orbiting the planet in a grid pattern, two for both hemispheres and three at the equator. The work has been done intermittently over the last month; the positioning of the devices was calculated by Cortana who made sure that no other satellites were in the path of my own.

It was the perfect setup before me needing to update those satellites in the next five to ten years. With a heave, I slotted the power core in its socket inside the satellite I was working on. The satellite came alive, the LED signaling its activation lighting up.

I ripped off the design from Batman's own spy satellite called Brother Eye. The difference was that it wasn't housing a VI or AI at all. I wasn't taking any risk of creating a rogue AI like Ultron this early in the game. Cortana and I weren't ready for any kids yet.

Speaking of Cortana, her green colored avatar appeared on my shoulder from the green aura of my forcefield. “Kisara?”

“Yeah, Corti?” I saw the boot up sequence of the Satellite OS, it synced up with the QE network and the powerful servers in the pocket dimension where Central Power Battery resided.

“Felicia called you earlier, do you wish to call her back now that you're done?” Cortana's tone made me think that she didn't want me to call her back.

The spy satellite came online fully, its thrusters coming alive as it automatically realigned itself in the orbit attributed to it.

“When I get back home, sure. She must have called for an update and to invite me somewhere.” I replied.

Cortana sighed as she took control of the Satellite and connected it to the burgeoning internet. “She's so predictable, Kisara.” 

Felicia always made me rest every two days, not letting me drown in my work. I was grateful for it. “Yeah, her patterns of behavior are simple. But she takes good care of us, all the social cues I miss? She helped me go through them. Felicia isn't… boring like other people.”

This was the problem with higher intelligence, I couldn't relate to people easily anymore because of how I was changed. Cortana tittered at my argument. “So that's why you like her.”

I nodded, “Felicia is classically beautiful and she's fun to be around, she doesn't judge me either.”

I consulted the time, it was going to be 4 PM and if I hurry I would be there when Felicia arrived home. I froze, when I realized that I had never been invited to Felicia’s home at all and that she was at my apartment everyday. We were basically living together already. How did that happen?

“Cortana… did Felicia move in with us?” I voiced my concerns to my AI.

Cortana gave me a look that asked me if I was an idiot. “Now you noticed!? It's been three months already. Here look at the recording when she brought her suitcases, she commandeered the room next to yours.”

The holo-screen showed Felicia pulling three huge suitcases out of the elevator, one by one. She took the room next to mine and started putting her clothes into the walk in wardrobe attached to the room.

With a raised eyebrow I asked, “I had no idea. Does she pay rent?”

Cortana said with frustration, “Actually she does, 600 dollars every month.”

I didn't see any problem with it; with the limited Power Ring I gave her, Felicia could go to college by flying. “Then it's fine.”

“Why are you letting her get away with this?” Cortana was still angry.

It was easy to answer, with all the bullshit that comes from Marvel; Felicia was my current weakness and I didn't want her to come to harm. “I want her to be safe, barring magical shenanigans, a nuke wouldn't be able to take out the shield around my building and we avoid kidnapping scenarios from everyone who wants our technology.”

“That’s… smart.” Cortana realized this after stopping thinking emotionally. 

I smiled and started my re-entry in the atmosphere after becoming invisible. “I know. Let’s go back home.”

# # #

December 06th, 1999

New York, Queens 

Cygnus Industry 

Have you ever played Deadspace? 

I did, and because of that, I liked the Resource Integration Gear suits; it was a nifty piece of tech that I was trying to reproduce with Toni Stark's assistance. The reason? My goal was to make specialized low level power armor for people in the construction field, law enforcement and the military. 

Those suits will be able to interface with the technology I intended to disseminate in the US and its allies. But for now, we only had one prototype and it was getting difficult to code because of the limitation of the current computing power available to the people in this Era.

After Toni and I came up with a sufficiently powerful computer and OS, we started programming the suit. The RIG suit was still an alpha prototype and bulky, I intended to slim it down further as I developed my miniaturization technology. 

I was in my workshop, with James Rhodes, who has been designated as tester for the suit. Toni pulled some strings to have him with us, we have him for at least one month before he would be back in California.

“Captain Rhodes, how do you feel?” I asked the colonel who was wearing the prototype RIG.

He stood on the pedestal in the middle of the testing room, which has a suite of sensors that allows me to see in real-time what's happening to him and how his physiology reacts to wearing the RIG. No problem has shown up, the captain's body was warm, heartbeat steady. 

“It's comfortable inside the suit, I don't feel claustrophobic.” The military man reported.

I nodded seriously. “That’s part of the experience, we want you to feel at ease and comfortable in the suit, enough for long operational hours inside. Next question. Are you getting used to the helmet's HUD?”

The captain chuckled at the change in subject and replied, “No, I feel like my head is spinning, there's too much information.” 

I forgot to calibrate that for normal people, so I opened the interface between my workstation and the prototype's OS. “Noted, let me recalibrate it.”

Minimizing the data feed, I cleared the captain's HUD. He didn't need to know the level of oxygen and gas in the room, nor how much force it would take to break the walls… “What about now?”

I finished programming the HUD remotely. James sighed in relief, “Ah that's way better! There's only two windows now, my vision is less cluttered.”

I nodded, this would be bad on the battlefield or in dangerous situations to block the field of view. “I will have to work on the HUD more to avoid overwhelming the user.”

Okay, this part of the testing was complete, now we needed to calibrate the sensors. “Try to use the scanning suit on your forearm on the weapon before you.”

The captain pointed his right wrist at the old M16 rifle and the hologram of an exploded view showing the complete schematic of the weapon appeared on his forearm computer. 

“Wooah, I can see the structure and how it all goes together.” The captain exclaimed loudly.  

With a smug tone I said, “Yeah, I made these sensors mainly for engineering and construction work.”

James asked a good question. “It's incredible, Kisara. But how is it going to help with the birds’ handling?”

I noticed that Military people were always straightforward and their questions always pertained to how this will help them on the field. I was learning how to deal with them because I explained in little words, “Well, obviously the scanning technology will be integrated into the weapons targeting computers. Imagine pinpoint accuracy for your missiles, without someone on the ground having to use the laser designator.”

James nodded and continued playing with the holographic construct. “With this level of detail… we could take out anyone without too much collateral damage.”

After that explanation we moved on more physical testing. I had different weighted blocks in the testing room, and I learned that the suit could empower a man to lift appropriately 1 tone, and to run to a speed of 90 km/h from what the treadmill showed. 

The captain took off the helmet once he stopped running and whooped in joy. “That suit is incredible! I feel like I could run for hours.” 

Indeed it showed promise for the functions I put in it, but… “I am not yet satisfied with it.” I said with a sigh.

James gaped at me as if I was crazy. “What is there not to like? The army and the Navy would buy the suit in a heartbeat!”

I worked with the current technology, and ended up creating a power-armor. This is salvageable if I create new fabric comparable to the armored parts, maybe carbon nanotubes instead of titanium weave. 

The ideas kept flowing in my head as I replied, “The suit is too bulky and I want it to be more than flexible in its movements.”

I knew that somehow, the army would want to weaponize the suit, make me build more powerful coil gun rifles or to mount micro-missiles on the shoulders or some stupidity like that.

James shook his head while he said with a smile. “You're just like Toni, a perfectionist. No wonder you two became friends.”

Toni was indeed like that, like me she wouldn't release technology that was idiot-proof in the wild. If I did obtain a military contract, I would want for the stuff to work perfectly, not like that Hammer Tech gear that killed servicemen on the field.

Cortana helped collate all the data that we gathered from the tests. James asked after playing with the suit's helmet,“Are we done for today?”

I didn't even look at him when I replied as I was focused on the computer screen, “Yes, but you need to be present in two days for the test with the cockpit simulation.” 

The man chuckled at me and I heard him stepping out of the testing hammer. “Oooh I'll be there believe me!”

Now all I had to do was streamline the first iteration of the RIG suit. This was going to take me at least two days… 

# # #

(Frank Castle)

December 13th, 1999

“Dane better be right and that this is an opportunity.” Frank was on his way to find the one who wanted to hire him for a position away from the field. His wife had been grumbling for a while since he came back from his tour in Iraq, she wanted him at home and available. So he caved, not wanting for what happened to some of his buddies to happen to him and for his wife to seek love somewhere else.

He had heard so many stories like this that he had been on his guard when he married after his first tour. His two kids were DNA tested without his wife knowing, and he has some of his friends living in the military apartment complex tail her from time to time.

He loved his wife, Maria, but military life had taught him to be wary. Frank easily found the address of the rented office. It was a typical office building with people coming and going as the ground floor was a bank. It was located in a posh area of the Queens, there was a pizzeria and a Cafe at walking distance from it.

Frank entered through the entrance of the building's reception and after asking the receptionist like the instructions received in the letter, Frank was led into a furnished office on the second floor where he met a disturbingly beautiful Asian young woman who greeted him with a smile from behind a desk. “Hello, Mister Castle.”

Frank quickly remembered that he was married and that he had forsook any side fun since he married his wife, Maria. So he stopped staring too intently at the young woman. “Hello, nice to meet you, Miss…?”

She gave him a welcoming smile as she said, “My name is Kisara Lawson, CEO and Owner of Cygnus Industries.”

She invited him to sit before her, and at the same time Frank wracked his brain about a company called Cygnus Industries, but it came up blank. “Never heard of this company before.”

Miss Lawson gave him a nod. “I would be surprised if you did. I just started it.”

So this company was a startup, Frank now understood why he was here. “My friend Dane referred me to you, apparently you want someone specialized in security and know their weapons; he also spoke about some kind of consultancy?”

Frank liked the fact that this woman hasn't tried to do small talks with him. She was blunt and to the point. She leaned forward in her seat and slid a document to him on the desk. “Well Yes, your job would be twofold, assess the future factory and my lab for security and test my weapons and kits. I have a deal coming up with Stark Industries and I want the products to be stress tested. Your salary starts at 200k per year, with bonus for each time you test and review the products. This includes hazard pay if something goes wrong, don't worry about your health insurance you'll be fully covered.” 

Frank looked at the quotes and the benefits he would have if he accepted the job. It was mightily tempting, it was more money than he made in his current career. He took his eyes from the document and stared at the young woman in shock. “That is more than generous…” However, Frank calmed down and stayed cool and asked, “... but why me?”

She immediately replied as if it was obvious, “Your military file is clean, and you know Dane Fergusson who is a friend of Air Force Captain James Rhodes. They extolled a lot about your academic and practical knowledge of weapons and their uses.” 

Frank nodded, he understood what happened and why he was here. So Dane knew that Rhodes guy and they think that woman is worth working for or that she will be big for the military. Ah, nepotism… 

He couldn't take this decision by himself, Maria needed to be involved. 

“Can I have some… time to think about it?” Frank took the document before him, folded it and placed it in his jacket’s pocket.  

Miss Lawson seemed a bit disappointed when she said, “I understand your prudence, Mister Castle. You have one week to decide, before I move onto the next candidate.”

Frank stood up and replied, “Fair enough.”

Before Frank could leave he heard, “My number is on the document, I hope to hear from you soon.”

He nodded and then left, he needed to speak to his wife asap…