Disclaimer - I don't, and have never claimed to, own Marvel or its Intellectual Property. This is all just so that I can take my maladaptive daydreaming and turn it into something so that it does not ruin the rest of my day.
DoorMan #31
Ta-Lo [January 20, 2008]
–Colin Baxter–
Sipping on his banana shake, not for protein but because he loved the taste of it, he looked at the list of items that Dr.Banner had sent, for his lab. In his own words, Dr.Banner thought that all these items should be available on the open market, just for a premium.
"I'll look into it. How are you handling the new Accommodations?" He typed and sent in the chat, the isolated kind, with a Kamar Taj assigned wireless connection that pinged off the nearest Sanctum network, which was New York, from where there was a hardline connection to Kamar Taj, wherein there was a centralised internet node installed by yours truly that would connect to any number of off planet sites if he needed to.
Faster than light information transmission baby!
Once he had another node set up and running in Kamar Taj, he was going to be offering that as a service to Ta-Lo, in exchange for a modest fee of a continuous meat and milk supply. Oh, he could just feel his inner capitalist cheer at that, providing goods of vastly lower cost and quality than the ones he would be getting in return.
He was pretty sure he could hook some billionaire, one of the nicer ones, and then sell them the secret to slowed aging, without any surgery, botox, or what not.
"Nah, too much work," He muttered as he closed his eyes and landed in his mindscape, with the giant tree doors surrounding him.
"Hmm, as expected," He went near the CHI door and examined it, and as expected, the door was now slightly larger than before. Due to his experiments with the CHI door, something that almost led to his death, it was no longer a door in the traditional sense, just a door shaped opening in the trunk of the giant tree that was now the largest out of all the seven gates he had.
It was not a problem, as far as he and Jin'Ya could see, but it does indicate that continued use of the Doors and the powers within could possibly widen the pipeline, leading to what? He does not know but he was more than willing to find out.
He had two, maybe three truly useful Doors for combat. CHI, Air, and the Kinetic Lasers. Those he used the least because there truly was no need for them. The usual spells, and his ability to heal en-masse made it quite easy for him to defeat most foes, mystical or otherwise. He also had a sinking suspicion that due to his inherent value, the Ancient One refused to send him on truly dangerous missions, doing her best to guard him.
Opening his eyes, he was back in front of his screen, and grinned as Dr.Banner replied, "The rooms are nice and roomy. The food is better than expected. How did you even build this whole thing without anyone noticing? I checked all the photos we have of Mars and not once, did I see anything resembling anything even if the telescopes were capturing this exact location."
Ah, the man had already figured out the rough location of the Red Hearth on Mars? The man was smart, no doubt. He needed someone that smart on his side, to counter Tony's smart ass if there ever came a need to.
"Ah, but Doctor, that would be telling and we do have a meeting scheduled later in the day. I just have some other stuff to do but I will be there at 6 PM Earth time. See you then!"
Closing down the chat terminal, he willed the connection to leave, making the inside of his computer glow orange for a moment as the wireless network to the New York Sanctum was shut down, being replaced by the hard line fiber he had at his Earthen Bachelor Pad.
While the connection itself was unique and very safe, because no one knew it even existed, the ping was atrocious and the speed and reliability was still something he needed to work on.
For now, it was fine. Hell, it was even better than some old school internet connections that some of his neighbours still used but it was nowhere near the expensive fiber he had at his apartment.
"Jin'Ya?" He mentally pinged his partner in shenanigans.
"Yes?"
"Can you see if anything is happening in Wakanda?"
"You know that–"
"Yes, yes, I know about the divine protection surrounding the country. No, I am talking about the Border Tribe Members, the ones who live outside the shield's protection."
"Let me see." After a beat, the reply came, "No, the Divine Protection extends to the surrounding areas around Wakanda as the country has laid claim to that land, even if they do not advertise it, thus fulfilling the condition to get the necessary Divine Protection."
He exhaled and cut off the connection. Something about the whole Wakanda thing was bugging him more than expected. Maybe he was expecting something from the War Dogs, given that Jin'Ya told him that it was all already logged digitally.
On some level, he actually wanted them to come at him. It burned at him to know that they were still doing something so evil, something that should have been beneath them by all costs. Having Vibranium alone was such a cheat, let alone the fact that they had Shuri on their side now, so early in the timeline too.
There was no way of knowing exactly what technological nightmares she had cooked up in her personal lab and why she had come here. Jin'Ya told him that while he could still read their minds while they were outside Wakanda, it was still limited.
There was a barrier in their mind that blocked Jin'Ya from accessing anything sensitive or commanding them to do something that went too against their current mindset. It was all very complicated but as it turns out, the Divine Protection from Bast was all too real in this timeline, even though the Egyptian Pantheon had all retreated from Earth's supernatural scene.
It even extended to a mental shield for all their members that the likes of Jin'Ya couldn't breach, not without Bast being alerted about it, and then potentially something bad happening to the people whose minds were being read.
He had some visuals from the inside that could be used to open portals but even that would be a bad way to start a hopefully cooperative relationship with the most powerful nation on the planet. He knew that the T'Chaka administration was rotten to the core but he was hopeful that T'Challa would do better.
That is why he would not take any action until he finds solid proof and even then, no killing Wakanda operatives, even though the temptation would be there.
Sighing, he shut down his PC, changed into his Gym clothes, and after locking the apartment, he hailed a cab to go to the gym.
He had appearances to keep regarding his physique. Also, not gonna lie, it was nice for his ego to see all those buff people admire him as he lifted weights that bordered on Superhuman. Not really into the realm of superhuman but very close to human limits. It was his way of getting female attention from like minded people, though his efforts had yielded more male attention than expected.
____xx_____
Wakanda [January 19, 2008]
–Shuri Udaku–
She ignored the calls to open the Lab by her mother, and even her brother as she sat alone in her lab, reeling from the conversation she had with her father–no, the King of Wakanda, because that man could not be her Father.
Her father would not have sanctioned the murder of 50 people whose only crime was being smarter than the scientists in the Royal Sciences Lab of her country. Her fists clenched as she read the reports, detailing the advancements that Wakanda withheld from the rest of the world, simply because they did not have the same advancement in sciences and wanted to keep it for themselves.
Her hand went to her mouth, her body staggering back as she read the reason one Dr.Caldwell was killed.
"Just because he thought…?" She whispered as tears, unbridled fell from her eyes. Wiping her tears, she read through the rest of it, and that only stoked the flames of rage inside her.
Dr.Caldwell, a promising bioengineer, killed off, simply because his theoretical work on nanotube targeted regeneration and elimination of cells simply came too close to being able to enhance people to the point of creating mildly powerful super soldiers.
She exhaled and moved on to the next file, burning all 50 names in her mind as she thought of all the advancements in the world that had been snuffed out simply because her father and his Council thought them too dangerous.
How could they not see that his work was in an early stage, and the outside world still had no hopes of creating what he theorised, let alone ten years ago?
She realistically knew that the outside world was not all rainbows and there was a very real chance that it would have plunged the outside world into a World War if any one country was found to have super soldiers.
And yet, as she went through the list, she found many advancements in fields that were totally unrelated to things that could be turned into weapons. Advancements in radar technologies, better deep sea sensory technology, stronger energy transmission, better medicines, and more.
Once she was done going through the entire list and the flimsy reasons provided for the state sponsored execution of all these people. Worst thing was, she couldn't even trust this list to be complete because the War Dog protocol for stuff like this was supposed to be minimum paper trail, with verbal reporting preferred.
Sighing, she waved her hand and shut down the hologram, and walked towards the biological corridor of her lab. She looked around at all the stuff she had access to, every material she could ever need, all the staff and funding she wanted and suddenly, she did not want that anymore.
It felt…tainted.
Trudging towards the sealed doors that kept a version of Vibranium that absorbed 20% more energy than their standard Vibranium alloy but was rendered inert when exposed to air, hence the vacuum sealing, she gave all her biometric access for the door to open.
In truth, this vault held something far more valuable and dangerous than just an unusable variant of Vibranium. No, it held things that she would rather not show to anyone, stuff that would have even her family turning on her.
"Griot, prep the Regen chamber, procedure SP-17U." She commanded her latest attempt at creating a digital assistant and stepped into the ice cold vault. Taking a few steps in and ignoring the shelves of Vibranium variations, she pressed her foot on a specific tile for just three seconds before the tile collapsed inward, revealing a staircase. Descending into the fortified vault, she looked at the single vial of purple liquid floating innocently in a field so strong that even the strongest weapon she had ever made wouldn't be able to even dent it.
Touching the forcefield, she winced at the slight burn she felt before the forcefield recognised her blood and quantum signature as it let her hand through. The refinement in the identification process and the modulation of the forcefield was not something she put much effort into so the process burned her hand continuously, and yet, it did not feel much in comparison to the betrayal she got from the person she thought she knew well.
Shredding that last bit of hesitation, she grabbed the vial and pulled it out of the forcefield, wincing at the smell of burned skin in the air.
Gripping it tightly with one hand, she ascended back to her lab. She had an important procedure to perform.
Maybe it was time for the Wakandan Royal Rule to change, for the better.