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 #15
Red Hearth [January 17, 2008]
–Colin Baxter–
He sighed. That was…not what he had in mind when he hacked Tony's systems. It was quite easy when Jarvis had just enacted his very own transmission protocols in his system, giving him quite an easy inn. Of course, a VI of Jarvis' capabilities was more than capable of getting out of the trap he had set, given time. He had swiftly withdrawn his presence from Tony's systems as soon as he said his last piece, not wanting anything in his system that could be traced back to the Red Hearth.
He did not want to take any chances with Tony's utter genius, slim as they may be. Tony's biggest advantage was that he lived and breathed science and that was also the one thing that would help him stay ahead of Tony for the foreseeable future because to the man's mind, something as utterly broken as magic could not possibly exist and even if it did exist in the man's reality, he would just sideline it, believing his science to be far superior to some magic.
Finding his systems using pure science was just utter stupidity. Now, maybe Shuri from Wakanda could do some mystical mumbo jumbo with her Vibranium computers but until she was of age and running Wakanda's systems, he was safe and sound.
He leaned back and stared at the ceiling, thinking of what he just did. Going into the situation, he was admittedly being petty because Tony had done something that had invaded his privacy. The apartment didn't have anything of particular value and most certainly didn't have anything that could tie his real identity to the mystery hacker, but the mere fact that Tony thought himself above everything else, of being able to easily invade his Earthen bachelor pad just to look for some incriminating evidence, it just ticked him the wrong way.
But the more he thought about it, the more it felt wrong to do something so provoking just to be petty. So, he pivoted and thought of things that he could tell Tony without changing the future way too much.
The Jericho missiles and a small tip as to what was happening with his weapons was an easy game, especially since he was leaving in less than a week, for Afghanistan. There wasn't much that Tony could do in less than a week, especially since the man didn't have the slightest intention to do anything about Obadiah, arguably the most significant father figure he had in his life.
"Ooof," he muttered as he thought of how devastated Tony would be once he was exposed to the fact that Stane was the one who organised his assassination.
As for the bit about him playing a video game. That was easy since he had multiple such recordings ready for the very same occasion. Recruiting Jin'Ya to make the illusions as realistic as possible was a stroke of genius from him.
Speaking of whom, he was about to go do some shopping before he went to Ta-Lo, to get the required meat for that glutton. For someone the size of a particularly large lizard, Jin'Ya sure ate a lot of spiritually enhanced meat.
'It helps me adjust to this body better' was his defense but he was not as naive as Jin'Ya thought him to be.
Shutting down the systems, he stood up and stretched, getting ready to continue his planned excursion. After all, it should be just about noon in Ta-Lo. It was odd, to have the timezones of not just multiple countries but also two other pocket dimensions in his mind.
"What an odd life I lead," He muttered as he turned around, leaving his hack room as he had taken to call it, making sure that everything was powered down before leaving the Faraday Cage. It wouldn't do to accidentally infect the rest of the Red Hearth with any virus. It would be a bitch and a half to remove, especially since he didn't have an AI of his own that could do the tedious work on his behalf.
Just another thing that reminded him of the difference between a true genius like Tony Stark and someone jumped up on natural cosmic steroids like himself.
Speaking of steroids, with a flex of his will, a larger than usual amount of CHI was flashed through his body for a single cycle, banishing all the mental exhaustion from his brain. It was probably not healthy to do that every time he felt slightly down but hey, you live some you die some, and he was going to live for a very long time.
Heading down to the portal rooms once again, he checked out his outfit. A simple T-shirt with Jeans, and a hoodie to top it all off, since it was cold in Seattle.
Waving his arm stupidly in the air, he smiled as the portal opened only on the fourth try, a gust of cold air coming through the portal and hitting his face as he lowered his arms and jumped through the very small opening in the air. How the other Masters could open portals capable of transporting entire ships between them, after pooling only a couple of Masters, was beyond him.
He landed lightly on his feet and began walking out of one of the many designated portal points that had been installed in the city, on his request, because it would not do for him to portal into some random place that had a CCTV pointed at it. All the portal entry points were established with enchantments that encouraged people to avoid the area, along with making sure that total noise and light suppression were achieved when it came to the sparks made by the portal.
It was little things like this that reminded him that Kamar Taj had thrived under the rule of the Ancient One, in the middle of humanity evolving from using just steam to the soon to happen era of having a fake replica of an Infinity Stone to be used just as a power source for cities.
He smiled as he thought of the incredulity that begins across the universe would feel when they learned of the fact that not only were humans capable of replicating an Infinity Stone, however, diminished it might be, but they used it just as a giant battery.
"Ah, humans, man.." He muttered as he sauntered out of the alley, the enchantments making sure that his entry and exit into the alley were not captured by any camera. It essentially turned that area into a dead zone, CCTV wise, because the enchantments made it so that anyone looking to install CCTV would just gloss over that area and it was further enforced by the fact that most of the locations looked like trash anyway, creating a decent network of portal entry zones throughout the city.
Perks of being the all but adopted son of Kamar Taj. Everyone loved him there and he made sure that he took full advantage of it. Everyone expected him to take on responsibilities as well and he did, providing extensive healing to anyone who asked. So far, he had returned combat capabilities to multiple older Masters who had retired due to one or other debilitating conditions that were pushed further back due to judicious use of his CHI.
Taking advantage of his enhanced physique, he walked in the cold and walked right into the nearest Micro Centre he could find. He needed to build a new server for his public facing website's beta page that he was going to be working on from now on since he was done with Uni for a while.
The main page will always be hosted on one of the bigger cloud providers, but he had some interesting ideas he wanted to implement on his website and building a localised server to test that stuff and also to get some feedback from the users of his website was a good idea since it allowed him to learn how to go about doing that and also because it was much cheaper this way.
Plus, it was always more fun to build things with your hand rather than have it all served onto your plate.
Picking up the components for a basic computer, he turned back to get some extra RAM just in case the load on the website was higher than he expected. On the way to the aisle, his enhanced senses picked up on some chatter, something that he did not like, not at all.
Someone right outside the store as well as someone in one of the nearby storage closets was speaking Xhosa. The language of the Wakandans and some nearby African countries.
It might just be someone from the nearby South African countries who was in the store as well but knowing his luck, it might just be Wakandan War Dogs who were surveilling him, probably because of his advancements in Computer Science.
He made sure to maintain his smile, as he paid the bill but instead of taking it with him, he chose to have it delivered to his apartment. That way, if things outside devolved into a fight, the precious computer would be fine.
He might be rich but he would never ever disrespect his gear like that.
Cycling CHI throughout his body, he took the receipt and walked outside the store, with his hands in his pocket.
Smirking slightly as he looked at the clear sky, he thought of the Wakandans and they were most definitely Wakandans.
Now, what might you guys do now?
He might have to delay the visit to Ta-Lo. No worries, Chief Tekt would understand.
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