Fire and Ice

•47•

While T'Challa and the others are in South Korea, Shuri and Kate are staying in the lab on standby. Not that they wouldn't be there anyway, working for hours on Bucky's brain. Kate's brain scans are helping find anomalies in Bucky's, but now they have to figure out how to get rid of them.

"Let's go back to the beginning, okay? The basics," Kate says, sighing. "It's programming. That's the word the file uses. So how do we deprogram it?"

"The scans are helping to find the programming, but we will need to develop something to reverse it — and figure out a way to administer it to him." Shuri thinks for a moment. "Maybe we can-"

Suddenly, T'Challa's voice fills the room. "Shuri!"

The sand table forms into a car, and a voice says, "Remote driving system activated."

"Yes!" she shouts, climbing into the car. Kate stands back, excited to watch. "Wait! Which side of the road is it?"

"For Bast's sake, just drive!" T'Challa shouts.

"Okay, calm down!" Kate watches as Shuri turns the wheel and slams on the gas. Out of the fake windshield, they see South Korea and T'Challa flipping in the new suit to land on the car. "Let's go!"

"This is amazing," Kate breathes.

"Right?! You want to try?"

"Now is not the best time to be handing over the wheel," T'Challa says.

Kate sighs. "I don't even know how to drive."

"Do not let her try it!"

"Alright, alright," Shuri says.

"Which one is he in now?" someone asks over the communication system as buildings and people blur past. Kate doesn't recognize the voice, so she assumes it's Nakia.

Up ahead, past another car, multiple black cars split off in two directions. Okoye says, "They're trying to lose us."

"I'll take the right." The car ahead turns right.

Shuri turns left. "We'll take the other two! I see a shortcut." The tires squeal and she starts speeding through narrow alleyways to catch up. She turns to face an intersection filled with stopped cars, highlighted in red. "We're not going to make it!"

"Keep going!" T'Challa shouts, and then the car is on its side, on two wheels. Kate can hear metal scraping the concrete.

They clear the cars and then T'Challa flips onto the hood, blocking the view of cars up ahead. Shuri shouts with pure excitement, and then the car in front starts firing so T'Challa jumps onto it, gets on the roof, then cuts a hole in it, throwing a man out of the car. Shuri hits a bump. "Hey, what was that?"

"Don't worry about it. You're doing great," T'Challa assures her. He jumps back onto the car. They drive onto a bridge while the new car in front starts shooting again.

Kate looks at T'Challa, which is hard to do from this angle, but she can see he's glowing purple. "Hey, your suit."

"You've been taking bullets, charging it up with kinetic energy," Shuri says.

"Pull around the truck," T'Challa says, and Shuri jerks the wheel, blocking their car. T'Challa leaps off the car while Shuri gets in front of the other car, and a moment later purple light explodes, wrecking the car. T'Challa lands back on Shuri's car.

"You show-off," she chides, but Kate can tell she's proud her tech worked so well.

They get off the bridge and meet up with Klaue's car — Kate can tell because he's hanging out the window — and T'Challa says, "Faster, Shuri."