Unfamiliarity

July 1995 - Part 2

August 3, 1995

1995.

1995.

1995.

Celine simply stared at those four numbers on the billboard for a few moments, the digits repeatedly swirling before her eyes and seemingly engraving themselves into the insides of her eyelids so that she saw them shining bright and clear even when she blinked.

"No way," she muttered to herself, ignoring the concerned glances a group of passing women sent her way as she felt her legs automatically begin to move and carry her forward. "No way."

She stepped onto the side of the street into an empty parking spot in front of the flower shop, gaping up at the contents of the billboard as their implications fought against every morsel of logic and practicality she possessed.

Celine had always fashioned herself a somewhat pragmatic and level-headed person—able to think on her feet and stay calm in times of stress, a blessed character trait that she thanked the skies for on days when she worked against urgent deadlines or had to deal with horrifically-long essay requirements.

Now, however, as she stared up with a horrified, sickening feeling to her stomach, some distant part in her realized that she couldn't summon any sort of comprehensible thought to her mind at all. It was like all the collective neurons in her brain were malfunctioning and firing all at once, overwhelming her senses to the point where she felt like she had no senses.

Because this—

This wasn't a prank.

This was real-life.

And somehow, by some horrific, catastrophic miracle, she'd landed herself in 1995.

Her eyes roved, alarmed, over the date on the billboard again before traveling to the words above it.

STARK INDUSTRIES

G.E.N.I.U.S. - Global Environment Network Integrated User System

Distantly, past all the panic and hysteria that was accumulating at light speed in her chest, a spark of familiarity struck Celine. After all, everyone and their mothers knew Stark Industries—multinational tech conglomerate, controversial ex-weapons manufacturer, host company of the infamous Stark Expo, brainchild of brilliant inventor Howard Stark, taken over by his son Tony-Stark-also-known-as-Iron-Man, blah blah, the whole sha-bang.

In 2025, Stark Industries was just as successful as it had ever been, bolstered by the reputation and legacy left behind by its infamous CEO and his heroic death. Pepper Potts had been appointed the head of the company, and in the two years following Tony Stark's funeral, had invested over half the company's assets and funding into philanthropic initiatives and educational ventures.

Celine kept her eyes trained on the billboard, which somehow was now serving as the sole anchor keeping her mind focused and helping her not lose her focus and go berserk in the middle of the San Francisco streets. Slowly, carefully, she lowered her eyes to the line below STARK INDUSTRIES:

G.E.N.I.U.S. - Global Environment Network Integrated User System

G.E.N.I.U.S. — Celine knew about that. It was the smart home system product Stark Industries launched in the 1990s that replicated a simplified, earlier prototype of Tony Stark's J.A.R.V.I.S. AI to integrate and control household appliances and security — except the product launch had failed spectacularly when a group of hackers exploited the security vulnerabilities of the product and caused a major breach that affected thousands of users, leading to a PR disaster and internal investigation that then led to the discovery of the horrifically-misallocated funds and inefficient budget management that had led to the hacking catastrophe in the first place.