Caught in Strings

Chapter Two

Music blasted from the small radio in the corner of the room as Helen spun and swayed across the training room. It had been about two weeks since she first woke up in Stark Tower and she found that she was slowly adjusting.

Very slowly.

It wasn't really living with the Avengers that was the problem or even her father though they were still very much in that awkward stage. It was her. Her new body was so bizarre to her; it locked up randomly, blasted her energy beams at terrible times (she had gone through three doors already), and felt completely foreign to her. Perhaps the most unsettling thing though was that her mind seemed stuck halfway between human and complete computer. She still felt and thought like herself but sometimes she'd find her mind drifting off, imaging binary code and thinking completely in lights, sounds, or flashes of color. The telekinetic twin whom she learned was named Wanda, couldn't even get a full read on her mind. She described it like listening to the radio through a static station.

So, to get used to her body she started dancing in the training room much to her father's and Pietro's (not Sonic as she later learned) amusement. They joked that she would be the ballerina Avenger with her moves but screw them. It helped her relax and helped her practice her flexibility in this metal body.

Helen twirled and flipped back, bending her body to the casual funky beats of the disco music playing in the corner. When she was younger everyone liked to tease her that she was an old soul with all the different ranges of older music she listened to. One minute she could be swinging to Frank Sinatra, the next she could waltzing to classical. Of course, she was still a fan of this generation's music too but the classics were more nostalgic to her.

She closed blue eyes, flashes of images tossed through her mind until she found a training on rhythmic dancing as the music changed and downloaded it. A few days ago her father reluctantly started letting her link to the Internet through her mind. He wasn't too keen on the idea, afraid that it would overwhelm her, but he was even less fond of the idea when she spent the first day rattling off random facts about koalas nonstop for hours from the overload.

Now no one was allowed to use the K-word.

She was in the middle of twirling suddenly when a soft voice spoke, "why are you dancing?" Startled, Helen spun out of control and crashed into the mirror wall, shattering the thing to bits. She looked around rapidly to find the person but the room was empty. But she definitely heard someone....

"Oh, did I startle you? I'm sorry," the deep mechanical (she now realized) voice spoke again. Helen screamed in shock, touching her head. The voice was coming from her mind!

"Oh god I've lost it...I'm hearing voices," she groaned, "the fuck...Is youtube open in my brain or something? Oh please be that, I don't wanna be the crazy Stark."

"Crazier than Stark? I'm not sure that's possible," the voice snorted.

Helen screamed again.

The voice spoke again, this time sounding much more agitated. "Would you quit that? Screaming like a banshee isn't going to solve anything."

Helen stiffened, holding her breath. The voice was definitely talking to her. Would anyone else be able to hear it?

"I'm afraid not," the voice replied, reading her mind. "And you're not crazy. I'm a...formless entity from the internet. I found you while surfing through and thought I'd stop by."

'Why does that sound questionable?' Helen thought to herself. 'Who are you? How is this even possible?'

"Don't worry I'm a friend," the voice soothed, "I'm like you just...different."

'Okay, Helen there's a disembodied voice to talking you through your brain. This is definitely a good task for Dad to fix,' she thought thoroughly and stood up, brushing the glass off.