Project Ultron

Two.exe

Hogan guided me through the doors into a huge lab.

"I'll tell Mister Stark that you're here," he said. He was about to leave, but he stopped and turned. "Don't touch anything ."

As soon as he left I started to look around. The lab was full of cutting-edge computers and machines that I had never seen before. One of them could be a coffee machine and I wouldn't even know. It all looked like something from the future. I knew I had entered a real genius' lab, where the good stuff happened.

I climbed down the four steps that took me to the center of the room. Some parts of the floor were glass and allowed me to see a mechanics workshop downstairs. I could discern robots and machines and projects left unfinished. I started to walk around, wary of getting caught. The computer screens had such a high definition that the random wallpapers seemed real. As if they were little windows into reality. The towers were beautiful. The cooling systems were in full display and some of them had LEDs that changed colors with time. I got closer to one of the computers, it was on standby. How I longed to touch a keyboard. I couldn't see anyone in the room so I figured I was alone.

I reached for the mouse and moved it. The screen asked me for a password, but that had never stopped me before. I pressed F8 until the CMD appeared and I typed a command, but when I pressed enter, the strangest thing happened.

"You are not authorized to access this machine," a British voice said in a calm but loud tone.

I stopped right away and took a step back. It had come from the walls. Was someone watching me? No, it sounded artificial. I had heard that Stark had created some kind of advanced AI, but I didn't know just how advanced it was. It seemed to have access to all the computers in the lab. It wouldn't be a reach to suppose it controlled all the systems in the building then...

I shushed at it. I didn't want anyone to know I had even thought about breaking into one of Stark's computers. I shoved my hands into my pockets and took some more steps back.

"Please, don't let Jarvis intimidate you," someone said behind me.

I turned around to find Tony Stark looking at me, serious. He was wearing a dark t-shirt that had a weird design in the middle of its chest. Then I realized it wasn't a design. That glowing thing was the battery that powered the Iron Man suit. I had heard that it also kept Stark alive, that it was encrusted into his chest for some reason.

He looked pissed. I would be too if I had a battery in my chest. Did he need to plug himself before going to sleep?

"Continue," he said, daring me.

I hadn't even heard him come into the room.

"I wasn't trying to-"

"Yes, you were," he quickly intervened. "But it's okay. I called you here for that."

I frowned and followed him with my eyes as he walked around the room without looking at me. He didn't seem to care about what I did.

"Why?"

"I know who you are," he said, making me tense. "I've read your file."

My file? How? Those records were supposed to be sealed. Maybe he was lying, maybe he only knew me from the news. What was I thinking? He was Tony Stark. He could have found a way to get a hold of them. 

But still, during the trial, no one mentioned my programming skills, only the rest of my actions. No one sued me for hacking into their servers, the State sued me for— well, for what happened with Raymond. I had supposed up to this point that he wanted me for my programming skills, but how did he know about those?