Project Ultron

Six.exe

A week later and the number of links that were needed to control the Iron Legion still bothered me. JARVIS controlled them. Yes. But no matter how intelligent JARVIS was, it was still guided by Stark. If Stark wanted to stop being in charge of them, then we needed to upgrade them and make them independent. But how?

He didn't want someone else controlling them, which I thought would be the easier answer. He wanted the Legion to be something else completely.

The doors of the elevator opened while I was working, and I was expecting Stark to come out alone, but he brought company. I didn't know who he was, but he reminded me of a scared mouse. He carried his glasses close to his chest instead of wearing them; as if they gave him more confidence that way.

"Kira, this is Doctor Banner," Stark said, "He'll be helping us with our little project."

I nodded, recognizing the name. Bruce Banner was an amazing scientist, an expert on Gamma radiation. He was also a member of The Avengers. He had helped during the Battle of New York —I had seen the footage—, but he was a little different then.

"Well, wait. First, you have to tell me what the project is, Tony," Banner replied. He didn't want to commit before hearing the idea. I smirked. Maybe Stark had already involved him in some other of his projects and he hadn't appreciated the experience.

"Believe me, you want in," Stark assured him. He walked to the middle of the room. "Jarvis, bring it up," he ordered, and a 3D image appeared. It resembled a computer screen with documents just floating around.

"I didn't know it did that," I muttered.

"You didn't ask," Stark said.

Banner had already joined him in reading some pages that had the general idea of the Ultron project.

"This," Banner said, "This is great." He looked at Stark. "What is this?"

"This is our ticket to retirement," Stark said.

We spent the next hour or so talking over the project. It didn't feel like work at all. We sat around, throwing ideas at each other on how we could make Ultron a reality and fantasizing about the consequences. Banner seemed pleased with the concept.

"To get this clear," he said, "This is only research."

I frowned.

"Only research," Stark agreed. I snapped my head towards him and he gave me a side look as to shut me up. I scowled. This was more than research. It had to be.

"And we have to look into other options apart from AI," Banner added.

"Why?" I jumped.

Half the reason I was so excited about the project was because of the possible AI that was going to come out of it. Such an experiment would be too interesting to just reject it already. The only things I knew of AI was what I had quickly learned during my time here, but I was excited to learn more, and I felt I would learn it quicker by doing something with it, instead of just reading papers. I wanted this project to be completely AI-related.

"Because we have to think about the consequences of creating this type of artificial intelligence," he explained.

"The consequence is security," I said confused, "I thought that was a good thing. It's not like we're gonna create Skynet."

"Sure," Stark said without minding me, "We'll look at other options."

I scowled, not happy about this decision. I had already looked at other options, and they were inexistent.

"If I agree to help," Banner continued, "I could only give it some hours each week."

"That's perfect," Stark said and pointed towards me. "We have her for the rest of the time."