The Final Initiative

11.

"The structure is polymorphic" Shuri, T'Challa's younger sister stated from her holographic image of Vision. The image was a body scan of Viz with the stone in his forehead. She was the one who would remove it carefully, and quite possibly, save us all. I was across from her, my hands leaning against the operating table surface.

Shuri was just a bit younger than me in age, but she was undoubtably more intellectually advanced then I was. She's a million Tony Stark's rolled into one. She wore orange attire, and her hair was braided into buns at the side of her head. The second I met her, she made a vine reference that caught me off guard. That's when I knew that I wanted to be her friend.

"Yeah" I nodded my head, watching the way her fingers played with the holograms that floated in the air "My Dad and Doctor Banner had to attach each neuron non-sequentially when creating him in order for things to work"

"Why didn't they just reprogram the
synapses to work collectively?" Shuri questioned, her head tilting to the side. Why am I suddenly in love with this girl?

I awkwardly looked to Bruce who stood beside me, waiting for his response. It was him who put together Viz, not me.

"Because..." he paused, clearly dumbstruck by her intelligence "We didn't think of it?"

"I'm sure you did your best" Shuri continued with a shrug and returned back to the hologram.

I gave an impressed smile "Where have you been all my life, your highness?"

"I was wondering the exact same thing!"

"Can you do it?" King T'Challa asked, stepping into the conversation.

"Yes, but there are more than 2 trillion neurons here" Shuri responded. I closed my eyes for a moment, understanding the enormous amount of risk that we were facing "One misalignment could cause a cascade of circuit failures. It will take time, brother" she looked to her older brother.

"How long?" Natasha asked Shuri with crossed arms.

"As long as you can give me"

       "Which probably won't be that much" I admitted with a glance out the window that overlooked the land of Wakanda. It was certainly beautiful here. My hands were in my jacket pockets, my fingers wrapped around the small bag that secretly contained the green time stone.

For the millionth time, I wondered why on earth Stephen Strange would trust me with something as important as the Infinity Stone. He didn't even tell me that he was giving it to me. What exactly is his plan? Why me? What's so special about me? I was torn between telling someone about it or just keeping this to myself.

Strange had asked me to keep the secret for him, how could I betray him by telling? Was spilling the time stone secret the right or wrong thing to do? Don't the others deserve to know?

An alert sounded from the computers in the lab, breaking me from my thoughts. Something had entered the atmosphere from above, and was heading straight for us. It was them. They had come for the stone. I went to the window and titled my head up to see the force field that covered the city. Steve came to stand next to me, his eyes scanning the sky. There was no time anymore.

"It's too late" Steve stepped away from that window urgently and walked back over to the lab table "We need to destroy the Stone now. Vision, get your ass back on the table. We will hold them off"

"Right" I nodded my head, ready for action.

     Steve paused swiftly, his feet squeaking against the floor as he spun to me. His head was shaking back and fourth "Actually, no" my shoulders sank "Jessi I want you to stay here and watch over Vision, and help her in any way that you can" he motioned to Shuri who was preparing for the surgery.