Disclaimer - The rights of the respective characters are with their respective owners. I don't mean to violate their intellectual property rights and thus, only my original characters are my IP.
The Sage of the Mind: Chapter 81 [November 2010]
Experimental Warehouse, Manhattan
–Tony Stark–
"Right, I forgot you don't know what is happening here," Tony told Dr. Cho who looked highly interested in the totally exotic looking fibers he had in a container on hand. The container was expressly transparent as well, for this exact purpose.
Even now, as he held the container in his hand, the suit having returned to its patrolling duty around the warehouse, he could feel the effects of the fiber on his body. Whatever liquid that woman had given him, it had miraculous properties.
He couldn't believe that they had been somewhat skeptical of the woman's tall claim.
"This, Dr.Cho, is the vibranium that we are going to use for the operation of Dr.Betty. Also–" He scrambled around, and took out a piece of paper from his back pocket and handed it over to Dr.Cho,"--this is the way we are going to do it. The insertion points and the optimal depth, along with how the fibers should be connected to each other are perfectly mentioned in that,"
She took one look at the paper and her face instantly fell for some reason, "Dr.Stark, this is completely baseless. For one, this fiber position will mean that we might puncture the umbilical cord. Also, we agreed that we have to calibrate everything while we are taking real time scans from the womb so that we don't risk anything happening to the natural support system of the baby."
He sighed internally. He knew how it looked but the proof of that woman's words was literally in his hands, sending soothing energy all over his body.
God, this was an addictive feeling. He might just ask the Invisible Man to sell him some, if he had some more.
"I realise your concerns, Dr.Cho but please, just….Look, you'll know once you test this," He reluctantly handed over the plastic container holding the fibers.
"Dr.Stark, my ethics will not allow me—Ooh," Her tirade was stopped mid way as she held on to the container.
"Yes, Dr.Cho. That is correct. The fibers are now literally life giving. I want you to test it on every single animal you have on hand. Please be careful and use them on smaller animals only, because this is all we have and I don't know how to get into contact with the original supplier," He said, making sure that his hands were in motion and he was concentrating on something else otherwise he would have just snatched the container right out of her hands and done the testing himself.
God, that stuff was strong and addictive. Especially so for Tony because his body had already been going through the ringer for a couple of years. With the suit, the palladium poisoning, all the alcohol, some drugs, and even the caffeine he consumes on a daily basis. Not to mention the processed food that he inhales every day.
It was inevitable that he would find something that literally begins healing someone, addictive.
"Tony, are we sure about this?" Bruce asked him, still worried about the consequences of using technology that was clearly so far ahead of the rest of the world, and even him, that it might as well be magic.
"Well, Bruce, even if we can't believe her words, we should be able to confirm them, right? After all, that is our job as scientists," He couldn't believe he had to tell this to Bruce of all people but he could understand. Becoming a father, and especially the father to a very special case baby like the one they were about to have.
The baby had a very thick energy layer around it, so most modern machines wouldn't even be able to take a scan of Betty. Fortunately, he was able to make something that could give them the rough positioning of the baby but even that was enough to create so detailed of a map that had arrived in his email, most probably from that woman herself.
The email was odd too. "Dontlookintothis@magic.com"
Probably some practical joke that he couldn't get. Who knew what went through the minds of people who could make portals, create literal panaceas, and simultaneously stretch their minds across an entire city?
It was, quite literally, out of his comprehension which was still limited to the normality that he was so used to.
The plan was so detailed, it was as if the woman had seen the future and told them the exact details of the baby at the exact time and place, even with the minor changes that might happen because of the position of the mother.
"..Yeah, yeah, you are right. I'll go help Helen with the tests," Bruce all but ran after Helen into the bio lab, specifically made to hold any biological material coming from the baby or the mother.
Eww.
"Alright, My work here is done, for the moment. Jarvis?"
'Yes, sir," A suit arrived behind him and opened up. He took a step in and grinned as the familiar pain of the back plate latching onto his waist and spine for safeguarding, did not elicit the same level of discomfort as before.
So, it was true then. The health benefits of that fibre were not temporary. Well well well, it would look like the Invisible Man was hiding so many more secrets than he had thought before.
It would seem that he would have to track the man down, now that he knew that it was most definitely a human behind all that power, courtesy of the tentacled monster attack on the city.
If he had any more things like that miracle liquid lying around, well, then it would be in his best interest to track him down, not to like soup himself up but because that stuff was really revolutionary, and in the wrong hands, really dangerous.
Now, he wasn't saying that his hands were the right ones but he was really curious. Just so, so curious.
"Hey! No shoplifting!" He slowly floated in front of a woman who was running from a store manager, with goodies in her hands with his index finger pointed at her.
She promptly dropped all the stuff and then raised her hands up. The store manager finally caught up, thanked him, collected the items, and then ran back once again, not even waiting for the police to come.
So, that is how things worked around here. They just trusted the always watching man to just solve the problem for them. To hold the system accountable and make sure that the perpetrators did not get off scot free.
In his early days, that would translate to him breaking the thugs' body in such a way that it would keep them alive and nothing more, and everyone knew the back breaking burden of using any healthcare system in all of America.
Nowadays though? No thug or even organised crime across America did not have any designs on the wealthiest, most influential, with the least threat of law enforcement, a city in the wealthiest country on the planet.
All because of the actions of a single person. He had probably retired many people just based on their rental portfolios alone, and had also driven out corporations from buying out all the single family, or double units so that they could charge a bomb for any rental.
Even Stark Industries was unable to buy any apartments en masse for its; employees. They had to resort to dealing with an owners association who then allowed them to negotiate leases for entire buildings so that the employees that would eventually go on to work in Stark Tower, would have someplace to stay.
God, the real estate in this place was beyond expensive but it was also worth it. Clean water, air, and food, along with guaranteed zero crime and express problem solving by none other than the de facto strongest entity on the planet.
Or so they had thought. As it turns out, there is someone out there, it could be the tentacle monsters, or whoever had sent them through the portal, that could actually rival or even defeat the Invisible Man.
That single act of absence meant that the rats had started coming out of their hidey hole. In conjunction with the NYPD, he had already recovered and burned off tons of hard drugs, let alone Weed and the other soft drugs.
Things were rapidly devolving and he did not know if the city could take another two days before a major incident happened.
For one, the Mayor, who had taken some harsh decisions regarding many things, affecting multiple communities, based on the expected backing of the Invisible Man, was currently scrambling for protection.
That was a person of interest for Jarvis. The NYPD was scrambling because crime across all areas was increasing. Not skyrocketing yet, but increasing nonetheless.
Shoplifting had increased dramatically, mainly because all the shops in Manhattan had simply not invested in their security. Years of safety meant that they had probably already forgotten the basic safety measures that everyone in the rest of the parts of the world practiced, like security staff for high end stores.
He shook his head as he had to intervene in yet another cop chase that was disturbing the overall traffic environment of the city. The traffic was yet another thing that he had never thought of the Invisible Man interfering in.
Now it made sense why the traffic in the city was completely manageable despite every millionaire in town owning some sort of luxury vehicle because the Invisible Man had built underground multi level car parking near every major destination, with the permission of the city.
The proceeds, ofcourse, went to charity.
So far, he has deployed 7 of his suits to this city alone. That was more effective than a small army in terms of the sheer firepower he had on hand but the suits were built with modern warfare in mind, not urban law enforcement. Otherwise, he would have built them to have much friendlier faces, instead of faceless masks that were badass but could be scary to the children.
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