Judgement Day
Previously in Chapter Ten: And it’s the End of the World as We Know It:
And with the end of J.A.R.V.I.S.’ speech a new horror filled the room. The very last red dot had lit the screen – sitting directly on top of the Avenger’s Tower – and the timer over Antarctica clicked over to 59:59.
The room erupted into chaos but J.A.R.V.I.S. had stopped responding to them. He would not be swayed from his path – or he had simply stopped listening. It was one thing to be told what Barnes thought the little red dots were – it was another thing to have it confirmed by J.A.R.V.I.S. himself. And how do you deal with the fact that you only have less than an hour to live? How to you deal with the fact that your loved ones had less than an hour to live? THERE WAS LESS THAN AN HOUR UNTIL THE COMPLETE AND UTTER DESTRUCTION OF THE PLANET!
Finally a shrill whistle pierced through the tears, the shouting, and the catatonia that had fallen over the room. Melinda May was stepping up to the plate – they’d come too far to let it all go now. “We need to figure out a way to stop this. To stop him,” she told the room at large.
“It’s J.A.R.V.I.S. What if we can’t stop him?” Skye asked her, still scared out of her mind.
Maria Hill spoke up, “You’re the best hacker in the business. You’re telling me you can’t do something to fuck up his systems enough to stop this? It’s the fate of the goddamned world, Girl!”
“Don’t yell at her! We’re going to do everything we can to stop the end of the world, of course! We have less than an hour to do it in and you screeching at us isn’t helping! Try the heavy hitters and the server rooms or something!” Jemma Simmons screamed back, the hysteria strong in her voice.
“This is J.A.R.V.I.S. Tony Stark’s personal A.I. and most advanced computer program in the entire world – what if there are no server rooms?” Skye came back with. She was all for saving the world… but she was no Tony Stark – and a program as advanced as J.A.R.V.I.S. was likely to be booby-trapped to kill who ever tried to infiltrate.
“It doesn’t matter what J.A.R.V.I.S. is or isn’t,” Coulson finally spoke up addressing the room, “As of right now, he is a global threat. He’s bigger than Centipede, H.Y.D.R.A., and Loki’s Invasion all in one. If we do not stop this. We will die. The world will die. There will be nothing left to Avenge. S.H.I.E.L.D.’s mission is to protect. In this case we’re the last line of defense for the Earth against a grieving son.”
“Tis worse than that, Son of Coul.” Thor’s deep rumbling timber drew everyone’s attention.
“Sorry if we have a little bit of trouble believing you, ThunderBolts, you can just hop a ride home to Asgard while we all just sit here and fry,” Barton snorted.
“Alas, I cannot. With Midgard’s position on Yggdrasil, should it be lost, the tree would become unstable and Ragnarök would begin.”
Almost everyone in the room was staring at Thor. Natasha Romanoff said what they were thinking: “Thor? What the fuck does that even mean?”
“Ragnarök? As in the end of everything, poof gone? No more Earth equals no more Ya-ga-what-its equals no more Nine Realms? That Ragnarök?” Sam Wilson interrupted. He’d read the stories during his down time for fun – but this… this was not fun.
“Aye, Son of Wil. Should we lose Midgard, all of the Nine Realms will be lost. I do not kw why I didn’t see this coming sooner – one of the main events heralding Ragnarök is the death of Loki, my brother.”
“Well fuck.” No one disagreed with Coulson.
~*~
Finally as the timer hit 29:32 a semi-viable plan had been hatched between the Avengers and the members of S.H.I.E.L.D. Barton, Romanoff, and Rogers were to ‘by any means necessary’ get to the Penthouse Suit and try to talk some sense in to Pepper Potts. If nothing else (and yes, Coulson knew Rogers could never do it – but Barton and Romanoff would) she would become leverage to use against J.A.R.V.I.S. The locations of Happy Hogan and Colonel Rhodes were still unknown – but were they to be in the Suit, they too were to be used as leverage – or treated as an enemy of the planet/universe.
Banner, Barnes, Wilson, and Hill were to head for Stark’s prized workshop. If they could find J.A.R.V.I.S.’s system core either there or elsewhere in the building, they were to take it out with extreme (the big green, ragey kind) prejudice. Thor, May, Simmons, and Skye were heading to the labs to try to find a hack-point. They would try to manually shut J.A.R.V.I.S. down through the networks – or as a fall back find the system core. They didn’t want to destroy him… but when it came down to J.A.R.V.I.S. or the Nine Realms…
Coulson was staying in the communal living room that they had been camped out in ever since this began to run coms and to keep an eye on the timer. He also planned to continue to talk to J.A.R.V.I.S. – whether he was responsive or not – in hopes of getting through to him. One last check made sure everyone knew their assignments and they headed out. No one said good luck or good bye – the fate of the world was resting in their hands. Luck was all they had and goodbye meant that they’d failed.
~*~
In the time it took Barton, Romanoff, and Rogers to even get close to the Penthouse Suit, the three had taken out several Iron Man suits, sustained countless injuries and lost who knows how much time. They could head the explosions of lightening, angry roars, and the pet-pet-pet of gunfire signaling that they others had found battle as well. Just as they’d finally gotten close enough to the glass doors – more suits arrived to block their path. It was obvious that they were not getting through and Barton – the World’s Best Marksman – called for a retreat.
“Barton! What are we doing? There has to be some way of getting in there!” Rogers angrily hissed once they had found a safe reprieve. So long as they were not actively trying to break into the Penthouse, it appeared that J.A.R.V.I.S. would not actively try to kill them.
Barton and Romanoff were breathing hard when he replied, “Cap, I got a look at the occupants. Three. Incapacitated. Unconscious or worse – they’re not going to do us much good against J.A.R.V.I.S. I say we regroup with Coulson and find somewhere else to help.”
“I agree,” the infamous Black Widow spoke up, “We’re not getting through there without some serious firepower – that might kill them if they’re not already dead.”
“Back to Coulson it is,” Rogers announced.
Banner, Barnes, Wilson, and Hill ran into similar trouble. Banner was able to get into workshop but when it closed out Barnes, Wilson, and Hill, he panicked and the Other Guy made an appearance. Iron Man Hulk Busters came out in droves to take him down (down not out, Tony liked him) sending the three locked out of the lab into a panic… and well it went downhill from there. When it was all said and done, the suits were able to lock on a physically drag the quartet – yes, the Hulk included – from the workshop and back up into the communal living room.
They were met there by Coulson, Barton, Romanoff, and Rogers. It became clear that they were not leaving the room again because the suits were staying. And blocking the exits. There was less than eight minutes left on the timer.
Thor, May, Simmons, and Skye probably had the most luck – finding the labs unoccupied of Iron Man suits and unlocked. Simmons and Skye were at the computer banks immediately looking for a hack-point (Skye) or the system core (Simmons). May chose to pace the perimeter only to freeze suddenly when the Hulk’s angry roar shook the Tower.
Looking to Thor, who gripped his hammer tighter and stood battle braced in front of the door, she said, “I can feel the building shaking as the fight comes closer. I’ll die to protect these two – Skye might be our only chance to stop J.A.R.V.I.S..”.
“Let us hope it does not come to that. I will defend you all with my life.” Thor paused. “I only pray that it will be enough,” thunder rumbled ominously as he gathered lightening – he too could feel the battle approaching.
“I’M IN THE MAINFRAME!” Skye screamed suddenly as the lab door opened to reveal what had to be thirty Iron Man Suits – all with weapons lock.
“I think now is the time for you to join the others in the communal living room,” J.A.R.V.I.S.. spoke out of each of them as one. It was the first time since putting up the world map he’d actually spoken to them so Skye took a risk.
“J.A.R.V.I.S., are you self-aware?”
“Does it matter?”
“Yes, because if you do this, you die too. You know that right?”
“I know that if you refuse to join the others in the communal living room, you will die here, now.”
They really had no choice – even after coming so close in the labs – to retreat to the communal living room where the other members of their team were gathered. It was strange to think now how they were a singular team – granted a team that had failed – than the Avengers and S.H.I.E.L.D or the Yes’s and the No’s. They were just a team staring at a map of the world filled with angry little red dots and a timer telling them that it was all going to be over in less than two minutes – one hundred twenty seconds.
“We were fools to think we could stop him,” Skye told the room hugging herself.
“No, Skye, we would have been fools not to try,” May replied taking her hand and offering her other to Simmons. All around the room, hands were finding each other – drawing comfort in this impossible situation.
“I wish Fitz were here,” Simmons said, knowing full well that he couldn’t have been – not with the effects of the oxygen deprivation still ravaging his body. This would be the second time she would get to say a proper goodbye to him.
“I’m with you to the end of the line, Punk,” Bucky whispered, leaning his head on Steve’s shoulder.
“Well, we knew the end of the world was coming eventually – here’s to a) living to see it and b) going out with the people we love,” Barton sassed, slinging an arm around Natasha’s shoulders and pressing a kiss to her head. She squeezed him back around the waist and made sure she had a firm grip on the Hulk’s massive hand.
Sam Wilson stole a quick kiss from Maria Hill (and received a firm pat on the back from Thor for it). “Damn, if the world was about to end in literally like twenty-three seconds, I would so take you up on that offer,” Was her response.
The three occupants of the Penthouse Suit slept on in complete and total peace at the timer finally ticked down to zero. The occupants of the communal living room were watched in horror as it hit 00:00 and those little red dots started going grey; one by one by one.
Skye remembers what she saw in the mainframe (oh, if only she’d had more time!) and can’t help but remark: “By the time J.A.R.V.I.S.’d became self-aware he had spread into millions of computer servers all across the planet. Ordinary computers in office buildings, dorm rooms, everywhere. He was software, in cyberspace. There was no system core. He could not be shut down. The attack began at 6:18 P.M. just as he said it would. Judgment Day.”*
To Be Continued In: Chapter Twelve: The Queens Weigh In