Valor ↠ Prequel [0] ✓

09 | Peace In Our Time

  Bruce quickly understood where this was going. He glanced back at Tony. "Artificial intelligence."

  Tony walked toward Bruce, eager smiles on their faces. "This could be it, Bruce. This could be the key to creating Ultron," Tony encouraged.

  Riley pinched her eyebrows together. "Ultron?" she repeated. "You mean that thing we were all talking about a few months ago? I thought that was a pipedream."

  "It was," acknowledged Tony. "Yesterday. But what about today? If we can harness this power," he motioned to the blue mass of energy, "we could apply it to my Iron Legion protocol."

  Bruce seemed to be a little more willing to weight out both sides. "That's a mad-sized "if"," he pointed out while removing his glasses. The three stepped away from the blue and gold clouds.

  "Our job is "if"," returned Tony. "What if you were sipping margaritas on a sun-drenched beach turning brown instead of green? Not looking over your shoulder for VERONICA." VERONICA was a safety protocol designed for whenever Hulk couldn't be controlled.

  "Don't hate, I helped design VERONICA."

  "As a worst-case measure, right? How about a best-case?" Tony pitched. "What if the world was safe? What if the next time aliens roll up to the club, and they will, they couldn't get past the bouncer?"

  "The only people threatening the planet would be people," Bruce realized.

  Tony nodded. He was practically bouncing on the balls of his feet. He wanted—no, needed this to happen. Riley could sense it. She wondered why it was coming up again now.

  Riley was more indecisive than Bruce about Ultron. Ultron was Tony's way of locking the door to Earth—no more aliens, no more intergalactic wars. She frowned at the idea of aliens returning to Earth, but then again, Riley had learned that not all aliens were bad after meeting Thor and Roman. What if they were closing the door to something that could end up helping the Earth more than they realized?

  "I don't know," cut in Riley. "Shutting out the universe won't get rid of all of our problems."

  "Not all of them. That's not what I'm striving for here. I want to apply this as a safety measure. That's what the Ultron program's all about," presented Tony. "But JARVIS can't download a data schematic this dense. We can only do it while we have the scepter here. That's three days. Give me three days."

  Bruce peered back at Riley, who had her arms folded over her chest and shrugged. Meanwhile, Bruce was pretty much convinced. "So, you're going for artificial intelligence and you don't want to tell the team?" he asked.

  "Right. That's right," confirmed Tony. "You know why? Because we don't have time for a city hall debate. I don't want to hear the "man was not meant to meddle" medley."

  Riley pressed her lips into a line. "But this isn't something like... deciding what color you should make your next suit," she gently argued. "You want to promote your Iron Legion to put up a picket fence around the world. That's going to affect a whole lot of people, isn't it? Shouldn't we want to talk this over with the others? We're a team, we're stronger united."

  "Not a picket fence," Tony corrected. "I see a suit of armor around the world."

  "My point still stands. I don't hate the idea, but... People are going to keep finding ways to run down the Earth. They experiment, they invent. That's how I was made, that's how Bruce and Steve were made. You can't stop society from growing," Riley insisted. She was the only one left who was unsure about Tony's proposal. "What if we're shutting the world out from other worlds that could make Earth better?"