Chapter 45 - Discovery and Plans

Tyler's HQ

Before I even step into the building I can, not just hear, but feel the quaking of chaos going on inside the combat room. I get to the room to find Sinthea and Melissa fighting while Laura and Kimura look on.

"Take this you Nazi BITCH!!!" Melissa opens her mouth in a silent screech towards Sinthea who rolls to the side. Just behind where she stood, the training mats in the walls exploded into a shower of foam padding.

"I should have helped your ancestors into the showers." Sinthea hisses, sending a trio of needles at Mel that seem to hit a buffer in front of Mel's open maw.

"Tyler wouldn't like this," Kimura says.

"He'll be furious when he gets here," Laura mumbles almost simultaneously.

"Shut up Cunt!"         "Shut up Whore!" 

"SILENCE!!!" Everyone freezes.

"I don't know what incited all this ruckus, but from your wording, I can guess."

"This B—"

"Within these walls, what you did in your past matters very little. It matters some, but we're not faulting people for things they did when they had little control over themselves or things that happened a long time ago. Whether you killed 500 people or if you briefly increased global unemployment to 60% by making manufacturing more efficient. People make mistakes and it's okay as long as you learn from them."

"Then why am I essentially a slave?"

"I think I already answered your question, Kimura. Now can anyone tell me why we're all here?"

"No one? No one knows why they're here under my roof? It's...to hide Dammit. All thirteen of the people under this roof excluding me and Cortana are essentially here to hide from others. You need to at least pretend to get along. Until I make other arrangements, you need to keep your fighting to Smash Bros. Tournaments. We're only a few miles away from a town of 5,000 people after all." 

"You seem so sure of yourself in front of all of us," Sinthea says.

"Three laps."

"What did you say?"

"THREE laps. You and Melissa will take three laps around this tiny ass room before you go off and do whatever. Kimura will only do one since she didn't cause any problems. And tomorrow you three will fix this place to the best of your abilities." Kimura gives me a look and sets off to do a pointless lap around the room, shoving Sinthea and Mellisa along.

Once they're done, I walk out of the room only to get stopped by Laura.

"You're very hard to figure out."

"Thank you."

"It wasn't meant as a compliment."

"But I take it as one."

"Why?" She asks, getting close and staring up at me.

"Why take care of you and your family? Because I generally like helping good people. Because you're connected to Logan, who I deeply respect. Because you're beautiful. There's any number of reasons."

"I'm not a good person or beautiful."

"Then insert whatever complement you want. And if that's not enough for you, I would appreciate it if you gave me a sample of your blood."

"Why?"

"Please stop with the why's. I just want to see if I can copy your ability to some level."

"Go ahead." Laura holds out her wrist and slices it deeply with her claws. I absorb some of the blood seeping out of her wound before it closes. 

*CRUNCH*

"Fuck, that was a bad idea." I fall onto my knees, getting a glimpse of my shattered hands.

*CRACK*

*SNAP*

*CRACKLE*

*POP*

"You know...I think...I think I'm getting a hang...of this whole pain thing." My hands shake in front of me uncontrollably, relatively back to normal.

*SCHLUCK* 

"It looks like it worked," Laura says, looking at the sharp bones dripping in blood and sticking out between my knuckles.

"No shit Laura." I shakily move my hands, causing a jagged cut along my arm that heals noticeably faster than it would have before.

"Well look at that. It's not as fast as me even though I have the Adamantium slowing my healing factor down, but my sisters might get jealous."

"How do you get these back into place?"

"You can relax your arms and hands when the shaking stops."

*SCHLUCK*

"Or just do that."

"How is your family doing?" I ask, getting to my feet.

"We're all having nightmares. So not great. Megan is drawing morbid pictures, but according to her mother, that's nothing new, now they just feature her burying her boyfriend alive. They could all use some of your mysterious weirdo magic."

"I'll check up on them in a little bit."

She startles me with a hug. "Thank you."

"You're welcome?" I wasn't expecting this.

"Betray us and I will kill you." She squeezes hard, popping my back.

"I'll do my best not to."

"Good." She releases me and strides out of the room.

 

Well, considering everything involved, I think everyone is holding up pretty well. As for the cool new powers, it seems that I can absorb a lesser or alternate version of someone else's abilities. With Laura, I got bone claws like Logan and a far weaker healing factor, and with Mercury, my body didn't turn into liquid metal, but it did turn into a mono-substance body unique to me.

I'll need to be careful when I test this out in the future, my absorption ability seems slightly unpredictable. FUCK my hands hurt.

"Tyler, what happened to your hands? They're bleeding"

"Huh? Oh, it's you, Henry. My hands are fine. I just got these new claws." I unsheath and sheath the sharp bones. 

"Wowwww...Are you family with those other girls?"

"No, My body just changes sometimes. How are you and your mom doing?"

"Mom's really bored and nobody wants to play video games with me or do anything but stay in their rooms." He looks down at his feet, kicking an imaginary pebble.

"Sorry about that little buddy. They're just not feeling great. How about I play with you a little later?"

"You're the best." Henry hugs my waist tightly and then scampers off.

I take a look at the ruined remains of the training room that I had Kimura build just the day before and I walk over to the shipping floor where Cortana's figure and many other screens give life to the otherwise bleak environment.

"Hello, Father. Ready to get some work done?"

"Hello, Cortana. How's our financial situation looking?"

"I tried being as discrete with the transactions as possible, so we only have fifty million available but I'm working on laundering another 300 million that should be done by next week."

"That's good. Fifty million is enough to pay for our operations until we start raking in profits."

"Are you sure? Unless you're trying to start small, fifty million isn't a lot. Especially if you want to have physical products. Infrastructure investment is typically a massive cost."

"Cortana. Think a little outside the box. We can build our own robots and machines in-house."

"And what's your plan to obtain the raw materials? Before that, what are you even planning to make?"

"We'll start with a recycling business so we can get paid for the raw materials. Once we process that, we can make small electronics that are leagues ahead of the current market. That way we can destroy the most dangerous monopolies within a few months. Compared to other industries, the tech and information industries are relatively fragile."

"Ignoring the potential job loss that would occur if we actually displaced the current market, a recycling business demands a government contract of some sort. Please tell me that you actually have a plan."

"Relax Cortana. Of course I have a plan. Just go to a few conspiracy theory Reddit pages and post something like: Tyler thinks that Grandpa Fury needs to retire."

"Just a minute...It's done, now what?"

"Now we wait." 

"Wait for what?" She asks.

*Bzzz Bzzz*

"A phone call.” I answer her, picking up my phone. "Hello. Who am I speaking to?"

"Motherfucker, don't make me come over and knock some sense into your head. What's this about 'Grandpa Fury needs to retire?'" 

"I don't know what you're talking about, Gr-Director Fury. Everyone knows you're a young spring chicken. But hey, I did need a favor."

He sighs. "What is it and what do I get out of it?"

"I want a government contract to take care of recycling. Within at least some of the smaller towns. I'll give you fifty pounds of Adamantium in exchange."

"Fifty pounds isn't a lot, but I guess it's enough. I can't get you a contract, but I can do you one better."

"What would that be?"

"Sixty percent of recycling in the US is handled by roughly 90 privately-owned companies, and while there are plenty of shareholders, all the companies are controlled by one man. He's looking to sell it all off."

"That sounds too good to be true."

"Your meeting with him will be at the Masa Restaurant. 10:00 p.m. tomorrow. Bring a date." He quickly says, hanging up the phone.

Damn.

"I'll focus on increasing the resources available to us."

"Thanks, Cortana." I sigh, pulling up a chair to the monitors. "I guess I'll work on product design."

Maybe I should've found an alternative to asking for Nick Fury's help. 

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