Lennox looked at Peter, at the small orange gem in his hand, and shrugged. "Don't get me wrong Mister Parker, but it's a rock. I mean, it's a nice colour sure, but that thing is making machines come alive? Really?" But as he stretched out a hand to take it from Peter, Peter shook his head and moved back.
“Oh no, this is dangerous. There is a reason I brought my harness, and there is a reason I'm not touching it." He sighed. "Look," he held the box in a bare hand. "it's really just a box. The Stone is like its power source. And you already said it was dangerous."
"Right." Lennox clicked on his mic, "Containment team to the pyramid room. I need a sample case." He looked over at Peter. "That's Vibranium isn't it? We don't have any here. Will lead-lined steel be enough?"
Peter shook his head, "No. Not a chance. It'll bleed through, like the pyramid." Even if it didn't Peter had learned his lesson from Doom. Handing an Infinity Stone over to the US government was a dumb idea.
"Shit." Lennox clicked his mic again, "Cancel the team. Containment is a no-go." he let the call button go, "I am going to take Phil's glowing recommendation of you as a sign of trust. You are not to leave the base with that though. It is still the property of the United States Military."
Damn, I need Stephen. Of everyone who knew about the Stones, Stephen was the only one who seemed qualified to deal with them. But handing over another Stone to the Sorcerer Supreme seemed like a really bad idea as well. For now, Peter would make sure it was kept safe.
Peter knew from Stephen that multiple Stones amplified and multiplied each other's powers. Which was why he was currently holding the Soul Stone as far away from the Mind Stone as possible.
He had no idea what would happen if both stones came into contact with each other. The best case was nothing. That, like the Reality Stone, its power needed to be guided. The worst was he accidentally made everything in the base alive. If they were all like the phone then it would be a massacre. He now knew as well why they had explosive rounds. The life they created was violent and needed to be taken down fast if it got free.
He also had no idea what would happen if he touched it with his bare skin. Everyone who touched the cube had died, would the Soul Stone kill him? He wasn't feeling anything through the arm of his harness. The Vibranium was absorbing its power and keeping the pair separate.
Friday, he thought to himself. It was then he realised. Ultron was a mix of an alien program and Max and Flint. He had sentience because of the Mind Stone, but sapience due to his two human donors. With the Soul Stone, he could make Friday a soul, and if Vision and Jocasta behaved, them as well. She would be truly alive. Just like he had felt from the Sentinels and their strange metal.
The pieces were starting to fall into place creating a horrible scenario. Trask had used the Soul Stone to create a lifeform from Augment cells. It could adapt, transform, and learn. It was a blank canvas he could mold into whatever he wanted. It was just a pity he wanted an army of murderbots.
"Mister Parker. Are we safe?" Lennox asked him. "Because if we aren't, I need to know and not tomorrow, not in a few minutes while you figure it out. Right. Now."
Holding up a finger Peter took a breath and let his senses envelop the base. Even without the Stone, he could feel the guards, and Lennox’s apprehension at what had just happened. and taking a proper look around he saw several guards with MP armbands.
They can't be allowed to keep this, he thought and unleashed the power of the Mind Stone.
He was sure Liv and the others would forgive him for using it on such a large scale, something he was already guilty of. But these were no longer experiments on dead aliens. This was the inhumane torture of an unknown species, one that might still be alive.
“The Device is safe, all I did was shut it down. The machine was empty. There was nothing inside and you will have no memory of an orange gem or anything called the Soul Stone.”
Lennox nodded as the yellow light flashed in his eyes.
This was wrong. If they had been creating life and then arbitrarily destroying it, it went beyond inhuman. No wonder whatever was controlling the Sentinels was angry. They had been unknowingly torturing it for what could be almost seventy years. The problem was it unknowingly?
Nobody had taken the time to sit down and investigate what exactly they were doing. Had they broken the ice, maybe the creature would have been able to explain what had happened.
There were so many ways it could have gone wrong. But keeping it frozen and experimenting on it was one of the worst things they could have done.
Creating homicidal toys was funny. Creating a larger machine based on that was stupid but was ignorance enough to excuse them?
Peter decided that would wait until he saw this Ice Man, and what else was stored here. If he decided they deserved freedom, he would make sure they got it. He would deal with the consequences, and Coulson later.
First, though, he had to get out of the dam complex and get home. He had a thought. The harness whirred and another arm extended. It clamped over the first and took the Stone in between its pincers. The first harness then moved and clamped over that, creating a box. Liv had designed the harness to be modular, and the two sets of pincers spun and detached. Peter created a pocket of symbskin and slid the Stone inside.
I need Liv as well, he thought, dammit.
Using the Stone on Lennox and the base just created more problems. There were security cameras everywhere, and digital recordings of what just happened.
Yeah, I bet Charles is laughing his ass off right now. Peter was not ignorant of the irony of what he was doing.
Creating another box using the other two arms he boxed up the Mind Stone. He knew it would be safe. The Reality Stone twisted its wielder as it tried to keep up with their fluid self-image. The Power Stone was raw power and just killed anyone trying to hold it but the others simply required focus. As he connected to the Soul Stone the world flashed around him.
He could see the strange wisps of energy coming from Lennox, who was shouting something. It went unheard as the power flowed through him, his other senses began to shut off. He looked down at his arm and saw a faint shimmer as if there was an after echo of his body.
It's not killing me, it's separating my soul from my body, he guessed. Concentrating the after-image faded. So, it's fine as long as I don't lose focus.
It was the bright glow from one of the walls that made him more curious. It was massive but vaguely humanoid in shape. Ice Man, he thought and as he swapped back he was left gasping for breath as the power of the Soul Stone left him.
"I asked Mister Parker if you are okay?" Lennox cast a wary eye over Peter. He knew something was wrong, and he would be making damn sure he found out what it was.
Peter raised a hand and bending at the knees coughed a few times. "Yeah, seems I'm not as immune to the box ass as I thought. I uh, wouldn't let anyone touch it for a while." Peter lied effortlessly. Since Aunt May had let it slip about being able to tell when he was lying, Peter took steps to counter that. He and MJ had run through some acting exercises together. Keeping a straight face and removing any tells he had was its main goal.
"We can break for lunch if you want. Maybe some fresh air and food will do you good."
Peter raised a hand, "Nope, I'm good," he coughed a few more times, "Yeah, definitely good."
Lennox smiled, "Great because if you puke, I will make you clean it up."
Peter straightened and cleared his throat, "Just knocked the wind out of me. I'm fine." He gave Lennox a weak smile and he just shook his head in return.
"We can continue the tour if you're up for it. We have a hanger and then the second facility." Lennox began to walk again, and Peter followed.
Two guards on either side stood to attention as they approached. Lennox unbarred the door, but Peter could see they were ready to fire if given the order. Even with the Mind Stone, he had to be careful. He was aware of just how many devices were currently monitoring him. Even using the Mind Stone and his powers, someone would notice. A base like this would have offsite servers, even a monitoring station somewhere else. Unless he just wanted to just wipe out a day’s worth of memories, and crash the entire military network. He was pretty sure Couson, and more importantly, Liv would be really angry if he did that.
“We realised that Ice Man had a unique energy signature. We know it's a type of radiation we’ve never seen before, so we used a satellite to scan for it. We began to collect anything with the same signal, and there were a lot of them. Seems anything from the Fifties up could be part of the machine.”
The facility was what looked like a parking garage. It was full of rusted and scrap vehicles, some from what looked like as far back as World War Two. Jeeps, sports cars, tanks, helicopters. There was even a replica of the space shuttle.
“These all had the same energy as the Ice Man?“ He asked. This complicated things. If more of the metal had escaped and been out in plain view for decades the Sentinels could be anything. No wonder they couldn't find them if they could change into a car. It was also more confusing. If Traks built the Sentinels using the cube, why did he need Augment cells? There was more than met the eye here, and Peter resolved to get to the bottom of it.
Lennox nodded. “The energy fades though, some of them don't register anymore. We kept them contained here, but nothing we ever did registered. Even exposing them to the cube only caused the radiation to fade faster.” A chilling thought went through Peter. “We took some of them for samples, but nothing ever reacted the same way Ice Man did. They just rust and fall apart.”
Of course, they did, Peter thought. It wasn't strange energy, it was their lifeforce.
Even humans gave off a faith bioelectrical charge. He would know as it held his cells together when he changed them. If he was right they had captured whatever strange living metal was used to make these vehicles and left it to die.
Scanning the room with the Mind Stone gave a strange result. There were more than just the soldiers here but it was as if they were in a deep chasm. He could feel the distant echo of a mind, but only that it was there. There were no thoughts or responses when he reached to try and touch it.
"Can I have a minute?" Peter asked and Lennox shrugged.
"Sure. You know, you're a crappy actor. You obviously have powers." Peter stared blankly at him, "Yeah, I was an instructor for a while, I know that look. The 'I'm not up to anything honest' stare people get when they learn to hide their tells. It's a tell on its own."
Peter cursed, "Fine. Yes, I have powers, can I please use them?"
Lennox snorted, "Be my guest. Nobody else has ever made progress, it's about time someone actually gave a damn."
Peter swapped out the Mind Stone for the Soul Stone and as the world faded he saw them.
Several of the vehicles. A bike, a Porche, a jeep, a cop car, and an old VW Beetle all had a faint orange glow.
As his eyes scanned over the group, there were at least eight glows, some stronger than others.
He had found survivors, and he had no idea how to help them.
Ayo transformers crossover? Why else would it be only vehicles