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Chapter 85

Technomancer in MCU

Wakanda

–Tony Stark–

So, this is what they have been hiding from the rest of the world.

“And Pray tell Mr.Tall and Scary, how long did you guys plan on staying out of the world’s issues, all safe and secure in your little slice of paradise.” He asked a little confrontationally.

While he could understand their reasonings for not exposing their VIbranium reserves to the world at large, being a weapons dealer he was aware of the basic human tendency of converting everything into a weapon, what he could not understand was anonymizing their help.

They could have cured Cancer.

They still can.

Diabetes, Air Pollution, Water Pollution, Plastics, STDs, all of them curable in Wakanda and not available to the rest of the world.

Diseases that claimed millions of lives elsewhere were just a visit to the hospital away from this place.

God, he wished he never had his empathy phase. Pepper and her therapist idea.

The only response he got was a sigh from the lead of the Royal Science lab that was assigned to chauffeur them around the science division of Wakanda, “Look, Mr.Stark, I was not even born when these decisions were taken. I mean, my grandparents were kids when it was decided that Wakanda would seal its borders and never interfere in the workings of the outside world. My job is to show you around the lab, nothing more, nothing less. If you have any complaints, you can take it up to the King or Prince N’Jadaka, they will be happy to listen to you, considering they were the ones who just dumped this task on me.” 

“Honestly, blackmailing me with time on the Quantum Computex cores is so unfair,” He murmured in the end, sounding like whining to him.

He whirled on him immediately, “You guys have Quantum Computing, how advanced, what are the specs? You know what, just take me there.”

The guy looked just about done with him and his questions but it was not as if he was about to let that juicy tidbit go.

Of course, the processing power afforded to Jarvis by virtue of the servers in the Lab was leaps and bounds ahead of anything he could even think of but he wanted to see how far Wakanda had come because he was pretty sure that he could at least copy their tech and make it better.

Stupid Alfred and his anti-reverse engineering protocols.

But the head honcho of this place refused to budge from his place, “I am sorry, Mr.Stark but that is one of the places where I cannot take you. Even if the King has given you carte blanche to do whatever you wish to do, I cannot in good conscience let an outsider access the most prized part of our Lab. So, No.”

He raised his hands in surrender at the vehement refusal, “Ok, alright. I get it, not letting me play with your shiniest toy.”

“Tony!” he heard Bruce call for him loudly from the other part of this lab. Exchanging alarming looks with the head scientist, both of them ran to where Banner was looking at the biochemical advances of Wakanda.

Upon reaching the lab, they could see Banner furiously typing on one of the holo screens provided by the Kimoyo Beads they were all provided with.

“What is it?” he asked as he tried to look at what Banner was typing but biology was never really his strong suit anyway.

“Look, they have a primitive matrix ready for digital to organic mind transfers,” Bruce said as he kept writing something on his holopad, most of it scribbles to his vision.

His eyes widened as he immediately connected his own Kimoyo beads to Bruce’s and began going through the translated version of the paper somebody had published for transferring a digital mind to an organic construct. 

Apparently, the author was researching ways of increasing somebody’s lifespan, and transferring their minds to a digital construct was one of the ways they found of temporarily storing people’s minds until they could, in the future, transfer that back into an organic meat sack.

The thing was they just could not do it.

But, throughout the course of their research, they were able to build a very basic bio-organic brain of sorts that could handle the uplink required to transfer a very basic AI in it and have it survive off of just calories, no extra electricity required.

“This is nowhere close to what Jarvis would need but-” 

“It’s a start,” Bruce said as his excitement only kept on increasing.

“Excuse me, are you talking about putting your VI, Jarvis, in a biological body?” He was asked by the resident intern of the place.

He and Bruce simultaneously turned their necks towards the intern and said as if it was the most obvious thing they would do, “Yeah!”

Honestly, this was exactly what they needed. “Bruce, just download the entire thing. I’ll take permission from the King later on.”

Whatever protests they had on him, essentially taking their IP died in their throats when they saw King T’Chaka himself walk into the lab, followed by Prince N’Jadaka and the default entourage of the Dora Milaje.

“At ease, N'Tona, let Mr.Stark and Dr.Banner use that technology. After all, it's only fair that we offer something in return for all the help that we will be getting from them.” King T’Chaka said to the lead scientist whose name was N'Tona apparently.

N'Tona bowed and left the room.

“So, what can I do for you, King T’Chaka?” he asked flippantly, doing that on purpose to gauge the reactions of the King and the people around him.

The tightening hands of the Dora Milaje as they held on to their spears gave him a pretty good idea as to what their attitude was towards outsiders, i.e., them.

Honestly, the only ones who he had met in Wakanda who had a favourable/neutral view towards them were the two princes, The Princess, and surprisingly, the lead scientist.

Other than them, all of the other people looked at him as if he was a new animal in the zoo and that was the tamest reaction of all. He had seen that almost all of the higher-ups looked at him with thinly veiled hostility and wariness as if they were just waiting for him to erupt and cause catastrophic damage to Wakanda.

He had expected that but what befuddled him the most was the fact that the same looks never translated to Bruce.

He had thought that Bruce was the one who would be the most discriminated against but instead, these people never once looked at Bruce as if he was a threat and honestly, he was glad that his friend finally met a crowd who looked at him as a scientist and not like the Hulk but he had to wonder what was their source of confidence regarding Bruce and his alter ego.

He was sure that they were not aware of his deal with the Hulk and how they regularly sparred inside the Lab to test out his newest renditions of the Hulk busters. 

The King sighed and said, “Walk with me, Mr.Stark. Dr.Banner, please continue what you were doing and if you need anything else, ask anybody and they'll be more than happy to accommodate you.”

Bruce nodded hesitantly. He could see that Bruce wanted to come with him but in the end, scientific curiosity won over anxiety and Bruce dove back into the goldmine of knowledge they had found.

Honestly, centuries of advanced research data would have made him invade this place if not for him already possessing the Lab, something that was centuries ahead of even this place.

He walked beside the King as he took twists and turns throughout the Royal Palace building, ditching their guards and even the Prince behind.

He kept his mouth shut as he was aware of the importance of this meeting.

Soon, they came upon a plain door but as soon as they crossed the hallway, the door shimmered and the hologram on it vanished, leaving behind an archaic wooden door that looked as if it had been kept as is for a century.

The King stopped momentarily, as if hesitating to do something but placed his palm in the center of the huge lotus that was carved in the door.

As soon as the King removed his palm from the place, the lotus began pulsing with a red light. The light travelled from the place the King had put his palm to the entirety of the door.

After dimming and lighting itself up for three times, the door opened with an Ancient groan, indicating its age.

Inside there was a single platform, just floating above the ground.

The King entered the room and he followed behind, absolutely curious about the state of things.

“This, Mr.Stark is an ancient artifact bestowed upon us by Bast herself.” King T’Chaka’s voice boomed in the room as if it was coming from all directions. 

He resisted the urge to roll his eyes at the goddess crap again. That was all he had been hearing ever since he came to the country. Most likely, she was just some hyper-advanced alien like Thor.

“You might not believe me and that’s fine. We are not here to make you a believer. We are here to set the future stone in which the next generation of Wakanda will set their foundation.” T’Chaka said as he removed a dark golden pendant from his neck and placed it right above the floating platform.

“I might be old but I am not blind, Mr.Stark. I know that Wakanda will soon have to shed its old image and embrace the new and uncertain. Failing to do so would only result in us fading into obscurity.”

He was not sure where the King was taking this but as time went on, he felt a light pressure on him in the room, the words of the King adding pressure with every word he spoke.

King T’Chaka then pointed at him, “You, Mr.Stark, represent the new age of Humanity at least that is what our patron and our allies have told us and from what I’ve seen, I agree with them.”

He then pointed to the platform, “This is a relic from the bygone era when we still made pacts with outsiders. This is an artifact that allows one to turn their words into a bond, a pact, or a contract. This platform is connected directly to the pendant passed down from King to King.”

By this time, the room had gone completely dark, only the platform’s dim glow keeping things visible to him.

“I would like to make a contract with you, Mr.Stark, for the safety and prosperity of Wakanda,” T’Chaka said as he extended his hands towards the platform and instinctively, he found himself doing the same.

Honestly, things had turned out weirder than he had ever expected.

But he was nothing if not adaptable to circumstances.

‘What sort of contract are we talking about?” he said as he kept his hand just above the platform where a cavity had formed that conspicuously looked just like his handprint.

“I would give you unrestricted access to Wakanda’s intellectual property and strategic resources as long as you swear to use them in such a manner that both Humanity as a whole and Wakanda are the beneficiaries of your actions,” T’Chaka said.

His eyes widened immensely as he processed what the King had just said. He had essentially given him command of his Kingdom.

“I refuse,” he said out loud and as if an explosion had taken place, the room shook and the lights came back on.

T’Chaka looked disappointed as he said, “I had hoped to foster trust by doing it this way.” He said as he pocketed the Pendant from the platform.

“Look, I don’t need some binding vow to help you guys. Sure, some of your past deeds looked scummy but I am in no position to judge you on past mistakes. I should be in jail right now if that were true. I might not like the older generation’s decisions but Wakanda is going to be run by the future generations and they look pretty promising to me. Now, why don’t you take me back to the Lab because some of the stuff you guys have here is awesome.”

T’Chaka looked shocked but then chuckled and said, “Sure, please follow me.”

As they left the room, the door locked itself and as if an illusion had been cast over it, took over the appearance of a regular plain grey door.

“So, about some vibranium-”

“No!”

“Please?”

‘Sigh…”

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Word Count - 2153

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