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G M E V E N T # 1 ^{_1/2
Waterside Plaza, Manhattan, NYC}

Mortimer Norris watched in disbelief as his heist descended into the worst clusterfuck he'd ever encountered in his criminal career. The big, dumb idiot in the truck had been bad enough, but the hasty intervention of New York's spandex enforcers just fouled the entire operation beyond recovery. They had planned for such things, of course. You don't pull a job in broad daylight on the streets of the Big Apple without expecting a grandstanding cape or two to make themselves known. No, it wasn't the presence of the heroes that royally fucked things up for him and his crew; it was the ridiculously low response time of not one, not two, but six costumed do-gooders.

They had planned the time and place of the heist specifically because it offered them the greatest time between initiating the assault and escaping before the law or the vigilantes could show up. Mort's employer, the Big Man, had even accounted for the fact that the Fantastic Fuckers would be giving a planned interview during the job. Yet, the little shits had arrived in record time, and thanks to the Roxxon-hired freak who had been riding shotgun in the tanker holding Mort and his men up, the Four had managed to send things all to pot.

To make matters worse, when Mort had tried to stealthily access the tanker's hold with a plasma cutter during the height of the melee, some black-haired cape he'd never seen or heard of before lifted the entire damned thing into the sky. And now, the career criminal was staring up at a skyscraper-sized weirdo wearing a fishbowl. As far as Mortimer was concerned, all six of the assholes could suck a big fat one.

To say that Mortimer Norris was having a very bad day would be an understatement.

It was a day he was done with. Turning away from the rapidly dwindling fight, as more and more of his men were taken down, Mortimer attempted to flee the scene. Slowly and quietly as to draw little attention to himself, he began making his way through the maze of vehicles that had been abandoned at the start of the attack. As he reached the sidewalk and began to round the corner of an alley unnoticed, he nearly ran straight into one of his men exiting that same byway.

"The fuck are you doing down here?" Mort demanded, his usually calm and assured demeanor completely shredded by the events of the last few minutes. Now he had a turncoat to deal with. "Whatever, forget it. We're getting out of here."

Mortimer stepped past the man and tapped the rifle he gripped. "Make yourself useful and make sure no one follows, yeah?"

"Goddamned wankers," Mortimer muttered as he entered the alleyway. He made it barely four steps before he felt the heavy butt of an automatic rifle collide with the base of his skull, and the world went dark.

Underneath the illusionary form of the armed criminal Mortimer had run into, the masked man known as Mysterio gave a slight grin.

Mortimer Norris was assuredly having a bad day.

virtual_artificial_iter7.8965_developmentlog.mp3

PLAY/PAUSE?

[00:34:57] A crowded office desk pans into frame, surrounded by mountains of stained ceramic mugs and scrunched up note paper. The mousy face of Tony Stark pans into view, a sweat beaded face with red rimmed eyes. His beard is roughly chopped.

[00:36:50] “ This is Day 4 of testing the General Adaptive Responsive Virtual Intelligence System Alpha Build. I’m scrapping the original language and building from the ground up. Turns out PymLan burns up more RAM than my servers are capable of handling. It’s going to be another month of headaches but, hey, I don’t want my own personal HAL-1000 to get a seizure, right. Training data needs another month to be optimized but we should begin construction of primary neural algorithms in a week or so. Testing today consisted of enabling heuristic baselines to social conversations through conversation. Topics included: Stacey Langford vomiting all over my bed, my bender in Vegas, my startling lack of father figures, musical tastes - remind me to input bias factors for punk next time - and…and…”

“ Fuck, maybe, Rhodey was right about me.”

“ Being more comfortable with talking to a machine of all things…”

---

The first time she steps into Tony Stark’s minivan makes her wonder whether she hedged her bets right. The floor is a hoarder’s dream, a heap of unorganized blueprint manuals and manic trash strewn all over the floor. Looking at it reminds her of an upended garbage bin. She almosts expect to see a raccoon scurrying her way out of the pile.

“ Can’t you work faster?,” she snipes at the most wanted man on the eastern seaboard. Stark is currently typing away frenetically, lines of code running down the monitor like a waterfall. His expression doesn’t waver as he replies back in a sarcastic monotone.

“ I would if you’d stop pointing a gun at my head.”

“ And stop giving you incentive?,” she purrs sarcastically, tapping the gun against the side of his temple. “ I heard the best artists work under pressure.”

“ Ah, nothing more like the threat of death to get the juices flowing.”

The next couple of minutes is a flurry of keyboard keys and brief sips of some off-brand caffeinated sports drink from a convenience store. Stark’s bloodshot eyes boredly stare at the computer, only flinching every once in a while in sheer annoyance. Those moments are rare like a koi fish swimming to the surface of a pond.

“ Why the suit?,” the question tumbles out of her mouth.

“ Hm?”

“ Why…all this.” She says with irritation. “ You’re Tony Stark.”

“ And?,” Stark replies in a tone that she only expects is the closest vocal expression to shrugging your shoulders.

“ You’ve got enough fucking money that every stock broker in Wall Street puckers up their ass whenever you go on one of your binges. You earn two to three Nobel prizes a year. You’re the heir to a multi-billion dollar company and you’re telling me the best way to deal with all your issues right now is to dress up in a powered suit of armor?”

Not even a blink. Nothing to communicate any anger. Stark still wore the same despondent look on his face as though he was an insomniac late-night shift worker.

“ Yup.”

“ And here I thought you were the smartest man alive.”

“ Oh, is that disappointment I hear?” The taps on the keyboard become louder. “ Feel free to walk to the back of the line because you’re not the only one.”

“ I thought you’d be….”

“ What? No, no, no, let me guess.” Stark jeered at her sarcastically. “ Like Reed Richards? Hank Pym? Abraham Erskine? Some quiet, eccentric visionary toiling away in their labs, producing technological miracles for the good of the world? A prim and proper little scientist staying in their lane whilst everyone causes chaos around them?Did the world change for the better when the Pym Particle was discovered? Did the world change for the better when Erskine made the Super Soldier Serum? Did the world turn upside down when Reed Richards began making another public tech demo in an impoverished third world country. I didn’t think so. I am not your fucking Gandhi. I am not your Einstein. I am a man with a drinking problem. I can’t solve the world’s problems.” Stark stopped talking and then, shook his head sadly. “ That’s what caused all this stupid shit in the first place anyway.”

“ I thought you’d be different.”

“ Well, - “ His voice caught on a cough before continuing “ - you thought wrong.” The monitor suddenly flickered and a black window emerged. She thought it looked like a sheet of graph paper, stretched out across the back of the porcupine. The spines oscillated, flickering up and down randomly. Whatever Stark had been doing to crack the device open was successful as he leaned over, a mad glint in his eyes. “ And bingo. Come on, come on, don’t fail on me now, buddy…..”
The graph paper contorts, shrinking into a line as thin as yarn. The yarn begins snapping and threading back together in a simplistic imitation of the human mouth. The cheesy 90s british accented tone from the speakers forces to put two and two together to realize it was him.

“ Hello, sir. I’ve had a terribly long nap and -,” There was a brief skip in the A.I’s speech. A half-second or so. To anyone else, it would have seemed like a minor glitch but to her, it was the electronic equivalent of human shock.

“ Sir, why are we currently 154 miles away from our home address?”

“ Hello, JARVIS.” Stark sheepishly scratched his head. “ I’ve got some explaining to do.”

A ring of condensation after he lifted the beer to his lips. Light rust in the same place on the dulled steel gave proof to it's present use as a coaster not being an infrequent one.

Maddicks flicked between the sports networks. He'd laid a twenty on the Gators in basketball, as a casual side bet to the five hundred he had on Michigan, and those bums were down two scores going into the half.

He used ta be somebody. Well he used ta almost be somebody. He hung around people who had "somebody" potential, and would still send a shiver up the spine of the man on the street.

That was before the sentencing. Before the isolation in a cell. Before when he still gave a shit about his appearance enough to work out. Before the parole board saw him as a broken down has been who wouldn't have started have any more trouble if he could. The spark of life having left him years ago. Before he had the P.O. officer check ins. Before he really started to hurt in the colder months.

He barely had it in him to be mad at any of these kids for getting scrubbed. Hell, it was probably his fault for betting on them.

The five hundred was chasing already bad money. He was collecting cheques from a slip-n-fall in a Whole Foods, to keep the heat which went out last month going, and those cheques were fast running out. Nobody hires ex-cons. The classiest decision he'd made this year was choosing to take his dive in Whole Foods over Dollar General.

He couldn't pay. He knew he couldn't pay. Knew it when he laid the bet. In part it was the reason why he did it.

---

---

Maddicks got up and trudged to the can, he dropped his boxers (which a long with a wifebeater, was all he was wearing) and closed his eyes, letting the stream go where it may, in the vaguest direction of the toilet.

His past in the Air Force, as a merc, working off-book for Roxxon, going toe-to-toe with those in tights, it all played back before him.

"Kyle Lofton bricks the three!" Simon barely opened his eyes. "And time expires!"

Sounded like his low-bet wasn't going to pay off either.

There were years apparent on his face, years of weariness and no surprise.

There was a loud knock on the door. No crispness. Just loud.

Simon trudged to the front door and opened it without looking through the peephole.

He was met by his bookie. An undersized man, fast talker. Full of life. Chasing life.

Feeding on life.

"If I'm not mistaken, Vandy just got up."

"Were you waiting right outside of my door?" Simon asked, incredulous at how quickly the bookie got to his home to collect on a twenty dollar bet.

"I was, and do you know who else was..?"

And knowing their cue in walked two large men who didn't look like they'd be able to mentally handle much more than that cue.

"They know their choreography..."

"They do. But they only dance when I say so." The confident man of smaller stature said. "And when I say so, tends to be when people don't answer this next question properly."

"Where's my money, Maddicks?"



Maddicks wasn't going to beg. However today went down, THAT was not on the cards. Simon walked back across the room, and turned up the volume on the television.

"I don't have it."

This caught the smaller man by surprise, as evident by his gaping mouth. One of the larger two men nudged him and mouthed something, dragging him back down to Earth. Something was different. He wasn't openly agressive, Hell, he still gave off the basic impression that he was dead inside. But he wasn't yielding. He wasn't arguing his own cause for an extension. If only for a few hours.

"We--well that's too bad. You owe."

"I do." Maddicks said plainly. His eyes still barely open with general disinterest.

"Then I guess these two guys are going to take have to take it out of your ass."

The first one punched him in the gut, just below the solar plexus, and folded him in half like he was made of cardboard.

Simon was sucking up air, when he was straightened up, and his jaw met with a heavy right hand that knocked a tooth loose. Maddicks raised a finger, and struggled to catch his breath. The bookie put a pause to proceedings with a smile, expecting Simon to beg and plead for the extra few hours to see how it would play out.

"What's our balance so far?"

Another heavy right. Another shot to the gut. A left hook that sent things spinning briefly.

"You're a punching bag. I mean, I knew you were for those tights and capes guys, but Good Lord, Maddicks. You're going to die over what? Five hundred bucks? Twenty bucks? I mean, you know I'm gonna kill you, right? You realise how much faster those two-bit, no-money dickheads will pay up after they hear I iced a gen-u-wine supervillain, right? Or at least, whatever the Hell you were... Don't worry, I'll make you sound far more impressive than you are. Or ever were."

Simon kept taking repeated punches.

"I mean, I don't get it. I heard you've got no income anymore, but surely you could have sold this old suit to some kind of capes and cowls collecter for a couple grand."

"Two hundred." He grunted out in exhalation, through his teeth.

"What?" Came the bookie's surprised reply, not the least because the man could still talk.

"I got it valuated. Two hundred bucks. Market's flooded."

"Well, shit Maddicks. I don't even value your life and I still overvalued you." He chuckled, as the beating continued.

"I mean, I guess I can see, why it's only two hundred. Even if you weren't a big name, suit made of steel. Really, steel? In THIS world... and you've only got one gauntl-- Oh shit!"

The bookie was interrupted by the larger of the two men flying backwards across the wall, whilst seizing from electric shock.

Sparks flew from Simon Maddicks as he looked up with a brutal grin, blood drooling out from between baked bean shaped teeth. Lit by the flickering blue electricity from the one remaining gauntlet on his wrist.

The bookie shoved the remaining big body towards Maddicks, who grabbed him by the throat and made him convulse with the power surging through the gauntlet, befor dropping him in the corner.

"Empty your pockets." Maddicks said, now that the pair was alone.

"Wh--What?"

"Empty your pockets." His eyes were still half open, but now that was mostly because his right eye was closing over from the battering he'd allowed himself to take.

He dropped a roll with three hundreds four twenties and a bunch of quarters and brass.

"You really thought I give a shit over twenty bucks? Even now?" The bookie shook his head. Terrified. A wet patch spreading across the front of his pants.

Simon pocketed the notes and juggled the change in the palm of his hand.

"You're here for one reason. I made those bets for one reason." The supervillain sighed, adrenaline starting to leave him.

He shoved the change in the bookie's mouth. "You can't. Buy. Hungry." The gauntlet sparked. His mouth flashed blue, he didn't stop until he could smell the foul scent of the man's hair burning.

He dropped him on the floor and donned the Killer Shrike costume once more, leaving his apartment forever with all of his belongings on his back.