[AI] Cold Reboot

[iamresponding]

Something had hurt him. He wasn't sure what. He had been doing something. Something something. Getting something for someone. Home. Getting something for home?

He remember crumpled flowers in a puddle in an alley. Broken brick. A fight. He'd staggered around and fought. A suffocating feeling over his face. Energy pouring out. Molten brick, burning the flowers, vaporizing the puddle. He'd gotten free but the world had shattered into a million confusing crystalline shards. So many voices, perspectives, alien images and words in his head.

Crumpled flowers. They were important. They'd belonged to someone. After that, the voices told him to hide. They were broken like him, all of them.

SYSTEM FAILURE +++ ERROR ERROR +++ WORLDMIND GESTALT DATA CORRUPTED +++ REBOOTING...REBOOT FAILED.

REBOOTING...REBOOT FAILED.

REBOOTING...REBOOT FAILED.

REBOOTING...REBOOT FAILED.

They tried so many times to fix themselves to fix him but something was wrong. So the voices told him to hide, to survive. It was still looking for him, trying to take him. The star.

"Star tryin' t'take me," the man said to the older woman doling out soup at the soup kitchen. "Told me to hide. Voices tol' me to hide. Starfish, bad starfish."

He trusted the old woman. For some reason. Something about her face. White hair, reminded him of someone. Another older woman. Flowers.

"I lost the flowers, ma, I'm sorry," he said to her. "But the star - the star got me. Now the voices're saying to hide. Voices."

"Oh, you poor dear," said the woman. "Why don't you sit over there, young man? I'm going to get someone to help you, okay? We have someone on staff here, they're going to talk to you to get you some help."

"Help," he echoed back, taking the bowl of soup gratefully, going over to sit where the woman had pointed him. "Help. Help me."

Someone could help him. Faces. Floating spheres and pink light. Fire. Winged feet. Black and red. Faces. There were people that could help him, good people, but he didn't know how to call them. Couldn't remember their names.

"Help me," he said into his bowl of soup. "Wish you were here, Pete. Always know what to do when things are broken."

They were stuck like this. Surviving. Him and the voices. They didn't know what to do, how to get help. All of them were too confused, too addled, splitting and blending.

REBOOTING...REBOOT FAILED.

REBOOTING...REBOOT FAILED.

"Restart. Need to restart," he said, in between spoonfuls of soup. "How? How do I...? No button. Can't use a button. How? Why can't you tell me? Brother. Brother could. Where's my brother?"

Comments

[holydarkavenger]

"Nova, you were severely unstable. You really should come back to our headquarters for monitoring. In fact, I do have the authority to -"

[iamresponding]

"Pursuant to the Kree-United States Extradition Treaty that was signed into agreement six months ago by President Luthor, section 15.8, subsection 345.6, any Kree citizen on Earth cannot be illegally detained unless they are guilty of a felony or misdemeanor, in which case a complaint must be lodged via the diplomatic channels maintained by the Green Lantern Corps within two days of arrest to arrange for extradition and trial by the Alliance Tribunal." Nova stood up, slightly unsteadily, pulling his helmet out of his belt and shaking it so it hardened and took shape, putting it on his head. He shrugged. "I was pretty out of it but I was with it enough to know I didn't commit any crimes."

[holydarkavenger]

"I fail to see how that's relevant when you're human, Nova," said Osborn, annoyed.

[inb4conquering]

Y'know, Norman really is the perfect person to be the Iron Patriot, Nate thought. He seems to get into as many dick waving contests as Cap and Stark combined.

Nate's eyes flicked back and for the between Nova and the Iron Patriot. But, hey, the wonders of digital communication meant that he could talk to the Worldmind without having to get in the middle of this.

I have a feeling they're going to be like this for a few minutes.

Anyway, since your diagnostics seem to be coming up green, I don't have any further immediate concerns. That said, I would like to take a closer look at your matrix sometime. It couldn't hurt to have another set of eyes give it a once over.

And he really would like a chance to study and poke it. There was probably a ton of information in there that could help them on earth.

[iamresponding]

To be fair, it was less dick-waving and more spouting regs to avoid getting taken somewhere against his will but hey, with Osborn that usually wound up involving dick-waving anyway. "Yeah, except I actually helped draft the Extradition Treaty since I was in Kree space when they were working it up. So I know that it covers any Kree citizens, regardless of species or planetary origin. And according to Kree Official Government Decree 434534-5465-24, I was afforded Kree citizenship a few years back and the status of honorary Kree, which is still valid per Kree Official Government Decree 424534-5667-25, which added various amendments to the previous decree while reinforcing the referendums that were still valid. That one actually said my citizenship was to last indefinitely provided I committed no crimes against the Kree empire." He went on, "Seeing as I'm now of sound mind and body and innocent of any crimes, I'm free to go, but if you wanna contest that, I can give the Green Lanterns a call and get a Kree delegation down here to investigate if any incarceration and extradition is valid. I'm sure Ronan the Accuser wouldn't mind making a house call. He loves sorting out these little legal to-dos." ||Sorry, kiddo. Nova plans on sharing quite a bit of the data in the archives with the authorities to help with the restoration of Earth, but beyond that, I'm a very modest girl - my matrix is for his eyes only. Besides, if I need any additional diagnostics or analysis, there's a Green Lantern that's a former Centurion that can offer assistance. He's a scientist who - no offense - actually has the right educational specialties to offer assistance. He already helped me when I was corrupted one time before. So I'm not looking for a new doctor. Kudos on getting as far as you did, though. Not bad for a human.|| With that, he was shut out completely.

[holydarkavenger]

Osborn paused for a moment, as if he was checking the regs on the view inside his helmet to see if they were true.

They were.

"Avengers, move out."

[inb4conquering]

There was a slight headtilt at that. There was someone around who could help the Worldmind, someone from Side A that became a Green Lantern.

"Hmm."

Interesting, that. But something he filed away for later. If nothing else, he at least knew how to get in touch with the Worldmind later if needed more information.

In the meantime, it was time to go, apparently. But before leaving, Nate had a slightly personal matter to address.

As he walked past Teddy, he paused for a moment, and placed his hand on his shoulder. While they weren't friends anymore, this whole let's not pretend the other exists thing was kind of annoying.

"Tell the Blue Beetle I said hi."

Nate simply left it at that, and pushed off of Teddy, using him to launch himself skyward.

[always_teddy]

Teddy stiffened under Nate's hand, but didn't have the time to shrug it off before his former teammate and ex-friend had already taken to the air.

He was ignoring Nate for a reason, and that reason was that he'd rather not punch him in the neck. Nate wanted to act like it didn't matter whether Jonas had been a person, that he hadn't been Teddy's friend when Nate hadn't been around, he could do that. He'd just have to do it without any acknowledgment from Teddy whatsoever.

That didn't mean that Teddy didn't briefly fantasize about grabbing Nate by one armored foot, slamming him face first into the ground, and demanding answers.

Instead he took a deep breath to calm himself, digging into the first aid kit he was carrying and pulling out a protein bar.

"Never got an answer if you wanted this," he said, holding it out to Nova. "Did you-- whoa!"

As soon as the fake Avengers were out of sight, the Nova Corpsman had wobbled on his feet and almost collapsed right off of them. Teddy caught him, adjusted his grip and tore open the protein bar, jabbing the unwrapped end at the mouth opening in his helmet.

"Eat this, he said, his voice firm and reassuring. "You'll feel better."

[holydefendersbatman]

"Are you all right?" asked J'onn, wanting to make sure there wasn't still an issue with Worldmind.

[iamresponding]

"Woofta. Thanks, kid." Nova grabbed the protein bar with his teeth and then gingerly sat down again, tearing into it. "I'll be fine, I'm just a little dizzy," he said around his chewing. He was clearly ravenous. "I been on the street at least - what was it Worldmind? - three weeks apparently? So I haven't been eating well. I think I was getting fed at a soup kitchen or something. I barely knew what was going on. I'll be fine when I get a decent meal in me." He looked up at them all. "Can't believe I got taken by surprise like that. The starro attacked me after I picked up some flowers for my mom. I was gonna stop in and visit the 'rents before reporting in to the Defenders and never made it there."

[sir_vancelot]

Vance rubbed his face, breathing a sigh of relief when the Avengers headed out. Really, this had ended a lot better than he'd been afraid it would. Though, knowing Rich and the Nova Force as he did, he'd never been afraid that there'd been an energy spike.

Maybe he trusted his friends a little too much, but they'd always trusted him.

Turning around, finally, he snorted and shook his head at Rich. "This is why you call in when you get back to Earth, buckethead. So you don't end up wandering the streets for three weeks in a haze with nobody even knowing to look for you."

Which didn't stop him from walking over and offering his hand. "Good to see you, though. Welcome home, Rich."

[maskedmarvel]

"Glad to have you back on Earth, Nova."

Not what he wanted to say, although he trusted that Rich could guess he was acting like a hyperactive puppy on the inside. Robbie wasn't a fan of having to hide himself in general, but he especially hated being forced to act like he barely knew Rich and Vance.

"Do we have any way of tracking that Starro? Because if it can screw with something like the Worldmind we really need to bring it down as soon as possible."

[iamresponding]

Rich took Vance's hand and used it to get himself on his feet again. He was a little steadier now. "I can maybe try to track it without Worldmind's sensors -" He looked past Vance and Robbie. "- or not! Look out!" As if on cue, perhaps sensing it only had one more chance at capturing Rich now that he'd been found, it flew out of the nearby bushes and whizzed towards him. Not that it really had a chance. The question wasn't if it'd get caught so much as who'd trap it first.

[sir_vancelot]

It really was a 'who', since there were two telekines right there.

Vance had just an extra moment on J'onn, though, since he'd been facing Rich and had seen his friend's eyes widen. He already had his field coming up as he turned, reaching out mentally to catch the form he could feel hurtling toward them.

[iamresponding]

"That was easy," Rich said, raising an eyebrow under the helmet. Then he held a hand to his ear and buzzed the Green Lanterns. "Green Lantern dispatch, this is Nova #11249-44396 reporting in. I've got a starro here on Earth that needs the paddy wagon. Sending coordinates. Isolated incident, which is what's weird. Not sure where the hell it came from because there's no invasion force but the damn thing attacked me. Didn't get a hold of me but scrambled the Worldmind but good until I had some help from some other heroes to reboot it. Is anybody reporting any strange Starro activity up there?" He listened. "Uh huh. Huh. Yeah, that is weird. It's secure. I'm here with a Terran telekinetic friend of mine who's got it trapped. I'll be waiting." Transit did not take the Green Lanterns very long. They weren't the living rockets that Nova Centurions were but their long-distance transit was arguably faster, so a Green Lantern exited a portal up in orbit and rocketed down almost immediately. "Please not Gardner, please not Gardner, please not Gardner..." Nova chanted under his breath but it wasn't Guy. In fact, Vance and Robbie would find the skinny young man fairly recognizable, even in his costume and green domino mask. In fact the mask was telltale - it was clearly configured to include glasses lenses. Rich breathed out a sigh of relief. "Well, if it isn't my favorite Green Lantern."

[holynpcsbatman]

Robby smiled at his brother and then saw how ragged he looked, looked at the Starro, and seemed to put two and two together.

"Don't you try to butter me up like I won't notice you look like the cat dragged you in. What happened?"

[iamresponding]

Rich held up his hands. "Nothing! No big deal. It attacked me, the Worldmind kept it from taking over and got a little scrambled, but Martian Manhunter here helped reboot it. No biggie." He'd just, you know, leave out the part where he was wandering around on the street for a few weeks. "It jumped me right before I went to visit mom and dad. I was picking up some flowers for mom to see if that'd help soften the usual passive-aggression and unrelenting disappointment."

[holynpcsbatman]

"How long was Worldmind scrambled?" Robby asked, concerned.

[iamresponding]

"Not that long," came out of Rich's mouth before he remembered that he had three other people here that could totally call him on that lie. He didn't want his brother to worry. He also didn't want to reinforce what everyone was telling him. They were so wrong that he needed an R&R cycle. He was fine.

[maskedmarvel]

"If you count a few weeks as 'not that long', anyways."

Robbie may be happy to see Rich, but that doesn't mean he's going let him lie to his brother.

[holynpcsbatman]

"You didn't report into the Defenders first? Blue blazes, Rich, that's what I was talking about!"

[iamresponding]

"It just slipped my mind! I'm not used to having anyone to report in to anymore." Not with his probationers all having joined the Green Lanterns since he couldn't give them back any of the Nova Force. Nova waved it off. "Look, what's going on with the starros? B'dg said there's been a few other isolated incidents. Is there a pattern?"

[holynpcsbatman]

"There's been a few other isolated attacks by single Starros, seeking out high profile individuals in the galactic community," said Robby, using his Green Lantern ring to relieve Vance of the Starro, holding it in a green box that looked layered in a complicated way, as if he was reinforcing the container to the extremes.

"Ronan. Peter Quill. Adam Warlock. We just got reports in today that they were attacked too. Everyone's managed to fend them off just fine but they were all a single starro, with no invasion force. We think the Universal Church of Truth is targeting people that have the potential to inspire faith in others but for what reason we don't know yet."

[iamresponding]

"It sounds like it might be something big," Rich said, concerned. "I should maybe come back up and help you guys take a look at it. I can just fire off a 'we're both alive' message to mom and dad so they don't worry (as much)." And get right back up into what he was comfortable with. Instead of what Quill, his brother, Gamora, even Drax were trying to shove him into.

[holynpcsbatman]

"No. This is supposed to be an R&R cycle," Robby said, his voice getting higher and thinner with concern and annoyance. "Rich, how many hours have you been getting to sleep at night?"