[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

[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?"

[maskedmarvel]

Robbie interrupted before Rich could get a chance to lie again.

"Four. Straight from his mouth by way of Worldmind."

[iamresponding]

"That's plenty!" Rich protested, glaring at Robbie. He was not letting everyone sideline him like this. "I don't even need that much sleep a night, not with the Nova force. You and Quill and Gamora, you're all pushing way too hard with this vacation thing." Please don't make him take a vacation. Anything but that. "Robby, if the Universal Church of Truth and the Starros are working together, that's a big deal. I should be up there helping you green beans look into it. And there's plenty of people that still need my help after all that damage from the Merge."

[holynpcsbatman]

"Big brother, listen to me," said Robby, reaching his free hand to cup his brother's cheek under his helmet and force him to look him in the eye.

"You haven't stopped moving for years. Three years - almost four now with how time ran differently in that other dimension! In that time, you fought a war, found out half your friends were dead, got infected by and fought the Phalanx, lost the Nova Force, got it back, reformed the Nova Corps, fought Lovecraftian nightmare monsters from another dimension, nearly died as that dimension collapsed while pinning Thanos down, got lost in another dimension - where, according to Quill, you had to fight monsters and giant robots every day," He had to draw in a breath again to finish "- got back to the right dimension just in time to fight in the Crisis, helped form the Defenders, and then spent almost another year answering 8X8's in the regular. And I know I'm missing things in there because you've mentioned the heads of Celestials and space zombies and trying to arrest Galactus and a whole host of things crammed in between every single time you rocketed into the middle of a bigger crisis to save the day."

He made sure Rich was looking at him and enunciated each word carefully.

"You. Need. A. Vacation. You are hereby and forthwith flagged from any and all galactic crises for at least a year unless it gets so bad we have to call you back up. Earth's a mess, if what Rayner's said is any indication, so there will be plenty here to still keep you busy - but you can see mom and dad (and try to convince them to stop being angry at the both of us). You can hang out with your friends. You can - and I know this probably sounds wild - maybe even go on some dates with someone who doesn't have a rep as the deadliest woman in the galaxy."

Seriously, the woman was terrifying.

"I know you have trouble slowing down - human rocket and all - and I won't even say that nobody can keep up that pace. You did. You can. I know you'll keep doing it if somebody doesn't stop you. But spend time with your friends, catch up on some movies you missed, punch guys in the face that don't stand a chance against you for once. This isn't about you needing this, Rich, this is about how you seem to think you don't deserve this. But you do. You've earned a little rest. We've got everything under control up there."

[iamresponding]

For a moment, Rich looked like he was going to argue even more and insist he didn't need it. Truth was he didn't. If people needed him, he'd rocket from crisis to crisis exactly like he'd been doing for as long as they needed him to. But maybe it was a good idea to see his friends and slow down for a little while. Maybe his brother was right and it wasn't something he needed. It was something he wanted, but as long as people needed help out there it was hard for him to convince himself it was something he was allowed to have. His shoulders sloped slightly as he stood there looking at his brother, his body language suddenly making him look a lot smaller and more tired. "I guess I could afford to slow it down for just a little while," he admitted reluctantly. He gave his brother a stern look. "But you have the GLs call me if anything big goes down, you hear me? While it's stil growing hair - I don't want the first time I hear about it to happen after it's already exploded into something huge."

[holynpcsbatman]

"Big brother, I promise we'll call you if it looks like a Celestial is going to destroy an inhabited galaxy by sneezing - or any other similar catastrophes."

Now Robby pulled him into a one-armed hug.

"Now slow down and enjoy picking on the supervillains and stealing their lunch money for a little while, okay?"

He pointed at the others.

"And you." He recognized Vance. He pretended not to recognize Robbie - he knew the drill. "Please make sure this big lug sticks to protecting just one planet for a little while. Instead of, you know, all of them."

[sir_vancelot]

Vance relinquished the Starro once he could see the ring's field completely surrounding it. And had to stand there, a bit startled, as Robby Rider listed all of the things that he knew that Rich had done over the past few years.

And only the things that he knew Rich had done because, yeah, Nova had a thing about not tooting his own horn these days. Not that anybody who had only seen him during their early New Warriors days would ever believe that, but that was what growing up did.

From the sounds of it, Rich had done a lot of growing up in space.

He took a moment, then nodded when Robby spoke to him. "Yeah, I'll do everything in my power to keep him on Earth for a while. Though the way the personality interface was talking, I'm not sure that he won't find himself grounded if he doesn't take it easy for a while." And it was kind of a trip to think that dealing with the supervillains on Earth would be a vacation for Rich, but whatever. It sounded like he needed one.

[iamresponding]

With that, Robby left and Rich waved him off. "Think I'm going to head back to the tower first before visiting my parents. I could use a meal and a shave." And maybe a nap. Or maybe even a good night's sleep. Wouldn't hurt to visit them tomorrow instead, right?

[holydefendersbatman]

It was just a short flight back to Defenders Tower.

"If you'll excuse me, I'm due for monitor duty. Nova, if you find that you have any difficulties with the Worldmind matrix or psionic backlash, please let me know and I'll do my best to assist you."

[iamresponding]

"Thanks J'onn. Seriously. I might've been in trouble if you hadn't fixed it so quickly. It would've been a nightmare if Osborn and Luthor had gotten their hands on me while I was out of it like that. I don't even wanna think about what would happen if they got their hands on Worldmind and the Nova Force." After J'onn had left, Nova turned to Robbie with a grin, collapsing his helmet so it was cloth-like and tucking it into his belt. "Okay, we're in private now and I can tell you've been wanting to bounce off the walls since I showed up, Toothpick, so go right ahead."

[bouncytrouncy]

"Finally!" Robbie said, peeling off his facemask and giving Rich a quick hug.

"You gotta tell me some of the stuff you've been doing. I mean, Robby said something about you dating the deadliest woman in the galaxy."

[iamresponding]

Rich hugged him right back in a bear hug that lifted him right off his feet, then put him down and got him in a headlock to give him the noogie to end all noogies, before finally letting him go. "Listen, some of the stuff I've dealt with out there will blow your damn minds. One of my friends now? Is a talking Russian cosmonaut dog. He's the head of security of a space station inside the dismembered head of a dead Celestial that floats at the edge of the universe." He gestured with his hands. "There's an end to it, apparently. There's an actual edge to the universe. And Robby wasn't making up the thing about me trying to arrest Galactus. Not as cool as it sounds, though - that was more crazy and desperate." He'd been on Earth after all those adventures before, a few months ago, but he'd barely been around. He'd helped the team with a few disasters so they could get established, then he'd headed right back up again. He hadn't exactly had time to talk much about what he'd been doing up there. This was the first time back that he'd actually have time to shoot the shit with his friends again. He went to hug Vance now, a rib-squeezing one. "You both gotta tell me what's going on with you, too, and about everything I missed." He pointed to Teddy. "And you, you should hang out with us for a bit. I wanna get you updated on the Skrull and Kree situation. Unfortunately, that might be affecting you before long, kiddo."

[always_teddy]

Teddy's smile at the rib-crushing reunion of friends promptly turned into a grimace.

"Can we just tell them that I snapped back into the Cataclysm?" he asked miserably. "It happens. I can come up with a new identity. I'll even do the training over again from scratch."

[sir_vancelot]

Vance laughed at the hug, giving Rich one back almost as hard. He'd put on a lot of muscle of his own over the past few years, after all.

Nothing compared to Rich, really, but he could give at least partly as good as he got.

"We'll do our best. Robbie probably knows more than I do, though." Because, yeah, Vance hadn't heard about the 'dating the most dangerous woman in the galaxy' thing. "And considering the stories it sounds like you have to tell, ours should be pretty boring. Though I can't tell, yet, if they're going to make me jealous of my future alternate self or not."