Chapter 21: Eureka

Chapter 21: Eureka

The metal woman sat on the floor among the broken pieces of my coffee table, looking around as if wondering how she got here. Neither of us made any more sounds until she looked back up at me. Her hair was pulled back, though it lacked individual strands of hair.

"Ema?" I asked after a moment. "That you?"

"Who else would it be?" She asked, still no expression on her face. "You saw me connect to this, and then saw me changing its default setting."

"I I don't know." I admitted, rubbing the back of my head. "I guess I wasn't quite ready for this."

Ema looked down at her body before struggling, trying to stand. She clearly wasn't sure what she was doing, so I walked to her and helped her up to her feet. Her body was solid with absolutely no give, and heavy as well, though not ridiculously so.

"What's going on?" I asked. "Everything alright?"

"Everything is fine. I'm just having to well program isn't the right word, teach it maybe? A little bit of both. The creation-"

"Nope, not calling it that, makes me sound like either a mad scientist or someone with a god complex." I said. "How about calling it your exosuit?"

"I suppose that works." She answered as I helped her sit on the couch. "My exosuit needs to learn. I can control it pretty well"

She said, raising her hand and transforming it into a variety of things, from a cube, to a pyramid to a cylinder, a second head then finally a pretty decent replica of Lady Liberty's torch.

"But the second I stop controlling it." She continues, the torch losing its definition and shrinking back to a hand. "It goes back to its default. The default was originally the cube that came out when you first made it, but now it's this."

She gestures to herself, her face still completely expressionless. She looked down at the broken mess of a table and stared at it for a moment before her legs liquefied and spread out, engulfing all of the smaller shards. She worked for a moment before her legs returned to their now default shape, all of the pieces she gathered stacked together in a pile before continuing.

"Though it still returns to a cube when I'm not inside it. But I'm going to have to teach it how to move, how to stand, and how to emote." She explained, looking up at me and slowly smiling before letting her face settle back to expressionless. "It's going to be an interesting process."

"I know you can handle it." I said encouragingly, kneeling next to the couch, carding pieces of the coffee table and tearing it away. "I mean would you rather it somehow come pre programmed with all that stuff?"

"I I suppose that's a fair point." She admitted.

"Where is your real body?" I asked.

Her body rippled, her chest flowing and shifting to either side to reveal her small drone frame, still connected to the rest of the metal. After a moment her body reformed and smoothed out.

"Can you shift it around?"

"Yes, it can be moved around."

"This this worked out a lot better than I expected." I admitted, shrugging when Ema turned to me. "I assumed it was going to be basic forms, something that would protect you, allow you to move and maybe even fight if need be. I did not expect this fine of control."

"Well I am a named card." She pointed out. "And this is an A ranked card."

"Well yeah but I didn't know I was making an A ranked card yet." I responded, pausing for a moment before hesitantly asking my next question. "Uh soo. Should I get you some clothes or something?"

"Clothes? It's a bunch of metal and goop you turned into pseudo programmable smart metal." Ema pointed out. "And I'm still just a drone inside it. Why would I need clothes?"

"Okay, well first you're not 'Just' a drone, I want that to be very clear. '' I said, not willing to hear her belittle herself. "I will give you the same respect and rights that true artificial life deserves, which is the same that any natural born life does. If you don't think clothing is important that's fine, but it's not because you 'just' anything."

"I Thank you Carson." She said after a minute. "For now I don't believe I need clothes. That might change at some point."

"In that case when you eventually go out into the world you might want to change up your look." I said, standing from the now cleared floor and sitting at the couch. "Reasonable people probably wouldn't care after you explain it but if the average person is perfectly reasonable"

"Than fifty percent of the world is less than reasonable. Alright, I'll come up with an armored or less detailed version."

"It's lower on the list, your ability to move and emote are more important I'd think." I said before adding. "But ultimately it's your choice. It's your exosuit, your form."

"I appreciate that Carson and sorry about the coffee table."

"Holy fucking shit Ema, you scare the hell out of me! When did you get out of the exosuit?"

"A minute or so ago." She answered simply. "I couldn't watch you work in it."

"It's harder to watch me work if I die of a heart attack too." I said before taking a deep breath, noticing the cube of her exosuit in the corner. "And yes, it is bizarre. But it works."

"How far can you push it before you hit diminishing returns?"

"I don't know, but now that I have money to spend I'm much more tempted to not care about diminishing returns until it turns into no returns."

I picked up two of the larger quivers and combined them together, before repeating the process a few times. After four more combinations I studied the card.

"It's still growing strong." I said. "I think the variety of the quivers is helping."

I kept combining, this time starting a new large quiver, again combining it five times in total and then combining those together. Encouraged by the result I kept combining, even when diminishing returns started to show up. When I was done I pushed the quiver out into my hands and began the process of pulling out all the arrows so I could count them.

"Two hundred and four arrows." I finally said. "That's pretty damn good, even for a B ranked card."

"It's certainly an upgrade to your current quiver." Ema responded. "Assuming that's what this one is for?"

"Yeah, Clint gets the small one so they can fit it on his back with his current one." I explained while feeding the arrows back into the bag before carding it again. "I'm not making his auto organizing like mine so he will need to keep his current kit."

I pushed out my old modified quiver and made sure it was full before carding it and combining it with my new expanded quiver. The result was still B ranked but could store two hundred and eleven arrows. I once again emptied the quiver, immediately putting my special arrows back before adding all of the arrows I had made so far. Noticing that it had plenty more room, I combined nails and screws with the blunted tipped arrows I had just bought to make thirty extra arrows that were potentially lethal but wouldn't do anything massively dangerous, like explode or pierce several inches of steel.

After I was done admiring my new piece of equipment I quickly worked my way through the other quivers. I bought thirty six of the smaller tube style quivers between the three stores and when they were all combined down I had a single one that held a hundred and fifty arrows. I emptied the quiver, gathered and carded all of the normal arrows and carded Clint's quiver as well.

I spent a few minutes binding the new quiver to Clint, using half of the supplies they gave me to do so. The quiver went from a simple black leather and plastic tube to one accented with a deep purple.

"Okay, that's one thing down, tomorrow I'll go out and buy everything I need to make Clint's glasses."

"I'm sure Shield would appreciate the quick turnaround."

"... Maybe I should let them know for a few days then?" I said after a moment

"Why?"

"Because, I told Clint that I would have to figure out both of his commissions." I explained. "This could be an opportunity to understate my power."

"Except you already showed them you could make things quickly when you arrived at the second meeting, less than twenty four hours later, with an entirely different costume and abilities." Ema pointed out from the kitchen. "I suppose you could try and convince them that you had been working on it before but would they really believe you?"

"No Probably not." I admitted, not pouting at all. "Alright. I'll make his glasses tomorrow and call him when they are done. Before that though, we need to get you some practice running, jumping and moving around more. Having you as back up would make me infinitely less paranoid when I go out."

"And keep me from wondering if you've been caught when you get stuck in traffic." She shot back before continuing. "Do you have a specific place in mind?"

"Well unless you need something specific I was planning on switching to the super truck and driving to an abandoned warehouse somewhere. I know there are a bunch around the city. They should probably have enough space for you. We can head there super early in the morning and use the sunrise for light. You can practice your movement and I can see about getting familiar with my new deployable armor."

"You don't mind getting up that early?"

"Please, my sleep schedule was doomed the moment I realized I was going to attempt to be a good guy in a marvel universe." I assured her. "Besides, I'll get some sleep now and head out just before sunrise."

"Well thank you." She said..

"You don't have to thank me." I said, waving off her thanks. "Even if getting better and more effective with your exosuit didn't directly benefit me, this would be nothing compared to how you've helped me. Don't worry about it."

I stood and stretched, yawning as I felt my back crack, showing off my improved flexibility to stretch every muscle and joint. I turned, nodding to Ema as I walked to my bedroom.

"I'm going to turn in now. Wake me up an hour or so before sunrise."

Hello everyone! I hope everyone is enjoying the story so far. I'm here to remind you that I have a Pat_reon! It is at _/_MetaBettaOmegaLetta - In times like these every dollar helps. I would like to thank everyone who is supporting me and everyone who is considering it. Thank you!