A month had passed since the attack on me. To say that the attack hit me hard would be an understatement. Not only were all those who tried to save me killed, but it was also my first killing—both in my past life and in this one. It's not that it drastically changed my behavior or plans, and at first, I didn't feel anything under the influence of adrenaline and the chaos around me. But now, as everything had calmed down, it was time for reflection, and I could physically feel invisible clamps squeezing my heart when I thought about what I had done.
At night, this was especially acute. My sleep became fragmented and restless. Sometimes I woke up in a cold sweat, the image of John's torn body or the dull, wet sound of Shocker's head hitting the dashboard still fresh in my mind. Over and over, I replayed the moment I pulled the trigger. The deafening roar in the confined space, the recoil jolting my wrist, the smell of gunpowder mixed with blood. It was dirty, terrifying, and sickeningly real.
Well, it's one of those things—it'll pass on its own. Besides, my father had me see a psychologist, Amelia Rogers. No, she wasn't related to Captain America, who was also a woman here, at least according to the abundance of online information confirming her past. In short, after attending sessions for this month, I finally came to my senses, and they told me that this problem was resolved, but if I wanted, I could continue. That's the kind of life they have here in America. In my past world, people didn't go to psychologists unless they were forced to, and it was good if it was a psychologist and not a psychiatrist.
The sessions with Amelia were... an interesting experience. Her office was bright, with soft pastel furniture and the scent of lavender. She spoke to me in a gentle, insinuating voice, asking the "right" questions about my feelings, dreams, and fears. And I, in turn, gave her the "right" answers. I described "nightmares," talked about the "survivor's guilt," using all the terms I knew she wanted to hear. I played the role of a traumatized but recovering teenager. Inside, my programmer's mind analyzed her techniques, noting NLP and cognitive-behavioral therapy tricks. I wasn't lying to her, no. I just presented the truth in a package she needed to tick the box in the report for my father. I truly felt fear and guilt, but I also felt something else—cold, ringing rage and firm determination, which she didn't need to know about.
By the way, I dug around the local internet and can say that my programming skills aren't enough here: although the world is about twenty years behind mine, the programming languages here are very strange and differ significantly from what I'm used to. I still have to study all this, but given my experience and general genius, I think it won't be a problem. Maybe I could introduce familiar "pluses" here? Or some "Java" with "Python"? On one hand, it's not needed here at all, the approaches are too different, and ours, unfortunately, are inferior to the local ones in many ways. But on the other hand, "created a completely new programming language at 14" sounds pretty good, and maintaining the image of a genius kid is necessary.
Over this month, I visited Connors three more times, and we finally started to understand his development from a biological point of view. Security was increased, but my father said that he had "resolved everything." I doubt he killed the Big Man; he probably just somehow negotiated with him, which is why security was increased—it's better to be safe with such people. The gang wars ended a week ago, and according to police data, civilian casualties "decreased by 789 percent" after that attack.
In my free time, besides science, I practiced hand-to-hand combat with the guards. My father promised to hire some super-duper cool mercenary who specializes in this, but that would be needed once I had at least some basic training. Right now, my experience was limited to a couple of martial arts classes from my past life and a dozen fights with other dropouts like me, which, as you can understand, was nowhere near that basic level.
Training took place in the underground gym of the mansion. A huge room with soft flooring, boxing bags, and a whole wall of various weapons. My sparring partner was usually one of the guards, a huge guy named Karl—a former fighter in illegal deadly competitions. He moved with unexpected grace for his size, and every sparring session ended the same way—I lay on my back, breathing heavily, and he stood over me, calmly pointing out my mistakes. "You think too much, young master," he would say. "You need to think before the fight, not during. Your body should work on reflexes." And he was right. My brain was used to analyzing everything, but my body couldn't keep up with my thoughts. Every time I missed a hit, I felt a burning humiliation and anger at my own physical weakness, but with each training session, I became a little faster, a little more enduring. The pain in my muscles became a familiar background, a reminder that I was on the right path.
At first, my father didn't want to enroll me in Midtown High School because some acquaintance of his offered a great place with the best teachers; I just needed to meet him in person once (for some unclear reason). But I convinced him that changing plans so easily wasn't a good idea, and since I hadn't made any friends all these years, my socialization wasn't complete. In short, Justin said, "It's your choice, son. I'll accept any decision you make," after which he finally submitted the documents. Here, parents handle this, and as far as I know, before enrollment, there should be a meeting with the principal and the school psychologist. But money and my reputation as a genius resolved this issue, so I continued to stay at home.
Shocker's gauntlets and suit went to me. I offered them to my father, but he said he was too busy to study them, so he entrusted this task to me. I was sure Justin would be interested in digging into all this, but even if he really didn't have time, he could have just given it all to the scientists working for us. But no, he entrusted this equipment to me. Nice.
Shocker's gauntlets worked as a portable vibro-acoustic device, incorporating three main modules: energy accumulators, vibration converters, and a resonator. Mini-capacitors in each finger segment and the palm accumulated energy from the built-in power source. They could discharge quickly, delivering a powerful pulse to the converters. Coils and piezoelectric elements served as the link: the electrical pulse was converted into mechanical vibrations. Magnetostrictive coils amplified the amplitude, and piezoelectric elements created high-frequency vibrations that combined into a single resonant pulse. The resonator in the palm collected these vibrations and projected them outward as a directed shock wave. Depending on the setting, the pulse could be short and penetrating (for destroying concrete, metal) or more "stretched," causing concussion or disorientation in the opponent. The recoil suppression system in the suit absorbed some of the reverse vibrations. For this, multilayered damping materials and special gel inserts were used. Otherwise, the destructive energy would return to the user, breaking their own bones.
If we move away from the scientific mumbo-jumbo, this wasn't an incredibly incredible development, considering the properties of local magical and non-magical alloys and materials. As far as I understood, Shocker's suit was in such a strange color scheme precisely because of the rarity of the material from which it was made. Such fabrics couldn't be found in open access, but if you looked in "gray" markets, you could find them in yellow and brown colors. It turned out that when Shocker first started his villainous escapades, he made the suit from what was at hand, and in the future, he didn't change the color scheme because of the already recognizable image. Interesting. The metallic mesh on the suit was designed to protect the user from the gauntlets themselves and was also made from some unusual alloy. Without a deeper analysis, it was hard to say, so I left that for later. In general, the gauntlets couldn't be used now because the suit was damaged, and without it, their use was a huge risk to the user's body. But if I improved them... It still wouldn't be on Stark's level, but it would be quite functional. I'd have to work on that in my free time.
In short, life had settled down, and I was glad about that, except that I continued to carry a pistol with me. I even bought a leather concealed carry holster so as not to alarm those around me, and I also practiced shooting with my father's people because I couldn't do without it. Well, there were still about two months before the start of school, so I needed to push myself harder. I didn't intend to remain a defenseless child...
I also took a bug from my father so that in case of kidnapping, my location would be known to our people. Clothes, of course, had similar ones sewn in, but due to their placement, they couldn't be made too large, so the connection there wasn't the best, and the charge lasted only a couple of days. So, just in case, I threw one into my backpack. It wouldn't hurt.
Evening Before the First School Day
School in America was different from what I was used to. For example, at Midtown High School, the academic year didn't start on September 1st, as it did in my world, but right after Labor Day—the first Monday in September. That was September 5th. The school year ended at the end of June. Throughout the year, they had breaks for winter holidays (about two weeks at the end of December—beginning of January), spring break (usually in March or April), and separate days off related to national holidays. Sitting in the underground lab and scrolling through the scant data I had collected on the individuals I was interested in, who would be studying in the same class as me, I pondered my next steps.
Peter Parker. Apart from the fact that in this world he could be a girl, he was a simple guy who didn't stand out in anything except his studies. He had no friends, but he did have a buddy—Harry Osborn, who was definitely female here—Henrietta Osborn, named after Henrietta Stuart. According to canon, Parker was bullied by some Flash Thompson, named Eugene. In this world's social media, I didn't find such a guy, but I did find "Gina Thompson." An athlete and beauty, she already received a scholarship at school age for her achievements in sports, specifically American football. In most Marvel sources, Peter was in love with some "MJ," who could be either Michelle Jones or Mary Jane Watson. The latter, as I remembered, often had problems with relatives. No information was found, and considering the general direction of this universe, it was likely that MJ could be a guy. Parker was never popular, lived with elderly relatives—Aunt May and Uncle Ben—who replaced his lost parents. What could be said about the guy himself? In different universes, he was different, but usually, he could be described as follows: an empathetic introvert-idealist with a strong sense of duty. The guy had a high level of empathy, a tendency for self-analysis, a constant sense of responsibility, and a desire to act according to his conscience.
You can't buy such a thing with money... Or rather, you can't buy it by signing up for something illegal. You could hire him as a simple worker, and he'd be happy, but then the question was: why would I need a not very loyal (due to future illegal experiments on people) schoolboy, even if he was a genius? Yes, his "justice and sense of duty" reached their maximum level only after the death of his uncle, but... I could prevent that, right? And again, the question of benefit: "why should I save someone?" But I wasn't some scum like Shocker, who wouldn't lift a finger unless you waved money at him. Saving a person was a good deed, and if it cost me nothing, why not lend a helping hand?
Henrietta Osborn. Essentially, a minimalist version of Antonia Stark—unlike the male version from the movies, she was quite intelligent and had won some city and district competitions. An excellent student. But all of this was spoiled by her behavior—I found three different news reports about drunk driving, a couple of times she was involved in scandals in some clubs, and there were mentions that she shot a man who allegedly cheated on her, but there was no confirmation. Maybe it was covered up. Okay, and how was I supposed to get close to them? If Parker was useful or would be useful only in the perspective of becoming a hero, then Henrietta was interesting in herself. Through her, theoretically, I could get a package of her father's company shares, but did I need that? Unlike "Hammer Industries," "Oscorp Industries," although it was in the top ten companies in New York, was recently ranked 23rd by "Forbes" among all companies. They only held on due to contracts with the US military, and before that, Norman, the current CEO of "Oscorp," had sold more than 40% of the shares to stay afloat. Considering that such moments had happened before... In short, calling him an "owner" could only be done with a very big stretch, because he didn't have many shares of his own company left. Officially, it was unknown exactly how many, but they were estimated at 30-35%. In short, I wasn't sure it was worth it, but on the other hand, if I could gather another 20-30% somewhere...
So, how was I supposed to get close to the characters I was interested in? Or rather, what image should I adopt? A simple "son of a billionaire" wasn't enough, and my previous image would be ruined. Then, how about "a genius newcomer who is a bit unsociable but open to communication on scientific topics"? That was quite good because it maintained my image and created the necessary filter for acquaintances, scaring off "unimportant characters" and pushing "important" ones.
What should I take to school? Shocker's gear? Ha, not even funny. Not only did it cost my father a lot to cover up that incident, but it also wasn't very useful. They cleaned it of blood, patched up the holes, but what was I supposed to do with it? It was too big for me, and by the time I put on the suit, everything would already be over. And without Shocker's superhuman reflexes, the first bullet would kill me, although even with them, the chance of death was high—Shocker would confirm that.
A pistol? In the United States of America, it was prohibited to carry weapons into such places: schools, universities, clubs, restaurants, and theaters. There were many other places listed, but for general understanding, this was enough. So, until I became a "police officer or government employee carrying out an order," there would be no pistols at school... On the other hand, who cared about the laws if it saved my life, right? But wasn't this paranoia? Even though my father had looked more anxious this month, I didn't know why, but he continued to say that "everything was fine"... No, to hell with it, I was taking the pistol, just in a concealed holster under my jacket. The risk of an attack wasn't worth it.
I also took a bug from my father so that in case of kidnapping, my location would be known to our people. Clothes, of course, had similar ones sewn in, but due to their placement, they couldn't be made too large, so the connection there wasn't the best, and the charge lasted only a couple of days. So, just in case, I threw one into my backpack. It wouldn't hurt.
POV Justin Hammer
Damn it, Fisk survived! How could he have survived? Those mercenaries stopped communicating, and all investigations showed that they broke into the Big Man's tower, but their further movements couldn't be traced! He couldn't have killed them all, could he? So, there was something I didn't know about. Some new super? Damn it!
I stood by the panoramic window in my office, looking at the nighttime city sprawled below. In my hand, I clutched a glass of whiskey, but the ice in it had long since melted, and I hadn't touched the drink. Again. The news that Fisk was alive had come an hour ago through an encrypted channel from Manfredi, and since then, I hadn't been able to find my place. The anger that was supposed to subside after the news of Fisk's family's death flared up with renewed strength, but now it was mixed with a cold, unpleasant feeling—bewilderment. I, Justin Hammer, was used to controlling everything: every variable, every deal, every person, and Fisk... he had become an unaccounted variable. A mistake that threatened to bring down the entire system.
Okay, he had gone into hiding, and as Manfredi told me, "there would be no problems with him." The mafioso had some kind of meeting where the Big Man was also present, so they discussed something among themselves... Okay, Manfredi had never let me down, so I thought I could trust him this time too. I wasn't going to lower the threat level, though—I knew these gangsters...
Only Zik continued to please me. Kurt spoke only good things about him. I was, of course, already proud of my son, but hearing praises from a friend, my pride only grew. And seeing his serious little face, I wanted to hug the kid, but the "image"... Jessica would have been happy that our son grew up like this. He had absorbed all the best from the Hammers and from her family, without showing the worst sides. Yes, a wonderful child, I was lucky with my heir... Too bad Jessica couldn't see it...