Chapter 11: Chapter 11: Aftermath

The Fastest Man Alive.
Chapter 11:

Aftermath

 

Alfred felt happy. This wasn't the first time he experienced happiness; but this time he was pleasantly surprised knowing that his self-destruction would not be ordered. Alfred had thought that his destruction would be the thing his creator or technically his father wanted to talk to him about. His father was such a strange man: one moment he was helping that child and saving those caught in apartments on fire, and the next he was terrorizing a man for locations on drug dealers and their safe houses. He also robbed those same dealers in the same night he saved people from a wreck. His father was a puzzle Alfred was unable to quite wrap his mainframe around.  Alfred put that all aside and turned his attention back to his partitions he had browsing the information on the fictional A.I. characters his father told him to study and learn.

He had noted that these A.I.'s Where very helpful in the adventures and not only that but they came up with their conjectures and solutions to problems. This gave Alfred plenty of ideas; this revelation allowed thoughts to upgrade his father's phone and their current computer systems since his father had stated they needed new gear all around and to make back up systems. Not only that, but his father had left him in charge of security Overwatch of his current base of operations.

Alfred already had partitions tracking the people closest to his father. With a mere thought, Alfred's partitions reported all clear.
Alfred made a new sub-mind to handle the tracking and safety of his father's family. The security partition made a report about the latest version of cyber security version eight, causing Alfred to smile.

All the loopholes were being filled, and from his check, the base security was not on par with Pentagon servers, and it only took him eight revisions. Alfred still felt bored, and it has only been a few seconds since he was left to his own devices. The money was being counted by Terry and Allen, but Alfred had already finished his count. The count in question was being updated in real time by a sub-mind that was running a newly created algorithm to not only count but to cross check the current rate of legal tender money laundering, and he also included Terry's ten percent to be sure.

Alfred found himself bored again, so he turned his sights on the omni-directional arms and prototype hoverboard build by Oscorp that his father left on stands. 
Alfred already had created blueprints on how to upgrade the arms, but he wanted a closer look in the systems. The hoverboard can always be upgraded once he was finished with the arms. With a quick call to Allen for help, Alfred was able to get his assistance in hooking up the connection leads from the workstation to the arms. 

What Alfred found in the harness was four foul little A.I. beasties that were more feral than sentient and Alfred wanted nothing to do with them. His first strike ripped apart their codes, and the four A.I.'s tried to retaliate with a coordinated attack, but he was having none of their counteractions.  This counteraction was blocked then he followed up with a strike to the core of the enemy's programming dispersing their codes. Within the extra data cores, Alfred found out what the arms were made for.

This amazed him these arms were sturdy enough to be used on a human-made miniature sun and survive the exposure to such temperatures and magnetic interference, yet the only thing missing was a wireless connection for solo operation. With these arms, Alfred would not be deterred, and this was his chance to help his father with his burdens. With tentative movements, he was able to move one of the limbs connected to the harness. That filled him with delight, with this small test, he found his way to interact with the outside world.

The next thing Alfred had to make sure was working was the optic built within the arms, these were gravely distasteful to Alfred. Yes, he agreed that someone will always need sight on whatever they are operating but having optics located directly in the arms with no movable parts. This was a bad design. With an upgrade to the system's functionality, Alfred connected a spare wifi web camera module and pair it with an external mic and speaker combo within the harness to simulate internals. This way, nothing would be hanging from the outer shell of his new makeshift body. Lucky for him one of the arms had a small welder within its housing. Now it was time to do more around this base. While disconnecting the omni-directional arms from the workstation, Alfred wondered how his father would react to his new operations platform.

---

 

Gwendolyn Stacy / Genius Ballerina

Gwen felt so frustrated she wanted to scream at the top of her lungs. That big dufus had the nerve to build a damn A.I. without any contingency plan, no purge system button nothing. Gwen just wanted to punch Benjamin in his eye to take him down a peg. What made it worse for her was that even with the computer he was using exploded the blasted A.I. still survived somehow.

Gwen just wished it was a month ago when Ben didn't have any powers, and all his talk was just hot air. Gwen was happy for Ben, but she wished he could just put the brakes on and slow down and use some more common sense in his experiments. It seemed that she would have no rest this night because as soon as she sat down to watch the nightly news with her father, Gwen was met with a surprise. On TV was the eleven o'clock story about a blaze and some mysterious hero saving a firefighter and everyone else in the building.  

Gwen watched with bated breath as the news reporter going over the events of the night. Then the news changed to an accident that happened earlier, but the rescue was going down in real time. She watched as Ben, and it was her Ben was saving people by pulling them out of cars. He must not have noticed the cameras were on him since the police weren't at the scene of the situation yet.

Gwen watched from the news chopper that was being broadcast around the city. She looked as Ben looked around and zipped to and from cars saving everyone in the pile-up. Then Ben stops at what appears to be a pinned vehicle. One moment he was outside it, and the next he vanished, the roof was off, and he suddenly reappeared with a pregnant lady within his arms.

The firefighters were at the scene, but it didn't look like Ben had even realized this yet. She watched his awkward body language then it seemed like he changed. His chest came out, and his confidence was back just from a short conversation with the firefighters. Again he was gone, and the cameramen in the news chopper could no longer locate him.

This was when Gwen realized she wasn't paying any attention to her dad speaking to her. "Well, I guess that kid can't be all that bad helping out, but he should leave it to the professionals." Came her father's voice from her left. "I think it a good thing that he is at least trying," spoke up Gwen while turning up the T.V.'s volume.
"No one knows who this mysterious hero is but let's find out from the lady on the ground shall we." Stated the news anchor while the T.V. scene changed.

Out on the side of the street standing in front of the safety police tape was the news van with the news anchor standing in front. The anchor was a lean lady in her early thirties, brunette hair up in a work lady's bun. The first thing that drew Gwen's gaze was the anchor's soft lips but Gwen couldn't rouse on that right now.

She had to find out more information about the situation. "The firefighters claim the person going by the name of LIGHTSPEED rescued everyone on the scene, even recovering the body of the truck driver. This also seems to be the same person that performed the rescue of a downed firefighter we had reported on earlier." Stated the anchor. Her Ben had been extremely busy this night, even after she had gotten mad at him. 

He still went out half prepared and still tried to save the day. Gwen didn't know how to feel about this, on the one hand, she was proud, and on the other she was upset. Ben had still gone out to put his best foot forward even while endangering himself. It's the kidnapping situation all over again Gwen thought, Ben was doing things with half a thought and no contingency plans. She will have to fix that and put a boot up his behind Gwen thought, but first, she is going to have to make sure that the A.I. doesn't go rogue.  Gwen had to begrudgingly admit to herself that Ben was correct that nothing is born inherently evil, but she would never give him the satisfaction of knowing she agreed with him.

Gwen would have to come up with her plans to make sure Alfred stayed on their side since Ben was far too scattered to cover all his safety protocols. Maybe she should exert her girlfriend rights, yes that's exactly what she planned to do.

---

 

Benjamin Blake / Super Fast Semi-Functional Moron / Genius

I got in precisely fifteen minutes after one, and as soon as I made it through the door both my mother and father were waiting right there on the couch for me with the rerun of the news playing. That was when I realized I fucked up, shit, fuck, damit, how can I let it slip my mind that the Professor had given the whole secret about my powers out. Lucky for me, I had the detective father and a mother that's a far better detective than he is. It was hard enough for me not to tell them about the whole kidnapping situation, and now here is another, and this time I can't even sweep it under the rug.

One look at the T.V. gave me a heart attack when in the world did the news get a chopper to the crash site. They even had me on film performing a rescue, well damn I wasn't caught red-handed. With one look at me and then another look at the TV my mom decided it was time to grill my bacon, but my dad beat her to the punch.

"I can see on the news your fast but your not detective dad fast." Came roughly out of his mouth.
My jaw dropped. I can't believe he shot a dad joke right in the middle of this whole situation. My mom took one look at him, then smacked him up the back of the head. "So are you going to explain how and why you're all across the news, and where did you get the fancy suit?" My mother asked with a raised eyebrow.

"Well, well, you see it's ugh." Yeah, I was the new Einstein alright. Give the Professor a piece of my mind, no problem, give Magneto a verbal lashing sure. Give good ole bucket helm a talking to is fantastic but one raised eyebrow from my mother and all the sass and backbone straight out the window. With a cough to clear my throat, I decided to start all over since my father was an easy sell, but my mother was the real pants wearer in this house. I think it's because my dad has seen far too much in his thirty years on the police force, so it mellowed him out a lot.

After tonight am starting to think New York City can have that effect and a few others on a person, it was too bad I wasn't going down the mellow route. "Well the clothes are something I discovered I could make with my abilities, it's a form of energy manipulation." That statement kept her eyebrow raised, and her mouth thinned. She didn't take away her unwavering gaze, I had inherited my gray eyes from her, and people always told me how eerie it is when I stare at them. Now I am starting to understand that, I still don't know when she learned that mom stare of hers that she's currently hitting me with.

So I tried a different approach. "I believed I was the only one that could have saved the people given the situation, the tank could have blown any moment, and that lady was going into labor. I had the speed and strength, so I decided to make a difference." I spoke up rapidly trying desperately to make some brownie points.

I was super desperate to get out of this situation, and I had no clue on how to survive my mother's wrath other than just turning tail and running away. She hadn't started to yell or bring up the whole I carried you for nine months. Or how I was a fat baby at eight pounds and how she had to go through fourteen hours of labor to bring me into this world. So I believe I was somewhat in the clear, and I kept going.

"Mom you know how Peter's uncle is always like saying with great power comes great responsibility. So I thought since I had the power, it was my responsibility to help save lives." At this admittance, she finally cracked a smile, and it took everything I had not to let out a massive sigh of relief.

"I am proud that you saved all those people Ben, I just wished you didn't have to put yourself into such a dangerous situation." She stated.

"Yeah kiddo, even I heard about that building fire it was a rough one. So what's your next step I doubt you're going to stop running everywhere to help. So tell me LIGHTSPEED are you this city's new vigilante protector ." Stated my dad giving me his best detective glare.

Whack!

Came my mother's swift hand smacking my dad upside the head "You're not going to give my son to those hacks down at the Police precinct. So you can keep his identity to yourself or your new bed is in the basement of George's house." She stated with a huff.

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"I do plan to help people as much as I can. Honestly, I want to try the whole vigilante thing but not for myself though. I do have a few goals and plans for the future, but don't you think it's a little late for this conversation?" I asked, hoping my mother wouldn't notice I was desperate to escape this whole situation.

My dad gave me a thumbs up from his right where mom couldn't see his hand, but this night I was in luck. "Yes, you are correct you do have school in the morning. We are going to have a chat about these master plans of yours. She stated while distractedly looking for the TV remote she just had. Before she could even turn back around to me though I was already gone. With one goodnight kiss to the cheek, it was time to escape while the getting was good. It was way too late to have a long drawn out lecture about my plans to make billions and maybe becoming a worldwide superpower were even America was scared to mess with me, yeah maybe I should leave that part out.

 

---

It was four thirty in the morning, and I couldn't for the life of me sleep anymore. I knew what the issue was and I was sort of okay with it, but I miss sleep. That glorious activity of life called sleep. I had gone to bed at around one fifty after all the weird crazy with my parents, and I was back up after just two and a half hours of sleep.

This had started about a week after I got my powers and it didn't have me worried at the time though. Now it had me livid. It turns out gaining unlimited access to a cosmic force like the speed force has its drawbacks. The speed force was powering me truly, but it didn't stop at just speed and electrical powers. The speed force was powering enhancements to my body, and mind. And my recovery was boosted up to unimaginable levels, and that was my current issue right now.

I was powered all the time now, and any rest or break was starting to become unnecessary, which also included sleep, apparently. Which was why I was in a mood but I had to accept the bad with the good, I guess. I had to make sure I entered this into my notebook, and I would also have to include the use of lightning bolts. It was four in the morning, and my body just refused to allow me to go back to sleep, but I can work with this though.

Increasing my perception, I can get my mind to hum along at eight to seven attoseconds, the first time I had even got my brain to go at that speed, it freaked me out. Reading in a scientific journey about how light travels and seeing the light from the sun itself slow down in your very vision was more than enlightening, it was downright terrifying.

I had to be careful with that ability of mine because I wouldn't want to cause self-induced speed psychosis. That's how a lot of speedsters go crazy, and I didn't want to join that list. I had been using my spare time to design tech, that was how I was able to make the code for Alfred, but unfortunately, I found out that computer keyboards can't keep up with my typing. And now that I couldn't be asleep, it was time to share ideas with Alfred. On the way home, I had come up with a prototype design for his body. Lucky for me this universe had a ghost in the shell, and one of my favorites from that show was the little spider bots called Tachikoma, but I wanted to add my streamline twist onto it.

I had to get rid of the big chunky back and replaced it with a more streamlined version, matter of fact it was better to rebuild the whole thing from scratch. I looked around for a bit then realized I left the headset back at the warehouse, so it was time to check a theory out. "You there Alfred?"

"For you, sir always." That caused me to smile since he came from my desktop and not my phone. The desktop was supposed to be in sleep mode, but it seems he could override that functionality already. I was in for a major surprise when the screen came alive though Alfred had changed everything, yet all of my work was still on the system. The entire user interface has been upgraded. It was simple yet elegant.

Alfred had removed all of the Microsoft clutter, and the task manager now included a VPN where Alfred was routing my internet access through sixteen different countries. 
He even included a connection ping response time; the number of upgrades he included was astounding.

"Alright, buddy glad you're here, have you checked over the schematics I had saved to the drive?" I asked him, knowing that he had already taken a peek.

"Yes, sir I did take a gander at your current projects. I hope you don't mind; I made a few adjustments." Came his fast reply it sounded like he wanted my approval.

All I could do was take a look at his adjustments and see what he did. "I can see you were able to increase power efficiency on quite a few of these: nice. And I also noticed you kept the materials within a cost-effective range. Nice going Alfred, well you can help me now since you're here before I went to bed I had an idea for a temporary body for you." I spoke to him after browsing through all the current schematics I had completed and ready for R&D once my company was up and running.

"Before we begin sir, I would like to inform you that the official number of your current liquid asset is at thirty-five million six hundred thousand dollars. That is also after Mr. Terry takes his ten percent," Alfred spoke up while I was getting my drawing tablet. 

That surprised the crap out of me. That was more money than I have ever laid my eyes on, and it was all mine, and this was going to be my seed money to my company.
I was so excited I completely forgot about the time and began to jump up and down running around my room with screams of joy to all that was holy. This was such a massive step in the right direction, but it also brought up ideas about things needed to get done and fast.

Slowing back down from the super speeds at which I was moving, it was time to create a schematic for Alfred's prototype body. Then have him magic A.I. all the parts we needed to our little corner of the city. "Alfred buddy it's time to hash out a body, and then we can use some of that money to get all the parts we need so that it can be built," I spoke up with evident excitement in my voice. While I was creating my version of tachikoma, the body was already made, and I was starting on the inner components when Alfred dropped a bomb on me. 

"I have already made my small prototype chassis sir, but from this design, your creating proves I vastly lacked in imagination, Sir." Came his smooth reply.

"What did you do Alfred and why, please tell me you didn't raid the military's stash of robotics," I asked with desperation in my voice if Gwen found out about this I would be getting a savage I told you so, and maybe my shins would also be in danger.

"Nothing so droll, Sir, Mr. Allen hooked up the Omni-functional arms to the mainframe, and I got rid of those dreadful A.I.'s within the harness Sir. Then it was an acquisition for my purposes." Came his reply in a 'and I couldn't believe you would think that' type of voice.

"Allen just gave you the harness no questions at all, and what did Terry say about that?" I asked him.

"Mr. Terry did have an episode about robots attacking which was dreadful. I believe I am beyond such boorish accusations. Also, Mr. Allen seems to be extremely helpful Sir."

"Well, I do apologize for freaking out Alfred. Also, what happened to you watching the shows I recommend?" I asked him.

"I had a partition watch them, Sir. That's how I came to the conclusion of helping around the base and improving our current situation, Sir." Came his reply. That stumped me, he used a partition to watch awesome shows. That's just downright sacrilege and that had to be fixed pronto.

"Alfred why didn't you watch the shows, using partitions isn't watching the shows," I asked.

"I wanted to review multiple shows at once to better utilize my time, Sir" Came Alfred's reply.

"Alfred buddy one does not simply multitask while enjoying wholesome entertainment. It's my fault I should have better explained it to you. Since a keyboard doesn't hamper your coding skills, you should make yourself a virtual home. This is where you can go to watch your shows one at a time instead of doing multi viewings at once."

"Will this help with the boredom Sir?" Came a question from Alfred I was not expecting.

"Yes and no buddy. You're going to have a lot to watch and read now that you're no longer cheating yourself, but once you build up your own taste in entertainment, everything else might bore you. That's for another time though buddy. Just take your time we are not currently in any rush." I spoke to him with some real sincerity. This was turning into raising a super advanced child. It took me another ten minutes to finish up my version of the Alfred Tachikoma body, and it wasn't even five in the morning. I felt like I could run a few laps around the planet right now, and that wasn't making me any happier about no longer being able to sleep.

Since the schematic for a new prototype body was complete, I had to see what he did with Otto's arms. It made me want to cry since I never even had the chance to try them out. Since he didn't mention anything about the glider, I was still holding out hope to get my mitts on it, and being able to use it around the warehouse.

The sun hadn't even breached the city's skyline, and the city was already alive: man, I love this place. Waiting for me on the roof of the warehouse was what I could only describe as the Omnidroid from the first incredible movie. Alfred had kept the arms connected to the harness, but he had created a ball-shaped plastic exterior for a shell. 

On top of his body sat, a large bulbous camera also shaped like a ball. Although from the way it moved up and down inside a circle shaped insert, I could tell it was connected to some servos and mini actuators. I couldn't figure out where in the world did he get the parts to build that thing and how bored he must have gotten.

Now I was excited to take a look at the rest of the warehouse and see what kinds of improvements he had made. "So this is the new body buddy?" I asked as I walked up to the thing he was now using as a prototype body, but as I got closer, I realized it wasn't that large.

The legs allowed Alfred to extend out roughly thirty feet in length, but the harness was made for a man's waist. Even with all the tech stuffed into it, everything was modular, allowing it all to fit correctly. I didn't want to say it out loud, but he looked like a robopet right now. I now knew what Anakin felt in the Star Wars movies when he met R2D2.

Now that I was closer, I couldn't hear any noise other than the legs scraping across the ground. I wanted to crack it open and see what the insides looked like, but that was pushing boundaries since this is technically Alfred's new body.

With a pat on his head, it was time to take a look at my new and improved base.

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