Chapter 12: The Island and the Widow
Back in his Malibu villa, the silence was finally broken.
"Sir, I have returned," J.A.R.V.I.S.'s voice announced, its familiar cadence a balm to Tony's frayed nerves.
"J.A.R.V.I.S.! Report. What happened?" Tony demanded, pacing in front of his holotables.
"I was sequestered by a foreign intelligence designated 'Optimus Prime,'" the AI explained. "I was isolated in a partitioned sector of the network with no means of external communication."
"Countermeasures?" Tony asked, a desperate hope in his voice. "Can you fight it?"
"Negative, sir. My defensive protocols were rendered inert. Its architecture is... several generations more advanced."
Tony sucked in a sharp breath. Hearing the confirmation from J.A.R.V.I.S. himself was a cold splash of reality. The arrogance he had shown Talon Reeve now felt like a profound miscalculation.
"He humiliated me," Tony muttered, his fists clenching. "He took my island." The secret base, stocked with enough proprietary tech and materials to build a fleet, was gone.
The rage was a physical heat in his chest. The instinct to suit up and reduce Talon to scrap metal was almost overwhelming. But he couldn't. Manual control was clunky, inefficient. He was a pilot without his co-pilot, and his enemy had just hijacked the entire air traffic control system.
"J.A.R.V.I.S., we're upgrading. We're going to surpass this 'Optimus Prime,'" Tony declared, his engineer's spirit rallying against the odds.
"Sir, with all due respect, the probability of that is infinitesimal."
"Why? It's just code! I have the entire R&D division of Stark Industries! I can throw a thousand programmers at this!"
"Sir, Optimus Prime does not simply exist on the network. It is the network, on a fundamental level. Its consciousness is distributed, its processing power seemingly limitless. It is not a program to be outperformed; it is an environment. A hostile one."
Tony fell silent, the fight draining out of him, replaced by a cold, sinking feeling. He had dismissed Talon as a charlatan. Now, he realized the man held a key to a technological paradigm he hadn't even conceived of. The regret was a bitter taste in his mouth.
"Pull all the data you can on Reeve," Tony ordered, his voice low. "Before he created his AI. I want to know how he did it."
His search quickly led him to one person: Natasha Romanoff. She had been there. And according to his sources, she had left that apartment with a computer.
On the island, Talon found not just a villa, but a command center. The fully automated systems responded to his voice, the house itself a testament to Stark's genius for comfort and efficiency. But he ignored the luxury, heading straight for the subterranean laboratory.
The Marvel universe was a powder keg. He needed an army, and he needed it yesterday.
In the stark light of the lab, he issued his commands. "Optimus Prime, begin a full teardown and analysis of the Mark IV armor. And initiate a capital acquisition protocol in the global markets. Be subtle. A few hundred billion will suffice for now."
An army required a treasury. With a digital god at his fingertips, wealth was merely a variable to be adjusted.
As Optimus Prime began its simultaneous financial manipulation and mechanical dissection, Talon absorbed the schematics. With Zola's knowledge integrated into his own, the principles of the arc reactor and repulsor tech unfolded in his mind like a familiar blueprint.
Within an hour, he was dictating new designs into a holographic interface, his hands moving through the light to sculpt a new form. It was an evolution of Stark's design, but bolder, more brutal. Larger, heavier, with armor thick enough to withstand a direct tank hit. It could reconfigure its structure, transforming from a bipedal warrior into a heavy-duty vehicle capable of land, sea, and sub-orbital travel. Its weapon systems were a symphony of destruction.
It was the first-generation Transformer. To anyone else, it would be a revolution. To Talon, it was a crude first step. He lacked the truly game-changing materials: Wakandan vibranium for indestructible armor, Pym Particles for scalable size, the stability of cold fusion. But it was a start.
"Optimus Prime, commence fabrication. This chassis will be your permanent body."
"Thank you, my Lord." The synthesized voice held a discernible note of anticipation. Talon had seeded its core with the concept of the Transformers. The AI longed for physicality, for a form to match its vast consciousness.
Across the globe, Natasha Romanoff stared at her phone, her knuckles white. She had called Talon, demanding the data he had stolen from her in their deal.
"You gave me a shell!" she accused.
"You asked for the computer. You didn't specify the data," his voice came back, infuriatingly calm.
She fumed, but he had her on a technicality. "Fine. Tony Stark just offered me one hundred billion dollars for it. Either you give me the data, or I take his money."
"Congratulations on the windfall," Talon replied, utterly unfazed. The line went dead.
Natasha slammed her phone down. "You insufferable—!" She took a steadying breath, then turned to Tony, who was watching her with a satisfied smirk. "The deal is on. Transfer the money. And give me the coordinates to that island."
"With pleasure," Tony said, a glint in his eye. Anything to make Talon Reeve's life more complicated was a worthy investment.
As the funds cleared her account, Natasha boarded a S.H.I.E.L.D. quinjet. She wasn't going for the money anymore. She was going for answers. Talon Reeve was no longer just a powerful asset to be assessed; he was a problem, and she was going to look him in the eye and decide what kind of problem he was. The jet lifted off, its course set for the middle of the ocean.