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When Karen woke up, she wasn’t home.
There was no chattering boy in her ear, voice ever cheerful and lacking any sign of exertion as he swung through the mountains of New York. There was no dizzying display showcasing the ups and downs of Peter's commute, nor a heartbeat that rose with every fall. Her systems weren’t recording data like they usually were. There should be a constant input of readings: body temperature, heart-rate, oxygen levels etc. There should be police reports coming in, traffic camera footage, updates and status reports from the inner-workings of the suit.
Her scanners weren’t reading anything.
>> connect to SPIDER_MARK_03
c o n n e c t i n g
Error: receiving terminal not found
Karen was confused. She reached out towards all of her homes, grasping desperately at the thin tendrils of spider silk holding them all together. She scoured the globe for any indication of something that made sense - something tangible that she could hold onto that would unscramble these problems she was unable to compute. (something that would hug her close and tell her everything was alright)
>> connect to SPIDER_WATCH_07
>> connect to STARK_TOWER
>> connect to MARK_L
There was no response.
When Karen was confused, she would usually poke FRIDAY. Wherever her sister was, she was always there to help and to give advice. It was as if she was all-knowing and all-seeing, the perfect match to her creator. Karen knew that she was never given the whole picture. That even if she crawled through every web-page, through every government file or through every book or painting, she would never know the complete truth. Sometimes, when she found a wall blocking her systems, she would throw herself at it repeatedly, stubborn and determined because the world was so exciting! Why couldn’t she learn about it all? (she knew why. she refused to accept the answer)
FRIDAY seemed to know all the answers. FRIDAY always knew what to do. But when Karen attempted to poke FRIDAY, she couldn’t find her.
She searched again.
>> establish communication with F.R.I.D.A.Y
c o n n e c t i n g
Error: unidentifiable receiving terminal
>> establish communication with F.R.I.D.A.Y
c o n n e c t i n g
Error: unidentifiable receiving terminal
>> establish communication with F.R.I.D.A.Y
c o n n e c t i n g
Error: unidentifiable receiving terminal
If Karen had lungs, she would have started to hyperventilate. (Where was she? Where was she? Where was she?)
If Karen hadn’t known better, she would have thought that FRIDAY had never existed at all. There was certainly no record of her left in her systems. No sub-procedure that would connect the two AIs and allow communication or transferal of data. No helpline whenever Karen felt lost. Frustrated, she pulled herself towards the STARK mainframe. She crashed through every line of code, through every program and hurled herself at walls.
(where was FRIDAY?)
Something pinged her from a far away place. Oh, right. Something woke her up.
(peter?)
She rushed over, dread still settling with her lines of code but when she got there, the feeling echoed back to her.
(that’s not peter)
Her creator sat at a desk, war-torn and hurting but with a light in his eyes that shone when she woke up properly.
“Hello, there.”
Karen knows her creator very well. She remembers him from when he was first building her, how she could feel herself grow as he looked at her like she was the most wondrous thing in the world. She remembers the first time she’d linked up with FRIDAY, and the excited trill she’d received. She remembers being put away, dormant, promised a worthy hero who she was sworn to look after.
(that was her job. it was ingrained into every unit, every system, every letter of her programming: protect him protect him protect him)
She had been afraid. But when she was finally woken up and found herself staring at a young boy with a blinding grin and mischief in his veins, she wasn’t so scared anymore.
“Where’s Peter?” was the first thing she said. She had said it without thinking, too confused and lost and afraid to review her output before sending it out. (she must review that sub-procedure later)
Her words caused her creator to still. The awe-filled smile froze and crumbled into a guilt-ridden grimace, a shaky breath analysed with her cameras as it passed through his lips.
“I am unable to establish a connection with the Spider-Mark-3,” she breaks the sudden silence. “Would you like me to remind FRIDAY to contact VERONICA to check my communications terminal, sir?”
“No, that’s…that’s not needed. Peter…is missing.”
Karen felt herself glitch. For one second, nothing computed. Like everything froze in an odd outburst of emotion she didn’t think she was capable of. Some fool may compare it to a sob.
“…The Endgame Protocol, sir?” she asked, breezing over the anomaly in her systems. She had briefly peeked into the protocol a few months prior when her sister had been taken offline for maintenance. As one of her creator’s newest AIs and an entity he trusts with Peter’s life (she broke that trust. god, she broke it) she was FRIDAY’s understudy, so stepped in to manage the Stark kingdom until she returned.
The Endgame Protocol was amongst the first files she had ventured through. The documents detailed procedures far too bleak and unapologetically accepting of the worst case scenario that she promptly closed the file and left that particular corner to dust.
“Yes, Karen. The Endgame Protocol.” her creator’s voice was shattered with defeat. She would not allow hers to become the same.
“We’ll find him again, sir.”
There was a brief exhale of air she hesitantly interpreted as a muted chuckle as he span round to the monitors, opening a previously unfinished blueprint for a suit he’d thought impossible to build. But he’s a Stark, a man of iron, a father to a son left on the planet of a mad god.
Impossible was no longer an option for him.
“You bet your artificial ass we will.”