Chapter Text
Displaying archive file 092004...
Key Word: Rescue
"The Idea is Alive"
[Fall | 2004] - [Washington, USA]
Everything can change in the blink of an eye, and it's easy to feel powerless in such drastic times. Near the middle of the night, half a million residents of Tacoma and parts of South Seattle felt this powerlessness as their TVs, Radios, and electronic devices warned them that the volatile Volcano Mount Raine had erupted for the first time in over a thousand years.
Ten minutes was when these people had to evacuate before a thunderous BOOM sent bone-chilling, ear-popping shockwaves.
Weeks before, geologists and other scientific experts warned state and federal officials of this. They practically shouted to their ears about the profoundly concerning underground tremors they'd been recording. They warned of new cracks on the top and side of the mountain, but little was done. They warned of new smoke vents spewing out and requested at least a fifteen-mile evacuation red zone, but public officials only gave them five. They point to the bulge forming on the western portion of the mountain, moving it over five feet a day, and how this magma bubble is ready to burst. Still, the governor declared a state of emergency only a day before.
The bare minimum was done, and any significant efforts to prepare for disaster came at the last minute. Thus, tens of thousands were helpless as they watched this molten bubble burst.
From the tip of the over four-thousand-meter-tall volcano, an immense squall of ash burst into the sky like smoke spewing out of a cannon. All the metric tons of water outside and inside that mountain has built enough pressure to explode sideways, equivalent to over twelve hundred Hiroshima bombs. Instantly, the colossal two-mile-wide portion of ice and earth of the western face collapsed. At two-hundred and fifty kilometers an hour, rock and volcanic gas blast out of the volcano and down the mountainside. Now, mere minutes after this initial eruption, the moon and stars are blanketed by a wall of poisonous ash in the sky, leaving tens of thousands in darkness as total disaster awaited them.
Suddenly, a bright blue comet shot out of the void of ash. "Blue leader and all other systems at peak optimization," the voice yelled through mechanical hardware, "Commencing Operation R.E.S.C.U.E.!"
This speeding comet was a woman, a young woman shielded from head to toe in shimmering blue and white armor made with the most advanced technology and hardware on this side of the continent. She was not alone, as barely seconds later, nearly a hundred crate-sized metal drones collectively soared behind her, all controlled by the one-woman force that was the metal heroine, Rescue! Out of the dark cloud, a red digital ring wrapped around her eye as her vision zoomed in and analyzed the collapsing glacial ice and rock.
[Post-eruption activity matching with ninety percent of prediction simulations] Her suit's Mainframe AI announced. [With simulated wind conditions and topography of Pierce County, this lateral blast and magma will flatten everything northwest of Rainer within a thirty-two-kilometer radius in approximately seven hours]
Rescue shifted her gaze westward, down the bottom slope of the fiery mountain. "And how long till it reaches towns like Ashford? Carbonado? Orting? Buckley?"
With their immense processing power, Mainframe responds within a second by reporting. [Even with the current evacuation process, there is a ninety-five percent likelihood that the Nisqually River to the southwest and the Puyallup and Carbon Rivers to the northwest will flood all six-thousand, five hundred and seventy-five civilians within 16 minutes.]
'16 minutes to fight a volcano. Time to think hard!' Rescue thought before firing her thrusters towards the Nisqually River while most of her drones steered towards the Puyallup and Carbon Rivers.
She swoops over the flood of magma, which is starting to flow down the Nisqually and into the valley. The molten rock buries acres of woodland and squishes tall, sturdy trees like twigs. It didn't take a genius like her to imagine the damage such force could do to the human structures. Acting fast, Rescue flew closer to the intensely hot lahar and extended her arms. "Repulsar rays!" Two bright blue particle beams blasted out of the palms of her metal gloves, striking the rushing lahar as an intense bloom of steam shot out of the lahar like a rocket was shot off. These weren't any offensive weapons. However, Rescue has calibrated the particles of her rays to slow down intensely, essentially turning these rays into ice beams. The rapid and intense concentration of cold turned the over twelve hundred degrees Fahrenheit magma into solid rock.
With this ability and the speed of her armor, Rescue flew from one end to another, intensely cooling the front of the flow into one long column of rock. The sheer speed and weight of the magma behind it were only temporally slowed before sections were buried or broken through. However, these extra seconds allowed her to reveal her primary defense strategy. "Mainframe, is the program ready?"
[Yes, Doctor]
A dozen blue metal crates swoop to her position, initiating their programming and breaking themselves apart. Almost a hundred long rods were jettisoned out, their inner nanite cells activating and duplicating them while making them taller and thicker. These rods land a few dozen yards ahead of the flow's path, striking deep into the earth and simultaneously lighting up as a new energy buzzed within them. As the magma overcame the barrier, these rods activated their primary function and created tall particle shields connecting with each rod to make a wall that stretched over one and a half miles long.
Rescue shot into the air, seeing her long particle shield take the brunt of the magma but remain standing. Despite this immediate stop, there were still endless tons of rock and magma coming down the mountain and the little time she had left meant she didn't have nearly enough of these shields to cover the whole mountain. She can't misuse one drone or waste any of her energy. "Upgrade, now!"
[Yes, Doctor]
With the remaining drone in her vicinity, Rescue felt like it separated and latched onto sections of her armor, turning it into a bulkier version with two levitating reflector rays behind her.
[Current Power upgraded from 90% to 125%, Doctor]
Rescue launched off at even faster speeds. Her targeting computer highlighted clumps of the magma to best target before firing a barrage of freezing rays. One after another, large clumps of manga were turned to cold rocks; Rescue deliberated the spread of these clumps. Rather than wasting precious power on blanketing the whole flow, she's decreasing the overall temperature by allowing the rocks to cool down the remaining magma. Not only that, but the dozens of frozen rocks also disperse the weight and flow of the magma, essentially creating more minor barriers that lift the burdens of her primary particle wall.
[Time Remaining: 12:27]
"Gonna need another forty seconds, but still making good time," Rescue said as a grand explosion erupted from the volcano. Despite shrinking by nearly a thousand meters, the volcano was still volatile, and another flow of lava spewed out and hurled a shower of debris. Rescue flew to close up this smaller hole but faced a barrage of rocks raining down on her. Even the most minor debris, going hundreds of miles per hour, riddled her armor with scorches and dents. She was so close to the primordial liquid that only her armor stood between her and being lit on fire. Getting closer to the eruption didn't help as another small blast shot out of the volcano, spraying a blanket of lava at Rescue. Even as she blasted it with her cold rays, the sheer amount of electricity and intense charge of particles in the air threatened the stability of her armor's mechanisms.
"Idiot! I can't blast more cold particles into the tip of this. All the vapor, the cold, and heat at this altitude will create only more volcanic hail and lightning!" Rescue's eyes widened as an idea popped into her head. "Vapor! Mainframe: switch gadget perimeters to air and ventilation programming." Rescue's armor reshuffled itself, diverting energy sources to transform her enhanced particle rays into advanced vacuums. As silly as that may sound, its results were nonetheless effective as Rescue took aim and began sucking up all the vapor from the new magma flow. Her bulkier back shoots out plumes of steam out her back as her arms release a mighty pressure that sucks out any trace of heat.
Rescue smiled as the flow began to petrify into solid rock until this new layer of rock plugged up the hole.
[Current Power at 80%, Doctor. Time Remaining: 10:49]
Rescue detached the upgraded sections; they've run out of power and will only slow her down. She could already feel the toll on her armor; her sensors were buzzing from the blizzard of ash, and everything was pitch-black and dark beyond the glow of the magma. 'Stay focused. One down, two to-'
ZAP!
A lightning bolt blasts the rescue, spewing a ripple of volcanic lightning out of the volcano and into the ash cloud. Struck by over 30,000 degrees Celsius of concentrated heat, Rescue blasts out of the sky and crashes down the mountainside, kicking up an ash cloud.
Everything turned as dark as the ash-ridden sky above as Rescue's mind blacked out from the electricity that coursed through her body. She didn't even feel the crash's impact, her mind drifting from the present to the past. She couldn't feel the heat of the blanket of ash burying her, but she felt the warmth of her big brother's hug after she won the top of her elementary class. She didn't hear the apocalyptic booming of the volcano, but she heard the deafening artillery as government forces closed in on his family's home. She didn't see all the blaring alerts Mainframe displayed, but she saw the tears in her mother's eyes, speaking her last goodbyes before never seeing her again.
With a sharp gasp, Rescue's fist punched out of the ash as she pulled herself out, instantly firing the rockets that hurled her into the sky. System errors blasted her ears, and alerts blinded her eyes. "Mainframe," Rescue exhaled, trying to snap herself out of her daze, "status on Carbon and Puyallup flows!"
[Particle shields airdropped by drones are holding, but their systems are entering critical levels.]
"Time?!"
[5 minutes remaining, Doctor]
"Suit's status?"
[Due to vital damage to host and suit systems, life support was necessary and has reduced power to 39%]
"And no drones left to boost the suit's power." Even with all the gadgets and power this suit gave, Rescue, at this moment, felt the dread only powerlessness could inflict on a human. The math told her there was insufficient power to save all the threatened thousands. There were limited tools, and any emergency response would come too late. What could a person ever do in this situation? "Adapt. Think harder," she whispered.
Flying toward Puyallup, she observed the broad valley between the Puyallup and Nisqually rivers. She zoomed in, scanning the valley with sensors, and detected no human life. The wildlife had long run away, sensing the eruption before. "Mainframe, switch all power to offensive capabilities. I have a plan! Keep me notified on Puyallup shields." Feeling a significant surge of concentrated, heated plasma coursing through her suit, Rescue maps out the target area that's wide and deep enough before firing her uni-beam from her handmade arc reactor. This widespread energy instantly vaporized any rock and tree below, puncturing several yards deep into the earth. She left a trail of this deep trench as she flew around the valley, eventually looping back to create a several-mile-long trench.
It depleted nearly twenty percent of her armor's power, but it was still more efficient than facing both massive lahar flows directly. With her plan set, Rescue blasted to the Puyallup flow to see sections of her shields breaking apart. To save the rest of the shield, she connected the primary trench system with another artificial flow system and blasted some of the southern portion of her shield. Thanks to gravity, this caused the built-up lahar to concentrate on this opening and funnel down her artificial path. "Come on," she whispered, "come on, work!"
Her eyes widen as she sees the flow down into the primary trenches, building up and up. Rescue's nerves rose as the lahar seemingly overflood the trenches, but thanks to the topography of this valley, it had nowhere to go. Thus, the lahar dispersed inward and outward rather than gearing straight to populated areas for at least a few hours. 'Temporary solution, but better than all of Orting being destroyed.' Rescue flinched at a bright flash behind her, but this wasn't another lightning bolt but the discharge of energy as her last barrier collapsed.
[Carbon River flows out of control. 2 minutes until it reaches populated areas. Power at 15%]
Rescue blasted off to the flow, but the challenge before her was nigh impossible. She barely had the power to go this fast, and any last transformation for her suit would result in her suit losing all control and falling out of the air while the flow instantly kills hundreds. 'None of this should've happened,' she thought, 'the volcano should've erupted this early. The state should've listened and evacuated days ago. I should've prepared for every possibility!'
Rescue clenched her metal fists as she diverged her remaining power to them. She concluded it was far too late to think any of that. Innocent lives and the city she'd called home for half her life are all on the line. "Not on my watch," she uttered, flying ahead of the flow before firing a whirlwind of frost rays into the lahar. "I won't let another person die on my watch!" She didn't let up, not even as the last power cells of her armor drained closer to zero. She knew firsthand just how precious and life-saving a few seconds can be.
This flow was the largest yet, so even when she froze the hot rock, that barrier would be immediately flooded over by the incoming lahar. This flow was so massive in its mass and width that large rocks and debris were kicked up and hurled toward her as if an army of trebuchets had launched them. One of these large pieces of debris caused Rescue's systems to shine red.
[Doctor, you're three o'clock.]
Rescue turned her head, the six-foot-tall boulder several feet from her face. She felt its crushing two-ton weight as it struck, causing chunks of her armor to fly off as she was hurled to the ground. Miraculously, Rescue's quick reflexes and intense focus showed as she caught herself, avoiding being crushed by the boulder, and buried her feet and fist into the dirt before skidding to a halt. The damage was done, however. Her right foot rockets and her left arm's gauntlet were gone. Dozens of exposed sections of her armor and any power her suit had left were laughable. Ahead of her, the lahar flooded towards her at over a hundred miles an hour. Rescue turns her head, seeing the lights of the town barely two miles away.
To the innocents who'll likely perish today, to her love, and her family, Rescue whispered, "I'm sorry." She turned, facing the lahar, intent on funneling the last of her power to fire a final uni-beam blast.
[It was an honor, Doctor] Mainframe said as she readied to fire, the flood now mere yards away.
Rescue stared as the glow from her chest intensified. Suddenly, she was pulled high into the air.
"You're a genius, right?" a muffled, mechanical voice asked. "Surely you calculated your sacrifice wasn't gonna save the day."
Rescue looked at the black and white metal arms holding her, turning her head to see the face of the former Avenger War Machine. The rescue was filled with as much shock as she was disgusted at the sight of the guns on the armor. She diverted this to the impending catastrophe below. "Let me go! All those people still haven't-"
"I know," War Machine said, "which is why I brought help."
Out of the ash-ridden sky, dozens of Iron Man suits descended. "The Iron Legion," Rescue gasped. While they were all drone-operated, this remnant of Stark's legacy lived up to their reputation as they all worked together to stop the lahar. Combining both of her strategies, half of the suits rapidly cooled down parts of the lahar while blasting sections of the earth to divert the path away from any populated area. With this much manpower and resources, the Iron Legion has stopped the Carbon flow with seconds to spare.
"That should buy the city and all emergency services enough time to ensure any resident in danger is evacuated," War Machine said. "My people and satellites will also monitor every second of this volcano. All that is possible now because you, Doctor..."
Rescue gasped, "You overheard me?"
"Sorry. I got curious when I detected an odd frequency in the air. Mainframe, huh? Pretty reliable AI you got there. Made them yourself?" Rescue grunted as she shoved herself out of War Machine's grip. Though her armor was half-broken, she had just enough power to fly away and return to her home city.
After several minutes of flying over Seattle at intense speed, Rescue lost power as she descended to her home's garage. She tumbled across the pavement as she crashed down before stopping at the foot of her door. "Ow," she groaned, picking her bruised body up and collecting any stray broken armor before stumbling to the door.
[The Next Morning...]
The knocking on the door eventually reached her ears enough for her to wake up. She fell asleep with her helmet still on, and through its thin eye slits, she saw the old TV in her room was displaying today's news. She stumbled out of bed as the reporter showed footage of the property damage done to some towns and how everyone evacuated safely, slandering the governor for his negligence in getting them killed. Moving out of her messy room to her equally messy living room, she peeked outside to see a familiar set of armor outside her door.
"Hey," War Machine said casually, "may I come in? You know, to at least thank the hero of Seattle?"
"Not with all those guns, you're not," she said in annoyance. "Go away before I deactivate that suit with a button press." She'd closed the currents on him and ensured her door's second lock was fastened.
War Machine shrugged. "Alright." She sighed in relief until she heard normal footsteps rather than the stomps of the metal suit. The door to her garage opens to reveal, in a professional blue suit, the new owner of Stark Enterprise, James Rhodes. "See? No guns," he said. "It's an honor to meet you, Doctor Toni Ho, or do you prefer Rescue instead?"
Toni quickly pressed the side of her helmet, making it glow as it powered back up from its recharge. A gauntlet from her piles of gadgets shoots onto her arm, activating a glowing blue shield around her. "Get out," she uttered lowly, seething with disdain. "I don't want anything to do with your company or military offers!"
Rhodey raised his hands calmly. "Unless it is to help the VA department, I've retired from the military. Given the three doctorate degrees hanging proudly on your wall--a tremendous accomplishment for a twenty-one-year-old--you should know that Stark Enterprises hasn't built weapons in decades. Especially so when I became president."
"I. Don't. Care. I want nothing to do with Stark or his legacy," Toni said, fuming angrily. "Not after everything he, and the government he worked for, took from my family. What I did today was for this city and to save whatever home I have left in my life!"
James nods with a look of understanding. As a military man, he knows that even 'good intentions' by such powerful forces on the home front can still leave deep scars overseas. "You're grandfather, Ho Yensin. Tony never forgot him, y'know. Down to the day he died, he told me how his last words still pushed him to fight, not to waste a second of his life. What happened to Doctor Yensin and your home country under the authoritarian regime is a tragedy in every sense."
"And yet, Stark did nothing to help," Toni said. "All he did was fight the Mandarin. All the while, in the country next door, my people's home and culture dwindled."
"There's some international relations strictly forbidden in intervening in. By himself, even Tony couldn't-"
"Relations? Well, commander, America indeed has an extensive history of establishing chummy relations with regimes, no matter how much blood these friends shed. So long as it ain't American blood, right?"
"I'm not here to talk politics, Doctor," Rhodey said, trying to stir the subject.
"Well, those politics, America's chess game, almost led to me ending up in squaller. Whether it be Tibet or my grandfather's home in Afghanistan, my chance of an early death was high if it weren't for my brother and mother-" Toni stopped herself, the flood of terrible memories becoming too much. "Just go away...please."
"Alright," Rhodey sighed, "but can I leave my card here?" He pulled a reflecting card out of his coat; it wasn't like anything Toni had seen. "What you do with it is up to you." Toni reluctantly nods, and Rhodey places the card down the messy table. With that, he steps towards the door, pressing a button on his watch that opens his suit outside, readying it for takeoff. Upon passing Toni, Rhodey stopped briefly to say, "Thank you. Today would be unimaginably worse and somber if it weren't for you. You saved the day, Doctor. You deserve this city's gratitude."
Toni doesn't say anything beneath her helmet but does nod in acknowledgment.
"This eruption wasn't supposed to happen, but you practically stopped it. However, I think you can become even mightier if you have others like you by your side. My old friends once had that idea, but now most of the world believes that idea's dead and buried. Do you think it's dead, Doctor?" Rhodey walked out the door and into his armor before flying into the air.
With a tired yawn, Toni grabbed the card and walked into her garage. Like the rest of her small home, it was cluttered with tools and parts. However, what stood out the most was an oval-shaped object beneath a tied-down tarp. "Morning, love," she whispered somberly. Untying the rope and removing the tarp, Toni reveals a large metal pod she theorized was created outside this galaxy. At the center of this six-foot-long pod was a glass window showing the sleeping face of a woman roughly around Toni's age. Aikku Jokinen, as said on her suit, lay peacefully inside as if asleep, dreaming.
Today marks exactly one year since she began dreaming. Aikku became more at one with the pod daily, blurring the line between whether she needed it or the pod needed her.
Toni has been trying to solve that question for the sake of Aikku, the only woman she ever loved.
"Vitals still the same. Sleeping the same way. All the same," Toni mumbled, clenching the smooth metal surface. If only Toni could rip this pod, entrapping Aikku with her bare hands. "Saved the city and saved you from being buried under eight feet of lahar. I think that makes it twice that you owe me. Heh, like that matters...especially when I owe you everything." Toni took off her helmet, her long purple-dyed hair draped over her shoulder as she sighed exhaustedly, staring at the card with a large A insignia imprinted on it.
Like with every problem presented to Toni, she lets her mind think. "Something strange happened to me also. An opportunity. For what, I don't know yet. Maybe the world is about to experience a significant change, or it's trying to swindle me to make me build this generation's atom bomb. What I do know, however, is there's a new idea out there. An idea that can push my skills to the next level. An idea that can someday help me get you outta there so...so we can be together again."
Toni pressed the palm of her hand over the glass where Aikku's hand lay, softly saying to her slumbering partner, "So long as the idea is out there, the idea is alive."