Zack
ACME
- Best answers
- 0
- Known Aliases
- Zack, Z, Lil'bro, Dan, Zack-Daniels, Bacon
- Color #
- 993300
Disclaimer: AU Universe/What-if/Fan Fic. This has nothing to do with the current time line, but is inspired by elements of previous role plays. I don't own any characters, original characters were used with narrator's permissions.
Author’s Note: Read chapter one if you haven't. Thanks for the likes!
Index:
Chapter 1 (News Report, We Are Hunters and Sun Rises)
Chapter 2 (Two Weeks Later)
It was all going very wrong. Zack Monaghan was in trouble and he had no one to turn to. After the previous sting, nailing three high profile fugitives in Palermo there was a lull in information. Tigress received a tip that evidence pertaining to a former V.I.L.E. case was stolen from the vault in Venice, Italy. Without being prompted she followed the lead, and now she was missing.
To make matters worse, ACME had stepped up their game to track her with none other than the over confident Marcel Romero leading the charge. Zack was afraid that Romero might already have her, and that was the reason why she did not make contact. But it was impossible, if he did he would have wasted no time in reaping the accolades.
There was only one person he could go to.
That one person's office was at the very top of ACME Headquarters, second only to the standing board member Barbara Rosen and Chief Weller. If there was anyone in this world that Zack would consider a father-figure it would be the man in grey himself. In the back of his mind, he knew he should have told Chase about the Tigress program straight on, but there was always the chance that the director wouldn't understand the risks. He had hoped they could prove it a success first, but now there really was no choice.
"Hey... boss." Zack gulped away a lump in his throat, his palms were moist and his heart thumped so loud he was sure Chase could hear it.
"What is it, Zack?" Chase Devineaux asked coolly, a hidden hint of worry in his voice.
"There's something I have to tell you. It's about the Tigress."
Rain began to splatter against the glass panels of ACME's new Accolade Building. Except it wasn't new at all. Tigress remembered the concrete floor, still with a hint of sharp varnish, but the sensors on her stealth suit detected no chemical residue now. She walked past each door, reading unfamiliar names until she reached one: Eugene Grovington, Chief Pilot.
The office was empty, though not unoccupied. There was a desk lamp turned on and a mug still warm from the coffee it recently held.
This was a spartan office consisting of just a dented desk toppled with papers and a chair. But her attention was on a wall of masks, zeroing in on her prize: the Mask of Helen. As she reached for it, a dark voice stopped her in her tracks, "You better have a damn good reason for being here."
She turned, and there was instant recognition for the both of them. For her, a million bits of information all forming the identity of the man standing in front of her. To him, it was a face he hadn't seen in a very long time.
Zack felt like he was back at the school principal's office for fighting. Actually, he never got into fights. People picked them with him because he was always youngest in class by at least five years. It took him a long time to understand how to be social, with hits and misses along the way. It wasn’t until he got older that kids learned to become more physically threatening, but if Ivy was around she would throw herself in defense of him.
He took a breath to shake off Chase's inquiring stare, "Tigress is Ivy."
"That's not possible."
"I know..."
"I know you miss her, Zack." The Director's tone was now more empathetic, but it only made him feel like he was being pitied, "We all do."
Zack swallowed, thinking he should start from the beginning "It was after Torun Zamok. After her funeral... I needed to talk to her again. Then I remembered that there was the nanobot hard-light experiment we worked on in the bunker, and Ivy was always the model. It started.. it started with her just speaking and repeating the same things that we already had recordings of. The mission monitor from the S.T.U.N. takes in a lot of information like that. I added the A.I. component months later."
Zack could almost see the gears working in Chase's mind. He waited to be scolded but a question came instead, "...So what is she, really?"
He sighed, "A very strong grouping of nanobots, able to sentiently move and think. It’s not perfect technology. She can't physically interact with anything without the aid of the modified S.T.U.N. suit. But she has a mind of her own... sort of. The problem was that she kept searching for a purpose... and I thought I found it when I integrated her with CrimeNet and SIGINT."
"Where is she now?"
"That's the problem... she's missing.”
There was a brief silence, “Commander Marcel is looking for her.”
“And Iv— Tigress was looking into an old case when she disappeared."
Author’s Note: Read chapter one if you haven't. Thanks for the likes!
Index:
Chapter 1 (News Report, We Are Hunters and Sun Rises)
Chapter 2 (Two Weeks Later)
* * *
Two Weeks Later...
Two Weeks Later...
It was all going very wrong. Zack Monaghan was in trouble and he had no one to turn to. After the previous sting, nailing three high profile fugitives in Palermo there was a lull in information. Tigress received a tip that evidence pertaining to a former V.I.L.E. case was stolen from the vault in Venice, Italy. Without being prompted she followed the lead, and now she was missing.
To make matters worse, ACME had stepped up their game to track her with none other than the over confident Marcel Romero leading the charge. Zack was afraid that Romero might already have her, and that was the reason why she did not make contact. But it was impossible, if he did he would have wasted no time in reaping the accolades.
There was only one person he could go to.
That one person's office was at the very top of ACME Headquarters, second only to the standing board member Barbara Rosen and Chief Weller. If there was anyone in this world that Zack would consider a father-figure it would be the man in grey himself. In the back of his mind, he knew he should have told Chase about the Tigress program straight on, but there was always the chance that the director wouldn't understand the risks. He had hoped they could prove it a success first, but now there really was no choice.
"Hey... boss." Zack gulped away a lump in his throat, his palms were moist and his heart thumped so loud he was sure Chase could hear it.
"What is it, Zack?" Chase Devineaux asked coolly, a hidden hint of worry in his voice.
"There's something I have to tell you. It's about the Tigress."
* * *
Meanwhile…
Meanwhile…
Rain began to splatter against the glass panels of ACME's new Accolade Building. Except it wasn't new at all. Tigress remembered the concrete floor, still with a hint of sharp varnish, but the sensors on her stealth suit detected no chemical residue now. She walked past each door, reading unfamiliar names until she reached one: Eugene Grovington, Chief Pilot.
The office was empty, though not unoccupied. There was a desk lamp turned on and a mug still warm from the coffee it recently held.
This was a spartan office consisting of just a dented desk toppled with papers and a chair. But her attention was on a wall of masks, zeroing in on her prize: the Mask of Helen. As she reached for it, a dark voice stopped her in her tracks, "You better have a damn good reason for being here."
She turned, and there was instant recognition for the both of them. For her, a million bits of information all forming the identity of the man standing in front of her. To him, it was a face he hadn't seen in a very long time.
* * *
Zack felt like he was back at the school principal's office for fighting. Actually, he never got into fights. People picked them with him because he was always youngest in class by at least five years. It took him a long time to understand how to be social, with hits and misses along the way. It wasn’t until he got older that kids learned to become more physically threatening, but if Ivy was around she would throw herself in defense of him.
He took a breath to shake off Chase's inquiring stare, "Tigress is Ivy."
"That's not possible."
"I know..."
"I know you miss her, Zack." The Director's tone was now more empathetic, but it only made him feel like he was being pitied, "We all do."
Zack swallowed, thinking he should start from the beginning "It was after Torun Zamok. After her funeral... I needed to talk to her again. Then I remembered that there was the nanobot hard-light experiment we worked on in the bunker, and Ivy was always the model. It started.. it started with her just speaking and repeating the same things that we already had recordings of. The mission monitor from the S.T.U.N. takes in a lot of information like that. I added the A.I. component months later."
Zack could almost see the gears working in Chase's mind. He waited to be scolded but a question came instead, "...So what is she, really?"
He sighed, "A very strong grouping of nanobots, able to sentiently move and think. It’s not perfect technology. She can't physically interact with anything without the aid of the modified S.T.U.N. suit. But she has a mind of her own... sort of. The problem was that she kept searching for a purpose... and I thought I found it when I integrated her with CrimeNet and SIGINT."
"Where is she now?"
"That's the problem... she's missing.”
There was a brief silence, “Commander Marcel is looking for her.”
“And Iv— Tigress was looking into an old case when she disappeared."
* * *
END OF PART 1.
Telekinetic Information Gathering Robotically Engineered Super Soldier.
