Chapter 6

Rafters provide a good view for all hell breaking loose.

I was curled in a shadowy corner, next to the biggest dust bunny I have ever seen, watching my teammates argue back and forth with our mole, Jasper Stillwell. Jasper was a creepy guys that made the hair on the back of my neck stand up — and the reason I was up here — but the team deemed him trustworthy, so I had to deal with him.

Jasper had popped out of the woods surrounding the house about two hours ago, sending us all onto high alert, grabbing our defensive and offensive measures until Clint cried out with a "Guys, calm down, it's Jasper!"

So instead of chopping him into little pieces and then burning those pieces, we invited him inside to sit over a cup of the weakest coffee in the world and discuss the situation within S.H.I.E.L.D.

"-and the priorities are a little skewed." I look down at where Jasper finishes his sentence.

"Aren't they always?" my dad snorts. "But what are they doing now?"

Jasper sighs and sets down his mug. "They have your robot, correct?"

"Yes, they have IGUM." Bruce confirms with a confused glance.

"They are planning to reprogram the robot so that instead of peacekeeping, it has a main goal of exterminating all of S.H.I.E.L.D.'s enemies."

I wince as my dad speaks up. "But how is that possible?! Taylor and I put firewall after firewall after extensive firewall onto that coding, and S.H.I.E.L.D.'s tech department acts like they should operate on Windows 98! They simply cannot get through the protection that is on that robot!"

Bruce steps forward to put a comforting hand on his shoulder. "So they must have help. Someone smarter than them that knows how Starks build their coding."

Note to self: check up on Justin Hammer's whereabouts.

I cringe at the thought and divert my attention to where Natasha is gathering more information.

"What, exactly, would 'all of S.H.I.E.L.D.'s enemies' entail?"

Jasper runs a hand through his hair and begins counting off on his fingers. "Well, let's see....targets, other agencies, agents gone rouge, traitors, deserters..."

We all wince at the last word. Technically, we all count as deserters, if even Fury fired us. Which means a supposedly peace-keeping robot that we designed has now be repossessed by a government agency that wants to kill us and reprogrammed by someone smart enough to pierce our firewalls to kill us.

"But we didn't put weapons on IGUM." Jane speaks up. "Why would it be a threat?"

Jasper sighs but my dad beats him to the punch. "If they have employed the help of someone smart enough to break the firewalls, then either that same person or someone equally as smart can easily modify the structural design in order to put weapons of mass destruction where they were never supposed to be."

Jane nods and pinches the bridge of her nose.

"So add our own robot to the list of people and organizations that want us found and killed on spot." Steve deadpans. "Jasper, anything else?"

Jasper shakes his head and stands.

"Well then, if that's all, then if you want to get back..." Steve trails off, unsure of how Jasper got here in the first place.

Jasper nods curtly and finds his way towards the door, opening it a crack and slipping out into the woods before the lock clicks back into place.

I rise to my knees in my nest, swinging my legs over the side and pressing a button on my wrist to slowly lower myself to the ground and another button to retract the net.

"So," Everyone jumps a little as I speak up from behind them. "That guy is creepy."

Steve sighs. "Be that as it may, Taylor, he has information we need."

"Yep. Creeper McStalkerson just told us that we're having our own tools used as weapons against us. Low blow, if I do say so myself."

My dad nods. "Low blow indeed. As if taking our toys was not bad enough, now they took them apart too. Does the phrase rubbing salt in a wound ring any bells?"

Steve steps forward. "This is not about grudges anymore. Granted, grudges are acceptable, but this is now a matter of national safety."

"The Capitan is right!" Thor booms from a couch. "We must prepare for war against the robot the One-eyed man has taken from us!"

Steve cringes at the volume of Thor's voice but shows his agreement anyways. "What Thor said. Okay, here's the game plan: Tony, Taylor, Bruce, Jane, and Betty; you five need to be looking over any paper files you brought with you on IGUM. Search from an attacker's point of view; look for any weaknesses, strengths, possible spots for weapons and all that stuff. Also, see if you can get anything on who the mysterious genius is. Natasha, Clint, and I will be working on hand to hand combat skills and target practice, anyone who needs practice should come. Oh and Clint, you should also make sure Taylor's skill are still honed. Thor and Darcy, you will be making sure all the non-fighters have a command center and safe places set up. Any questions?"

We all shake our heads and disperse to various locations.

I stand and stretch as I walk to the kitchen where the smart ones are gathered.

I'm going to be sitting for a while.

A~A~A

"-and in order to do that, I need your IQ."

"But then you could find out who is smarter than me!" my dad whines.

I give him my best stern glare. "I don't think it will affect your swollen ego too much. Seriously, come on, you're worse than a woman and her weight."

My dad huffs. "Fine. 199."

I nod gratefully and scribble that down on a scrap of paper. "Alright, I have a list."

"So spill!" Betty is bouncing in her seat with excitement.

"Okay. This is going to be a bit of an ego inflation, but...my dad is the smartest person in the world right now. I'm second by only one point. Bruce is third with a 175. Betty, Jane, and Stephen Hawking all have a 160 IQ and it dives down from there to about a 140-ish average."

My dad is beaming, but Bruce ignores him and processes my data. "So we can obviously rule out you, Tony, Betty, Jane and I, right? And I think we would hear rumors if Hawking paired with S.H.I.E.L.D. — if it was physically possible for the guy to do so in the first place."

I groan and set my head in my hands. "Which means we got nowhere at all, we are officially thinking in circles."

"Hey, wait a minute." Betty speaks up, and I peek out from behind my fingers. "I have an idea. What if it wasn't the person with the brain but the files needed? The files are instructions, and even Thor can follow those with help. What do you think?"

I lift my head and straighten my spine. "I think our search area just got a whole lot bigger."