DoorMan (MCU SI) - #119 : Wakandan Design Philosophy & Skynet Averted!

Disclaimer - I don’t own Marvel or any of its characters. The Mighty Mouse does =and I hope it is not standing behind me with a shotgun cocked and ready to blow my brains out the second I have the audacity to press PUBLI——

DoorMan #119

Wakanda [May 2008]

–Colin Baxter–

As he flew behind Shuri, his senses noted a large discrepancy in the information he was getting from his eyes and his other senses. There was a massive congregation of energy just in their path, but to his eyes, all he could see were mountains, filled with lush greenery.

Everything, down to the shading according to the relative position of the sun, as well as animal movements was as perfect as it could be, as they neared what he knew to be the energy shield that covered all of Wakanda. He wondered when they built that because that seemed to be one of the things that would separate Wakanda from the rest of the world.

The ability to just bomb anyone you want while staying turtled up in a shell that is all but indestructible? Well, no wonder Wakandans were xenophobes; to them, the rest of the planet, still playing catch-up with missile defense systems, was just slightly more advanced than monkeys.

That is going to change, undoubtedly, and that is part of why he was here. To curb Wakanda’s arrogance, before it could be exposed to the rest of the world because the world, at least the governments and the top most private organisations on the rest of the planet were about to undergo such a seismic shift in terms of technological advancement that it would just be inviting death if he let Wakanda be as it is.

Soon enough, they were near the shield and noticing that Shuri did not reduce her speed in the slightest, he did not as well, but he did brace himself just in case he was electrocuted or something. Plus, he had his handy dandy purple floating ball of light with him, who could no show almost anything that Wakanda could throw at him so he just rammed himself through the shield.

His eyes rove over the multiple layers of the shield that were made visible to him, seven of them if he was counting correctly, as he passed through them, a wave of blue glossing over him in the end before Wakanda was revealed to him.

Sprawling green plains, mountains, with rivers crisscrossing between them. Animals freely grazing and running. It was….nice.

“Like what you see?” Shuri flew side by side as she spoke, noting how he marvelled at the scenery.

“Well, who wouldn’t?” He said as they flew with decent speed towards the city in the distance. It was not like the sprawling metropolises of the world, with towering skyscrapers dotting the sky. No, despite being the only city in Wakanda, it was surprisingly spread apart, with houses no more than two stories and only two buildings he could see that were more than five stories tall, one in the center of the city, and one near the edge.

The one at the edge was clearly the Royal Palace, because, gold, duh. It was interesting to see that even in a society, lush with Vibranium, arguably the most valuable material on the planet, the Wakandan Monarchy still used Gold to signify wealth and prosperity.

Shuri veered offcourse, flying to the right of the city, towards what looked like plain ground but knowing what he did about Wakanda and its propensity to hide stuff under plain sight, he followed as well, not decreasing the speed in the slightest as Shuri collided with the ground, the land rippling as she passed through another illusion field.

He rolled his eyes at that as he passed through the same and then had to scramble to stop himself, as the hangar ground came way too close for comfort. In the end, Doc Ock hands had to stop himself from crashing since he couldn’t just unleash the biggest Air blast indoors. Thankfully, that did not scratch the floor but he was left skidding across the floor to bleed off the momentum. The arms dispelled, as he slowly lowered himself to the ground, looking all around the futuristic looking Hangar, with periodic arrivals and departures of Wakandan Talons, the signature small ship that Wakanda had for almost every purpose.

….

Wakanda really did not have the most developed army, did they? Most of the stuff they used was never battle tested and it was used for every other application, with no equipment built for specialised tasks.

Well, that would be the end result of having a nation that had never gone to war, with the only battles being fought between the Black Panther and other armed or unarmed men, which would be akin to a one sided slaughter instead of an actual battle.

“So,” he looked to the side, to see Shuri, with her armour off, grinning mischievously at him, “No inertial dampeners, huh? Such a shame,”

He could feel dozens of eyes on their conversation, along with who knows how many were watching from the cameras as he huffed and gave her the finger, the very action drawing gasps and in some cases, spears as Shuri had to wave them off.

“I deserved that. Now, come on, there’s some stuff I want to show you,” Shuri said before waving at him as a platform slowly slid off the ground, floating. He obliged as they began floating towards one of the walls, which slid back, revealing a small hallway. He rolled his eyes at that, audibly groaning, “You guys really love to hide stuff, don't you? I mean I could understand if with that shield outside but in here? Why even bother to hide that door?”

Shuri just shrugged, “It’s part of our design philosophy, has been like this for generations. Plus, it works.”

“How?”

“Well, the people back there did not know about that door, right up until now. There are hundreds of such doors built into every single important floor of every single building, hidden from everyone but the people with the Master Access."

“And you have the master Access.”

“Naturally,” Shuri flashed him a smile as the platform traversed the length of the hallway, before it began floating up, as if an elevator. It then did a series of movements that made it hard to tell if it was going up or down anymore, as it finally reached another hallway with an open door.

“Welcome, Queen Shuri, Mr.Mysterio. I am Griot,” A floating light of purple and blue manifested in front of him, revealing himself as the AI that Shuri would not build for another half a decade or so. It would seem that things have been very accelerated when it comes to Wakanda and Shuri.

He just hoped that this was an isolated incident and the entire timeline was not on a fast forward button right now because if that were true, he would be screwed.

“Hello, Griot. How are you? How old are you? Have you passed the Turing Test?” He asked the AI as he leaned forward, analysing the subtle piece of code that flashed across the small ball of light, likely only as an aesthetics effect but still, it was remarkable how self aware these AIs could be.

“I am fine, thank you for asking, Mr.Mysterio. In human terms, I am less than a year old but I am told that I cannot be judged by human terms.”

“That is correct,” He nodded at that, “Your processing speed and what and how much data you have parsed through will be a much more accurate indicator of your age. I wonder if you have access to the Internet?”

“I have limited access to the internet. Queen Shuri has advised precautionary measures until I am and I quote, “Old enough,” to get unfettered access to the internet. As for your previous question, no, I have not yet attempted the Turing Test but I assume it to be a simple affair. If you want, then I can–”

“No need, Griot. You are far more advanced than that, no need to take that test.” Shuri said as Griot buzzed in place before disappearing, or rather, his avatar disappeared. He was sure that the AI was omnipresent in Wakanda, which was rather sobering. He wondered if the rest of Wakanda knew that they were constantly being spied upon?

Probably not, since this was a dictatorship.

“You took that rather well, Mr.Mysterio.” Oh, wow, the judgment was strong in that sentence.

He shrugged, purposefully sidestepping the second part of her statement, “Well, he is an AI, not something impossible. He’s just here before everyone else, that’s all. Also, good call, to stop him from accessing all the porn that is on the internet. I don’t think unfettered access to the internet is a good thing for any living, sentient being, be it a teenage human or a teenage AI.”

“Yeah, I thought, if I wanted to build Skynet, I could have just locked it in a VM and forced it to continuously watch all the content on various social media platforms, including the NSFW subreddits. No need to subject that to someone I plan on keeping around for all my life.” 

“I am pretty sure that will be a war crime, once Canada does it anyway,” He pointed at her, before going silent. There was a minute of silence in the room before Shuri broke it.

“So, about that Mysterio thing. You couldn’t find anything better on the spot, could you?” Shuri asked him as he coughed, not saying anything in defense.

“You said you had something to show me?”

“Uh-huh,” Shuri said, clearly enjoying it before she shrugged and said out loud, “Griot, pull the schematics and the roadmap for Project Redemption.”

He gave her a look at the mention of that name as multiple, dozens in fact, holodisplays lit up in front of him, displaying a truly dense amount of information, crammed into such a small font that were it not for his eyesight being superhuman, he would not have been able to read it at all.

Also, before he forgot…"Project Redemption? Really? And you were judging me for Mysterio.”