Outside the warehouse. At the same time.
Father Stanislav Kucharski looked upon a truly horrific scene. Hundreds of mangled, dead bodies lay in heaps, staring into the distance with lifeless eyes—a field of corpses torn apart by heavy bullets, with scraps of flesh and organs floating in rivers of blood.
Yet another proof of the sinfulness of technology, he thought, tightening his grip on the detonator.
Kucharski had come to Poland as a teenager, fourteen years old and already without family or friends. Living on the borders of the Republic, they were often preyed upon by evil men—foreign bandits or smugglers looking to fill their pockets with the organs of young men and the bodies of beautiful girls. He still remembered the sanctuary provided by reinforced concrete walls and the pride he felt for his brother standing guard in pooled-resource armor. And he remembered the despair when his home was reduced to ash by a single cyberpsycho. That was when he realized the truth: such power is unnatural. It should not belong to man.
Years of wandering and hunger led him to the Temple. The Church took him in, gave him peace, and eventually, he met Cardinal Lewandowski himself, becoming his loyal hand for the most dangerous tasks. He had stained his hands with blood and allowed "godless metal" into his own body, all to save others from the same fate. Man should not replace his God-given body with artificial crafts. Was cyberpsychosis not proof of this? Was it not the sign of human nature fighting against evil?
The "witch" inside... he didn't believe in magic, but as the Cardinal once said, "People love fairy tales so much they make them reality." Netrunners were the witches, and wild AIs were the demons hunting for souls. He was leading the "stained" into battle against the heretics who sold their humanity for power.
He was about to activate the detonator, as the timer ticked down the last seconds of his warriors' lives. It was a pity to lose the data inside the witch's lair, but her death was paramount.
"Ah?" the holy father blinked, looking at his missing hand. "What?" He stared in confusion at a tall man in a coat with a masculine face and brown hair.
Leaving the fanatic's decapitated body behind, Robert holstered his weapon and pulled out bio-grenades—modified to cover a large area. It was the perfect solution against an unprotected mob.
Walking through the chaos of dying men, the old operative prepared for the worst. The defenses were breached, and his wife was not a front-line operative. She was a master of the Net, hacking, and viruses—direct combat was his job, not hers.
"Hi, honey," a blood-stained, slightly battered, but alive Claire greeted him. Her armor had dents, and her left arm was dislocated and covered in someone else's blood—she had clearly been forced into melee combat at the end. She sat on a destroyed robot, cleaning a thermal knife on a scrap of clothing from a dead enemy.
"Status?"
"Everything is falling apart," Claire replied, returning the knife to her sheath and typing frantically. "Someone is seizing the entire Warsaw network. The Harbingers are being crushed across the city by the army and unknowns supported by the fanatics."
"Militech," he shared.
"Makes sense," she nodded. "It doesn't matter. We need to leave the city, then the country."
"Skalk will hold," Robert argued.
He didn't want to abandon everything they had built. Here, they were the elite. They could change their identities and wait for Skalk to rebuild his control. Leaving meant an anarchic country, loss of status, and loss of their resources.
"He'll hold," Claire confirmed. "And then he'll sell our asses to his new masters. Not because he wants to, but because he'll have no choice."
She suddenly dove to the side, throwing a grenade. Robert followed, drawing his revolvers and firing six shots at a new enemy. To his surprise, they didn't fall. They were wounded, but still in the fight.
"Surrender," a voice came from under a helmet. "Robert and Claire Stark, also known as Oleg and Larisa Bykov, you are surrounded."
"Ours?" Claire guessed.
"Ours would speak Russian," Robert countered, reloading. He didn't believe in "surrender." "Same escape routes?"
"Tunnel and roof. But the roof is a trap."
"Then the tunnel. I'll hold them; you open it." Without waiting for an objection, he activated his Sandevistan and charged.
The enemy had been waiting. They used the fanatics to exhaust Claire and drain her defenses. This was a professional hit squad with advanced shielding and smart weapons.
"Fire!" the commander ordered as Claire dove for the tunnel. She needed to disarm the internal mines and turrets that weren't connected to the network. Time was against them.
She triggered the emergency opening sequence—twenty seconds. As she turned to signal Robert amidst the explosions and screams, something tapped against her armor.
Claire was a powerful netrunner; she knew how to fight remote hacking by going offline. But there was a counter: a physical transmitter that acts as an access point upon contact. A hidden operative had attached one to her.
"Got you..." a whisper echoed in her head before her body was seized by a Short Circuit.
No! was her only thought before her consciousness plunged into darkness.
Two weeks later. The Stark Home.
"I'll be back later," Alicia said softly, looking at young Tony with concern. Since the riots that killed his parents, the boy had been unnervingly quiet—a "living doll" instead of a child. Only Lucy could draw a faint, sad smile from him.
Tony didn't answer, staring blankly at the living room. Alicia went to the office to find his documents and access the codes left in the Starks' will. She knew he needed to be alone to process the grief.
Tony went to his room. For two weeks, Warsaw had been a war zone. Gangs, mercenaries, and the army fought in the streets. Civilian casualties exceeded a thousand. Tony simply couldn't believe his parents were dead. He knew their skills; they were survivors. But as the days passed and they didn't appear, hope burned out.
I need to recall Omnissia, he thought. He had sent his robot-nanny to search the combat zones for his parents. The recent upgrades had turned her into a formidable combat force, but she had found nothing.
He went to the workshop. He used the shortwave radio to contact her.
"Omnissia..." his own voice sounded like a stranger's. "...return."
"Acknowledged, Master Tony. Any news of the Creators?"
"...No."
What do you say to a child who lost his world? For Tony, his parents were his foundation. Now, there was only emptiness and dust. His eyes fell on his personal project—the one he had worked on for over a year.
Maybe it will distract me? A faint hope of numbing the void emerged.
He crawled into the netrunning chair, attached the cables, and put on the helmet. Mom and Dad never fully tested this, a flicker of worry rose, then died. Whatever.
The program scanned his brain. A surge of voltage—then PAIN.
A rasping cry escaped his throat. His jaw locked, his nails tore into the chair's upholstery, and capillaries burst in his eyes. But Tony didn't care. He was seeing. Memories. He felt himself waking from a ten-year sleep. His mind and personality bloomed, achieving completion.
Tony Stark became himself... and simultaneously, something much more.
Ryu Kusinada. One year later. Netrunner Training Center.
"The reactor checks will be done in three days. We can launch the project in a week," an old Japanese woman in a suit reported.
"Excellent. Your impressions, Suzuki-san?" Ryu asked.
"Superior. I'm surprised our Polish partners fulfilled their obligations despite the turmoil."
"Not surprising," Ryu shrugged. "No one wants to cross Arasaka. Skalk is still in power, and we are the only counterweight keeping him from becoming a total puppet."
Ryu looked over the list of thirty candidates—orphans from the streets. He only cared about their minds; the rest could be replaced.
The chaos of the previous year had ultimately benefited Arasaka. The destruction of the Harbingers—the government's secret police—had weakened the elite, forcing them to rely on Arasaka's protection.
Arasaka's investigators had spent three months piecing together what happened. The conclusion: Militech.
Militech had struck to warn Europe against Arasaka and to steal data on netrunner training. Fortunately, Ryu had only given the government a simplified version. The third goal was the liquidation of a specific few Harbinger operatives—including the Starks.
What puzzled Arasaka's analysts was why Militech would care about ten veterans in Europe with no ties to America. It didn't sit well with Ryu, especially with the Stark child still in his house. It was suspicious—and anything suspicious was a threat.