Thread: I Was a Dream [TriniMad & Sprouts]

Audrey Yue Lai was the type of woman most men either feared or fetishized a petite Chinese woman with a doctorate in mechanical engineering and a fiercely independent lifestyle that just couldn't include a man in it. It was absolutely scandalous to her family instead of being a good daughter, finding an dull husband with a good income, and pumping out a couple of children to continue her family lineage, she dared to move away from mainland China, go to MIT, and find a snug job working in Stark Industries without the stifling traditions of stereotypes and expectations. Yet, that could only go so far. As modern as she wanted to be, her roots were still tied to China when the plea came for her to come home and just visit for once, Yue found her heartstrings being tugged back to the east and her homeland. That was how she found herself working on her uncle's business working as in just stay out of the dangerous jobs and leave the jobs to the men. It just so happened that he ran a junkyard, but when she offered her expertise, all she received instead was derisive laughter and a shooing motion to go enjoy her vacation. Fine. That was how Yue had done just that, enjoying what she did best tinker with whatever she find on hand. Never before had the saying one man's trash is another man's treasure been more true, though in this case, it was a woman's treasure instead. With most of the dull traditional niceties out of the way, the junkyard became where she spent most of her time just rifling through whatever she could find like the pack rat that she was. Nearby, she had repurposed one of the many shacks dotting the property into a makeshift workshop of sorts certainly, while the men did the actual business, she was idly fixing or just wiring things back together with the sort of mindless aim that one might have when doing something just for the heck of it. At least, it brought her back to her early college years - good times. That was how the first week of her month-long vacation crawled by idly and without much to show for what was supposed to be a break from work. However, on a cloudy Monday morning, everything changed. Yue was on her usual walk through the hulking piles of rusting metal and scrap parts all around her when a strange glint caught her eye. This was a section of the multiple-acre large property that she hadn't explored just yet, and her curiosity was immediately piqued. Unable to contain it, she crept closer, trying to discern a shape... Before realizing it was a mechanical hand sticking out from where it had been partially buried. Before when there was only curiosity, now there was full-on concern. She had to know what was going on. A mechanical hand just didn't belong in a junkyard, and if this was what her imagination was careening towards with the events of Sokovia just a few years past... That was the reason why Yue began to clear out the various metal scraps that had kept it hidden for so long, a fervor that she hadn't felt ever since she came to China lighting up her expression. At least, what she found didn't disappoint. Far from it, it was absolutely concerning. It was an Ultron bot everyone who had a screen and some decent internet connection had been riveted to the news of the A.I. attack the same way people were when the twin towers fell in 2001. Supposedly, all of them were destroyed by the Avengers in Sokovia... So how did one of them get here all the way to inland rural China? That was a question Yue didn't have the means to answer nor cared about much. What was more concerning was if she should report this to Mr. Stark... Oh right, rural China. By this point, even her practical addiction to the Internet and being connected to other people had began to wane off in the absence of literally seeing no one but her family. No internet access, no cell phone reception she was literally alone out here. So, she felt it reasonable that she would be able to make an independent decision about what to do with this Ultron bot. Honestly, Yue was more curious about it than anything, and since the A.I. was supposedly destroyed, she figured it wouldn't hurt to at least power it up and see what kind of mechanical parts made up such a being. With excitement lighting up her expression, it took a fair bit of pulling and lifting to get the ravaged bot into a wheelbarrow and back into her makeshift workshop, but she was confident it was worth sweating beads with the amount of exertion needed just to get it back here. The entire place was powered by a jury-rigged wind generator hooked up to some car batteries that she had tossed together, but it would serve well enough to somewhat power the bot. Finding the cord to plug it in wasn't even a challenge either, but what happened next nearly made her want to pull it out and throw it back into the junkyard to be destroyed and forgotten. It talked. It moved. The static noise it made initially was something that made Yue jump a little out of surprise, but it was expected. This bot had been deteriorating in the sun and rain, so who knew what had happened to its circuits. But when it started to respond, to clench its remaining hand the way a newborn baby would wildly flail in the air, it took everything she had not to scream. A muffled, terrified whimper escaped her lips instead as the engineer stepped back, a large wrench held at the ready in her hand. Had she been a more nervous woman, she probably would have smashed it right there and then. However, she was a curious soul at her core, and curiosity demanded that she not destroy it - yet. Instead, Yue stood there frozen for a moment, just watching the half-torn bot twitch and groan before she exhaled deeply. This was so stupid, but she had to try at least. ... Hello? Can you hear me? her shaky, quiet voice called out to it, now a good five feet between the table where it was sprawled out on and herself. ... Is this Ultron?