Chapter Text
Tulpa:
An object or being created through sheer discipline alone.
It’s only a routine scan of their surroundings running in the background of everything else, one that he'd forgotten was even running, and they're certainly not expecting any anomalies in such a familiar area, so he is immediately concerned when there’s a return ping from the outermost stretches of Jarvis’ range. He freezes the tests and simulations that he has compiling in front of him, swiping the screen clear with a flick of his fingers and bringing up the scan interface, sorting absently through the reams of return data in search of an origination. The signal is coming back from so far out in the black that he almost can't believe that it isn't a ghost in Jarvis' wires. The signal is from beyond even the most distant of shipping lanes, a distance that he knows only Jarvis would have been able to pick it up over, but he verifies the return ping regardless. He scowls when the class number scrolls across his screen, and a few sharp finger taps have it isolated and shunted in Jarvis’ search algorithms. When no results are returned, he sets Jarvis to hacking the Earth United mainframe, hoping that the new upgrades will be enough to keep him under the radar.
The ship class is so old that he’s not even remotely familiar with it, and the Starks have had a hand in all of the ship building companies and all the tested classes for the last hundred years, so this ship is a rarity indeed. It had to have been put into service during the last Belt War, almost a hundred and fifty years ago, but that still wouldn’t explain what it’s doing all the way out here. Hell, half of the longest, coldest shipping lanes didn’t exist even thirty years ago, before the last big Push, and not even they come out this far, so it must have been on a one way trip to oblivion. The only reason it's showing up now, so far as he can tell, as it dragged across the edge of a gravity well, which swung it back around. He quickly plotted out an intersecting course, checking to see if they had enough fuel to tow the ship back before he entered it into the computer. No need to get all the way out there only to discover that they can’t make it back, after all. If he’s lucky, there will be enough parts that still function that he can complete some necessary repairs to his own ship, and if he’s really lucky, there’ll be enough components left over to sell that he can upgrade Jarvis again.
Not for the first time, he cursed Stane for locking him out of his own company, for banishing him to the Outer Paths. Because of that bastard, there wasn’t a single port in the Inner Systems that would dock him, and without that privilege, he couldn’t access anything of his own, including his fortune. He hated having to scrounge like this, praying that his repairs would hold from one less-then-legal job to the next, but he didn’t have any other alternative. The settlers in the Outer Paths didn’t take Inner Credits, and for all that he could repair farm equipment, other then that he was useless.
‘Sir, we may have a problem. This ship has been flagged as Destroyed In Action, with a mandatory turn-over. I managed to keep the EU system from pinging the flag, but it was a close call, and I am not sure how long my re-route will hold.’
He frowned as he straightened up, enlarging the scans as much as he was able and zooming in. There's not a whole heck of a lot of detail that they can gather since they are still so far away, but even from where they are, it doesn't look like the ship's been damaged at all.
‘I don’t see a debris field or trail here, Jarvis. Who flagged it?’
There was a pause before Jarvis spoke, and a handful of files lit up almost reluctantly in the corner of his screen. He snagged the first one, scattering it over top the scans, and his eyebrows raised almost into his hairline as he skimmed the report.
‘This ship was flagged by the Strategic Scientific Reserve, sir.’
The SSR? They’d folded into another alphabet soup ‘secret’ government agency a little under seventy years ago, when the Jupiter Warp Lines had been stabilized, allowing further expansion into that part of space. He’d thought that all their projects had been rolled over as well, but apparently he’d thought wrong.
‘How long ago was that ship flagged?’
‘Sir, two hundred and eighty years ago, after less then three years of active service in the Second Europa War. This is a Class-A ship under Project Rebirth, sir. It’s on record as a Tulpa.’
That was impossible. Absolutely, ridiculously impossible. There had been rumors, yes, but there were always rumors, ever since the idea had first been brought up, before humanity had really even left Old Earth. Wouldn't it be a heck of an idea, someone had thought, if you could build a ship and the pilot together, to be part of each other? But nothing had ever come of it, and Tony had been certain that nothing ever would. Psychologists the world over had warned of potentially instabilities made exponentially greater, and then the one ship that they had made?
‘Jarvis, they scrapped that program before it even hit the testing grounds, they only had the one prototype that went insane. There is no way that is a Tulpa, or everyone would know about it!’
‘That doesn’t change the fact that this ship is registered as one, sir. The Ship Spirit on record is a Captain Steven Rogers, and it appears he was recruited specifically for this project out of Old New York by a Doctor Erskine, the scientist who created the process. They were never able to recreate what he'd done’
Tony could feel his stomach twisting as his morals tried to come to grips with what Jarvis was telling him. If this really was a Tulpa, he couldn’t scrap it, because to do so would be torture to the Ship Spirit. Still, he had to at least tow the ship back to occupied space and see if he couldn’t wake the Spirit. If he could, they would need to notify the EU government, but that could wait, he was sure. After all, it wasn’t like a few weeks would make a huge difference after three hundred years. He heaved a sigh, leaning back and propping a knee against the console.
‘Alright, Jarvis, let’s see if you can make contact with the good Captain, and then send an encoded flag to Pepper.’
‘Attempting to hail the ship, sir, and receiving no return feedback. His communications equipment may be damaged due to the radiation exposure with no available repair.’
‘Keep trying, Jarvis. We won’t be there until tomorrow, and it may work better as we get closer.’
‘Of course, sir. I will alert you if Ms. Potts responds.’
‘Initiate docking procedures, Jarvis, and check for atmos and life signs.’
Not that he expected anyone to be alive on board, of course, but if the ship still had functioning cryo pods, he may still end up on the wrong side of a gun if an alarm went off.
‘Atmosphere present, sir, but I would advise the suit regardless. The grav-drive does not appear to be functioning, and there is only one life sign, though it most likely belongs to Captain Rogers’ storage pod.’
‘In cryo?’
‘Yes, sir.’
He frowned as he hummed acknowledgement, carefully locking the helmet into place and hearing the familiar hiss of the airlock sealing as it buzzed his ears. He activated the HUD, still rolling over the fact that the Captain might actually have a body in storage. From what preliminary notes survived, the term ‘Tulpa’ had described a mental construct, and the Ship Spirits had never been meant to have bodies. Hell, they had probably meant for the Tulpas to be run by AIs rather then human spirits.
‘You got blueprints for me, Jarvis? I want to find the Heart before I do anything else. If I can wake him up, he might be able to fly out under his own power.’
‘No blueprints officially on record, sir, just a rough sketch from the pre-build application.’
Tony brought it up in one corner of the display, focusing in on where they were docked as the door slid open silently. Well, at least the doors still worked. He had Jarvis map out the fastest path, fully expecting at least most of those turns to lead to a dead end, and leaving a tracker stuck to the frame so he could find his way back. He crept into the ship, sliding down corridors and staying in the shadows as much as possible. The emergency lights were still on, which slightly concerned him, but as he poked his head into empty office after empty office, bare room after bare room, he could see that the ship had never even been finished, much less populated. The light reserve should have been drained by now, though, since they hadn’t had any of the long-term generators when this ship had been built. He slowly made his way deeper into the belly of the ship, watching in fascination as the ship design changed mid-floor, like some one had picked of the heart of the ship and shoved it into a similarly shaped hole in the outside frame. They must have ended up with a deadline they weren’t sure of making.
‘The Heart should be within one hundred yards of you, sir, according to my scans. Please proceed with caution.’
He scowled at the wall in front of him, carefully circling the room and poking at the control boards. There was nothing here that struck him as the Heart, and there were no doors or hallways leading further on. There were no screens or projectors, in case the Spirit could show itself, and no pod for the body or even hookups for a pod. There was nothing here at all.
‘I’m not seeing anything, Jarvis. Are you sure this is the right floor? This room is -‘
There was a handprint on the wall next to one of the consoles, and he froze, peering at it. It wasn’t obvious at all if you weren’t looking at just the right angle, only just deep enough to fill with the faintest shadow if you were standing in the right spot. He scrambled to disconnect one of his gloves, ignoring Jarvis’ questions and objections as he reached up and slotted his hand into the print. He had just enough time to wonder at how small his hand seemed before he felt a hum begin in the metal beneath his feet.
‘Jarvis?’
The hum was growing steadily stronger, until he could feel it vibrating in his teeth, and he gripped the console with his other hand. The ship was groaning and shrieking, the metal sounding like it was being twisted between two giant fists until it crumpled.
‘Jarvis, what’s happening!’
‘You woke the Ship, sir, I'm afraid you’ll have to wait it out.’
Woke the Ship? It felt like it was trying to tear itself apart underneath him! The suit was rattling around him, and he clenched his jaw as a mechanical whine added itself to the cacophony. He wrenched his fingers from the console, falling to his knees as he pressed both hands to his helmet like they could help block out the noise. He might have screamed, desperate for everything to stop before his head exploded from the overload of sensations, and then it was finally, blessedly, quiet.