Disclaimer - I don't, and have never claimed to, own Marvel or its Intellectual Property. This is all just so that I can take my maladaptive daydreaming and turn it into something so that it does not ruin the rest of my day.
DoorMan #49
African Airspace[February 4, 2008]
–Shuri Udaku–
Sitting in her one man ship she kept for emergencies just like the one that happened back home, she thought about all that had transpired the past week or so when she fled Wakanda, and yes, she did flee Wakanda. There was no need to be so hasty in leaving Wakanda so soon after becoming someone who could dictate the country's policies with a word.
No, at the time, she said to herself that she was only going to America to meet Colin, to take his measure, to see his powers for herself, and to ascertain if he could help her.
"What a mess," SHe sighed as she realised now that those were just lies she was telling herself to justify literally fleeing her home. Dear Bast, she couldn't even imagine the political turmoil she had left in her wake. She couldn't even spare a week to make sure everything was stabilised before leaving to galavant across the country.
Still, "Pull up the scans," the trip was not a waste of time, not at all, she thought to herself as she looked upon the absolute goldmine of data she had been able to gather in her time in America. She couldn't make sense of half the data she had gathered, using a combination of sensors onboard her suit and Wakandan satellites around the world.
Most Wakandan satellites were masked as normal imaging as well as telecom satellites launched by various private companies around the world, using Wakanda's resources to install their hardware at the last moment before they were launched by various countries on the planet.
"Grid map the entire planet, calculate the lattice of satellites required, and set the fabrication to max capacity." She commanded the computer which would then relay her orders to the Royal Laboratories. She couldn't wait to see where else she could find the energy she found in Colin.
Were there other people just as powerful as Colin out there, hidden in the world?
It was like a whole other world just opened up to her, a dangerous and powerful world that was so far ignored by every single King as well as Black Panther before her. Clearly, they were wrong because if she could find and meet Colin with such ease, there must be someone out there hidden even deeper, someone even more powerful.
The thought of it sent chills of thrill and anxiety down her spine. She had a lot of work to do and centuries of mindsets to clear before Wakanda as a country was remotely ready to face the outside world with a position of strength.
The computer beeped as she was forced out of her thoughts. "21 days, huh." She muttered to herself, seeing the time required for all the satellites to be in orbit. The building of satellites was the easy part, it barely took more than a day. At this point, 3-D printing a remote sensing advanced satellite was no more complex than building an IC Engine using her advanced printers but it was the positioning that would take the majority of the time.
While they did have the stealth technology to cloak the satellites, they still ran the risk of someone or something stumbling upon them. No, it was much safer and more importantly, a tried and tested strategy to just mask them as private satellites and then make sure that in case of a crash, the wreckage was retrieved before anyone else.
That had worked for decades for Wakanda and if it worked, she saw no reason to change that right away, especially since she had much more important stuff on her plate already.
The ship slowed down smoothly as she realised she had entered Wakandan airspace and the ship was following the airspace protocols because this specific ship was not registered as a Royal Escort ship. With a twitch of her finger, the protocol was overridden and her identity provided so the Border Tribe does not panic and try to shoot her down.
Soon, she landed on the far right corner of the Royal Palace, the training area for the Black Panthers; it had a small pad overseeing the city of Birnin Zana where she could land her ship.
With a smooth motion, the hatch on which she was lying on slid back and she dropped down from a modest height of 20 ft. It would have required a tuck and roll in the earlier days and even then, some damage was expected but now?
She landed with a solid thunk, not even using Vibranium nanites to absorb the shock from the landing. With a thought, the nanites covered her entire body as the one man ship she did not have a name for zoomed away to park itself in her vault and she jumped off the pad, straight down.
Within a second, she disappeared and fell into a hatch that opened at the last moment, revealing a fake patch of grass that housed an entrance to the underground network of tunnels that housed a bunch of different things.
The subway trains, for both materials and people, the drinking water transportation network, both heated and cold, the secured trains for Military staff, and the smaller tunnel network to be used as a second entrance for the Royal Laboratories' deepest labs, i.e. her personal lab.
The last hatch opened up upon recognising her as the suit decelerated at the last moment. She landed smoothly as the entire lab came alive, lab displays, decorations, data mining, and even her AI project came alive as soon as the lab detected her presence in the room.
It made sense, after all, she had designed this place to be unbreakable. This was her fortress of solitude, after all.
She snickered to herself for that joke, "So much for being Superhuman."
A message was sent to both T'Challa and mother that she was back but would not be joining them for dinner as she worked on getting the satellites in order to see if she could somehow optimise some of the launch sequences. She was sure she could find some tech billionaire satellite project she could bump off the priority list without anyone noticing.
Also, she really needed to check on the higher ups of Wakanda, i.e. the Council. Those people were very powerful people who could increase her work for no reason at all. She did not wish to impose absolute authority using force and she knew that it would be a lost cause doing so.
She would lose what little family she had left if she went that way. The Council was insidious enough to never really step out of the line, just toe it until she got frustrated and made a mistake. They would never willingly give up their power and the only way she could legitimise her position, which would need legitimising because of her radical ideas that she would soon start spreading, was to outperform everyone at the Scuession ceremony.
To show every one of note, in Wakanda, that she, and only she, could become the King of Wakanda. Previously, she thought that having T'Challa on that post would be fine but now she knew that it had to be her, she had to make sure that Wakanda as a nation was so strong that even if they faced near global backlash for their past actions, they would survive.
For that, she needed stuff to change, fast, and Wakanda of now had gotten stagnant, and comfortable, and they could not have that, for they were about to face enemies of their own making, enemies who would not hesitate to slaughter every last one of them for the divine gifts of Bast.
And it was not like they could fight back with lethal force, not when the other side had people like Colin, Bruce Banner and many more who could single handedly defeat her, atleast physically.
Mentally, it was a whole other issue but she did not wish for it to reach that level.
She rolled her eyes as she received the fifth call request from T'Challa.
"What?" She snapped at him who didn't even look phased at her less than pleasant greeting.
"Whoa, what did you bring back from America? That attitude?"
She deadpanned at him, "No, it was with me when I was born."
"What?" And just like the stereotypical middle aged white people, her mother barged into the video call and zoomed way too in. "You did not get an attitude from me. And T'Challa, don't say such things about your sister. Shuri! Where have you been? You look so thin!"
She rolled her eyes at the nagging.
"--Just do as I say and open those doors so I can get you some of your favourite soup. My baby, getting so thin. It's all because of that poison they call food in America. You should have come back every day so I could have fed you properly. Now, look at you!"
Things like that, nagging stuff should have irritated her, and yet, it warmed her heart for some reason. Well, it's not like it would be the end of the world if she gave her mom access to her lab, well, temporary access–one time access only.
Okay, she had control issues!
"Fine. You can come in but only you. T'Challa, I will throw outside and you both know I can do that." She threatened and was satisfied as T'Challa threw his hands up in surrender as the call ended.
He knew his place. Good.
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