(Continued from New Amalgam Universe: Powerful Platinum Man - Part 1)
Kord Omniversal Research & Development Incorporated, Brooklyn, New York
Platinum Man flies up to the main gate and lands before the flimsy wooden arm barring passage for cars. The shining helmet retracts like a fluid revealing Booster's face though a visor remains over his face.
"Booster Stark is here to see James Kord. I have an appointment." He stands there nonchalantly while the guard just stares at him blankly.
An older guard comes out of the guard booth and smacks the younger guard on the back. "Yes, of course Mr. Stark. You may enter."
The younger guard finally snaps out of it and hits a switch swinging the wooden arm up. Unsure of what else to do the young guard salutes.
Booster salutes back and rockets up and over the guard post ignoring the opened gate heading straight for James Kord's lab. The young guard looks at the older guard. "That was really Platinum Man, I mean that was really him. For real."
The older guard just scoffs. "Get used to it kid, he's part owner of this place. He just likes to make a show whenever he shows up." The older guard goes back in to the guard booth to sit down.
"I should have asked for a picture." The young guard says.
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The office / laboratory / workshop of James "Rhodey" Kord
"Just one more...." James Kord is fiddling with a tiny microchip through a microscope and some computer assisted soldering. It is much too small to do by hand so he had to invent the device to do the work just to build this one chip. "....second."
It's a crucial point of the construction, he can't afford any interruptions. He's got a meeting with Booster in a few minutes but Booster has never been less than 15 minutes late to every meeting they've ever had.
"Knock-knock!" Booster says through the voice amplification system of his suit while hovering outside the office window. He starts tapping over and over to get Rhodey's attention.
"Of course." Rhodey mutters to himself. The third richest African-American man in the world releases the computer controls. Luckily he's got a steady hand or he could have just ruined a week's worth of work. He hits a control on the table and the window slides open allowing Booster in.
Booster lands near Rhodey's launch pad and most of his armor systems retract until it appears that he is just wearing a silvery-gold skintight suit. He leans against Rhodey's greatest invention, a multipurpose aircraft/submersible called 'The Bug'. Booster always wanted to fly it but Rhodey won't let him.
Rhodey walks over to him. "You're early. And by that I mean you're on time instead of late. What's up?"
Booster just smirks at his friend "I had an appointment with a journalist. But I didn't want the interview to end so I said I had to get to a meeting so she'd have to meet me for dinner to finish the interview."
"Of course. You'd be late to your own funeral unless it was about impressing a woman. I'm glad you're here though, I've got something to show you." Rhodey leads him over to a different section of the workshop.
"You've designed a new Bug and want me to have the old one? Well we'll have to give it a paint job, black and white is nice but doesn't really go with the whole Platinum Man color scheme I've got going. Plus could we make it a little more sleek, something a little more flashy and a little less 'military surplus'?" Following his friend.
"For that you will never, ever, ever get your hands on my Bug. I'll leave it to Oliver Queen and he can use it as a Mardi Gras float for all I care. No I've built something new."
He stops in front of a table with a large sheet over it. Beneath the sheet seems to be some kind of humanoid form, though it seems big and blocky like some kind of robot or something. He pulls back the sheet and reveals a black and white suit of armor that sort of resembles 'The Bug'.
"Um. That's great Rhodey but I've already got a suit....a suit made up of 25th century technology thanks." Booster says.
Rhodey punches him in the arm. It hurst his hand, damned Platinum skin thing he's got. "No you moron, it's for me. It's the Black Beetle armor. Well it's the Variable Threat Response Battlesuit Mark 1 but I think Black Beetle will be my name."
"As my sidekick?" Booster looks a little confused.
"Oh my God! Get out! Get out or I'll kick your ass all the way back to the 25th century. Not as your sidekick, partner maybe but after all this I think I'd rather just show you up." Rhodey is so frustrated, sometimes it's really hard to be Booster's best friend.
"Oh right, sorry. But this tech, how'd you come up with it?" Booster asks getting a closer look at the thing. Some schematics automatically come up on his visor.
"Well remember when we first met? You were trying to sell future technology to some people you didn't know were very bad guys." Rhodey relates the story they both know well.
"To be fair it was my own technology, I did invent it all myself, people in my time just never took me seriously because of my....youthful exuberance." Booster interjects.
"Yes but regardless you didn't actually check your history books to see who would misuse your technology in this time. And the men were going to hold you hostage to build weapons for them." Rhodey continues.
Booster wants to interrupt again and say that even now in the early 21st century nobody actually read real books anymore. But he knows if he does Rhodey might actually kick him out. So he lets his friend continue the story.
"Well after I saved your butt you made me a proposition. You'd let me and my company develop your technology for you and you'd use the technology to help the world instead of just making money. Well in our initial agreement I retained the right to build technology from anything I learned taking apart and rebuilding yours...." Rhodey just points to the suit.
Booster is impressed. Not just anybody could take the small inconsequential things that Booster gave him and turn it into something this impressive. "But I only gave you JARVIS' original body, run of the mill stuff, nothing like my own suit."
"True. But a run of the mill personal assistant robot from the 25th century is still impressive by today's standards. With what I learned from it I was able to extrapolate and develop new technologies." Rhodey is extremely proud of himself.
"This is great Rhodey, it really is but why stylize it like a beetle? And Black Beetle is a bit on the nose isn't it?" Booster isn't the best 21st century historian but he knows that today isn't as accepting as they are in the 25th century.
"Well I figured it might as well look like the Bug, I'm not going to want to fly around in the armor all the time. I was actually just working on a control chip for the armor that would let me use the Bug as an extension of the suit when you got here." Rhodey points over to the station he was working at before.
"Oh that's easy. Want some help?" Booster heads over to the workstation and begins fiddling with the controls. With the advanced interface of his own suit he's able to finish and improve the control chip in just a matter of minutes. The benefits of being a certified genius with a 25th century education.
Rhodey is a little exasperated, this is why he didn't tell Booster about the suit to begin with. He would have just taken over, sure he would have done an excellent job but Rhodey wanted to do it all himself, with his own mind. Granted it isn't a bad idea to have some back-up from the mind behind GoldStark Enterprises.
(To be continued.)
New Amalgam Universe: The Powerful Platinum Man - Part 2
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