Fame, Aidan Parker discovered, had the lifespan of a mayfly. For one frantic week, he was the axis on which the city turned. The media mob that had besieged Midtown High was replaced by a more insidious parade of power brokers in discreet town cars. His life became a blur of high-stakes negotiations in sterile boardrooms and hushed government offices. He met with generals whose chests were heavy with medals and whose smiles were thin with menace, and with slick politicians who spoke of patriotism while their eyes calculated profit margins.
To all of them, his answer was the same. He stood before them, a teenager in a hoodie, and politely, unbreakably, refused.
"The core technology is not, and never will be, for military application," he would say, his voice calm amidst their blustering and veiled threats. "I will not place these tools into the hands of executioners."
This carefully crafted persona—the righteous, idealistic boy genius—became his armor. It resonated with the public, earning him an outpouring of support that made the military's more aggressive options politically untenable. They would leave the meetings with ugly, frustrated expressions, forced to back down. For now.
Just as quickly as it had arrived, the storm of his celebrity passed. Tony Stark, with some newsworthy antic involving a starlet and a custom-built speedboat, reclaimed his throne on the front pages, and the world's attention shifted. The narrative Aidan had started was now taken over by the three tech giants, who relentlessly promoted their newly formed "Atom-Smasher Robot League." The public, hungry for the spectacle promised in Real Steel, eagerly followed.
Beneath the surface, however, Aidan's real work continued. In a series of encrypted video calls, the partnership he'd offered to Logan solidified. With funding from Aidan's movie profits, Professor Charles Xavier established a state-of-the-art chip fabrication plant in a discreet upstate location, a joint venture that gave the X-Men a legitimate, powerful revenue stream and a positive public foothold. The professor, in his conversations with Logan, expressed a profound desire to thank the young man who had so dramatically altered the fortunes of mutantkind, but he understood and respected Aidan's deep-seated wariness of telepathy. He made no move to contact Aidan's mind, a gesture of trust that was not lost on Aidan.
Logan, meanwhile, had become the face of the new league. He was a natural in front of the camera, his gruff charisma a perfect foil to the high-tech violence of the sport. At his side during press conferences was the elegant, sharp-witted Jean Grey, acting as his agent and handler, her quiet guidance steering him through the shark-infested waters of public relations. The situation for mutants, once so precarious, had become smoother overnight.
The military, too, had changed its stance. The robots, they discovered, were not yet battlefield-ready. Their energy consumption was colossal, making sustained deployment a logistical nightmare. That, combined with a quiet warning from a very highly placed government official with a vested interest in mutant relations, was enough for them to abandon any thoughts of coercion. The risk of alienating a national hero and scientific prodigy was, for now, not worth the reward.
The waves of Aidan's impact had receded from the shore, but the entire ocean floor beneath had been reshaped.
For Aidan, life returned to a peaceful, disciplined rhythm. School, the library, home. And in the evenings, in the small backyard of their Queens home, he trained Peter. He pushed his younger brother relentlessly, honing his reflexes, hardening his body.
This calm lasted for exactly one month.
He was in the middle of correcting Peter's fighting stance when the voice came. It wasn't a sound heard with his ears, but a cold, clear thought inserted directly into the architecture of his consciousness, perfectly distinct from the real-world sounds of Peter's ragged breathing and the chirping of crickets.
«The second cinematic world has been loaded. Does the host wish to initiate the dream state?» «Note: This is a one-way transfer. The time-flow differential is 100:1. One day in the dream state is equivalent to approximately 14 minutes in the prime reality.»
A jolt, electric and thrilling, shot through Aidan. He held his excitement in check with practiced control, his face an impassive mask. "Again, Peter. Footwork is sloppy. Keep your guard up. Now!"
Peter, drenched in sweat that evaporated like a faint mist under the porch light, grunted and snapped back into his stance.
They trained until a voice called from the doorway. "You two! It's a school night! Wrap it up and get to bed!"
"Okay, May! Almost done!" Aidan called back. He nodded at Peter. "Finish this set, then hit the showers."
Later, lying in the darkness of his room, the familiar scent of his own laundry filling his senses, Aidan closed his eyes. He took one deep, grounding breath of his reality, and then gave the command.
System. Initiate the dream.
«Acknowledged. Initiating transfer in 3… 2… 1…»
Darkness folded in on itself. The sensation was not of falling, but of being… rewritten. The feeling of his familiar sheets dissolved, replaced by a rougher, unfamiliar fabric. The scent of his Queens bedroom evaporated, replaced by the smell of dust, old wood, and the faint, sweet aroma of bubble gum.
Aidan opened his eyes.
He was in a cluttered, chaotic bedroom. From the ceiling hung an intricate network of curved wooden slats, like a miniature roller-coaster track, which snaked its way to a small, pink dollhouse on a shelf. On his right, a desk lamp cast a dim, warm glow over a powerful-looking computer, the tower littered with stickers. Bookshelves overflowed with textbooks on advanced robotics and engineering. Through the window, he could see the moon, partially obscured by the shadow of a large, distinctive bridge.
A flood of new memories washed over him, not as a narration, but as lived experience. The taste of sourdough bread. The chill of the bay fog. The layout of the San Francisco Institute of Technology campus. His new name.
Ward Ent. Student at SFIT. Member of the Nerd Lab.
The pieces clicked into place. Big Hero 6. And Tadashi, the protagonist's brother, was also a student here. He was in the right place. Aidan's mind immediately began processing his objectives. This world's technology, especially its micro-robotics and energy systems, was decades ahead of his own. His primary target, however, was Professor Callaghan and his portal technology. A stable, man-made wormhole was a quantum leap beyond anything he could currently conceive—a strategic asset of immense value.
He swung his legs out of bed. It was still night, but sleep was the last thing on his mind. He sat at the computer and began his research, his fingers flying across the keyboard. He absorbed everything he could about the animated movie's plot, treating it as a high-level intelligence briefing. He learned about Hiro, Tadashi, Baymax, and the fire that would change everything. He had a timeline. And a plan.
The next day, he began his infiltration. He spent his days in the SFIT library, devouring their advanced databases, his "Technology and Magic Affinity" allowing him to assimilate the new information at a terrifying rate. In the evenings, he made casual inquiries about Professor Callaghan and the famed "Nerd Lab." He needed a plausible reason to get close to both.
After a week of intense study, he submitted a project proposal to the school, applying for official entry into the Nerd Lab. The project title was "Dynamic Heuristic Learning via Visual Input: A Study in Predictive Motion and Shadow Memory." It was a highly advanced evolution of the image-learning tech he'd used for Adam, and he attached several semi-mature schematics that were just plausible enough to be the work of a student genius, but advanced enough to be irresistible.
His application and funding were approved in record time.
He found the lab in a large, white campus building. Stepping through the glass doors, he entered a wonderland of controlled chaos. A robot dog with dragonfly wings zipped through the air. An automated arm played a flawless game of table tennis against itself. And in the center of it all was a girl with short black hair and streaks of purple, grinding away on a bicycle frame that floated a few inches off the ground on humming magnetic discs.
"Hey! You're Ward Ent, right?"
Aidan turned. A friendly-looking young man in a baseball cap was walking toward him, his smile open and genuine.
"That's me," Aidan said. "You must be…?"
"Tadashi Hamada," he said, shaking Aidan's hand firmly. "Nice to meet you. Welcome to the Nerd Lab."
"You too. Thanks for having me."
"No problem, man. Your proposal was seriously impressive. Follow me, I'll show you your workbench. The gear you requested is… wow. Really expensive," Tadashi chuckled. "Fred, our sponsor, nearly had a heart attack, but he loves this stuff."
"Once the results come in, it'll be worth it," Aidan said confidently. He looked around. "Speaking of, where is Fred?"
"Out being our mascot, probably," Tadashi laughed. "He came in yesterday asking me to build him a fire-breathing, humanoid dinosaur robot. One-to-one scale. That's Fred."
"I'll keep that in mind," Aidan said.
"Listen," Tadashi said, his expression turning more serious. "I saw your project focuses on learning systems. I'm actually working on a medical robot, a healthcare companion. The hardware is solid, but I'm having trouble with the integrated diagnostic circuits, finding the right wiring pathways to handle the data load without frying the chip. Since you're also working on intelligent systems, I was hoping… maybe we could collaborate?"
Aidan's mind cataloged the information. Baymax. Tadashi was stuck on the core programming. This was his opening. "Absolutely," he said with a sincere smile. "I've been doing a lot of research on power distribution and data management for my own system. If you ever need a second pair of eyes, just ask."
"Awesome! Thank you so much," Tadashi said, his relief evident. "Come on, let me introduce you to the rest of the lunatics."
He led Aidan back out into the main lab, stopping first at the floating bicycle. "Gogo, this is Ward Ent, our new member."
The girl, Gogo Tomago, didn't look up from her work, a piece of bubble gum cracking audibly in her mouth. "New guy," she said, her voice dripping with boredom. She finally glanced at him, her dark eyes giving him a quick, skeptical once-over. "Don't break anything."
Aidan extended his hand. "Nice to meet you too."
She stared at his hand for a second before giving it a single, firm shake. "Welcome to the lab."