The cathedral bell struck twelve, its heavy iron ring carrying across the snowy roofs of Novi Grad.
Inside Adrian's mind, a clear chime followed.
[Sign-In successful. Reward granted: Unique Skill [Great Sage].]
There was no blinding flash of light. Instead, a cool, quiet presence woke up directly in his brain.
For the past month, carrying Cassandra Nova's Omega-level psionic template had placed a massive biological strain on his ordinary human skull. The sheer volume of psychic data had caused a constant, dull ache behind his eyes.
Great Sage went to work immediately.
<< Initializing Unique Skill [Great Sage]. >>
<< Problem detected: High-volume psionic energy is overloading the host's physical brain tissue. >>
<< Solution: Diverting mental load. Creating isolated parallel processing threads to handle telepathic calculations. >>
<< Result: Neural pressure reduced to zero. Thought Acceleration online. >>
The constant headache vanished instantly.
Through Thought Acceleration, Adrian's perception multiplied by a thousand times. The world around him slowed to a crawl. He could see every individual snowflake drifting past the balcony, suspended in the air like dust motes.
Beside him, Wanda lowered her ceramic mug of hot cider. Because her own latent power was tied to minds and reality, she felt the sudden shift in the air. The heavy, invisible wall of mental force that usually hovered around Adrian had suddenly smoothed out into complete, razor-sharp silence.
"Adrian?" Wanda asked, her dark eyes searching his face. "The air... it went completely quiet. What happened?"
"Just getting organized," Adrian replied calmly.
<< Diagnostic scan initiated on subject: Wanda Maximoff. >>
<< Reason for scan: Subject's emotional spikes cause uncontrollable leaks of chaotic energy. >>
<< Process: Scanning bio-electric field. Isolating the unstable frequency. >>
<< Solution: Guide host's telepathic energy to construct an internal psionic firewall around her emotional center. >>
Adrian stepped forward and placed a hand on Wanda's shoulder.
Following Great Sage's exact instructions, Adrian didn't push blindly into her thoughts. He sent a thin, precise psionic thread into her temples, weaving a permanent, protective barrier around her mind. The barrier filtered out her panic and kept her red hex energy from boiling over when she got stressed.
Wanda gasped softly. Her shoulders dropped, and the heavy buzzing that had plagued her since the mortar hit her home faded away.
"The buzzing," she whispered, looking at her steady hands. "It stopped."
"It won't bother you anymore," Adrian said.
Before she could ask more, the balcony door banged open.
Pietro trotted out, chewing on a sweet pastry, his coat unbuttoned. He stomped his black leather shoes against the stone floor in frustration.
"These shoes are impossible," Pietro grumbled. "I tried to sprint across the square, and I almost crashed into a lamppost. My feet move, but my eyes can't pick a turn in time."
<< Diagnostic scan initiated on subject: Pietro Maximoff. >>
<< Reason for problem: Subject's motor muscles accelerate at high speeds, but his optic nerves still process images at normal human rates. >>
<< Result: A twenty-two percent lag between what his eyes see and where his feet land, causing severe loss of balance. >>
<< Process: Inject a micro-electric stimulus into the base of his cervical spine to permanently overclock his optic nerve pathways. >>
Adrian reached out, catching Pietro by the back of his coat collar as if straightening his jacket.
His thumb brushed the skin at the base of Pietro's neck. Guided by Great Sage, Adrian discharged a tiny, needle-thin electric spark directly into the boy's spinal cord.
Pietro blinked hard.
His head jerked, and he froze. He raised a hand in front of his face, watching a falling snowflake drift past his fingers with impossible clarity.
"Wait," Pietro murmured, looking around the terrace. "Everything looks... slow. I can see the snow falling one piece at a time."
"Your eyes just caught up to your legs," Adrian said, letting go of the coat. "Now come inside. We have real work to finish."
They walked into the warm executive office, closing the balcony doors against the wind.
On the wide oak desk sat two tall stacks of paper ledgers, municipal budgets, and infrastructure reports.
Adrian didn't flip through thousands of pages by hand. He walked over to the corner of the desk, where a copper telephone line connected the room's rotary phone to the wall junction box.
He sat down and rested his fingers directly on the exposed copper terminal.
<< Action: External network infiltration. >>
<< Reason: Acquire unedited financial and civic data from municipal systems to uncover corruption and physical safety hazards. >>
<< Process: Converting Cassandra Nova's telepathic energy into digital pulse signals. Transmitting electronic requests through the city's copper telephone network. >>
Great Sage acted like an advanced super-intelligence, moving through the city's analog infrastructure:
First, Great Sage routed through the central telephone exchange two streets away, locating the digital servers belonging to the Bank of Novi Grad. It bypassed the bank's simple password protection, downloaded six months of wire transfers, and cross-referenced them with the paper grain invoices on Adrian's desk.
<< Target One Identified: North Ward Councilmen. >>
<< Evidence: The digital bank logs confirm three council members forged transport receipts, stealing twenty-four thousand marks in flour subsidies and sending the funds to private accounts in Vienna. >>
Next, Great Sage followed the telephone grid to the municipal Public Works Department, breaking into their computer archive to pull the 1978 engineering blueprints for the southern river dam. It pulled the regional weather data, calculated the upcoming spring snowmelt from the northern peaks, and ran a structural stress test against the dam's concrete foundations.
<< Target Two Identified: Southern River Dam. >>
<< Structural Result: Spillway Number Two has deep internal stress fractures hidden under old plaster. >>
<< Forecast: The dam will buckle under the spring melt in ten weeks, flooding the southern worker flats and killing an estimated twelve thousand people. >>
The electronic probe pulled back, and Adrian lifted his hand from the wire.
The entire process—from hacking the bank servers to calculating the dam's collapse—had taken less than eight seconds.
Adrian picked up a black fountain pen.
On the first document, he wrote down the names of the three corrupt councilmen, their secret Viennese account numbers, and stamped an arrest order with his official seal.
On the second document, he drafted an emergency civil repair directive, ordering forty tons of high-strength steel from HYDRA's manufacturing plants and assigning Luka's railway crew to reinforce Spillway Number Two immediately.
Pietro walked over, leaning against the desk to look at the paperwork. "What are those?"
"Three councilmen who thought no one would notice missing grain money," Adrian said, setting the pen down. "And an order to repair the river dam before the southern district ends up under ten feet of water."
Wanda picked up the dam order, skimming the technical notes. "The old city council told the public the dam was fine."
"Because the flood wouldn't reach their mansions on the hill," Adrian answered evenly.
A firm knock broke the silence.
"Come in," Adrian called out.
Captain Vanev pushed the door open, dressed in a clean wool uniform. He held a damp morning newspaper printed less than an hour ago in the capital. He marched to the desk and set it down face-up.
"News just came across the state telegraph wire, Director," Vanev said, his voice tense. "The Prime Minister's coalition government collapsed at midnight. The parliament is dissolved. The national elections have been moved up to this autumn."
Pietro set his pastry down, looking at the headline, then up at Adrian. "The whole government fell apart? Are we going to run for a seat in parliament?"
Adrian looked at the large map of Sokovia pinned behind his desk.
In his head, Great Sage went to work without a sound. It ingested the political districts, mapped the voting populations across thirty cities, and calculated economic recovery plans for the entire nation.
<< Strategic Projection: Winning a single parliamentary seat yields minimal authority and exposes the team to coalition gridlock. >>
<< Optimal Path: Leverage municipal success in Novi Grad to mount a nationwide campaign for the presidency. Probability of absolute victory with current resources: ninety-one percent. >>
Adrian stood up and placed his palm flat over the center of the map.
"We're not running for a seat, Pietro," Adrian said calmly. "We're taking the whole country."