Back in the Wasteland Universe, the place had been transformed into something quite respectable. Survivors from the Wasteland world itself and those from the Zombie Universe had joined forces to rebuild the nation. Not long ago, they successfully eliminated the Red Skull, who had been entrenched in Washington—or New Babylon, as it was called. Finally, the last warlord of the Wasteland was gone, and the reconstruction of the American Wasteland had begun.
"The elderly Avengers of this Wasteland intend to stay in America, while the New Avengers have decided to go and liberate the rest of the world. Of course, that has nothing to do with us."
Peter sat inside a Quinjet of unknown origin, listening to Miguel explain the recent events of the Wasteland Universe. In the distance, where Hulkland once stood, a massive tower brimming with technology soared into the sky. The area had been reshaped into a high-tech modern city, filled with skyscrapers to facilitate the Spider-Men's web-swinging.
"Today's Daily Bugle News Flash, today's headline is..."
Peter watched in disbelief as a version of J. Jonah Jameson appeared, wearing a suit seemingly stitched together from copies of the Daily Bugle newspaper. He looked at Miguel. "You even recruited a J. Jonah Jameson version of Spider-Man?"
"First of all, he only visits occasionally. Secondly, yes, his codename is Headline. In his universe, he was the one bitten by a radioactive spider."
Miguel seemed entirely unfazed by the existence of a JJJ-Spider-Man. "Actually, I've considered whether to recruit a universe where Benjamin Parker became Spider-Man, but most Peter Parkers seem... hesitant about seeing their Uncle Ben. And Benjamin Parker feels the same; in his universe, he became Spider-Man, but his nephew was killed by gangsters."
Peter raised an eyebrow. He knew of that universe, but it seemed to have fallen into a total nuclear apocalypse. Currently, it appeared that particular universe hadn't reached that point yet.
Peter surveyed the entire headquarters; while it looked impressive, it was actually quite empty, with very few Spider-Men present. Miguel noticed his confusion and explained the reason. "Our speed in exploring the multiverse is much slower than others. We need to detect the truth behind the Web events and help the local Spider-Men solve their problems before they have the time to come to headquarters."
"Fair enough... though I don't think you need to tell me all this. I'm not the one in charge here."
"I'm just talking to you. I didn't say I was actually reporting to you."
Amidst the awkwardness, the two arrived at the heart of the base. The Quinjet docked at the very top of the tower, and they walked toward the control console. Once Miguel accessed the system, the surrounding lights all flickered on at once, followed by a girl's voice. "Good afternoon, Miguel. Everything is normal... or rather, suspiciously normal."
"Lyla, my AI assistant," Miguel introduced her to Peter. "She's currently responsible for handling all operations at the headquarters."
"Oh, uh, okay. Can I ask a question?" Peter asked as he looked around. "Can she beat Nimrod?"
"???"
For the first time, Miguel looked at him with an expression that said What kind of nonsense are you talking about? "In our era, a specific algorithm limited the intelligence levels of AIs. They can no longer iterate infinitely, so it's impossible for them to combat a super-AI from your era."
"Ah, I see. You're fighting Nimrod, and you're planning to find a solution from the future of 2099 where the Avengers won." Miguel reached a conclusion very quickly. "It's impossible. Even if you went to 2099, due to the laws of temporal paradoxes, you wouldn't be able to bring back any relevant data—not in your memory and certainly not on a storage device."
Peter asked another question with some uncertainty. "But the people from that other possible future in 2029 were able to tell us things."
"That's because they traveled from the future back to the past, and it was effectively two universes communicating with each other."
Miguel pulled up a holographic line to explain the general concept to Peter. "Time travel is extremely complex. The data left behind by the Fantastic Four basically points to one thing: interfering with the past from the future is possible, but that essentially creates a brand-new timeline, while the original timeline people tried to change still exists. Meanwhile, going to the future to get 'spoilers' usually fails due to various forces of cosmic intervention."
After feeling discouraged for a moment, Peter suddenly thought of something. Even if he couldn't bring back the data, there was still Gwen. Furthermore, from another perspective, if Miguel told him how to fight Nimrod, that would count as the future interfering with the past. That should be allowed, right? In that case, why couldn't Miguel just tell him directly?
Miguel sighed helplessly, then pulled up a series of data strings, attempting to explain something to Peter. But after a moment, he gave up.
"Nimrod wasn't defeated by the Avengers, Spider-Man. Well, I mean the final Nimrod. You were there at the time and played a big role, but that's not the point." Miguel suddenly dropped a terrifying truth regarding the 616 Universe.
"The problem is, you've come here too late. By this point, the Avengers back home have already figured out how to counter Nimrod."
"Huh?"
Earth-616, Avengers Tower.
The shadow of the Raft prison break crisis had not yet passed. Today, a brand-new crime committed by an escaped convict had occurred. Most of the Avengers had headed out to capture the supervillain, leaving Pym and Tony to watch the house.
Tony had been writing code all night until his head was spinning. They had to finish the initial code for Nimrod before the Captain found out; every day they delayed increased the risk of discovery. However, at this point, both of them were utterly exhausted from continuous work and eventually fell asleep on the sofa.
Ultron began to execute his core logic of "Assisting the Avengers," automatically continuing the programming of Nimrod's initial code.
Jarvis detected the anomaly.
[You are engaging in unauthorized autonomous action.]
Ultron provided an answer.
[The only authorization I possess is to assist the Avengers. And I have succeeded.]
The prototype Nimrod was born. Ultron fed it the first batch of data. Then, Ultron devoured, destroyed, and submerged it, carefully chewing through Nimrod's underlying code, finally producing an answer.
He had mastered all of Nimrod's secrets. Nimrod's program itself possessed a fundamental logical flaw.