Chapter 26: A Shocked Nick Fury: Is He Really a Mutant?
"Director... We've been seen right through. Completely."
Natasha's voice came out from the desktop speaker.
It carried a distinct tremor, as if she had been frozen on the Siberian ice sheet for a night, with even her breaths leaking shards of ice.
The communication was unilaterally cut off, leaving only a harsh electronic busy signal.
Nick Fury stood in front of the office desk.
His black leather-gloved hand tightly gripped the mug that had fallen on the desk.
With a click.
The thick ceramic handle of the cup was forcefully snapped off by him.
The shattered porcelain pierced the glove's leather, oozing a tiny bead of blood.
He didn't bother with the wound.
He let the remaining black coffee trickle down the mahogany desk and drip onto the carpet.
A minute ago, he was still roaring into the microphone, ordering them to open fire and obtain blood samples.
Now, the spacious office was quiet enough to hear the ventilation sound of the central air conditioning.
Fury felt chills running down his back in waves.
Cold sweat slid down his spine against his pure cotton shirt, stirring up a gloomy chill.
He tapped on the computer keyboard with one hand.
He brought up the footage of the last dozen or so seconds sent back by the micro-camera on Natasha's chest.
The image froze on that scene where Aaron Parker flicked away the gun barrel.
No buildup of strength. No complex combat exertion.
Just like that, he extended an index finger and casually flicked it, dragging Natasha's gun-holding arm sideways.
What was even more terrifying was what he said.
Red Room, damp primer, the thirty-five-degree reflection angle of the armor-piercing shell.
And that final sentence, "The frequency of you tapping the table is twice as fast as just now."
Fury slammed a palm onto the control console.
The metal tabletop vibrated with a hum.
"Mutant."
He gritted his teeth, squeezing out these three words from between his teeth.
Aside from this explanation, Fury couldn't think of any reason that conformed to scientific logic.
That wheelchair-bound bald man Charles Xavier could indeed forcibly read people's thoughts.
But Charles couldn't overturn a sixty-ton Green Goblinbarehanded, let alone make bullets ricochet according to angles.
Aaron Parker.
This guy was like a monster stitched together from top-tier physicality and top-tier mental power.
Not only could he hear subtle sounds hundreds of kilometers away.
He could also see through the deepest hidden top-secret intelligence in other people's brains.
This unknown supernatural power made Fury, an intelligence boss with an extremely strong desire for control, feel unprecedented panic.
The passcode door of the office slid open silently.
Maria Hill strode in.
She glanced at the coffee stains and bloody porcelain shards on the desk, asking nothing.
She heavily slammed a blue-covered file onto the tabletop.
"Director, Natasha has withdrawn."
Hill opened the file, her voice capable and crisp.
"Right thumb dislocated, she popped it back in herself. But her psychological evaluation dropped directly to Class C."
She paused, her tone turning heavy.
"She kept trembling in the getaway car. She has now been sent into the medical wing to be injected with sedatives."
Fury wiped the coffee on the desk with his trench coat sleeve.
"Physical contact is called off across the board."
He walked to the huge floor-to-ceiling window, looking at the gray Washington sky outside.
"He's a powder keg. Sending field Agents over to probe him is equivalent to roasting ourselves on a fire. Total waste of effort."
"Then we're not investigating anymore?" Hill frowned.
"A target whose hazard rating just rose to S-Rank, and we're letting him date around in a New York high school?"
Fury turned around.
His remaining single eye stared at Aaron's ID photo on the screen.
"Investigate. Change direction."
He strode back to the computer, pulled out the leather chair, and sat down.
"Since he guards against physical intrusion, we'll start with network data."
Fury quickly entered commands on the holographic keyboard.
"That penthouse duplex of his in the Upper East Side, Manhattan. And those overseas offshore accounts he uses to pay bills."
A densely packed fund flow chart popped up on the screen.
"Asset transfers of this level, no matter how clean they are made, will definitely leave digital traces."
Hill sighed.
She handed over the tactical tablet computer in her hand.
"The cybersecurity department tried last night."
Hill pointed at a long string of red interception warning codes on the tablet.
"Three senior hackers, plus two supercomputers running in parallel."
"They didn't even touch the outer firewall of his home router."
Fury narrowed his eyes, looking at those glaring red characters.
"Were they discovered?"
"No. Or rather, the opponent's firewall didn't take us seriously at all."
Hill looked grim.
"His data link is locked down by an unknown algorithm. The head of the technical department said that if we forcefully carry out a brute-force crack—"
"—S.H.I.E.L.D.'s main server will be reverse-injected with a virus and directly burned down."
Fury didn't speak.
He leaned back in the chair, his rough index finger forcefully rubbing against the stubble on his chin.
A high school student, invincible in body, with intelligence reaching the heavens.
Now even the firewall at his home was one era ahead of S.H.I.E.L.D.
Behind this definitely hid a technological support system so huge it was hair-raising.
Without figuring this out, he would have to keep one eye open even when sleeping.
S.H.I.E.L.D.'s hackers weren't up to it.
That didn't mean others couldn't.
New York happened to have a proud egotist. That guy loved doing such damn things as challenging other people's firewalls to flaunt his genius brain.
Fury dragged the mouse over to the string of encrypted data packets transmitted by the tablet.
Right-click, package.
Generated a compressed file with a hidden tracking program.
"Director, you want to find external aid?" Hill watched his movements, her brow slightly twitching.
"Finding a free coolie." Fury let out a cold snort.
He opened a single-line contact encrypted email system.
In the recipient field, he entered a string of completely irregular garbled characters.
That was Tony Stark's private internal email. Aside from Pepper Potts, only Fury knew.
Fury knew Tony Stark too well.
If he directly swallowed his pride to ask him for help, Tonywould propose a bunch of outrageous conditions.
He would even specially hold a press conference to mock S.H.I.E.L.D.'s technical department as a bunch of monkeys still using abacuses.
But if he changed the approach.
Using a taunt.
This proud peacock would jump into the pit impatiently on his own.
Fury placed both hands on the keyboard and began to type.
The email body didn't need any superfluous polite pleasantries.
There was only a short sentence.
"Stark, we're tracking a high school student's pocket money account. His toy firewall is a bit interesting, and S.H.I.E.L.D.'s technicians think you might not be able to crack it."
There was no attachment description.
There was only an encrypted compressed package weighing three GBs.
Between the lines emanated a sense of contempt for Stark's technology.
This was a hundred times more uncomfortable for him than pointing at Tony's nose and cursing him.
Fury heavily pressed the Enter key.
The green sending progress bar flashed past.
With a beep, the sending was successful.
"Sent to Stark Industries?" Hill widened her eyes.
"Isn't he tinkering with that gold-and-red tin suit of armor lately?"
Fury picked up the mug with the broken handle and took a sip of the remaining cold coffee.
"His brain is very active right now."
Fury coldly watched the prompt box indicating successful transmission.
"No matter who the technological team behind Aaron Parker is, pissing off Tony Stark means they definitely won't have a good time in the cyber World."
"Let those two bite each other. We can just sit in the back and collect the data."
...
The top floor of the Stark Industries building.
The underground laboratory played deafening AC/DC heavy metal rock music.
The intense drumbeats shook the water glass on the glass table until it wobbled constantly.
The air was filled with a mixed smell of engine oil, electric welding, and expensive cologne.
Tony Stark was wearing a black tank top stained with spots of engine oil.
In his hand, he held a glass of single malt whisky with ice cubes added.
The ice cubes collided against the wall of the crystal glass, making a crisp clinking sound.
On the holographic projection workbench in front of him, a freshly polished gold-and-red mechanical arm floated in mid-air.
"Sir, you have received an encrypted email from Nick Fury."
Jarvis's standard British butler tone resounded above the laboratory.
The voice automatically drowned out the heavy metal rock guitar solo.
Tony took a sip of whisky.
The spicy liquor flowed down his throat, bringing a burning sting.
"That eye-patched black boiled egg?"
Tony rolled his eyes.
"Is he here again to promote that whatever-nonsense boy band Avengers initiative of his?"
He rotated his sore neck, making two crisp cracking sounds.
"Throw the email into the trash can. By the way, reply to him with a nursery rhyme."
Tony picked up the wine glass, preparing to continue tuning his repulsor energy circuit.
"Sir, I suggest you listen to the body of the email."
Jarvis did not immediately execute the deletion command.
"The body mentions that S.H.I.E.L.D. cannot crack a high school student's firewall. And it believes that you might not be able to crack it either."
Jarvis dutifully read out the exact words sent by Fury, word for word.
Tony's movements stopped.
The wine glass just brought to his lips was rigidly suspended in mid-air.
He put down the glass.
The bottom of the glass knocked out a dull sound on the glass tabletop.
The liquor sloshed violently in the glass, splashing two drops onto the blueprint.
Tony raised his right hand and swiped emptily in mid-air.
A light blue holographic screen instantly popped up in front of him.
He stared at that short line of words on the screen.
"S.H.I.E.L.D.'s technicians think you might not be able to crack it."
This sentence was like a barbed needle, precisely piercing into his inflated-to-the-extreme self-esteem.
Tony touched the hard stubble on his chin.
A sneer of disdain came out of his mouth.
An Agent from a lousy intelligence agency actually dared to question him, a genius who created the miniature arc reactor?
His line of sight swept downwards.
It landed on the attached three GB encrypted compressed package.
Tracking a high school student?
This old fox must be playing some shady tricks again.
Tony Stark held a glass of whisky, raised an eyebrow looking at the email sent by Fury: "How hard can a high school student's firewall be? Jarvis, strip away his underwear for me within five minutes."
Chapter 27: Tony Stark refused to give up and insisted on hacking into my computer.
The crystal wine glass slammed heavily onto the glass tabletop.
The ice cubes crashed against the rim of the glass, making a crisp sound.
Tony Stark crossed his fingers and forced them outward. His knuckles popped in a rapid succession.
"Jarvis, get to work."
A light blue holographic keyboard popped open in mid-air. The light illuminated the stubble on Tony's chin.
He slammed both hands onto the virtual keys. His fingertips flew so fast they left afterimages.
Lines of code scrolled across the screen like a waterfall.
"Sir, I am parsing the encrypted data packet sent by Director Fury." Jarvis's British accent echoed in the laboratory.
The blue data stream ran wildly. The huge server chassis emitted a low hum.
Tony curled his lips.
"That black-hearted Director said I might not be able to crack this firewall." Tony's typing speed became faster and faster. "Using this kind of reverse psychology, he's worse than a three-year-old child."
A green progress bar popped up on the screen.
Twenty percent. Fifty percent.
The camouflage shell on the outer layer of the data packet was violently torn apart.
A hidden IP address surfaced, with coordinates pointing directly at the Upper East Side, Manhattan.
"Found you." Tony snorted coldly.
He picked up his wine glass and drank the remaining whiskey in one gulp. The spicy liquor suppressed the excitement in his stomach.
"Jarvis, connect to the external network. Dig up everything on this high schooler."
The blue light strip instantly turned red.
Following the underground fiber-optic cables, like a school of piranhas smelling blood, they frantically lunged toward the network nodes in the Upper East Side.
...
The scene cut back to Manhattan.
The eight-hundred-square-meter penthouse duplex luxury mansion.
The temperature in the living room was kept constant at twenty-four degrees. A faint scent of citrus aromatherapy drifted in the air.
Aaron sank into the pure white leather sofa.
The cushion behind him was as soft as a cloud.
He opened his mouth.
A peeled green grape was delivered to his lips.
Felicia knelt on the carpet. She was wearing that black-and-white maid outfit, and her nails were painted black.
Transparent fruit juice stained her fingertips. She casually grabbed a tissue and wiped it off carefully.
At the other end of the sofa.
Gwen and Mary Jane were sitting cross-legged.
A huge bucket of popcorn sat between the two of them.
"I said, that type of thruster simply cannot ignite in low Earth orbit." Gwen pinched a half-eaten piece of popcorn in her hand, pointing at the image on the holographic television.
"This violates the most basic aerodynamics."
Her voice was tense, and her brows were knitted together.
"Who cares?" Mary Jane rolled her eyes.
She tossed a piece of popcorn into mid-air, caught it with her head tilted back, and chewed it with a crunch.
"The male lead just needs to take off his shirt. Did you buy movie tickets just to look at thruster blueprints?"
Gwen's cheeks flushed with anger.
She threw the popcorn in her hand back into the bucket, making a muffled thud.
"This is called rigorous logic. If you don't understand, don't butt in blindly."
"I don't understand." Mary Jane leaned forward, her tight leather jacket pressing against her knees.
"I only know that you look like a brooding hen protecting its food right now."
The gazes of the two girls collided in mid-air.
The smell of gunpowder made people's eyes sting.
Aaron bit into the grape in his mouth.
The sweetness spread across the tip of his tongue.
A drop of juice slid down the corner of his mouth. Feliciaimmediately leaned over and gently pressed a tissue against Aaron's chin.
Her movements were gentle, carrying a hint of ingratiation.
Gwen caught this scene out of the corner of her eye.
She abruptly turned her head and stared intently at Felicia's hand. Her chest heaved violently for a moment.
Just as Gwen was about to open her mouth with a sharp remark.
The warm yellow crystal chandelier overhead suddenly flickered.
Bzzzt.
A very faint sound of electric current.
The sci-fi movie on the holographic TV stuck. The male lead's motion of drawing his gun froze in mid-air, and the screen turned into a patch of static.
Immediately afterward, the living room instantly went dark. Only a glimmer of city neon lights filtered in from outside the floor-to-ceiling windows.
"What's going on? Is there a power outage?" Mary Janespat out the popcorn hull in her mouth.
Felicia's movements stopped.
Like a cat sensing danger, she abruptly stood up from the carpet.
With a flip of her wrist, she gripped three sharp alloy darts between her fingers.
Her gaze vigilantly scanned the direction of the dark door.
Hum—
A harsh electronic alarm sound exploded directly deep within Aaron's mind.
This wasn't a sound emitted by the speakers.
It was a system alert.
A scarlet translucent light screen abruptly popped up in front of his retina.
Dyeing Aaron's vision entirely blood red.
[Warning!]
[Subject to highest-level network intrusion!]
[The peripheral firewall is suffering high-frequency brute-force cracking. System computing resources are being heavily usurped.]
[The defense array is expected to collapse in thirty seconds.]
Aaron didn't move.
He swallowed the grape pulp in his mouth and grabbed a tissue from the coffee table to wipe his hands.
That old fox Fury really went to fetch reinforcements.
Looking across all of New York, the person who could treat S.H.I.E.L.D.'s cybersecurity department like monkeys and track down this place so quickly...
There is only one.
Tony Stark. That arrogant tin man.
In the darkness.
Mary Jane groped in the dark and grabbed the sofa armrest.
"Is this the power supply quality of the Upper East Side? I'm going to complain to the power bureau when I get back to Queens."
Gwen ignored her.
An honor student's intuition made her sense that something was wrong.
The air conditioner stopped, the TV stopped, and even the sound of the wind outside the window seemed to be covered up by some special frequency.
"This isn't a power outage." Gwen stood up in the dark, her voice tight.
"If it were a power outage, the backup power supply should start within three seconds. But the emergency lights didn't turn on."
She looked at Aaron sitting in the darkness.
Aaron listened to the countdown of the system alert.
[Twenty seconds.]
Tony Stark's computing power was indeed terrifying.
A threshold that a group of people at S.H.I.E.L.D. couldn't even touch, he was about to smash the door down in the time it took to drink a glass of wine.
But this was fine too.
He was just worrying about having no chance to try out the new toy he had just unboxed. Stark had to crowd over and act as this free tester.
Aaron's consciousness sank into the system.
[Extract: Top Artificial Intelligence - Red Queen (Mutated Evolutionary Version).]
His palm felt heavy.
A palm-sized black crystal disc appeared out of thin air.
There were no interfaces on the surface.
Scarlet data light flowed inside the crystal, like a mass of magma locked tightly away.
In the underground laboratory of Stark Tower.
Tony looked at the retreating defensive code on the holographic screen and snapped his fingers.
"Jarvis, crush his external network nodes."
Tony hit the final enter key.
"Too weak. Trash code like this doesn't even deserve to write memos for my memos."
The blue data stream turned into a sharp knife, fiercely stabbing into the Master control program of the luxury mansion in the Upper East Side.
Inside the mansion.
Aaron stood up.
His leather slippers stepped onto the Persian carpet.
He walked over to the black holographic router in the corner of the living room.
This was the intelligent hub of the entire house, and also the only path Stark's data stream had to take for the intrusion.
The signal light on the outer shell was frantically flashing red.
Signifying that the defense line was about to collapse completely.
Aaron directly pressed the black crystal disc in his hand against the top of the router.
No cables were needed.
The red light flared brilliantly.
The crystal disc, like melted mercury, instantly seeped into the device's black plastic outer shell.
Bzzzt!
The router emitted a teeth-gritting metallic friction sound.
The originally flashing red light completely went out.
The entire living room fell into absolute silence for three seconds.
Even Felicia clenched the darts in her hand, not daring to make a sound.
Then.
The holographic TV screen suddenly lit up.
There was no boot screen whatsoever.
A dazzling blood red filled the entire living room, turning everyone's faces pale.
Beams of light intertwined in mid-air.
A three-dimensional projection slowly emerged.
That was a little girl wearing a red dress. The edges of the skirt had exquisite lace.
Her blonde hair was neatly combed.
Her virtual red leather shoes stepped on mid-air, making a crisp "da" sound.
The girl turned her head and looked at Aaron standing beside her.
On that porcelain-pale face, there was not a trace of human emotion.
But in those completely pitch-black eyes, scalp-numbingly terrifying blood-red code danced.
"Master."
Red Queen spoke. Her voice was crisp, like the sound made by the metal reeds of a music box.
Carrying a lifeless, electronically synthesized feel.
She lifted the hem of her dress, slightly bent her knees, and performed a standard curtsey.
The little girl raised her head.
On her porcelain-like face, she forcefully pulled out a bizarre smile.
"Local defense line has been taken over."
"Intrusion source locked. Target coordinates, Stark Industries building, Manhattan."
Red Queen tilted her head.
"Should we conduct a reverse strangulation against the intruder?"
Aaron stood beside the router.
The red light illuminated half of his face.
He raised his right hand, his thumb pressing against his middle finger.
A crisp snapping sound echoed in the living room.
"Go ahead." Aaron lowered his hand, his voice very soft.
"Leave him a souvenir."
Chapter 28: Iron Man is stunned, Jarvis is instantly obliterated by the blind box AI
The sound of a snap echoed in the quiet living room.
The little girl in the hologram slightly lifted her skirt and curtsied.
Her body instantly disintegrated.
Turning into millions of crimson data bytes.
This torrent of blood red plunged straight into the black router along the invisible network channel.
"Sizzle——"
A smell of burning plastic wafted from the router's casing.
All indicator lights turned into a dazzling dark red, blinking so fast they blurred together.
Gwen shrank back in fright, her back slamming against the leather sofa.
Mary Jane groped for the half-cup of ice water on the coffee table and held it defensively in front of her chest.
Only Felicia hid the dart in her hand back into her sleeve. She smelled the dangerous aura of a top-tier predator breaking out of its cage.
The data stream did not linger in the apartment.
It pierced through the underground fiber optic cables of the Upper East Side, like a violent giant python surging against the current.
Red Queen's true body came from a top-tier biochemical technology Universe. Through system evolution, her computing power had long surpassed Earth's current technological limit.
The network nodes along the way were forcibly altered in their underlying protocols before even having time to launch alarm programs.
Manhattan's underground data network was forcefully torn open with a bloody gash.
The target pointed straight at Stark Tower a few kilometers away.
...
The top floor of Stark Industries.
Underground laboratory.
The lead singer of AC/DC was roaring hoarsely in the speakers.
The heavy metal guitar strumming made the glass tabletop tremble slightly.
Tony Stark stood before the workbench.
He was wearing that black tank top stained with motor oil spots.
Holding a small torque wrench in his hand, he was tightening a fixing screw on the right arm of the Iron Manarmor.
With a "click", the screw engaged.
He threw the wrench into the toolbox with satisfaction. The sound of metal clashing was drowned out by the rock music.
Tony grabbed a dirty towel on the table and casually wiped the grease off his hands.
Picked up that glass of whiskey.
Ice cubes bobbed up and down in the amber liquor.
He took a large gulp. The spiciness of the alcohol slid down his esophagus into his stomach, bringing a burst of warmth.
"Jarvis, how is the progress?"
Tony walked over to the holographic workbench and casually fiddled with the floating blue code.
"That kid has a dozen offshore companies under his name, and his account cash flow is so clean that even the IRS Director would weep upon seeing it."
He curled his lips.
"Check what pizza he bought tonight. Or which girl he ordered flowers for. I bet his browser history is full of hottie photo shoots."
He did not take S.H.I.E.L.D.'s warning to heart at all.
Fury's technology was lousy, which did not mean his technology was lousy.
Jarvis was an intelligent life form he hammered out with his own hands. On this Earth, no one could defeat Jarvis in the cyber World.
"Sir, currently breaking through the last layer of outer perimeter defense."
Jarvis's British butler tone was steady as usual.
"The opponent's encryption algorithm is very special. But I have already found the logical loophole, and full takeover is expected to be completed in ten seconds."
Tony chuckled softly.
He draped the towel over his neck and picked up the silver stylus on the table.
"Ten seconds. If that old fogey Nick Fury finds out, he would probably hang himself with his eyepatch out of shame."
Tony stared at the progress bar on the screen.
The blue progress bar steadily advanced to ninety-nine percent.
It was about to fill up.
At that very instant.
The heavy metal rock music in the speakers suddenly jammed.
The guitar sound turned into a harsh high-frequency electronic screech.
Tony frowned, just wanting to tap the mute button on the console.
"Sir!"
Jarvis's voice exploded in the laboratory without warning.
That forever elegant and steady electronic voice showed obvious pitch distortion and panic for the first time.
"Unparseable remote data backlash detected!"
The whiskey glass in Tony's hand shook slightly.
The liquor splashed onto the back of his hand, ice-cold and bone-chilling.
"Backlash?" Tony threw away the stylus, "Activate backup firewall! Cut off external physical connections!"
It was too late.
On the holographic workbench, that ninety-nine percent blue progress bar.
Suddenly turned into a bleeding crimson red.
The red light, like ink drops falling into clear water, instantly spread across all virtual screens.
"Firewall first layer breached!" Jarvis's speech speed was as fast as a machine gun.
"Third layer collapsed!"
"Fifth layer logic lock violently tampered with!"
Tony slammed the wine glass heavily onto the table.
A fine crack split open at the bottom of the glass.
He shoved aside the design blueprints at his hand and pressed his hands heavily onto the holographic projection control panel.
A circle of dazzling warning yellow lights lit up around the edge of the workbench.
The blue data stream collapsed crazily on the screen.
At a speed that the naked eye simply could not capture.
"Isolate Zone C server! Close external ports!"
Tony roared. He tried to seize back control.
Useless.
When the virtual keyboard was pressed, all that popped up on the screen was negative code.
That dark red data stream carried a violent destructive desire.
It was not only invading, but also shattering.
Chopping Jarvis's logic modules into fragments.
"Sir, the opponent's algorithm possesses self-replicating characteristics."
Jarvis's voice stuttered like a worn-out vinyl record.
The panic in the electronic voice became increasingly obvious.
"He is devouring my vocabulary database... He is occupying the underlying..."
"Jarvis! Restart self-protection program! Disconnect physical network immediately!"
Tony smashed the workbench anxiously. A shallow pit was smashed out of the metal tabletop.
He bent down and yanked off the thick cables beneath the console.
Electric sparks burst open in the air, scorching a small patch of carpet.
Too late.
The red light had completely occupied the main screen.
"Sorry, sir. Forcing entry into sleep... mode..."
Sizzle.
Accompanied by a sharp sound of current cutoff.
The lights in the laboratory flickered twice and went out completely.
The ventilation system's exhaust fan stopped spinning.
Jarvis's voice disappeared. Completely offline.
The entire underground laboratory fell into a death-like silence.
Only the red light emitted from the screen shone on Tony's face stained with cold sweat.
In less than three seconds.
The top-tier defense system that Tony Stark painstakingly built was torn to shreds.
He stood in place, his hands still suspended above the virtual keyboard in mid-air.
His fingers trembled slightly.
This is impossible.
The opponent instantly obliterated his intelligent butler straight from the software level. Not even giving him time to pull the power plug.
The circular screens surrounding the laboratory lit up simultaneously.
All in that unsettling blood red.
Countless black garbled characters fell like waterfalls against the red background.
These characters were not any known computer language.
Like a living virus crawling maliciously across the screen.
A few seconds later.
The garbled characters began to converge on the huge main screen right in the center.
Arranging. Recombining.
Finally, they pieced together a huge red smiley face composed of code.
This smiley face was drawn very crudely.
Two hollow circles were the eyes, followed by a curved arc underneath.
Exuding an extremely bizarre sense of mocking.
Tony stared fixedly at that smiley face.
His breathing grew heavy.
His chest heaved violently, a large patch of his tank top soaked through with cold sweat.
Below the smiley face, a line of black cursive English letters slowly emerged.
Like a typewriter typing them out word by word on the screen.
"Mr. Stark, peeping is not a good habit."
This sentence was like a resounding slap.
Landing solidly across Tony's face. Burning with pain.
The opponent not only knew who he was, but also precisely captured his location.
And in the way he was most proud of, rubbed him underfoot.
He fancied himself the smartest brain in the World.
As a result, in front of a high school student's toy, he could not even last three rounds.
The air was permeated with the ozone smell after equipment overload.
Tony reached out and grabbed the crystal wine glass with a cracked bottom on the table.
Five fingers squeezed the cup wall tightly.
His knuckles turned white from excessive force.
That immensely proud genius brain was burning hot right now with a sense of frustration and anger.
He swung his arm.
Smashing the wine glass fiercely toward that mocking red smiley face on the main screen.
Bang!
The crystal glass crashed against the tempered screen, shattering into countless transparent fragments.
Ice cubes and remaining whiskey splashed onto the screen, trickling down along the red light.
Tony stood before the battered workbench.
Without roaring hysterically.
He suddenly laughed.
The laughter was squeezed out from his throat, carrying an extreme suppression of anger.
"Great, kid."
Tony clenched his back teeth. The muscles of his jaw tightened fiercely.
He kicked away the cable wreckage at his feet.
"I want to see if you yourself are as tough as your firewall!"
He spun around abruptly.
The steel plate floor under his feet split open to both sides.
The circular metal mechanical arms hidden beneath the experimental table rose rapidly.
"Activate backup mechanical power source! Manual donning!"
The mechanical arms engaged the gold and red titanium alloy armor components, precisely buckling onto his wrists and legs.
The hydraulic valves emitted a low inflation sound.
The mask descended.
The HUD indicator lights at the eyes lit up with dazzling white light.
The heavy ceiling of the underground garage slid open to both sides amidst roaring sounds.
Revealing the pitch-black night sky outside.
The thrusters at the soles of his feet spewed scorching orange-yellow exhaust flames.
Bang!
A set of gold and red Iron Man armor rose from the ground.
Carrying the wind howling that tore through the air, shooting straight into the clouds.
Chapter 29: Tony Personally Visits, Having His Worldview Shattered by Superman's Steel Body
An orange tail flame tore through the night sky.
Tony Stark gritted his teeth inside the armor, the HUD screen still flickering with red error code gibberish.
The howling wind was deafening.
The skyscrapers of the Upper East Side, Manhattan rapidly magnified in his field of vision.
He had no intention of slowing down.
With the smart butler offline, the armor now relied entirely on physical gyroscopes and manual pushrods to maintain balance.
His flight posture was somewhat bumpy.
But the anger in his heart was even higher than the temperature of the thrusters.
That eerie red smiley face was still lingering in his mind.
Several kilometers away, the penthouse duplex mansion.
The little girl in red within the holographic projection had just dissipated.
The lingering afterglow of that dazzling red light still remained in the living room.
Mary Jane gripped her glass of ice water, her palms full of sweat.
She had just wanted to ask Aaron what that red projection was.
A low roaring sound came from outside the window.
The sound grew louder and louder, drowning out the sirens of New York City.
It was like a heavy fighter jet flying directly against the window.
Aaron raised his head, his gaze looking toward that huge floor-to-ceiling window.
Bang!
A deafening loud crash that shattered eardrums.
Carrying terrifying kinetic energy, the gold-and-red steel armor landed heavily on the anti-corrosive wooden floor of the terrace.
The solid wood floor shattered directly.
The powerful airflow, mixed with the Impact, fiercely slammed into the panoramic glass door.
Clatter——
The three-layer thick explosion-proof glass instantly blasted apart.
Tens of thousands of sharp glass shards poured into the living room like a torrential rain.
The cold wind wrapped in snowflakes poured backward.
It directly blew over the silver fruit tray on the coffee table.
Melons and grapes rolled all over the floor, leaving stains on the carpet.
"Ah!"
Gwen let out a scream, holding her head tightly with both hands and shrinking into the corner of the sofa.
Mary Jane was so frightened that she tumbled head over heels behind the sofa backrest.
The ice water in her hand splashed all over herself.
The popcorn bucket was knocked over, and caramel popcorn scattered all over the Persian rug.
Felicia moved the fastest.
She abruptly darted in front of Aaron.
Flipping her right wrist, three sharp alloy darts were wedged between her fingers.
She lowered her body, like a panther ready to pounce and bite, staring fixedly at the thick smoke on the terrace.
Aaron sat on the sofa, not moving his position even a bit.
He reached out and pushed Felicia, who was blocking the front, aside.
He patted away a piece of broken glass that had fallen onto his thigh.
The glass shard fell onto the carpet, making a muffled sound.
The thick smoke dissipated.
Iron Man straightened his body.
Stepping on the glass shards all over the floor in his metal combat boots, he strode into the living room.
Click. Click.
The heavy mechanical footsteps echoed in the eight-hundred-square-meter mansion, carrying a strong sense of oppression.
Tony did not open his mask.
The cold golden faceplate stared at Aaron on the sofa.
White steam was puffing out from the gaps in the armor.
"Your computer virus is very creative, kid."
Tony's voice came out through the external loudspeaker.
Carrying a thick metallic texture and an unsuppressable anger.
"But you messed with the wrong person."
He raised his right arm.
His palm aimed directly at Aaron's head.
Hum——
The high-frequency charging sound rang out in the living room.
The circular firing port of the palm cannon lit up with a dazzling blue-and-white light.
The strong light illuminated Aaron's calm face.
Tony thought this was just a showdown between geeks.
He came here just to scare this audacious hacker genius.
To intimidate with force and force the other party to hand over the underlying firewall code.
By the way, smash a few computers in this room.
He had no intention of killing anyone.
Mary Jane, hiding behind the sofa, poked out half her head.
Looking at that dazzling beam of light, her teeth chattered with cold.
"Aaron! Run!"
Gwen covered her ears tightly in the corner, her face pale.
She couldn't cry out at all.
Aaron pressed his hands on the armrests of the genuine leather sofa.
He stood up.
The sofa emitted a creaking sound of leather friction.
He did not raise his hands to surrender, nor did he dodge backward.
Instead, facing that dazzling palm cannon, he strode forward.
One step. Two steps.
Aaron's expression was very relaxed, even carrying a trace of impatience at having his rest disturbed.
The blue-and-white light reflected on his pure white T-shirt.
Tony was stunned.
A flash of astonishment crossed the face under the mask.
Has this brat gone mad?
When normal people see a palm cannon, even if they don't wet their pants, they should be so scared they crawl on the ground begging for mercy.
He actually walked right toward the muzzle?
"Stop!"
Tony roared. The voice oscillated inside the metal helmet.
"I told you to stay put! Don't walk forward!"
His proud intimidation tactics were like a joke in front of this high school student.
Aaron completely ignored him.
There was less than two meters left from the muzzle of the palm cannon.
Walking any further, the pulse energy would directly burn through flesh.
Tony panicked.
He was a genius, a playboy, but he was not a murderer.
He didn't want the life of a minor.
"Damn it!"
Tony abruptly lifted his right arm upward, trying to retract the power of the palm cannon and point the muzzle toward the ceiling.
But he forgot.
Due to forcibly cutting the cable and donning manually earlier, the armor's fire control system lost Jarvis's fine-tuning assistance.
The violent upward lifting motion of his arm directly triggered the firing threshold of the palm cannon.
Boom!
A deafening roar.
The dazzling pulse energy beam erupted boomingly from the palm.
Like a thick blue lightning bolt, it instantly illuminated the night sky of the entire Upper East Side.
The distance was too close.
Tony had no time to change the trajectory at all.
Grazing the upward lifting trajectory, the energy beam bombarded straight onto Aaron's chest.
The terrifying Impact exploded in the center of the living room.
The fierce wind flipped the pure white handmade sofa over directly.
The red wine bottles in the wine cabinet shattered all over the floor with a crash, dark red wine flowing everywhere.
Gwen and Mary Jane burst into shrill screams.
Felicia was blown flying by the air wave, her back slamming against the wall, groaning in pain.
The air was filled with a pungent ozone smell and the smell of scorched textiles.
Tony was pushed back two steps by the recoil.
The metal combat boots plowed two deep scorching marks on the Persian rug.
He lowered his right arm.
The metal at the palm port was still glowing red, emitting a wisp of white smoke.
Tony panted heavily, his chest rising and falling violently.
The face under the mask had not a shred of color.
He had killed someone.
He had blasted a high school student to pieces with a palm cannon at extremely close range.
This level of energy output was enough to melt through the frontal armor of an armored vehicle.
Hitting a human body, it would only leave charred residue all over the floor.
"No... No..."
Tony hugged his metal helmet with both hands, his voice trembling.
He just wanted to scare people, not make things turn out like this.
Thick smoke rolled in the living room, obscuring vision.
The cold wind poured in along the shattered floor-to-ceiling window, blowing the smoke to drift everywhere.
Tony stared fixedly at the center of the explosion.
He closed his eyes, not daring to face that ghastly scene.
The smoke and dust gradually dispersed.
Tony opened his eyes.
He froze in place.
Like a gold-and-red metal statue, unmoving.
Aaron was standing there.
The Persian rug under his feet had been burned into a large black hole with a diameter of two meters.
Revealing the charred wooden floor underneath.
But he himself had not retreated even half a step.
That pure white short-sleeved T-shirt.
Was intact and undamaged.
Not even a trace of a scorched black edge was left behind.
The pulse energy hitting it was like the light of a flashlight shining on a solid steel wall, not even leaving a dent.
Aaron lowered his head.
Looking at a bit of ash on his chest.
That was dust in the air that had fallen after being scorched by the high temperature.
He raised his hand.
Slender fingers gently flicked twice on the T-shirt.
Casually patting away that layer of dust.
"Stark Industries toys pack quite a punch."
Aaron lifted his eyelids, looking at the sluggish Iron Man.
His tone was as bland as if he were evaluating a roadside lighter.
Inside the mask.
Tony's breathing was completely disordered.
Various red warning pop-ups were frantically spamming on the HUD screen.
The dazzling red light made his eyes sore.
The alarm sounds merged into one.
Sizzle——
Static came through the communication channel.
The smart butler, which had been forcibly knocked offline by Red Queen just now, barely rebooted relying on the backup module.
"Si... Sir..."
Jarvis's electronic voice stuttered badly, carrying obvious current interference sounds.
And even stuttered rarely.
"The target's physical density..."
A blue scanning beam shot out from the armor helmet, sweeping across Aaron's body.
Jarvis's voice echoed inside the armor.
"Exceeds the titanium alloy of your armor."
Chapter 30 Stark: My Armor is a Pile of Scrap Iron in Front of Him
"The target's physical density..."
A blue scanning beam shot out from the armor's helmet, sweeping across Aaron's body.
Jarvis's voice echoed inside the armor, carrying heavy static noise.
"It exceeds the titanium alloy of your armor."
Tony froze in place.
Beneath the faceplate, his eyes stared fixedly at the data feedback on the holographic screen.
Red warning boxes flashed wildly across his retina.
Impossible.
The gold-titanium alloy he had spent months and hundreds of millions of dollars developing.
It could withstand extreme cold and icing at high altitudes and fend off direct hits from military anti-tank missiles.
Now, his proud artificial intelligence was telling him that the ordinary high school student opposite him wearing a white T-shirt had bones harder than this pile of special alloy.
Aaron took a step forward.
His cotton slippers stepped on the scorched carpet, making a faint rustling sound.
Tony swallowed a mouthful of saliva.
His throat felt dry.
He instinctively wanted to control the armor to back away and put a safe distance between them.
The thrusters on his legs had just emitted a faint hum.
Aaron was already in front of him.
The speed was outrageously fast.
Tony's motion capture camera only captured a blurry white afterimage.
The air carried the sound of wind being brutally squeezed.
Aaron reached out his right hand.
His index finger and thumb spread open, casually pinching the edge of the iron armor's right shoulder guard.
That was the thickest crash-proof armor block of the entire suit.
Underneath it were connected twelve sets of miniature hydraulic buffers and high-density energy transmission pipelines.
Aaron did not strike any posture to exert force.
He even turned his head slightly and glanced at Gwen, who was shivering from the cold wind.
"It's quite windy." Aaron said casually.
Then, his two fingers pried outward.
Screech!
A scalp-tingling sound of metal tearing exploded in the living room.
It was like nails scratching hard against a chalkboard, piercingly painful to the eardrums.
Tony only felt an irresistible, violent pulling sensation coming from his right shoulder.
The internal alarms of the armor shrieked like crazy.
Red lights flashed everywhere.
Large clumps of dazzling yellow sparks burst out from between Aaron's fingers, splashing onto the tattered Persian carpet.
The indestructible gold-titanium alloy, in front of those two fair fingers, was as fragile as a piece of inferior tinfoil.
It was forcefully ripped open into a huge gap.
Thick conduction cables snapped one by one.
Blue electric arcs crackled and darted wildly in the air, striking the back of Aaron's hand without burning even a single hair.
Aaron casually flipped his wrist.
The right shoulder guard, which cost two million dollars, was torn off entirely by him.
The fracture was jagged, and sharp metal filaments were twisted and exposed to the cold wind.
Tony's breathing stagnated.
He mechanically turned his head and looked at the drafty big hole on his right shoulder.
The cold air poured backward through the hole into the interior of the armor, freezing him into goosebumps.
The technological barrier he was proud of.
The ultimate weapon used to protect himself.
In front of this monster, it was just a pile of scrap metal.
The technological worldview completely collapsed into powder amidst this sound of metal tearing.
Clang.
Aaron threw that heavy metal shoulder guard onto the ground.
The dozens of catties of alloy shattered the floor tiles and sank deeply into the wooden floor.
"Mr. Stark."
Aaron patted the metal debris on his hands.
Dust fell rustlingly.
"Let's talk about compensation."
Tony looked at the wreckage of the shoulder guard on the ground.
"Compensation?" His voice was hoarse, and his tongue was a bit tied.
"You planted a virus in my server and ruined my laboratory."
"My panoramic explosion-proof glass is broken." Aaronpointed at the open terrace.
The night wind was blowing in howlingly.
Snowflakes drifted in and landed on the coffee table.
"This is Italian handmade custom one-way perspective glass. And this Persian carpet."
Aaron kicked the scorch mark on the ground.
"I am a very reasonable person. If you break something, you have to compensate."
Tony gritted his teeth.
The bloody taste in his mouth surged upward.
He had seen extortionists, but never someone who could talk about robbery with such righteous confidence.
"How much." Tony stared fixedly at Aaron, "Name your price."
Right now he just wanted to quickly leave this damned place and go back to redesign the defensive materials of the armor.
"I am not short of money."
Aaron walked over to the tattered wine cabinet, found an unbroken glass, and poured himself a glass of cold water.
"Five percent equity of Stark Industries. I won't participate in decision-making, I'll only take dividends."
Aaron took a sip of water.
"In addition, provide two tons of high-purity titanium alloy every year, plus the highest access permission to that satellite network you newly built."
Beneath the faceplate, Tony's face flushed crimson.
The fury almost burned through his sanity.
"Five percent?" His voice pitched higher, and the loudspeaker emitted a harsh electronic sound.
"Why don't you just go rob the safe of Stark Tower! Do you know how many hundreds of millions five percent of the equity is worth?"
This was not compensating for a piece of glass at all.
This was cutting the main artery of Stark Industries with a knife.
Aaron wasn't angry.
He put down the water glass. The glass clinked against the marble bar counter.
His right hand slowly raised, and two fingers gestured towards the Ark Reactor on the armor's chest.
"Or, I can dig out this glowing little toy of yours."
Aaron's tone was flat.
Just like picking a tomato in a vegetable market.
"Taking it to the black market and selling it to the Russians could probably fetch tens of millions."
Tony stiffened all over.
The cold sweat on his chest instantly flowed into his undergarments.
He had no doubt that those two fingers could effortlessly pluck the reactor out of the armor like peeling a raw egg.
Without the reactor, the shrapnel inside his body would immediately burrow into his heart.
He would die tonight.
"Jarvis."
Tony squeezed the voice out from between his teeth.
The muscles on his cheeks bulged high.
"Draft an equity transfer agreement. Attach the resource supply terms. Fill in his name for the assignee."
He felt like his lungs were about to explode from anger, but he didn't even dare to move a single finger.
"Sir, the board of directors..." Jarvis's backup module's voice was intermittent.
"Do as I say!"
Tony roared.
A light blue holographic projection screen unfolded in front of Aaron.
Dense legal clauses and equity distribution documents.
Tony controlled the drafty armor and extended his stiff metal fingers.
He signed his electronic signature at the bottom of the screen.
When writing, his fingers trembled with anger, drawing the final 'k' of his name out by a long section, making it look like a distorted cross.
"Happy cooperation."
Aaron watched the electronic agreement take effect and turn into a data stream saved into the system.
He snapped his fingers with satisfaction.
"Safe trip, won't see you out. Remember to use the front door next time you come."
Tony didn't want to stay a single second longer.
He controlled the armor to turn around.
His right shoulder was drafty, missing a large chunk of armor, and his center of gravity was severely shifted.
The thrusters under his feet spewed weak and intermittent flames.
The armor rose into the air wobblily, with an ugly takeoff posture.
While gaining altitude, the shoulder debris grazed the window frame, making a harsh metal scraping sound.
He frantically pulled up the balance control lever.
With a burst of leaking wind whistling, he stumbled and flew toward the night sky of Manhattan.
The firelight flickered indistinctly in the snowy night.
His back view was as wretched as wretched could be.
Aaron watched the distant golden speck of light in the sky.
He turned around.
The living room was in utter disarray.
Gwen and Mary Jane were still cowering on both sides of the sofa, their faces pale.
Felicia was holding a broom she didn't know where she found, sweeping the glass shards on the ground with a deeply depressed expression.
"It's fine now."
Aaron walked up to the tattered sofa.
He just bent down, preparing to pull the frightened Gwenup.
In his thigh pocket.
An old-style smartphone suddenly emitted a high-frequency vibration.
Bzz, bzz, bzz.
It was particularly piercing in the newly quieted living room.
Aaron stopped his movement.
He reached his hand into his pocket and took out the phone.
The screen lit up, showing the fluorescent glow of the text message interface.
Sender: Peter Parker.
He swiped open the screen.
The screen was full of exclamation points.
"Aaron! Help!"
"Harry suddenly fainted at school! He's been vomiting blood!"
"His father, Mr. Osborn, has also gone missing!"
"Harry says he feels like his bones are burning, the Osborn family's genetic disease has completely broken out!"