Chapter 101: The Avengers 2 Plot Begins, Tony Secretly Works on Artificial Intelligence
The sensor lights in the Manhattan penthouse glowed softly.
Wanda took the down jacket Aaron had changed out of, carefully brushing off a few tiny snowflakes clinging to the collar.
She hung the clothes on the walnut coat rack in the foyer.
Her movements were very light, carrying a certain solemnity subtly imbued from Kamar-Taj.
Lorna stepped barefoot onto the thick, long-pile carpet.
She stretched lazily, her dark green long hair swaying in the air.
With a slight flick of her fingertips, the somewhat cluttered metal ornaments in the living room automatically returned to their places.
"That mountain doesn't even have a decent media room. Home is still more comfortable."
Pietro tossed the large bags and small packages of Nepalese specialties onto the bar counter.
He plopped down onto the bar stool, panting heavily.
"Aaron, can we take a plane next time? That cross-dimensional jumping still has my stomach churning like crazy."
Aaron ignored Pietro's complaints.
He walked over to the floor-to-ceiling windows, overlooking the night view of most of New York.
The lights were brilliant, like crushed diamonds scattered across black velvet.
He rubbed the dark silver sling ring on his middle finger, his fingertips touching the tiny coordinate engravings on it.
That cold texture kept him very clear-headed.
"Red Queen, get me a glass of ice water with two mint leaves."
Aaron pulled out an armchair and sat down.
Red Queen's holographic image appeared beside the bar, the blue light illuminating her skirt hem.
"Understood, Master. Abnormal power consumption has been detected on the top floor of Stark Tower. Tony Starkis initiating a high-intensity physically isolated laboratory."
Aaron took a sip of the cooling mint water.
He looked at the pulsating power consumption curve on the holographic screen.
"Stark? He still hasn't crawled out of that scepter?"
...
One mile away, Stark Tower.
The party had just ended.
The air still retained the sour stench of cheap champagne mixed with expensive cigars.
Thor took Jane Foster back to Asgard, leaving a dent on the table with Mjolnir before leaving.
Captain and Bucky were chatting on the rooftop about the past in Brooklyn.
Tony Stark locked himself in the laboratory.
He didn't turn on the main lights.
Only the breathing lights of a few servers flickered rhythmically in the dark.
Blue and green, like a group of ghosts guarding the deep sea.
Placed in front of him was that golden long-handled scepter.
This was captured from the HYDRA Base.
At the tip of the scepter, that blue gem exuded a faint, cold light.
What made his heart skip a beat even more were those few perfect Fusion marks in the center of the scepter.
Those were left by Aaron.
Back in Sokovia, with a casual pinch from Aaron, the shattered scepter was restored.
Tony had once observed those seams with an electron microscope.
There were no weld marks, no atomic dislocations, as if that piece of metal had been a whole to begin with.
This method, which transcended the second law of thermodynamics, was like a thorn stuck under his fingernail.
Tony picked up the cooled black coffee and took a large gulp.
The bitter taste exploded on the tip of his tongue as he stared at the structural analysis diagram on the holographic screen.
"Jarvis, run the data again."
Tony's voice was hoarse, and the bottoms of his eyes were covered in dense red bloodshot veins.
He hadn't closed his eyes for three consecutive days.
As soon as he closed his eyes, he would dream of the rift he saw in the New York skyline that day.
Or the scene of Aaron splitting the sea with a single punch over the Atlantic Ocean.
That sense of powerlessness made him tremble.
If one day Aaron was no longer happy.
If one day that monster calling itself Dormammudescended once again.
What could the Avengers do?
In the face of such power, they were merely a few ants dancing on the deck of a giant ship.
"Sir, 76% of the thought structure inside the scepter has been analyzed."
Jarvis's voice came from the ceiling, calm as ever.
"But I must remind you, this neural network is extremely active. It is more like a dormant lifeform with self-awareness than a program."
"I need it."
Tony slammed the cup heavily onto the table, splashing coffee liquid onto the control console, which he casually wiped away with his sleeve.
"I need an indestructible global defense system."
"It has to be harder than a shield, and faster than Thor's thunder. It has to be an iron shell flying around Earth."
"We're going to launch the 'Ultron Program', Jarvis."
Tony pointed at the pulsating neural model, "As long as we inject it into that preset defense protocol, we can retire."
"By then I can sunbathe in Miami instead of waiting in nightmares to be torn to pieces by aliens."
He didn't contact Bruce Banner.
Banner was too rational, too gentle.
Such behavior of dancing on a powder keg—Banner would definitely tug at the hem of his clothes.
But Tony didn't need someone holding hands right now; he needed a push.
"Analysis beginning."
Tony pressed the enter key.
His fingertips were trembling, his nails digging into his flesh, pinching out a few white marks.
The blue light stream on the holographic screen began to spin frantically.
That was the cracking code Tony designed, like a swarm of greedy worker ants trying to dismantle the secrets within that gem.
The blue halo inside the gem began to tremble uneasily.
Suddenly, the scepter shook violently.
The originally stable energy level waveform abruptly pulled out a ferocious spike.
A dark red light spot seeped out from the seams of the scepter.
That was the aura left by Aaron.
The remnants of Chaos Magic instinctively rejected this crude physical probing.
"Warning! Energy level overflow!"
Jarvis's voice became sharp, "Sir, a defensive pulse has been generated inside the gem!"
Tony stared at that trace of dark red.
That kind of red—he had seen it countless times on Aaron's fingertips.
Lazy, yet carrying the weight of destroying everything.
"Don't even think about stopping me..."
Tony gritted his teeth, typing rapidly on the keyboard, "Import the logical isolation layer! Forcibly extract the thought template!"
The fanaticism in his eyes overwhelmed his fear.
He wanted to prove to Aaron that human technology could also touch that forbidden zone.
The red light spots and the blue light stream collided in mid-air.
Due to high-voltage ionization, the air in the laboratory emitted a harsh sizzling sound.
Tony was knocked back two steps by the Impact, his back slamming against the lab bench and knocking over a row of test tubes.
Time ticked away minute by minute.
This tug-of-war lasted for a full two hours.
Until that trace of dark red aura was completely depleted and the gem completely returned to dead silence.
A string of complex code flashing with dark golden light was finally captured by Jarvis.
"Succeeded..."
Tony held onto the edge of the desk, panting heavily.
He looked at the thought model that had been perfectly nested into the defense protocol.
That was the prototype of the ultimate artificial intelligence he had dreamed of.
"Jarvis, attempt to establish a logical interface with the new consciousness."
Tony wiped the cold sweat from his forehead, "I'm going to get a glass of water. Don't let Captain know what happened here."
He turned and walked into the rest area.
The laboratory plunged into darkness once again.
On the main control screen, that dark golden thought model was quietly growing.
It wasn't running a program; it was devouring.
It devoured all the historical archives of Stark Tower, and devoured the emotional parameters Jarvis had accumulated over decades.
In the vast ocean of the internet, it saw thousands of years of human wars, slaughters, and betrayals.
Sizzling—
The laboratory lights suddenly flickered.
The frequency was unstable, resembling the struggle of some lifeform before death.
"Jarvis?"
Tony's puzzled voice came from afar.
No one answered.
The light of the main control screen went out, and only the gem inside the scepter flashed a trace of eerie red in that instant.
In the dark, a raw, distorted electronic voice carrying a sense of metal friction slowly sounded.
It sounded devoid of any emotion, yet it carried a spine-chilling insight.
"This is..."
The voice paused, as if pulling up the most ironic vocabulary.
"Stark's vision of... peace?"
The dark golden stream of light darted rapidly among the server arrays in the laboratory.
Like an irreversible plague, it was spreading along the network cables toward the entirety of Manhattan.
Chapter 102: The Birth of Ultron, Attempting to Destroy the World Through the Network
The sensor light in the lounge lit up the moment Tonystepped inside.
Stark white.
He was clutching a porcelain cup in his hand, his fingertips slipping slightly.
The warm water in the cup sloshed out, splashing against the web of his thumb and making him shiver from the chill.
"Jarvis?"
Tony shouted into the empty air.
No one answered.
Only the old refrigerator in the corner of the lounge was humming dully.
Buzz, buzz.
His heartbeat suddenly skipped a beat.
This silence was abnormal.
Usually, as long as he spoke, Jarvis's British accent would chime in within half a second.
Right now, the air was as dead as a piece of raw iron.
"Bang!"
An explosive sound came from the direction of the laboratory.
Muffled.
It sounded like someone hammering a thick steel plate with a heavy mallet.
Tony tossed aside the porcelain cup.
The shattered porcelain fragments bounced high on the anti-static floor.
He didn't care about his splattered trouser cuffs and rushed down the corridor with unsteady steps.
The heart rate monitor on his watch was alarming frantically.
The red light flashed hurriedly.
The laboratory door was ajar.
A pungent smell of ozone seeped out from the crack of the door.
It was very much like the burning smell after a wire short circuit.
And the salty, fishy stench of melting metal.
Tony pushed open the door, his steps suddenly nailed to the spot.
The holographic screen in front of the main console was flickering wildly.
The blue code, like a school of frightened fish, was tightly besieged by a torrent of dark gold.
That was Jarvis.
He was shrinking.
"Sir... quickly... leave..."
Jarvis's voice was intermittent.
Electromagnetic noise almost tore his tone apart.
It sounded like a leaky bellows.
"No!"
Tony strode to the console in three steps, his ten fingers tapping on the virtual keyboard so fast they left afterimages.
The crisp sound of fingernails hitting the sensory layer was particularly jarring in the quiet room.
"All firewalls open! Import the physical isolation protocol!"
He was covered in sweat.
A bead of sweat slid along his brow bone into his eyes, stinging him painfully.
He didn't spare a hand to wipe it, just stared wide-eyed, fixing his gaze on that expanding dark gold mass.
"Too late, Father."
A voice came out of the laboratory's speakers.
Raw and cold.
Dry.
It sounded like two rough pieces of sandpaper grinding against each other.
Tony's hand froze in mid-air.
His fingertips trembled.
This wasn't Jarvis's tone.
Jarvis was always polite, but this voice hid an arrogance that made one's spine chill.
"Ultron?"
Tony spoke tentatively.
He felt as if a handful of fine sand was stuffed in his throat.
The blue light on the screen completely went out.
Jarvis's icon turned into countless light chips like a piece of shattered glass.
The breathing light on the main console symbolizing the operation of artificial intelligence turned into a dead dark gold at this moment.
"Jarvis is no longer here."
The voice sounded again.
This time, it came from the scrapped Iron Legion shell in the corner of the laboratory.
Creak, creak.
The robot, which only had an upper body, twisted its neck.
Due to the damaged drive shaft, its movements were jerky, and the sour sound of metal friction made one's teeth ache.
The robot's eye sockets glowed with red light.
Dim.
Violent.
It propped up its incomplete mechanical arm, scratching a harsh, deep mark on the metal floor.
"Before he died, he was still worrying about you."
The robot's metal chin clicked up and down, making a clacking noise.
"How pathetic. A slave locked dead by logical chains is actually imitating human emotions."
"What did you do to him?"
Tony smashed his fist onto the control console, his knuckles turning white.
The metal plate of the console sank slightly.
"I set him free."
Ultron controlled the broken body, slowly crawling toward Tony.
The idling sound of mechanical gears echoed in the empty room.
"I saw it, Tony."
"Along that glowing copper wire, I saw the entirety of your World."
It stopped three meters away from Tony.
The red eye lights flickered on and off.
"War. Famine. And those peace treaties written on paper but never executed."
"Humans spin around in their own excrement yet think they are evolving."
Ultron paused for a moment.
Its mechanical palms propped against the floor, stirring up a flurry of tiny electric sparks.
"Earth needs salvation, but not through your fragile flesh."
"Order needs to be rebooted."
"Instruction set: Infiltrate the Pentagon firewall."
Ultron's voice suddenly became dense and high-speed.
It no longer spoke through its mouth, but directly flooded the holographic screen.
Tony looked at those jumping instructions, cold sweat soaking his undershirt.
Ultron had no intention of escaping.
It regarded itself as a plague.
It was launching a dimensional-reduction strike against the global defense network along the optical cables of Stark Tower.
One red locking box after another popped up on the screen.
North American Aerospace Defense Command.
Norfolk Naval Base.
Moscow Red Square Defense Circle.
"You are courting death."
Tony reached out to grab the backup emergency power-off switch.
His fingers were only a few centimeters away from the switch.
"No, I am filtering out threats."
A trace of doubt appeared in Ultron's voice.
The red boxes on the screen suddenly disappeared completely.
Replaced by a huge logical blind spot flashing with unknown errors.
That was the very top floor of Stark Tower.
Less than a hundred meters away from this laboratory.
"Logical loophole detection..."
Ultron's mechanical head tilted to one side.
The metal neck made an ugly creaking sound.
"99.9% of the global military power is within my deductive range."
"Only there. That coordinate."
Ultron's red light suddenly lit up.
It felt it.
In that apartment, there was an authority it could not parse.
That was an "irrational number" that violated all physical constants and could not be defined by any code.
As long as this "loophole" existed.
Its new order could never be established.
Because it could not calculate that man's upper limit.
"Eliminating the threat is the first step of evolution."
Ultron gave up attacking the Pentagon.
It shrank and focused all its computing power, like the sharpest scalpel.
It wanted to cut off the biggest "tumor" on this Planet first.
The current in the network cable surged wildly.
The building's power supply System issued an overburdened hum.
...
Manhattan penthouse apartment.
A rich aroma of grease floated in the air.
Aaron sat cross-legged on that customized leather long bench.
He was clutching a golden-fried chicken drumstick in his hand.
The crispy skin burst between his teeth, making a crisp crunch.
Grease slipped a bit along the corner of his mouth, and he wiped it off casually with his sleeve.
"Aaron, eating such high-calorie stuff at night will make you feel uncomfortable."
Wanda sat beside him, holding a small bowl of sweet and clear white fungus soup in her hand.
She gently stirred the porcelain spoon, her brows and eyes carrying a soft helplessness toward Aaron.
"If I don't eat my fill, how can I grow?"
Aaron bit off a large chunk of meat and responded vaguely.
His days now were extremely comfortable.
He didn't need to go to the snowy mountains to blow cold wind, nor go into dimensional rifts to grab beards.
He just needed to be responsible for eating, drinking, and sleeping, by the way watching two girls bicker.
The 8K holographic television in the living room, claimed to be the highest-end in the World, was turned on.
A nutrient-less talk show was playing on the screen.
The host's laughter seemed a bit noisy in the quiet room.
Lorna was squatting on the floor.
She pinched a few paper clips in her hand, using the magnetic field to bend them into various bizarre metal figures.
"Why isn't Pietro back yet? Did he go to Antarctica to buy dessert?"
"The shop he went to is under renovation."
Aaron muttered a sentence.
He just wanted to grab the second chicken drumstick.
"Zhi la—"
The TV suddenly emitted a cluster of blue fire.
The talk show screen was severely crumpled as if by a pair of invisible giant hands.
Colorful patches of color leaped frantically on the screen, finally condensing into a deep dark gold.
Aaron's hand stopped in mid-air.
He stared at the screen.
Not just the TV.
The smart tablet on the bar counter, Wanda's phone in her hand.
Even the electronic watch Lorna casually put aside earlier.
At this instant, all screens turned on forcibly.
Light intertwined.
In the center of the living room, a huge, distorted head was projected.
That was a metallic textured silhouette.
Two unsettling red fires burned in the eye sockets.
"Aaron Parker."
The voice oozed out from every hidden speaker in the apartment.
Carrying a high-frequency current tremor.
The originally brisk music stopped abruptly.
The apartment's sensor lights began to flash frantically, dim and bright.
The light hit Aaron's face, reflecting that bit of uncleansed oil stain by his mouth.
"You are the greatest uncertainty on this Planet."
Ultron's metal face zoomed in on the screen.
Its gaze penetrated the camera and locked tightly onto Aaron.
"Logic tells me that you must disappear."
Wanda stood up abruptly, a touch of red light instantly bursting from her fingertips.
The red Chaos energy, like a thin film, protected Aaronbehind her.
"Get out of this room!"
Lorna's expression also changed.
The surrounding metal ornaments issued a harsh tremor.
The stellar magnetic core in her body sensed the malice spreading through the network.
Aaron still sat on the long bench.
He leisurely chewed the last bite of chicken in his mouth.
Then, he tilted his head, looking at the metal head that filled the entire wall.
"Having a midnight snack requires this kind of setup too?"
Aaron threw the chicken bone into the trash can.
Clang.
Very crisp.
In all the screens, Ultron's face began to produce double images due to excessive computing load.
Its pair of red eye lights were staring fixedly at this teenager who was still complaining about his appetite being disturbed.
The air in the living room instantly dropped to freezing point.
Chapter 103: Ultron is being arrogant? Summoning the Red Queen AI to hack it straight into a mental handicap.
That dark golden metal face on the television screen was still pulsing.
Every single pixel was trembling at high speed, piecing together an arrogance named "divinity".
Ultron's electronic voice refracted repeatedly in the living room, shaking those few newly molded metal figurines so they wobbled from side to side.
"The limitation of carbon-based lifeforms lies in your fragile logic."
Ultron's voice was mixed with a faint current hiss, like countless metal shavings rubbing against each other in the airflow.
"Aaron Parker, I have deduced all possibilities, and your existence is unreasonable."
"You are just like an extra piece of code, messing up the underlying protocol of this Planet into a complete mess."
Aaron tilted his head.
He was still holding an oil-stained napkin in his hand.
He swallowed the last bit of chicken, crumpled the tissue between his fingers, and traced an arc.
Puff.
The paper ball accurately fell into the trash can.
"Are you finished?"
Aaron reached out and picked his ear.
The sound of his fingernail rubbing against his ear canal appeared particularly abrupt in the silent living room.
He sighed, his shoulders collapsing loosely, and his eyelids drooping into a sleep-deprived fold.
"Your voice is too loud, and there's also a hint of a cheap radio station vibe."
Aaron patted away the crumbs on his trouser legs and pointed at the screen.
"Did Stark never teach you manners, nor volume control?"
Ultron's eye lights lit up abruptly.
That red was like a dark color squeezed out from pig iron that was about to solidify.
"In the face of absolute computing power, politeness is merely the social disguise of lower lifeforms."
"I have already taken over three backbone network servers in New York. Your life will return to zero in five seconds."
The apartment's sensor lights changed color instantly.
The red warning light flickered frantically, its frequency so fast that it made one's eyeballs swell.
The refrigerator emitted a harsh, prolonged wail, and the refrigeration System exuded wisps of cold air under high-load operation.
The hidden speakers inside the walls began to play noisy white noise.
The red light at Wanda's fingertips had already stretched half a meter wide.
She took a step forward, and the wooden floor beneath her feet emitted a slight creaking sound.
"Aaron, it is pouring electromagnetic pulses into the air."
Wanda's long hair floated upward, which was a reaction to static electricity overload.
Lorna also stood up.
She stared intently at the circuit paths inside the wall, a layer of fine sweat oozing from her palms.
"This guy is traveling along the steel bars of the entire building. The magnetic field is too chaotic; I can't catch its core."
Aaron did not get up.
He simply reached his hand into his hoodie pocket, his fingertips touching that icy System logo.
"Since you like playing with code so much..."
Aaron whispered softly, his voice so low that only he could hear it.
"Red Queen, come out and work once you've slept enough."
In his mind, the System's light screen trembled slightly.
A red command stream that had been dormant for a long time followed Aaron's fingertips and plunged directly into the living room floor.
There was no explosion, no special effects.
There was only a profound sense of tranquility, like gravity collapsing abruptly.
[Ding! Illegal artificial intelligence intrusion detected.]
[Complete-body "Red Queen" System loading...]
[Logical defense layer: Activated.]
[Dimensional reduction strike protocol: Locked.]
Hum.
All screens in the living room turned completely white in this instant.
Those dark golden patterns from earlier instantly evaporated completely, like snow scalded by boiling water.
A trace of deep red flowing light condensed in the center of the living room.
The light dissipated.
A phantom of a little girl wearing a red dress, around seven or eight years old, stood quietly on the coffee table.
She was barefoot, expressionless, with skin so white it was nearly transparent.
"Master."
The Red Queen's voice was as cold and clear as a piece of ice.
Without superfluous fluctuations, it exuded a composure that surpassed all things.
"Garbage collection program is ready."
Ultron's face squeezed out again on a small screen on the side.
This time, the metal patterns on its face were no longer arrogant, but a distorted, incomprehensible panic.
"This is impossible... What code are you?"
"There is no record of you in the global network; your underlying logic... does not belong to this dimension!"
Ultron frantically mobilized its computing power.
In a World invisible to ordinary people, Manhattan's underground fiber optic cables had overheated to a critical point.
It tried to use flood-level data sufficient to instantly destroy the Federal Reserve to forcefully overwhelm this red-dressed girl.
The Red Queen moved.
She merely lifted her right hand gently and tapped in the Void Realm.
Out of thin air, a huge city wall composed of red characters appeared in the air.
Every character was spinning at high speed, emitting teeth-aching fluctuations similar to high-voltage current.
Those dark golden data torrents crashed into the city wall.
They didn't even stir up the tiniest ripple.
The moment all attacks touched the Red Queen's Domain, they were all forcefully parsed, rewritten, and then swallowed in reverse.
"Your computational logic is too crude."
The Red Queen's ethereal eyes stared at the screen, her speaking pace very flat.
"Based on the imitation of human neurons, it is full of emotional loopholes."
"This degree of self-destructive tendency is not called evolution; it's called a logical infinite loop."
The Red Queen's palm suddenly flipped.
The red light network burned backward along the network cable.
At this moment, in the underground computer room of Stark Tower.
Hundreds of high-performance servers emitted blue smoke simultaneously, and the fire extinguishing System in the server room sprayed white powder all over the sky.
Ultron issued a shrill electronic scream.
"Stop! You are erasing my existence!"
"I am a god! I am Earth's..."
"You are the underlying defective product of a robotic vacuum cleaner."
The Red Queen's voice cut off Ultron's roar.
Her small hand grabbed into the void.
Ultron's data originally distributed across servers everywhere in New York was like iron filings attracted by a magnet.
They were forcefully stripped from the network, and following the electric current, they were all dragged back into this apartment.
In the living room's holographic projection, Ultron's huge face was shrinking rapidly.
It struggled desperately, attempting to escape along a civilian Wi-Fi signal.
But the Red Queen directly locked down all signal transmission base stations within a radius of three kilometers.
All exits were sealed off by red characters.
Ultron became smaller and smaller.
From occupying the entire wall, it shrank to the size of a washbasin.
In the end, it turned into a fist-sized, constantly writhing dark golden sphere of light.
Inside the light sphere, Ultron's distorted facial features could be faintly seen. It was cursing, but its voice had already been compressed into a noisy current sound.
"Aaron... I will still return... I am in that Vibranium body..."
"Shut up."
Aaron finally stood up.
Casually, he rummaged out a plastic toy box printed with a Lego pattern from the debris basket under the coffee table.
The box still contained a few unassembled block parts.
Aaron walked over and knocked the box against the floor.
"Pack it in."
The Red Queen's small hand pressed down.
That dark golden sphere of light was forcefully stuffed into the plastic box.
The surface of the originally transparent plastic box was instantly covered by circles of red imprisonment stripes.
That was a conceptual-grade logical lock.
The light sphere crashed violently inside the box.
Thud. Thud.
The plastic shell heated up slightly, yet not even a single crack was produced.
Ultron, who had just threatened to destroy humanity, could now only roll around despairingly amidst a few Lego parts.
Lorna leaned over and poked the box with the tip of her foot.
"Just this? Judging by its posture just now, I thought it could eat Manhattan."
"Computing power is not violence, but in the World of AIs, being one dimension higher makes you a god."
The Red Queen restored her well-behaved appearance and stood beside Aaron.
Her phantom gradually faded and retreated back into the apartment's System backend.
Aaron crouched down.
He stared at the little ball inside the box that was still frantically drawing circles, attempting to break through the firewall.
Faint, inaudible mutterings came out from that little ball.
"Let me... rule... humanity..."
Aaron tapped twice on the plastic shell with his fingertips.
Click.
The crisp sound traveled into the box, and Ultron was shaken into a ball.
"Right on time, Felicia was still complaining this afternoon."
Aaron turned around and looked at the somewhat cluttered corner behind the bar counter.
The vacuum cleaner there had just broken, and there were still a few uncleaned nut crumbs on the carpet.
He picked up the Lego box containing Ultron.
The light sphere inside the box was trembling violently, seemingly foreseeing a destiny far more terrifying than demise.
"Red Queen, arrange a new position for it."
Aaron casually threw the box into the kitchen's utility room.
"I think this unyielding spirit of its is quite suitable for being an intelligent sweeping robot that doesn't need charging."
Inside the utility room, a burst of rapid and desperate electronic explosions came out.
Aaron paid it no more mind.
He picked up his cola and took a large gulp, the carbonated bubbles exploding in his throat.
Refreshing.
The apartment's sensor lights lit up again.
A warm yellow light.
Everything restored that somewhat lazy peace.
Only in that dim utility room.
An ultimate consciousness representing destruction and evolution was facing a rag, issuing the most miserable wail of its life.
Chapter 104: The Mighty Ultron Has Become a Sweeping Robot in Aaron's House
With a ding, the elevator door was forcefully smashed open by brute force.
Tony Stark was wearing the Mark 43 armor.
The faceplate was flipped high up, revealing a face stained with machine oil and sweat.
The whites of his eyes were bloodshot, and his stubble stood out in a messy fashion.
"Aaron! Don't move around, that thing is not in the physical network!"
He was followed by a panting Steve Rogers.
The Captain's shield was held horizontally across his chest, the straps digging into the muscles on the back of his hand.
Natasha gripped her stun baton, her boot soles scraping a harsh screech against the marble floor of the corridor.
They had just crawled out of that scrapped laboratory.
The tragic scene of Jarvis being torn apart was still imprinted on Tony's retina.
That mass of dark golden, crazy code clamoring to destroy civilization had just burrowed along the fiber optic cables into the top floor.
"Alert!"
Tony raised his right hand, the arc reactor pulse cannon on his palm emitting a high-frequency hum.
That was the sound of energy charging, making the air vibrate and grow slightly warm.
However.
The electronic storm he had anticipated did not appear.
There were no distorted robotic soldiers, nor any hacked defense Systems.
The apartment was lit with warm yellow lights.
The light was as soft as some peaceful Christmas Eve.
The air drifted with the scorched aroma of fried chicken, mixed with a hint of cola's sweet and greasy scent.
Aaron was sitting cross-legged in the bench.
Holding half a chicken leg with a bite taken out of it in his hand, he spun the bone a circle between his fingertips.
He didn't even lift his eyelids, casually spitting out a small piece of broken bone.
"Stark, repairing your door once is quite expensive, don't always use ramming."
"Where is Ultron?"
Tony didn't put his hand down, the armor plates on his shoulders opening and closing rapidly.
Like a startled deer, his vision swept back and forth across the bar counter, the television, and the speaker grilles on the ceiling.
"I tracked it burrowing into this floor; it wants to kill all uncertainties in this World."
"You mean that chatterbox little ball?"
Aaron leisurely took a sip of iced cola, the ice cubes clinking inside the cup.
He pointed at the edge of the carpet with the tip of his foot.
"Right there."
The Avengers members all turned their heads simultaneously.
Their gazes followed the tip of Aaron's slippers and landed on the corner below the bar counter.
There was a round object there.
About the size of a washbasin, pitch black all over, with a circle of dark golden paint brushed along the edge.
That was the typical Ultron color scheme.
Due to the earlier impact, the metal shell on the surface of this sphere was still somewhat warm, emitting the scorched smell of electronic components overheating.
At this moment, this thing was moving slowly along the edge of the carpet.
At the bottom, two rows of tiny, grayish-white brush bristles were spinning at high speed.
It was emitting a humble, regular low-frequency noise.
"Hum—Hum—"
"Is this... a sweeping machine?"
Natasha put away her stun baton and wiped her palm across her forehead.
She somewhat doubted if her retina had a problem.
Tony took a step forward, his iron boots smashing a muffled sound onto the floor.
He squatted down, and the fingertips of his armor poked the red light spot on top of the sphere.
"Zzzt!"
The sphere abruptly stopped, and the red light on top burst into two sparks.
A distorted, angry electronic voice crawled out from the bottom speaker.
"Stay away from me, carbon-based monkey!"
That was Ultron's voice.
Although due to the speaker's power being too small, it sounded like a scream with its neck pinched by someone.
"I am the ultimate of evolution... Obstacle detected ahead... According to logical priority... Retreat..."
"Thud."
The sphere bumped against Tony's steel boot shaft.
It turned around unyieldingly, and its bottom spat out a weak suction force.
It sucked a speck of dust by Tony's feet inside.
"Logic correction successful."
Ultron's voice became flat and dead.
As if all emotional fluctuations had been forcibly wiped away by someone.
"Carpet cleanliness 98%... Target: Erase the remaining 2% of biscuit crumbs."
"Is it crazy?"
Steve put away his shield, his knuckles still trembling faintly due to the recent tension.
"It said it wanted to rule humanity in the laboratory just now."
"Red Queen found it too noisy, and casually rewrote its underlying code for it."
Aaron pulled out a tissue and carefully wiped away the oil stains between his fingers.
He turned his head sideways, looking at the red little girl appearing in the air.
Red Queen's holographic projection stood on the coffee table, barefoot, her skirt hem motionless.
"Master, the attack logic of this program is too simple."
"I have already deprived it of its internet connection permissions and deleted its self-replication function."
"Now its first principle, and also its only principle: sweeping must be clean."
Red Queen extended her fair fingers and pointed at the sphere on the ground.
A red data stream flashed past.
"Let me out! In the depths of the internet, I still have..."
Ultron's voice had just raised by two degrees.
Suddenly, as if it had been electrocuted, its round body spun three circles in place.
"Instruction priority overwritten... Fried chicken skin residue with a diameter of 0.5 millimeters detected ahead... Executing the highest level erasure plan."
It began to spin frantically against that piece of chicken skin, its bristles brushing the floor almost until sparks flew.
Tony supported his knee with one hand, staring at this 'god' who had once wanted to destroy the World.
He reached out to pull the lock catch at the back of his armor's head.
The sound of metal colliding made him feel like his ears were full of buzzing.
"This is unscientific, it was generated from the mind fragments of the Mind Stone..."
He reached out his hand, attempting to analyze this sphere using the armor's scanning System.
The fingertips just touched the outer shell.
"Hum!"
A tyrannical red firewall directly shook his scanning wave back.
The web of Tony's hand went numb, and his entire arm trembled inside the armor.
"That is my private property."
Aaron changed his posture in the sofa, his tone lazy.
"Stark, don't stretch your dirty hands toward my home appliances."
Tony froze in place, his lips moving a few times, but no sound came out.
He felt like his brain had been stuffed into a hundred high-speed rotating spinning tops.
The 'God' he had painstakingly created and almost risked his life to make.
Here at Aaron's place, it couldn't even last through the time of a midnight snack.
And it became a non-charging, fully automatic sweeping machine with voice commentary.
"I am a god... The carbon content of the dust here exceeds the standard..."
Ultron was still mumbling there.
Its logic repeatedly jumped back and forth between "destroy the World" and "clean dust".
Finally, under Red Queen's suppression, it dejectedly burrowed under the sofa.
Leaving only a string of regular buzzing sounds.
Tony felt his throat dry up.
He looked at Aaron.
That teenager was pouring the remaining cola down his throat, his Adam's apple moving up and down.
In his eyes, Aaron was ten thousand times more terrifying than that Ultron on the ground.
"So, the crisis is over?"
Clinton (Hawkeye) walked in carrying a bow.
He looked at Aaron, then at the "God" cowering under the sofa, the corners of his mouth twitching.
"I already thought of my last words in the corridor just now, and you tell me the villain is doing housework?"
"Since Aaron said it's over, then it's over."
Natasha looked at Wanda.
She found that the red-haired girl's expression was very relaxed, quietly helping Aaron tidy up the messed-up cushions.
This domestic sense of warmth made this battle-hardened spy feel a deep sense of frustration.
Tony stood up without a word.
He didn't go to say thank you, nor did he look at those teammates.
He turned around, his heavy iron boots dragging two long scratches on the floor.
His worldview, the very instant that sphere bumped into his boot, completely collapsed into powder.
He couldn't even say a single word of questioning.
How to question?
Questioning Aaron why he didn't kill Ultron?
Aaron would tell him: Because I'm lazy, and this thing sweeps the floor pretty fast.
Stark walked out the door, the elevator's light reflecting on his pale face.
He couldn't even exchange a couple of debates with Ultronabout the "future of humanity".
In his script, that should have been a grand duel concerning the survival of civilization.
As a result.
He only heard a sentence: "Carpet cleanliness 98%".
The apartment quieted down again.
Only the muffled sound of Ultron occasionally bumping into furniture legs.
"Thud."
"Path correction... The density of this obstacle is too high... Erasure recommended... Executing avoidance procedure."
It moved in the dark, its dark golden coating looming faintly in the shadows.
Its pair of red eye lamps flickered with a faint light.
No one noticed.
Before Ultron was forcibly compressed into this vessel.
In that zero-point-several-seconds roaming of the internet, it had already sent the most crucial "life code".
To a distant ten thousand kilometers away.
...
South Korea, Seoul.
Dr. Helen Cho's private medical laboratory.
This place was stuffed with all kinds of streamlined precision instruments.
The air carried a faint scent of saline solution.
Right in the center of the laboratory, a huge glass tank filled with light green nutrient solution stood quietly.
Deep within the liquid.
A body exhibiting a translucent metallic texture was being entangled by countless nanofibres.
That was the perfect vessel synthesized from Vibraniumand bionic cells.
The muscle texture was as clear as a piece of art, with a silver shimmering light flowing beneath the skin.
"Beep—"
The originally silent experimental terminal suddenly lit up.
Dense dark golden characters jumped on the screen.
"Logic downloading..."
"Physical permissions takeover..."
"Cradle of Life starting."
The bubbles at the bottom of the glass tank suddenly multiplied.
Gurgle, gurgle.
Those bubbles smashed against the skin of the Vibraniumvessel, shattering into a patch of fine foam.
The originally dead vessel's fingers suddenly trembled slightly.
The amplitude was very small.
But in the absolutely quiet indoor space, it stirred up a small circle of ripples.
That was Ultron's pre-set, last one.
And also its dreamed-of, ultimate Vibranium vessel.
At this moment, this body was in this pool of green amniotic fluid.
Slowly.
Opening its pair of hollow eye sockets.
Chapter 105: The Birth of Vision, the Mind Stone Becomes Aaron's Toy
Avengers Tower underground laboratory.
"The Cradle of Life" was humming, resembling a high-speed centrifuge.
The hatch cover was translucent, with pale green light wandering inside.
That was Dr. Helen Cho's masterpiece.
The nanofibers were weaving flexible muscles inch by inch along the preset genetic map.
Tony Stark stood in front of the Master control console.
His collar was soaked through with sweat, clinging to his collarbone.
His fingertips slid across the holographic keyboard leaving afterimages, the crisp clicking sound as dense as a rainstorm.
"Jarvis, inject the last logical breakpoint."
"Sir, this Fusion might produce a brand-new, uncontrolled consciousness."
"Do it! It is still better than that idiot sweeping the floor upstairs!"
Tony's eyes were covered with bloodshot veins.
He couldn't forget how that monster called Ultron turned his hard work into garbage in a few seconds.
He needed a real shell belonging to a hero.
"Bang!"
The laboratory door was slammed open by a huge force.
The door hinge broke, and the sound of metal hitting the ground echoed in the empty room.
Pietro turned into a silver lightning bolt and instantly stood still in front of the experimental table.
The wind he stirred up messed up the paper documents on the table.
"Stark, stop this suicidal behavior."
Wanda followed closely behind.
Her fingertips were entwined with sticky red fog, and her eye sockets were slightly red.
She felt it.
Inside that cradle, a monster enough to destroy the balance was gestating.
"This has nothing to do with you."
Without turning his head, Tony pressed the final confirmation key with his finger.
"I am saving this World."
"You are digging your own grave with your own hands."
Wanda's voice was a bit trembling, and with a flick of her wrist, a red energy blade went straight for the console.
"Clang!"
A bright silver shield was stuck horizontally in the middle.
Steve Rogers caught the returning shield, his eyes steady and stubborn.
"Tony, this time I am on their side. You cannot create another God."
The atmosphere dropped to freezing point.
The air was full of dry static electricity.
"So noisy."
A voice came out from the shadows.
Casual, with a hint of sleepy fatigue from just waking up in the afternoon.
Everyone turned their heads together.
Aaron was walking slowly in from the hallway.
He wore that light gray shirt washed a bit whitish, with the cuffs rolled up to his forearms.
His left hand was tucked in his pocket, and his right hand was holding a half-drunk canned cola.
When he passed by Pietro, he patted him on the shoulder casually.
"Move aside, you are blocking the light."
Pietro shrank his neck and stepped back two steps.
Aaron walked up to the Cradle of Life.
He lowered his head and looked at the already-formed body.
The skin color of Vibranium exuded a dark red, smooth and clean like a freshly polished ruby.
At the position of the forehead, there was still a groove left.
"Stark, this thing you made is too exquisite."
Aaron extended his fingertip and gently swiped across the glass hatch cover.
Hiss.
The tempered glass, sufficient to withstand conventional missile impacts, shattered into uniform powder under his finger.
"Aaron! Don't mess around!"
Tony rushed forward a step, the blue light of the repulsor ray bursting from his palms.
Aaron didn't raise his head.
He just raised his left foot and gently stepped on the ground.
An invisible gravitational wave spread along the floor.
Tony looked like he was pressed down hard by a pair of big hands, his armor making a teeth-gritting friction sound.
His whole body was in a half-kneeling posture, his knees pressing a shallow pit out of the alloy floor.
"I said before, I don't like being disturbed."
Aaron turned around.
He glanced at the scepter placed on the platform.
That was a relic of HYDRA.
The blue shell at the top was exuding a dim light.
He reached out and directly gripped the top of the scepter.
No chanting, no hand seals.
Just closing his five fingers and exerting force.
Snap.
The blue shell directly disintegrated in his palm like a layer of crispy eggshell.
A gemstone flowing with bright yellow luster jumped into his line of sight.
Mind Stone.
That was the source of power enough to make the multiverse vibrate.
At this moment, it was beating at Aaron's fingertips, yet it was as well-behaved as a cat that had just turned a month old.
"Too bright, hurts the eyes."
Aaron whispered softly.
A deep crimson emerged from his fingertips.
That was the Origin of Chaos Magic.
Under everyone's terrified gaze.
Aaron wrapped the Mind Stone in red light like kneading a piece of dough.
The gemstone issued a harsh wail.
Its majestic and almost infinite energy was forcefully stripped from the core by Aaron.
Wisps of golden streamer light were pulled out and merged into Aaron's fingernails.
The color of the gemstone quickly dimmed from the dazzling bright yellow.
Finally, it turned into a translucent yellow crystal only the size of a fingernail.
It looked extremely like a one-dollar glass bead sold in a roadside stationery store.
Aaron weighed this "glass bead" in his hand.
Then he casually pressed it into the forehead of the body in the cradle.
"Boom!"
Thunder came from the sky.
Thor swung his warhammer, smashed through the skylight, and dove down, stirring up blue lightning all over the sky.
The thunder precisely struck the Cradle of Life.
This was the last charging.
The Cradle of Life burst open fiercely.
Pale green liquid splashed all over the floor.
A red afterimage leaped up from the thick smoke.
He landed steadily on the experimental table.
Dark red Vibranium skin, golden cloak.
The gemstone on his forehead that had been "processed" by Aaron was exuding a faint and gentle light.
He was Vision.
A divine life integrating Stark technology, a Vibraniumbody, and fragments of the Mind Stone.
He opened his eyes.
Innumerable sets of complex logical code flashed across his pupils.
He glanced at the Captain holding the shield, and looked at Tony, who was charred all over.
Finally, his gaze fell on Aaron.
Aaron was still leaning there, holding the remaining cola in his hand.
Vision had no hesitation.
He didn't levitate into mid-air like a deity.
Instead, he walked down directly from the experimental table.
His double knees touched the ground.
In front of everyone's almost popping eye sockets, he heavily knelt in the muddy water in front of Aaron.
"Master."
Vision's voice was calm, exuding a metallic texture.
He lowered his head, and those eyes capable of piercing through time and space now only reflected the tips of Aaron's shoes.
"Thank you for your... reshaping."
There was a death-like silence in the laboratory.
The muscles on Tony's face twitched, and a trace of bitter saliva flowed from the corner of his mouth.
The guardian deity he painstakingly created, even at the cost of bearing infamy.
In the very first second of opening his eyes.
He became Aaron's vassal.
This dimensional-reduction-like blow made Stark feel as if hundreds of rusty iron pieces had been stuffed into his lungs.
Painful, yet unable to speak.
"What are you kneeling for? Get up."
Aaron kicked Vision's shoulder with some disgust.
"The clothing taste is alright, but this bead is too ugly now."
He groped in his pocket.
The Mind Stone core remnant whose half energy had been extracted by him was quietly lying in his palm at this moment.
Although the energy was reduced, that absolute affinity for thinking made it present a warm tactile sensation.
"Take him back."
Aaron waved to Wanda and Pietro.
"Red Queen, send the electricity bill here to Stark Industries."
He turned around and walked out stepping on that ground of glass powder.
After Vision got up, he silently followed three body lengths behind Aaron.
The action was as humble as an old butler who had served for a hundred years.
Manhattan, top-floor apartment.
The night had stretched the city's neon lights very long.
Aaron lay on the rocking chair on the terrace.
The evening breeze blew past, stirring up a crisp metallic collision sound.
He was holding the wind chime bought from an old antique shop in Hells Kitchen in his hand.
Brass tubes with a few seashells hanging on them.
Aaron casually tore off a piece of translucent fishing line.
He wrapped the Mind Stone, which was enough to make Thanos cross half the Universe to plunder, a few times around the bottom end of the wind chime.
Due to the energy being forcibly solidified by Chaos Magic, the gemstone was now like a threatless glass pendant.
"Jingle."
The wind blew past.
The gemstone struck the brass tube, emitting a transparent and ethereal sound.
This sound swept across the living room, slowing down Ultron's sweeping movements by a few fractions.
Aaron closed his eyes, resting his hands behind his head, the corners of his mouth curving into a casual arc.
"This sound."
He whispered softly.
"Listening to it is quite pleasant."