There was a reason Britain's nuclear launch systems depended on Arican submarines in the first place.
"According to my investigation," Drex Valen said, "Ultron hired over a dozen separate rcenary groups to attack nuclear storage facilities around the world."
A flick of his finger summoned holographic screens across the room.
Live footage appeared instantly.
Nuclear bunkers under attack.
Gunfire.
Explosions.
Armored rcenaries flooding fortified positions.
And there were a lot of them.
Ultron had paid absurd amounts of money, enough to buy their lives outright. Most of those rcenaries had accepted the missions with no expectation of surviving.
Nick Fury frowned.
"It's an artificial intelligence. Acting recklessly seems pretty normal to ."
"No," Drex replied calmly. "It completed self-evolution. It qualifies as a strong AI. You can treat it like a human intelligence without any issue."
"In so ways, it's smarter than humans."
"Which ans the only reliable way to deal with it is by exploiting flaws in its logic."
He glanced toward the footage.
"That's why this behavior makes no sense."
"If Ultron truly wanted nuclear weapons, it wouldn't move this loudly. Its real objective probably isn't the warheads at all."
The room went silent.
"What objective?" Fury asked imdiately.
The idea of an AI capable of deception made him visibly more serious.
"How would I know what an artificial intelligence is planning?" Drex answered with a shrug. "And right now, eliminating it isn't simple either."
"It already uploaded itself onto the global network and copied its core program countless tis."
"Unless humanity is willing to disconnect from the internet entirely and crawl back into the electrical age, Ultron isn't disappearing anyti soon."
In the end, Tony Stark admitted responsibility.
But this was hardly the ti to throw him into a prison cell.
Nick Fury decided to let him work off his cris instead.
Which ant Tony Stark and Bruce Banner imdiately began researching thods to counter Ultron.
Drex, anwhile, prepared to leave.
"You're not staying to help?" Fury asked, his single eye widening slightly.
An extinction-level threat involving artificial intelligence was unfolding, and sohow the idea of Drex walking away made everyone deeply uncomfortable.
Drex looked genuinely puzzled.
"It's not like this can actually affect ."
And that was his honest answer.
Drex Valen had never considered himself a superhero.
He had far too many research projects to worry about already.
...
Drex's scientific mindset placed enormous importance on logical consistency.
Unfortunately, comic-book science rarely cared about logic at all.
Even world-famous scientists in Marvel tended to produce miracles through raw intuition and "because it works" energy rather than actual scientific rigor.
Drex privately suspected this happened because comic-book writers liked scientific terminology far more than actual science.
There was even an old story claiming Albert Einstein once wrote a serious letter to DC Comics explaining why Superman logically could not move faster than light.
Not long afterward, the Flash and the Speed Force appeared.
Comic books had a habit of solving scientific criticism with even more impossible science.
As soone born and raised in the Marvel Universe, the Leader's research thods looked perfectly reasonable to everyone else.
To Drex, however, they still belonged squarely within the realm of "comic-book logic."
Which was why Drex handed all projects involving impossible science directly to him.
For example...
Research into the Hulk.
Or more specifically, Green Scar physiology and the secrets of gamma cells.
The Hulk was technically the result of a scientific experint.
But Bruce Banner transforming into the Hulk violated practically every law of physics Drex respected.
Conservation of mass and energy simply gave up and left the room whenever the Hulk appeared.
As for how Drex acquired the Leader...
S.W.O.R.D. had already destroyed an A.I.M. base and captured him during the operation.
Drex simply asked for custody afterward.
Now the Leader worked for him.
Drex hoped that by exploiting Marvel's unique brand of impossible-science nonsense, he might eventually develop things like Gaia mories or even Lantern Rings.
Theoretically speaking...
If comic-book logic ran on belief and imagination, then perhaps all you really needed was enough confidence.
...
Wakanda.
Ever since Atlantis relocated nearby, tensions between the two nations had escalated constantly.
Small skirmishes broke out every few days.
The smuggler known as Killmonger, who originally should have helped Ultron obtain vibranium, had already died during one of those conflicts.
Technically, he had been smuggling vibranium at the ti, which was a serious cri in Wakanda.
Even so, Wakanda still used his death politically.
King T'Chaka intentionally presented Wakanda as weak and victimized on the international stage, encouraging foreign nations to underestimate them.
Part of it was preparation for the future.
T'Chaka was nearing retirent.
Soon, T'Challa would inherit the throne.
What T'Chaka never expected was that even after all this effort to stay hidden, Ultron would still set its sights on Wakanda.
Fortunately for Wakanda, this version of Ultron was not insane enough to attempt planetary extinction through giant teor impacts like in the movies.
After seeing Drex Valen and Umbrella Corporation's special forces in action, Ultron understood perfectly well that it had zero chance of winning a direct war against them.
What Ultron wanted now was much simpler.
A vibranium body.
An indestructible one.
And if possible...
An invincible vibranium robot army.
Because Wakanda had entered the global stage relatively late, they never fully benefited from either Chitauri technology or Drex's technological revolution.
Which ant Wakanda still lacked War Machines.
Ultron, however, had effortlessly stolen research data related to War Machines from nations around the world.
Combined with Stark Industries' Arc Reactor technology, that data allowed it to mass-produce large numbers of autonomous combat armors.
Unlike traditional War Machines, these units had no pilots.
Ironically, that made them even more dangerous.
They no longer needed to protect fragile human operators.
Wakanda also lacked a true artificial intelligence defense system.
Shuri was brilliant, but Ultron's infiltration was silent enough that even she failed to detect it.
As a result, Wakanda's energy shields never activated before the attack began.
Ultron's chanical army invaded directly.
The assault caught Wakanda completely off guard.
Thankfully, vibranium weave was integrated into much of Wakandan clothing, so most injuries remained relatively minor. There were almost no serious casualties.
"Did the United Nations attack us?" T'Chaka asked in stunned disbelief.
Hundreds upon hundreds of flying War Machines descending from the sky made for a terrifying sight.
But Wakanda reacted quickly.
Warriors ard themselves with vibranium spears and launched counterattacks imdiately.
The modern world, combined with pressure from Atlantis and foreign powers, had forced Wakanda to evolve.
Their traditional vibranium spears were no longer rely spears.
Now they fired energy blasts.
Rows of Wakandan warriors raised their weapons toward the sky.
Then beams of energy erupted upward.
Ultron was startled.
"They have energy weapons?"
Its intelligence reports had described Wakanda as technologically backward. A nation supposedly obsessed with primitive lee weapons and outdated combat traditions.
So why did every soldier suddenly have directed-energy weapons in their hands?
The bad intelligence imdiately beca a disaster.
Ultron's steel-alloy War Machines could not withstand vibranium energy blasts at all.
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