The more developed a nation beca, the more resources its citizens consud.
That wasn't necessarily a moral judgnt. It was simply reality.
Greater resource consumption generally translated into better healthcare, longer life expectancy, stronger educational systems, improved infrastructure, and healthier populations. Stronger citizens contributed to stronger nations.
The reverse was equally true.
Poor countries had fewer resources.
Less education.
Shorter lifespans.
Weaker healthcare systems.
And because their populations struggled, national developnt lagged behind as well.
It was a vicious cycle that had trapped much of humanity for generations.
If humanity truly managed to unite and eliminate a significant portion of the waste created by fragnted systems and competing interests, the growth of civilization could accelerate dramatically.
For most of human history, survival had been the primary objective.
For tens of thousands of years, people had fought simply to stay alive.
Even now, in the twenty-first century, millions still lacked adequate food, clean water, and basic necessities.
Countless individuals dread of breaking free from those limitations.
And for the first ti, the possibility seed real.
Earth was entering an era of explosive growth.
Old monopolies were collapsing.
Long-standing institutions were being challenged.
New opportunities appeared almost daily.
For many people, this age represented the closest thing to a level playing field humanity had ever seen.
Not perfectly fair.
But fairer.
Those willing to work hard could seize opportunities that had never existed before.
One person who had already taken advantage of those opportunities was Tony Stark.
At that very mont, he was standing in Raccoon City.
The city radiated possibility.
Officially, it was designed to support a population of ten million residents.
Unofficially, if people were willing to pack themselves together like sardines, the city could probably hold another forty million.
Of course, that would an turning entire districts into sprawling urban mazes resembling the densest neighborhoods on Earth.
Umbrella Corporation had no intention of allowing that.
According to rumors, the company had constructed a massive titanium-steel seawall around much of the coastline surrounding the new continent.
Ten ters high.
Three ters thick.
Built specifically to discourage illegal immigration into Raccoon City.
Every resident carried a wrist-mounted computer that functioned as both an identification device and personal terminal.
The city's chanical security forces continuously scanned those devices.
Every hour.
Every day.
Without exception.
Smugglers and illegal entrants had virtually no chance of slipping through unnoticed.
Above the city, countless mayfly drones drifted silently through the air.
Unlike conventional drones, they produced almost no noise.
Each unit contained a miniature Spark Reactor, allowing it to operate continuously for up to a year before requiring maintenance.
Under such a surveillance network, infiltrators had little chance of success.
Zerg agents couldn't blend in.
Monsters couldn't hide.
Terrorists and organized criminals faced similar challenges.
For now, nearly everyone living in Raccoon City either worked for Umbrella Corporation or was directly related to soone who did.
Future immigration policies were expected to remain just as restrictive.
Security wasn't rely tight.
It was absolute.
The city was also astonishingly self-sufficient.
Food.
Drinks.
dicine.
Consur goods.
Umbrella manufactured almost everything internally.
The city required very little from the outside world.
From Tony Stark's perspective, it was dangerously close to being a perfect city.
Which was exactly why it bothered him.
"You've got enough on your plate already," Drex said with a faint grin. "What brings soone as busy as you all the way out here?"
The question carried a note of amusent.
After all, Drex had stepped down as Director of S.W.O.R.D.
Tony, anwhile, had beco the head of the agency's Security and Oversight Division.
In practical terms, that made him busier than Director Rogers himself.
The position suited him.
Almost too well.
His entire job revolved around finding problems.
Digging through reports.
Questioning expenditures.
Identifying corruption.
Making enemies.
Given Tony's personality, he excelled at it.
The downside was that Rogers spent half his ti dealing with complaints.
Tony didn't care who he offended.
That didn't an the paperwork disappeared.
One morable example involved S.W.O.R.D.'s procurent departnt.
Soone had approved coffee mugs priced at three thousand dollars each.
The mugs themselves were worth maybe ten dollars.
But by inflating costs and labeling ordinary products as premium equipnt, departnts could justify larger budgets.
It was an old trick.
One that had existed long before S.W.O.R.D.
Or S.H.I.E.L.D.
A standard mug beca an "executive-grade luxury limited-edition beverage containnt system."
Suddenly it cost three thousand dollars.
Then every office purchased matching sets.
Budget requests increased.
Everyone benefited.
Except taxpayers.
Nick Fury had inherited plenty of those practices from S.H.I.E.L.D.'s older bureaucracy.
Tony had nearly exploded when he discovered them.
He publicly tore into Fury, then redirected a substantial amount of the recovered funds.
The resulting argunt nearly beca a war.
Steve Rogers ended up playing diator.
Drex had once explained that S.W.O.R.D.'s leadership structure relied on maintaining balance among its major figures.
Since then, Rogers had beco remarkably skilled at breaking up verbal fistfights.
Tony shook his head.
"I'm not here on agency business, Drex."
"Then what?"
"It's personal."
That answer caught Drex's attention.
Tony Stark wasn't the type to discuss personal matters lightly.
As Iron Man.
As a billionaire.
As one of the world's most influential figures.
He had learned long ago that trust was dangerous.
Experience had taught him caution.
Throughout his life, only a handful of people had ever earned his complete confidence.
Pepper Potts.
Dr. Yinsen.
And now, surprisingly enough, Drex Valen.
That trust hadn't appeared overnight.
It had been forged through countless missions.
Shared battles.
Near-death experiences.
Years of observing how Drex thought and acted under pressure.
Tony had co to understand the younger man's character.
And eventually, he'd reached a simple conclusion.
He respected him.
That realization had slowly dismantled the walls of suspicion he'd initially maintained.
Among the world's superheroes, very few people could speak to Tony Stark as an equal.
Fewer still could do so as genuine friends.
Drex belonged to that short list.
Tony was a genius.
One burdened by an almost instinctive belief that if sothing needed fixing, he should be the one to do it.
That mindset had led him to shut down Stark Industries' weapons division at the height of its profitability.
The decision devastated the company's stock price.
He did it anyway.
The sa attitude had driven his pursuit of clean energy.
Even when old-energy corporations united against him.
Even when they attacked him politically.
Economically.
And sotis physically.
Tony had never backed down.
He t pressure with pressure.
Resistance with defiance.
In many ways, that stubborn determination mirrored sothing deep within Drex.
Both n possessed the sa core conviction.
If they wanted sothing, they would find a way to obtain it themselves.
Their thods differed.
Their goals sotis diverged.
But at the deepest level, they shared a similar mindset.
Perhaps that was why conversations between them ca so naturally.
And perhaps that was why Tony finally felt comfortable bringing up what was really on his mind.
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