"Sir, the server is under malicious intrusion."
Black Queen's alert rang out suddenly.
"Intrusion?"
Drex Valen blinked in mild surprise.
Black Queen was, without exaggeration, the most powerful hacker in the world. Soone had actually managed to break into one of his systems?
"The attacker does not behave like a normal hacker," Black Queen said, already fending off the assault. "Their data-flow thods are unusual."
"Need help?"
Drex asked. In a situation like this, his electromagnetic control could be useful. Extrely useful.
"No, Boss."
Black Queen answered with cool confidence.
A mont later, she had already beaten the intruder back so hard that she nearly tracked the source.
Sowhere in a dim, hidden base, a screen flickered to life with a face.
"It's terrifying," the voice said. "Should I say that Drex Valen really is sothing else? He even has a true artificial intelligence."
The speaker was Arnim Zola.
A key figure in Hydra. Hitler's trusted operative. A Swiss geneticist and, in a sense, the first human gene engineer in history. He had overseen the creation of cloned lifeforms and monsters. In 1972, after being diagnosed with terminal illness, he transferred his consciousness into a massive computer and had it installed inside a secret S.H.I.E.L.D. facility in New Jersey.
In other words, Zola was a slap in the face to every theory about artificial intelligence.
With the technology available at the ti, consciousness storage should have been impossible. Yet Zola had done it anyway, and from that point on he had beco one of the deadliest hackers on the network.
Marvel, of course. Anything was possible.
After learning from HYDRA and S.H.I.E.L.D. about Drex Valen and his string of inventions, Zola had beco very interested. He decided to break into Blade Technology Industrial's database and take everything he could get on Drex's designs.
He had barely broken through the difficult firewall before he was t with a violent counterattack unlike anything he had ever seen.
And he recognized the thing fighting back.
Not a human superhacker.
Aside from the Rising Tide's Skye and a few absurdly unfair supervillains and superheroes, Zola had no real rivals online.
But a true artificial intelligence was a different story.
An AI had its own intelligence, its own emotions, and the ability to learn and evolve. After Drex Valen gained control over electromagnetic fields at the atomic level, he had built Kryptonian hardware to host Black Queen. That allowed her learning and evolution to accelerate at a terrifying rate.
Zola had actually been able to overwhelm her at first.
Then, in just a few seconds, Black Queen had learned enough to surpass him.
If he had not reacted quickly, she would have tracked him down completely.
"True artificial intelligence is far too dangerous," Zola muttered.
His first escape tactic had been to use a botnet shield, and at first that had confused Black Queen just enough to buy him ti.
Then she adapted.
She figured out the sa botnet tactics he was using, ignored more than a thousand decoy machines, and went straight after him.
"Did he get away?" Drex asked, looking at Black Queen with curiosity.
"He reacted very quickly," Black Queen replied. "And I suspect he is also an AI of so kind. At the very least, he is not inferior to ."
Drex thought about it for a mont.
This was not the ti of Ultron's birth yet.
He searched through his mories and quickly guessed who it was.
"Zola? The Hydra scientist who created the Zola Algorithm?"
If it was him, then this level of performance made sense.
Part of Drex wanted to laugh at how a thing operating on such outdated hardware had managed to hold out against Black Queen at all.
But at least this was one-sided in the long run.
Zola could not evolve.
Black Queen, after this attack and defense exchange, had already evolved and surpassed him. If Zola ca back next ti, Black Queen would lock onto his location in a second.
Of course, Zola had already realized how terrifying a true AI was.
He would not be coming back.
Soon after that ca the news that Thunderbolt Ross had abandoned the military and entered politics, successfully becoming Secretary of State.
At the press conference, Ross looked vigorous and sharp.
The power of the Red Hulk had left him in excellent health. He looked like a man who could live another hundred years without breaking a sweat.
That image alone gave the public a big boost in confidence.
"So he really beca Secretary of State," Drex said.
He suspected Ross's family had pulled strings behind the scenes. Otherwise, there was no way he would have reached that position in just over a year.
Drex watched Ross ramble on the screen for a mont, then shut it off.
"Boss! Bad news!"
A sudden ergency transmission interrupted him.
"What is it?"
Drex answered imdiately. The fact that it was routed as urgent ant it was important.
"Tony Stark escaped!"
The Beastman on the other end was sweating profusely.
None of them had expected Tony Stark to get away under their noses with so many Beastn watching him.
"Escaped?"
Drex was genuinely curious about the entire sequence.
Tony Stark had built his suit with crude hamring and manual forging. He had escaped from Beastn?
Co on.
"That's not exactly what happened," the Beastman said carefully. "The Ten Rings attacked us out of nowhere. By the ti we dealt with them, Stark was already gone."
Drex listened quietly.
That made more sense.
The whole operation was supposed to be theatrical, after all. He had sent them to Afghanistan to play the part. Getting attacked by the Ten Rings was unexpected, but not unbelievable.
The Ten Rings had wanted to strike first from the very beginning. After getting taught a lesson, they had started watching these outsiders closely in order to protect their own position in Afghanistan.
Then they watched for nearly a year and a half, and the so-called terrorists still did nothing.
Aside from the occasional monthly rotation of personnel, with new faces replacing the old ones, they just stayed put.
The Ten Rings began to suspect that the group was scouting Afghanistan and waiting for the right mont to move.
So, in the end, they chose to strike first.
This ti, learning from the last mistake, the Ten Rings ca out in full force. They brought high-grade Stark Industries weapons, and even War Machines purchased on the side from Blade Technology Industrial. They intended to wipe out the suspicious outsiders in one clean blow.
What they had not expected was that the outsiders would be stunned at first, then, after being killed, co back as monsters.
The Ten Rings' leader had even seen one of those monsters tear open the steel-alloy armor of a War Machine with its bare hands.
The attack lasted less than ten minutes before the Beastn adapted, tore the Ten Rings apart, and slaughtered them completely. Not a single one got away.
Then, while cleaning up the battlefield, the Beastn realized Tony Stark was gone.
Along with him, the crude Iron Man suit that had been waiting for a tid pickup was also missing.
He had not even taken "Yinsen" with him.
That ant the Beastn had lost the only way they could have tracked him.
With no other choice, they had to report back to Drex.
User Comments
0 comments from readers