Chapter 22

After Ana and Lisa calm down, they notice that it is already lunchtime and all three of them are hungry. Ana then said, "Let me make us something to eat. I am a very good cook."

She then tries to stand up, but standing on just one leg for a long was more difficult than she expected. She immediately fell back on the couch.

Max says, "Don't sweat it. You can make food when you are better. I will get something to eat."

Ana agrees, and Max flies off to the town and, in a few minutes, returns with a bag that had the'm' logo on it. 

Lisa and Ana look at Max and ask, "Really, McDonald's?"

Max replies, "What? It is tasty."

Lisa says, "You have money to afford this big house but can't spend money on food."

Max replies, "What's wrong with McDonald's?"

Lisa replies, "It is not healthy."

Max says, "Hey, you are getting free food, so stop complaining. Also, remember that you tried to take these same fries when we first met."

Ana and Lisa couldn't do anything for that and just ate their meal, limiting their food intake so as not to gain weight.

After they were done with their food, Max sat on the couch and turned on the TV. He was browsing through the channels, searching for something to watch. Lisa and Ana were sitting beside him.

Lisa then asks Max, "Max, you said we would work for you, right? What work were you talking about?"

Max turns to Lisa and asks, "What can you two do?"

Ana says, "Like I said, I can cook, and I can also take care of the chores."

Max says, "Perfect timing. You can get to that after you are healed."

Lisa then says, "I saw the papers for your company on the table yesterday. It looks new, and you might not have staff. I once took a contract to kill a businessman and snuck inside as his secretary. I worked as his secretary for 3 months since the contractor also wanted some data from my target. So, I am great at managing and handling paperwork."

Max says, "Again, great timing. You can get to work as soon as you are ready. So, how much do you girls want to get paid?"

Lisa and Ana look at each other and then at Max. They both say, "There is no need to pay us. We have plenty of money saved up. We will ask when we need money."

Max says, "Fine."

He then gets back to the TV, joined by Ana and Lisa. They picked a comedy show, and all enjoyed the show, with laughter filling the air. 

...

..

..

*Timeskip 1 month*

With the help of S.H.I.E.L.D., the paperwork for their office building was much quicker, and they chose Trask's previous office, which was under the control of the government. Max picked it since the building already had all of Trask's equipment and only needed upgrades since his equipment was way ahead of his time.

With the cooperation of S.H.I.E.L.D. and their funding, he started both Helen and Trask's projects. Helen's regeneration pod was actually a revolutionary project, while Trask's project wasn't that well accepted by the council members.

Max somehow convinced them to accept the project, with the Sentinels' intended use for safety robots instead of mutant extermination machines. Actually, it was more like Pierce convinced the council members to agree to the project.

Max could tell that Pierce was already thinking of using these Sentinels for their cause, since mutants are a huge problem for their plans on world dominance since mutants are variables with varying values. Randomly, mutants will pop up with overpowered mutant abilities. So, Pierce thought that Sentinels would be useful for Hydra and hence approved the project.

Other than this, Ana healed up and was taking care of the house like a pro. Lisa was also doing an excellent job as a secretary, and Max didn't have to do much work. 

Other than that, Max also stopped going to the martial arts classes after he used his enhanced thinking to learn all the moves from every martial arts class he was attending. 

He was working on combining his and Carol's powers, but he didn't make any progress there. Nothing important happened in the month.

Max was sitting in his office, looking at his company bank account, which was low after finding the projects. Then, Lisa walks in with a file in her hand. She is wearing a classic formal black suit and wearing glasses, which she wore after Max insisted she did so.

Lisa walks to his table and reports. "They finished upgrading the supercomputer and setting up the private server, and we also got access to that old S.H.I.E.LD. supercomputer under that gift shop."

Max says, "Thanks for the info. Just what I wanted to hear."

Lisa asks, "Max, is it really necessary to upgrade the supercomputer and set up the private server at this stage? We don't even have that much data. It would make sense when our company is huge and has a lot of information to process."

Max smiles and says, "Lisa, I am doing all this to relieve you of some of your duties. I can tell that you are pushing yourself."

Lisa says, "You are clearly lying. Now tell the truth, or do you not trust me enough, just like you don't trust me with the details of your powers?"

Max says, "Don't bring my powers into this, Lisa. Even if I trust you to not say it to anyone, there are idiots who can read minds. Enough about that; we have a gift shop to visit."

Max gets up, and Lisa sighs before following behind him. They then head to a gift shop, which is located in a remote area. This was the place he visited earlier and brought a vase. (This was mentioned in Chapter 16).

The gift shop is actually built upon an old S.H.I.E.L.D. base, which was in operation during the Second World War. Now, it was just a base of operation in New York, and it had a small supercomputer.

Max learned of this location from the S.H.I.E.L.D. database he went through when he first landed on the helicarrier. Max wasn't interested in anything in the base but the electricity that runs through it.

Well, Max was in luck since this base was close to the Stark Tower and this building was connected by power lines to the same power station that also used to supply power to the Stark Tower. 

Stark Tower stopped using the power after they set up the Arc reactor, but the cables weren't removed, and they were still connected to the power grid of the tower. This was what Max checked when he previously arrived. 

Now, he could've gone to any other place in the area or could've retrieved the whole information himself from the Stark tower, but he was going to copy all the information on their servers, and that wasn't something he could store in his brain. He needed to transfer all the data to his private server. 

So, he was going to use the supercomputer in the old S.H.I.E.L.D. base to transfer the whole server data to his.

With the plan set in motion, Max and Lisa enter the gift shop and see an old lady behind the counter. She was the same person Max saw when he previously came.

The old woman stares at Max for a while and then says, "Password."

Max says, "I don't know."

She then gets up and says, "You follow me; she stays here."

Max turns to Lisa and says, "Go through the shop and see if you like something, or you could try the coffee shop nearby. It doesn't taste good, but the terrible-tasting coffee should keep you company. It might take a while."

Lisa says, "Then you should've come alone. Why did you get me along?"

Max says, "I thought it would be a nice break since you are always in the office. If you don't like my two suggestions, do whatever you like."

Lisa says, "Fine, just try to finish it as soon as possible."

Max nods and heads into a room with the old lady. She then closes a gate, which was the style of lift doors earlier. She then presses a button, and the lift starts moving.

The sounds made it clear that the lift was old and was barely getting any maintenance. After a while, the lift stops, and the old lady opens the gate. 

The old lady then leads Max through a corridor, and they finally arrive at a place with a huge computer, which has huge wires connected to it from all directions.

The old lady says, "Do whatever you want. I will wait outside."

Max goes to the supercomputer and places his hand on it. He then closes his eyes, and then lights start flickering in the whole area. Ax sends electricity from this location to Stark Tower and connects to their supercomputer.

Inside the Stark Tower, Tony is with Rhody, Pepper, and two girls. Tony was flirting with the two girls while Pepper and Rhody were briefing him on the things he had to do on the day of the weapons demonstration.

Max doesn't waste any time, and as soon as he is in the tower, he uses his enhanced thinking to first shit down his A.I., F.R.I.D.A.Y.

He then starts downloading everything from their server to his through the supercomputer. It took him around three hours, but luckily Tony was busy with women, and no one noticed Friday was down.

After he was done copying all the data, he had knowledge of how the A.I. works and immediately changed some data to make Friday think that it wasn't shut off during these three hours.

After he was done, he went back to the gift shop with the old lady, where Lisa was waiting for him with an annoyed face. 

When she saw Max, she immediately said, "What took you so long?"

Max replies, "I underestimated how much data was there. I am all done now. Shall we head home?"

Lisa says, "Yes. Ana has already called me three times to come for dinner. If she has to call again, we might not get food for the night."

Max says, "We have to hurry up then."

Max and Lisa then leave the gift shop, and Max catches Lisa by her waist. He then flies off towards his house.

They get there in just a minute, and Max and Lisa land in front of the door. They both enter the house and are met with an angry face. Lisa immediately said, "Max was the one who got us late by stopping by some old shield base."

Ana turned to Max and then said, "I know you are strong and you have work, but will it kill you to at least answer your phone?"

Max says, "I am sorry for worrying you."

Ana then says, "Fine. Go wash up. I will serve dinner."

They all then have a great dinner, with all three of them chatting about things they did during the day. Max looks at both Ana and Lisa and smiles before digging into his food.

Meanwhile, in the club run by Emma Frost, a man walks into a room that is heavily guarded by mutants, but no one stops him.

He then stops before Emma Frost and throws a file in her direction. Emma asks, "So, what did you find in Max Tech.?"

The man says, "I really thought he had changed, but he is continuing the Sentinels project, and this time, he has plans to improve them."

Emma then asks the man, "So, Mystique, what do you want to do?"

The man replies, "I believe we let him live long enough. He is already old and doesn't need to live anymore."

Emma smiles and says, "I like the sound of that, but you are forgetting the other person with him. This person, Max, is estimated to be on Magneto's level or higher. We can't touch him with Max by his side."

Mystique says, "That, I will take care. You just have to kill Trask."

Emma says, "We already plan on taking down Tony Stark in Afghanistan. We can even take him there and make it look like the Ten Rings killed him. This way, Max won't come after us later."

Mystique then turns to leave and says, "You take care of Trask; I will make sure Max is far from the city and occupied."