Heading to the Far North

Looking at the $3 billion transferred to her account from S.H.I.E.L.D., Miss Stark couldn't help but feel a surge of satisfaction. It wasn't $3,000 or $30,000, but a staggering $3 billion, with nine zeros that seemed almost surreal.

Miss Stark had always lived a life of luxury, never lacking money, but... but this was $3 billion. She knew that the military-industrial complex was incredibly lucrative, and while high-tech development was costly, it could also yield enormous returns. However, she had never imagined it could be this profitable—$3 billion, and S.H.I.E.L.D. didn't even bat an eye.

Staring at the nine zeros in her private account, Miss Stark fell into deep thought, considering how to spend these funds. She could easily squander this newfound wealth, but could she really do so with a clear conscience?

For someone who knew the dangers of the future, it was crucial to protect herself as much as possible. Instead of squandering the money, it would be wiser to invest it in ways that would ensure her safety and that of those around her.

Having reached this conclusion, Miss Stark thought for a couple of minutes before coming up with the best way to use the funds. She lay back on the sofa, picked up her phone, and searched her contacts list for a particular person.

In her private phonebook, she had a group of contacts who weren't particularly important but had some value. The person she was contacting now was from that group.

"I'm surprised someone like you would reach out to me, Miss Stark."

The phone rang for about half a minute before being answered, and a slightly hoarse male voice came through the speaker.

"I never thought I'd be calling an arms dealer like you, Klaue."

Miss Stark shook her head, brushing the stray hair from her temples, her expression somewhat complicated.

The person she contacted was Ulysses Klaue, an arms dealer active in North Africa and the Middle East. He had approached Miss Stark several times, hoping to establish a new sales channel with Stark Industries. After hitting a dead end with the board, Klaue turned to Miss Stark, who, despite not yet controlling Stark Industries, still had investment potential.

However, Miss Stark wasn't particularly fond of Ulysses Klaue. Unlike other arms dealers, Klaue had a unique advantage: he had stolen a significant amount of vibranium from Wakanda when he was younger.

Initially, Miss Stark didn't know much about Wakanda and had no interest in it, considering it just another small African country with no valuable resources. But after fully absorbing the fragmented memories in her mind, she realized Wakanda was anything but simple. They possessed vibranium, one of the strongest metals in the universe, and would eventually be ruled by a superhero.

However, she was more interested in vibranium and the alien technology Wakanda controlled than that future superhero.

"I need 100 grams of vibranium, Klaue. What's the going rate?"

"You should know, Miss Stark, that I don't have much of that stuff left."

On the other end of the line, Klaue chuckled slyly, while Miss Stark sneered in disdain. Almost all the vibranium on the market had passed through Ulysses Klaue's hands, with only a small portion coming directly from the Wakandan royal family as part of their national reserves in exchange for foreign currency. No one knew exactly how much vibranium Klaue had stolen from Wakanda, but it was unlikely to exceed a ton.

As for Klaue's lies, there was nothing Miss Stark could do about them, since he controlled the vibranium.

"Current market price for 100 grams of vibranium is about $1 billion. Can you afford that?"

Klaue's slightly mocking tone made Miss Stark clench her fists in frustration. Despite the polite phrasing, the underlying contempt in his words was infuriating. But since Klaue held the vibranium and she needed it, she could only swallow her anger and suppress her fury.

Miss Stark inwardly cursed the man, hoping he would never fall into her hands. Once she perfected the nanotechnology derived from the Extremis Virus to synthetically create vibranium, she'd like to see how arrogant Ulysses Klaue would be then.

"I'm not short on money," she replied coldly, suppressing the rage rising within her. She knew this arms dealer all too well.

"Since we're old acquaintances, I won't ask for a deposit. My people will deliver the vibranium to Switzerland in a week. You know the drill."

Switzerland, a neutral country, was the perfect place for illegal black-market transactions. While vibranium trading wasn't illegal, it was a rare strategic resource. Without her connections with Ulysses Klaue, Miss Stark probably wouldn't have been able to buy it, no matter how much money she had. Major nations, including the U.S., had Klaue blacklisted, which is why he chose Switzerland, a neutral country, for safety.

"Pleasure doing business?"

"Pleasure doing business—"

Hearing the gritted tone in Miss Stark's voice as she forced out the words, Ulysses Klaue laughed. He had never seen the wealthy heiress so out of sorts, and he reveled in his apparent victory.

Miss Stark abruptly hung up the phone, threw it to the floor, and vented her frustration by tearing into a couch cushion. Being constantly at the mercy of others was a bitter pill to swallow—damn it, she would never let herself be looked down upon like this again.

A few days ago, while searching her basement for Howard's research notes, she came across Captain America's shield. The vibranium shield, incredibly durable, had seen better days, its paint worn off by time. Her father, Howard Stark, had made it for Steve Rogers, but now it was sitting in her warehouse. For a moment, she entertained the thought of melting it down to study vibranium's composition, but the idea was quickly dismissed when she felt a strange unease. It was as if something otherworldly was watching her.

The shopping instinct innate to women kicked in, and she quickly spent a third of the $3 billion transferred to her account. Spending $1 billion for 100 grams of vibranium might seem exorbitant, but to her, it was no big deal. After all, she had conned S.H.I.E.L.D. out of $3 billion by selling them some fancy clothes worth no more than $500,000 each. With that in mind, Miss Stark decided to check out the newly expanded basement of her home.

Three days ago, the Quinjet she requested from S.H.I.E.L.D. had arrived. But she couldn't exactly park such a conspicuous aircraft on the surface. So she asked S.H.I.E.L.D. for an additional favor: to build a hangar within the cliff below her villa.

After paying a modest fee, S.H.I.E.L.D. sent a professional construction team to carry out the project. They worked quickly, and within no time, the hangar, located about 20 meters below the villa, was completed. The hangar was situated inside the cliff, with a runway facing the ocean, cleverly disguised by a man-made waterfall.

The hangar was reinforced with lead shielding to block detection, thick steel walls, and was essentially a bomb shelter. She had considered every detail, resulting in a bunker that could withstand a missile strike. She also commissioned Stark Industries' own engineering team to build a large laboratory underground. The garage workspace was fine for tinkering with small projects, but larger ones needed more space.

The end result? The $3 billion she had just earned was quickly spent by this extravagant woman.

"No big deal. Spend it and make more. Who knows, maybe that sucker S.H.I.E.L.D. will buy more stuff."

Standing in the hangar, looking at the Quinjet, Miss Stark tried to console her wounded pride. The Quinjet had all its weapons removed and the S.H.I.E.L.D. markings erased. She had already devised a comprehensive upgrade plan for the aircraft. She planned to install optical camouflage technology, which would make it invisible to radar and satellites—and at the very least, to the naked eye.

She would strip the Quinjet of its original armor and replace it with the lightweight satellite alloy she had ordered from CIS International. While the defense capabilities would be noticeably reduced, it would significantly enhance speed and maneuverability. As for weapons, she chose rare laser weapons and a few mini-missiles from her company's stockpile.

Miss Stark never intended for the Quinjet to see front-line combat; she envisioned it as a mobile support base. Therefore, she only installed a few weapons, focusing more on technological equipment. For instance, she embedded a glass coffin-like structure under the cabin floor—the "Regeneration Cradle," airlifted from Korea by Helen.

The Quinjet's modifications took about two weeks, and meanwhile, good news kept coming from Korea. With Miss Stark's help, Helen had successfully overcome the technical challenges and realized the Regeneration Cradle project.

The Regeneration Cradle was an advanced medical device based on Extremis Virus technology and sophisticated surgical machinery. As long as the patient had even a sliver of life left, the Cradle could revive them. This all-encompassing, mature medical technology was undoubtedly groundbreaking—and equally forbidden from public knowledge.

Initially, Dr. Helen had hoped that her Regeneration Cradle would achieve international success and earn her patent royalties. While this medical technology had immense potential to benefit humanity, it was precisely for this reason that it couldn't be disclosed. After discussing the project's future and market direction with her close friend, Miss Stark, Helen realized her technology was too advanced, too revolutionary. Instead of spurring medical innovation, it would disrupt the entire market.

If the Regeneration Cradle were publicly available, Helen would become the enemy of the global medical industry. Blame it on the fact that her technology was too ahead of its time, too visionary, ignoring the realities of the world. Doctors, pharmaceutical companies, medical equipment manufacturers—all would suffer immense losses if the Regeneration Cradle was released.

Once she became the obstacle in their path, who knows what might happen—perhaps some extremists would even take drastic measures. Fortunately, Miss Stark had a solution. While the technology couldn't be made public, they could use it privately.

So, Dr. Helen Zhao became the director of the newly established biological laboratory at Stark Industries. Although the lab was currently just an empty shell, Miss Stark believed it would be operational soon. She had many plans for the future, but they would all take time, wouldn't they?

Back to the Regeneration Cradle—its final product had already been delivered to the secret underground hangar in Malibu. It was installed under the floor of the Quinjet acquired through her deal with S.H.I.E.L.D. Despite its cradle-like name, the device looked more like a glass coffin. Since Miss Stark planned to transform the Quinjet into a mobile support base, the Regeneration Cradle was a necessity.

When away from the base, she could activate the Quinjet's autopilot, turning it into an unmanned drone. With optical camouflage enabled, the Quinjet would be virtually undetectable, even when flying slowly. In critical moments, Miss Stark could board the jet and escape, and if someone was injured, the Regeneration Cradle could treat them.

She planned to install an arc reactor in the Quinjet once the Arc Reactor technology was perfected. Similarly, she intended to modify the Quinjet's twin turbine engines but not just yet.

She no longer had time to waste—Jarvis had informed her that the location of the Valkyrie bomber had been pinpointed. Using the crystallized energy from the Tesseract left behind by Howard, combined with advanced gamma radiation detection technology, Jarvis had successfully located the strongest gamma energy source within the Arctic Circle.

If all went as expected, that place would be where the Valkyrie bomber was located. Captain America probably never imagined, when he crash-landed the Valkyrie into the ocean, that he would be frozen for over seventy years.

Now, only Miss Stark knew that Captain America was still alive, frozen in the ice of the Arctic Circle. As the sleek, futuristic Quinjet, painted in black and white, sliced through the clouds and arrived above the icy expanse, the edge of this isolated ice island, untouched by humans for over seventy years, welcomed a new visitor.

Through the cabin window, she could see the vast ice field stretching below, merging with the endless ocean. This was the southernmost tip of Greenland, where land and sea met, creating a unique environment shaped by the Arctic Circle's frigid climate, resulting in a thick layer of ice that covered the land year-round, leaving it desolate.

Beneath this ice lay the Hydra doomsday weapon—the Valkyrie bomber. After pressing a button on the control panel to switch to automatic landing mode, the sleek aircraft slowly descended onto the ice.

Ensuring her clothing had activated its special cold-weather mode, Miss Stark slowly opened the rear hatch. She had changed into a somewhat thin black and blue jacket, but despite its appearance, the fabric provided far more warmth than any conventional winter wear.

"Miss, the Quinjet's scanning equipment shows your target is located 300 meters ahead on your left," came Jarvis's slightly robotic voice through the Bluetooth earpiece.

She glanced down at the tablet on her wrist, where the schematic showed a large object buried beneath the ice. Hydra's doomsday weapon was a giant bomber with an incredibly long wingspan, completely defying the principles of aerodynamics. Only the Tesseract's energy core could have lifted that behemoth off the ground.

A typical brute-force approach—Miss Stark mentally dismissed Hydra's crazy ideas. Now, she would benefit from their efforts. Although most of the plane was trapped underwater, a small section of the wing was still exposed. Confirming the bomber's current condition, Miss Stark climbed onto the large machine beside her.

It was a multi-functional rescue robot, hastily assembled and equipped with tracks. Due to its makeshift construction, it looked rather ugly, and she didn't bother to make it any more aesthetically pleasing.

The robot was hideous—like a pile of old equipment forcibly glued together and mounted on tracks. With the robot carrying her, Miss Stark slowly rolled out of the Quinjet's rear hatch.

Standing on the small platform welded to the robot, she activated the Quinjet's modified autopilot system. Soon, the sleek Quinjet closed its hatch and hovered ten meters above the ground.

Relying on the tracks, the robot rolled toward the bomber, with the Quinjet silently following behind, like a ghostly shadow trailing Miss Stark.