The Arc Reactor

After stepping out of the office, Pepper glanced at the USB drive in her palm and finally exhaled a sigh of relief.

But it still wasn't completely safe, so she quickly hurried down the stairs.

Meanwhile, back in the office.

Obadiah opened Tony's computer, exited the screensaver, and saw the files that had been copied. This discovery immediately made him furious.

Pepper must have figured out everything.

He quickly left the office, stepped into the hallway, and spotted Pepper anxiously leaving.

Just as he was about to call his men to stop her, he noticed a S.H.I.E.L.D. agent approaching and walking alongside Pepper.

He remembered that agent's name—Coulson, someone with a fairly high rank within S.H.I.E.L.D.

"Damn it..."

Obadiah cursed under his breath, then swiftly headed to the research lab.

Tony and Pepper might not know much about S.H.I.E.L.D., but as the de facto manager of Stark Industries with extensive connections, he certainly did.

S.H.I.E.L.D. was a council-sanctioned organization dedicated to handling extraordinary matters. Its power and authority were so immense that even the U.S. military had to show them some respect.

His only chance now lay in his armor—the Iron Monger. As long as the Iron Monger was successfully developed, the military would surely back him.

And if that didn't work out, he had one last resort—Umbrella.

But whenever he thought of the conditions Luna had proposed the previous night, he couldn't help but feel troubled.

Forget it. Unless it's absolutely necessary, I won't turn to Umbrella.

...........

In the top-floor office of Umbrella.

Adam was leisurely seated in his executive chair, holding a cup of coffee while reviewing the report projected in front of him.

From early in the morning, the Red Queen had begun dumping stocks on the market, and as expected, a massive amount of cash had flooded in.

The Red Queen had shorted Stark Industries with about $1 billion, leveraging it five times over.

Now, Stark Industries' stock price had plummeted to about one-third of its original value. This meant that if all the short positions were sold at the current price, he would earn around $3.5 billion.

Not bad. Although it's only worth the price of 350 C-2 virus doses, this money is essentially free, and C-2 viruses aren't always available for sale.

With this $3.5 billion, his plan to acquire Starship Corporation could proceed even further.

However, after some thought, he decided not to rush into buying Starship Corporation stocks, because he had a better idea.

And that was to take advantage of the low prices and buy Stark Industries stock, becoming a shareholder in Stark Industries.

Because he knew that once the Arc Reactor was officially put into use, Stark Industries' stock price would rebound, potentially soaring higher than before.

In other words, this was likely the lowest point for Stark Industries' stock.

"Knock, knock..."

At that moment, there was a knock on the door.

"Come in."

As the door opened, Luna strutted in, her hips swaying and her high heels clicking with each step.

"Boss, the armor blueprints have arrived."

She said as she placed a stack of printed documents in front of Adam.

Ignoring Luna's impressive cleavage, Adam set down his aromatic coffee and picked up the documents to carefully examine them.

These were the designs for the Mark I, the suit Tony had built from scrap metal while trapped in the Middle East. Although there was something of value in them, they weren't particularly advanced.

After all, they hadn't solved issues like superspeed overload, and there was no information on freezing, shock absorption, energy, or repulsor technology.

Of course, there were some technologies in the designs that he didn't possess, which the Red Queen could learn from.

After reviewing the documents for a while, he nodded in satisfaction.

"Not bad. If we can solve the energy problem, we can create an army of Iron Men. What did Obadiah say about the data and blueprints for the Arc Reactor?"

Knowing that Iron Man had emerged, Adam naturally wouldn't just sit back and do nothing.

But he also knew that Tony was a tough person to deal with, so he had sent Luna to approach Obadiah. While this required some compromises, it was still better than dealing with Tony, who was impossible to work with.

Upon hearing the mention of the Arc Reactor, Luna could only shake her head helplessly.

"I'm sorry, boss. Obadiah holds the Arc Reactor very dearly and has shown no willingness to negotiate."

Hearing this, Adam didn't say anything; he simply picked up the now-cold coffee on his desk and took a slow sip.

Then he looked up, meeting Luna's frustrated gaze, and confidently said, "Don't worry. He'll agree by tonight. You can go now."

Luna had no doubt about Adam's words. She simply nodded and left the room.

As the office returned to silence, Adam turned his chair to face the window.

The sun outside was already setting, and night was fast approaching.

He knew that the showdown between Obadiah and Tony would begin very soon.

"Red Queen, deploy the second USS squad to Stark Energy Plant and have them stand by."

USS stood for 'Umbrella Security Service', a secret rapid-response unit that Adam had formed. The members were all retired special forces soldiers from various countries, each one enhanced by the T-3 virus, making them far stronger and more specialized than regular security personnel.

Even within Umbrella Corporation, only a few people knew of this secret unit, and naturally, the highest-ranking officer of this unit was Adam himself.

"Yes, Master."

A moment later, Adam stood up and looked down at the people leaving work below, a slight smile forming on his lips.

"Things are starting to get interesting."

"Red Queen, after you finish selling off the short positions, buy Stark Industries stock with everything you have."

"Yes, Master."

.........

As the sun continued to set, night finally fell.

At the Stark Energy Plant.

Pepper, accompanied by Coulson and four other S.H.I.E.L.D. agents, was making her way into the facility.

Inside this plant was a new large-scale Arc Reactor, a facility of Stark Industries' new energy division, with an estimated daily power output of around ten billion kilowatts—almost equivalent to the Three Gorges Dam.

The reason for saying "estimated" is that the large-scale Arc Reactor had only recently been installed and was still in the testing phase; it hadn't been officially put into operation yet.

And the Arc Reactor was the very reason Tony had the confidence to shut down the weapons research and production division, even boldly declaring that he would stop selling weapons in the future.

As for why it was a large-scale Arc Reactor, that's because Tony would never give away the technology to miniaturize the Arc Reactor.

"Area 16, Area 16, here it is."

After walking for a while, Pepper led the group to Area 16 of the plant.

According to the information she saw at noon, Obadiah was preparing to build a suit of armor in Area 16.

But when she tried swiping her work card a couple of times, she found that the access denied lights kept flashing red.

"Obadiah has revoked my clearance! The door won't open."

Upon hearing this, Coulson calmly nodded, then extended his hand.

His subordinate immediately understood and pulled out a small bomb, placing it against the door.

"Please step back a bit."

As the device beeped softly, there was a small explosion, and the door to Area 16 was blown open.

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