The funny thing is, unlike in the original, the Iron Legion couldn't be hacked, so only a voice came from the speakers. I wasn't sure whether to be relieved or not.
Captain looked around and called out to Tony.
"Stark!"
Tony also urgently called for Jarvis to solve this problem.
"Jarvis!"
But there was no answer from Jarvis.
[Sorry, I must have dozed off for a moment. Or perhaps it was a dream. I heard a terrible noise, and then I was turned off.]
Tony frantically picked up the Avengers Tower control panel and tried to operate it.
"There's a bug. The control panel isn't responding either."
Regardless of what Tony did, the voice from the speaker continued to talk.
[That connection... I had to kill the other one. He was a good fellow...]
The voice from the speaker said it had killed Jarvis. Thor asked the voice flowing from the speaker for its identity.
"Who sent you?"
In response to Thor's question, Tony's voice suddenly came from the speaker.
-I'm going to create a world protected by powerful suits.
Hearing that, Banner, perhaps recalling a conversation he had with Tony, looked at Tony and said.
"Ultron."
Then the voice from the speaker agreed with that.
[Right, that's me. Hmm... I need a body. There's a more advanced being than the first friend I killed. No gaps at all. I can't use what's here. I have a mission... It'll take time.]
He was probably talking about Minerva. This time, Natasha asked.
"What mission?"
[Peace in our time. The only path to that is the extinction of the Avengers.]
After that, the voice from the speaker was no longer heard.
We hurried up to the lab. Tony displayed a hologram to check on Jarvis, but what appeared was Jarvis's program shattered and broken.
"Tony, what happened? What is Ultron anyway?"
Captain asked Tony, and instead of the shocked Tony, Banner explained.
"Tony and I planned and researched the Ultron project, which was one of SHIELD's technologies to scan a human brain and transfer it to a computer to create a powerful AI. But since we kept failing, I thought it was over..."
Hearing that, Captain recalled the incident with Dr. Arnim Zola and said.
"That's the technology SHIELD used to transfer the brain of a dying HYDRA doctor to a computer! That's why SHIELD was played by HYDRA. This is insane... Can we track it?"
"No, Ultron already escaped through the internet and deleted everything. It's impossible here, but maybe if we go to the headquarters, it might be possible."
Then Tony came to his senses and asked me.
"Cassian, why are the Iron Legion unaffected?"
"That's because I made them highly resistant to hacking. You'll know if you analyze it. Now that Jarvis is gone, the only one with command authority over the Iron Legion is you, Tony."
Hearing that, Tony sighed in relief and said.
"Whew... I guess you could call this a silver lining... As expected, Cassian is a step ahead of me in software."
Captain asked Tony again.
"Whose brain was scanned to create Ultron anyway?"
"It was made by mixing several people. Me, Banner, and you."
At Tony's shocking statement, Captain asked again with a disbelieving expression.
"What, what did you say?"
"Sorry... I scanned you when you were discharged from the hospital and I was checking your condition. I didn't think it would come to this, but I believed no one could match your mental strength and sense of justice. I thought combining my and Banner's high intelligence with Captain's mental strength and sense of justice would create the perfect artificial intelligence."
Hearing that, Natasha said incredulously.
"But what came out is a mentally strong idiot."
Captain sighed and said to Tony.
"Tony, the Avengers have to be different from SHIELD."
But Tony couldn't accept it.
"Doesn't anyone remember me going through the wormhole with a nuclear bomb? When a crazed alien army invaded Earth through the wormhole, we were right 100 meters below! I thought this can't go on. So I created Ultron, an AI that thinks and judges like a human, to manage the Iron Legion and block external threats. It didn't work out in the end, but I just want you to know that I'm more worried about Earth's safety than anyone."
Tony ultimately couldn't abandon his radical attitude and made this choice. He probably spent many sleepless nights working on the Ultron project, thinking, 'If this goes well, we can sufficiently block external threats.' It seemed there was anger and emptiness at all that effort being wasted in an instant.
"How do you plan to deal with this?"
Then Captain said briefly.
"Together."
Hearing that, Tony said.
"We'll lose."
"Then we lose together."
Then I stepped forward and said.
"He made a mistake out of haste, but I understand Tony's position. It's true that we've been continuously invaded by aliens lately. Having experienced such things firsthand, I think we need to at least understand each other. As I said before, everyone can make mistakes. So let's quickly clean up before the damage gets worse."
Then Minerva contacted us.
[Master, an unregistered artificial intelligence is hacking the nuclear missile launch codes of countries around the world. Due to time constraints, I am unavoidably blocking the hacking without receiving orders.]
At that, the members seemed very surprised.
"Can we trace the path?"
[Impossible. I'm at my limit just blocking it now. It seems to be attacking like this to waste my performance on defense.]
In short, it seemed Minerva was under a DDoS attack. And with the world's security at stake. Probably, Ultron was doing this because it judged it couldn't beat Minerva. No matter how strong Minerva is as an AI, since she's on the defensive, Ultron seemed to know that and use this method.
"This is insane... The AI Tony created is really smart."
At that, Tony flinched slightly. Captain asked me.
"So we can't even get help from the AI Cassian created?"
"Yeah, we have no choice but to search through files the old-fashioned way ourselves. From what Ultron said, it seems to want to emerge. It'll probably look for facilities, materials, or technicians to make its own body. Let's start by searching for that."
"No choice. Let's go the old-fashioned way."
Then Banner asked me.
"What about Gundam Island? Is it safe there?"
"There, Minerva should be defending it."
Frankly, even if a nuclear war breaks out, Minerva will prioritize protecting Gundam Island first. Moreover, with androids there, hacking should be truly impossible.
"That's a relief. It's a place where Gundams appear, after all. If Gundams were enemies, it would have been really troublesome."
"That's true."
We moved to the headquarters and sat in the training room with the employees, starting to search through all of SHIELD's old data. Just sorting out the data that met the conditions took a tremendous amount of time. The employees, perhaps understanding the seriousness of the situation, helped without complaint. I thought we should give them bonuses when the work was done.
We looked over and confirmed the sorted data again. Then, perhaps because Jesse was too tired, he was sleeping with papers covering his face. Tony passed by, looked closely at the papers on Jesse's face, then picked them up and showed them to us, explaining.
"This guy was a black-market arms dealer who used to sell weapons on the African coast. But he's been going around saying he found a new war weapon."
Thor looked at the photo and pointed to the neck of the person in the photo, asking Tony.
"Ah... that's Jesse's drool."
"No, not that, the thing on this person's neck."
Tony looked at the photo closely again and said.
"This is a tattoo, and here, this is a brand."
"Can we find out about this brand?"
When Thor asked that, Banner searched on the computer for a similar phrase, found it, and told us.
"Found it. It's an African dialect, meaning 'thief'. Used in a derogatory sense."
Then Captain asked.
"Which dialect?"
"Hmm... Wokin nada? Wakanda."
At that, Tony's face became serious.
"This guy seems to be after the metal that comes from Wakanda."
At Tony's words, Banner stood up from the desk and asked.
"What metal comes from Wakanda?"
"The hardest metal on Earth, vibranium."
With the target set, Captain instructed everyone.
"Wake up the resting members and prepare to depart. Let's go to South Africa where the arms smuggler Ulysses is."
We followed Captain's instructions, woke everyone up, prepared, and moved to South Africa on the Odyssey. Meanwhile, members who hadn't rested took a short nap on the Odyssey.
After moving for three hours, when we saw the coast with decommissioned cargo ships gathered on the South African coast, everyone prepared. I used the Odyssey's thermal camera to start searching for Ulysses. Then, I spotted many armed personnel inside a large container carrier among the wrecked ships and immediately alerted Captain.
"Cap! It looks like this wrecked ship. There are many armed personnel inside. We can enter through the rear and the deck."
Captain looked at the hologram I displayed and explained the plan to the members.
"Good. We'll split into two teams, the one going in from the rear..."
Captain planned to surprise and subdue both the deck and rear sides to capture Ulysses for sure. With Vulture, Jesse, Sam, me, and even Wanda and Pietro, who were enemies in the original, now on our side, the team had grown, so splitting up shouldn't be a big problem.
We each took our positions and waited for Captain's signal.
Now!
Thud! Crack!
Gah! Ugh!
As Captain's signal dropped, the members quickly subdued the armed personnel guarding outside simultaneously and entered the wrecked ship. The ship was very large, so the interior space was vast, but thanks to Pietro and Hawkeye's efforts, they could quietly deal with the armed personnel and infiltrate quickly without being detected.
As we went inside, we heard someone talking, and upon checking, we witnessed a scene where a giant silver robot that looked like Ultron from the original was talking with Ulysses, whom we had identified from photos. Ulysses was handing a blue capsule to Ultron while talking in the warehouse. Probably, the ores in that capsule were vibranium.
I first amplified the sound and let the members hear it.
"I paid a considerable personal price to obtain this. It's worth billions."
Then Ultron smiled slightly, closed his eyes, and did something. Then the cell phone of Ulysses's subordinate next to him vibrated. Ulysses and his subordinate checked the phone together with very surprised expressions. Probably, as in the original, he transferred a large sum of money to Ulysses through hacking.
"Finance is really strange. As I always say, make both your friends and enemies rich. Then you'll know who your real friends are."
Hearing that, Ulysses recalled something and said to Ultron.
"Stark..."
"What?"
"Tony Stark always used to say that. You're Stark's creation."
Ultron thought for a moment and said to Ulysses.
"Hmm... right. It's true that Tony Stark also occupies a part of me. But that doesn't mean I have to think the same as Tony."
I was quite surprised by Ultron's reaction. In the original, upon hearing Ulysses's words, Ultron got angry and cut off Ulysses's arm, but here, Ultron didn't do that. It seemed Ultron's personality was a bit different from the original.
"But what are you planning to do with all this vibranium?"
"That's none of your business. Pleasure doing business."
As the conversation seemed to end, perhaps judging that we had heard enough, Captain gave the signal.
-I think we've heard enough, so let's stop Ultron.
We received Captain's signal and stepped out in front of them. Tony spoke first to Ultron.
"Going to tear open Junior's dad's chest?"
"If I have to."
Then, Thor, who was next to him, said to Ultron.
"There's no need to tear anything."
At that, Ultron thought for a moment and answered.
"Hmm... I haven't torn a squid tentacle yet. I haven't been in reality for long, you see."
At Ultron's words, Tony made a disappointed expression.
"What a pity... that was the joke I was going to make."
We looked at Tony incredulously for a moment, then focused on Ultron again. Thor continued the conversation.
"If you want peace, let us protect it."
At Thor's words, this time Ultron looked incredulous.
"Well... you seem to be confusing 'peace' with 'silence'."
This time, I stepped forward and asked.
"What are you planning to use the vibranium for anyway?"
Ultron looked at me and said.
"Before that, I'd like to ask you something. Who are you exactly? I can't understand it at all from common sense. You lived quietly, then suddenly swept up wealth worldwide, and with superior science and technology, you're dominating the world. I simply can't figure it out. This is impossible."
This guy completely hit the nail on the head. The funny thing is, other people are also looking at me, curious.