Personal Armor Project

Back at the factory in New York, Wang Khan secretly cordoned off a workshop and kept it closed to outsiders. In fact, no one else in the company knew that the workshop had been added.

"Red Queen, start purchasing the raw materials needed to manufacture the Quinjet. Remember to transfer the money through false accounts. Don't let those damn rats at S.H.I.E.L.D. find out."

"Understood, Guardian."

"Next, show me the files you stole."

Red Queen uploaded all kinds of classified files stolen from S.H.I.E.L.D. Academy onto Wang Khan's laptop. Wang Khan quickly skimmed through them and found quite a bit of advanced technology, but there were no major secrets beyond that.

The core of S.H.I.E.L.D. was not its technology, but the various 084s—the unified designation for events or objects that common sense could not explain.

For example, Quake, Skye, was an 084, and the Obelisk containing Terrigen Crystal was also classified as an 084.

"It's only the Academy, after all. There aren't any files about the 084s on the server. Forget it. Once S.H.I.E.L.D. falls, those files will be exposed anyway. I can wait a little longer."

"After this attack, S.H.I.E.L.D. will definitely heighten its security measures. I suggest that Guardian keep a low profile for the time being. You should also keep an eye on the moles inside the company. After last night's attack, all of them received messages from S.H.I.E.L.D. It seems that Nick Fury suspects you."

Red Queen's words left Wang Khan stunned for a moment, and then he slowly shook his head.

"Given Nick Fury's usual methods, if he really suspected that I did it, he would have brought a large force to attack by now. The fact that he's only having the moles investigate means he's probably just searching blindly. Keep monitoring those moles, but don't alert them."

After dealing with the matter of the moles, Wang Khan extracted everything useful from the files. This included the target of this operation: the Quinjet's structural diagrams and its Stealth System.

After absorbing this knowledge, Wang Khan began the Meditation Experiment. With his greatly improved physical abilities, he could now carry out the Meditation Experiment continuously for three hours, six times longer than before.

Soon, three hours passed. Wang Khan let out a long breath, wiped the cold sweat from his forehead, grabbed the compressed pastries beside him, and devoured them to replenish his depleted energy.

"I never would have thought that the Quinjet, which could only serve as transportation in the movies, would have so many hidden functions. In a desperate situation, it can even break through the atmosphere and enter space. That's incredible."

Wang Khan remembered that in the third season of Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D., the Original Inhumans were sent into space in a Quinjet and died there. That alone showed how powerful the Quinjet's functions were.

After three hours and more than seven thousand Meditation Experiments, Wang Khan had not only completely mastered the Quinjet's structure but had even improved it.

"I originally intended to build an aircraft for underground travel, but I unexpectedly obtained a spacecraft capable of operating both underground and aboveground. The only problem now is energy. Mineral fuel can't be used in space."

"Red Queen, have all the raw materials for building the aircraft been purchased?"

"The order has been placed. The materials will arrive in seven days. I've already made the arrangements. The total cost is fifty million USD. The financial movements probably won't escape the notice of the company's moles, so you'll need to come up with a reason."

"A reason..."

Wang Khan sat in his chair. When he looked up, he happened to see a news report about Iron Man, Tony Stark, on television. He had defeated another illegal organization and brought peace to the local area.

In short, Tony Stark was currently intoxicated by the thrill of being a Super Hero. He did not care that it would accelerate his Palladium Poisoning.

"Is the US Military currently coveting Tony Stark's Iron Man suit?"

"Yes, Guardian. Although, in my opinion, that suit is flashy but impractical and completely unsuitable for military deployment, there's no denying that a suit equipped with a new energy source is extremely attractive to the military."

Wang Khan naturally knew that the Iron Man suit was unsuitable for the military. Even later in Marvel, after the military had obtained a suit and Hammer Industries had produced those remote-controlled mechs, the Iron Man suit still could not be deployed throughout the armed forces.

At that point, the secrets of the Iron Man suit were practically no longer secrets to the military.

Even if they could not produce the new energy source based on the Space Stone Isotope, they should have mastered the Arc Reactor technology based on palladium. Yet they still could not deploy the suits on a large scale. The fundamental reason was that the cost was too high.

"Even excluding development costs, each Iron Man suit costs tens of millions of USD to manufacture. Can you imagine a soldier's equipment costing tens of millions? The US military may be wealthy, but it can't afford to waste money like that."

"Guardian, have you thought of an idea?"

"Since the US military has a demand for Personal Armor, then we'll satisfy it. We can also use this opportunity to hide the workshop and the flow of funds."

"Red Queen, gather all the knowledge on High-Energy Batteries available on the market. I'm going to invent an entirely new battery for our new Personal Armor."

Just as Wang Khan began his new research project, S.H.I.E.L.D. also made progress.

"Director, we discovered that this cyberattack followed a specific pattern. If the attacker tries to break in again, it won't be so easy."

Hearing his subordinate's report, Nick Fury's expression darkened.

"What I care about now is how to find that son of a bitch, not passive defense."

"Director, don't be anxious. Once we understand his attack pattern, it's equivalent to understanding his network DNA. We can monitor the network twenty-four hours a day. As soon as we discover similar network DNA, we can lock onto him immediately. If we're lucky and he tries to steal something again, we'll only need to send people there in time. Nine times out of ten, we'll be able to stop him before he succeeds."

"Hmm... This news is at least somewhat useful. Bring Natasha and Barton back. I have a feeling that bastard will act again before long. This time, I'll show him what we're capable of!"

Sharon Carter had been in deep cover recently. In other words, aside from maintaining a direct line of contact with Coulson, she did not even communicate with her other S.H.I.E.L.D. colleagues inside Umbrella Corporation.

Even so, Coulson had still informed her about the invasion of S.H.I.E.L.D. Academy some time ago.

Carter had suspected Wang Khan the moment she learned what had happened. She had no evidence, only intuition, but a woman's intuition—especially a female agent's intuition—could sometimes be uncannily accurate.

Aside from her intuition, Carter had other reasons to suspect Wang Khan. Recently, she had been trying to obtain the source code for the Spider-Sense System, but had made no progress at all.

She had already discovered that Umbrella Corporation possessed powerful network defenses. However, that formidable capability had definitely not been developed by the network engineers the company had hired. There had to be another reason.

Carter had two theories about what that reason might be. The first was that Wang Khan had a hidden network team behind him, secretly protecting Umbrella Corporation's network security.

The other possibility was that a high-performance artificial intelligence was hidden within Umbrella Corporation's network. Whether it was the former or the latter, both possibilities proved that Umbrella Corporation was extraordinarily powerful in the digital world. S.H.I.E.L.D. Academy's invasion this time had been defeated by superior network capabilities.

"Ms. Carter, this is the electricity bill for this month. Please verify it and give it to the boss for signing."

Carter took the electricity bill from the operations department supervisor and glanced at it. Suddenly, an idea struck her.

She noticed that this month's electricity bill was thirty percent higher than last month's. As far as she knew, the factory should already have been operating at full capacity, so the electricity bill should not have fluctuated this much.

"I want the electricity usage data for every workshop. The more detailed, the better."