Artificial Intelligence

"Marvel's Magnetic Field Rotation"

Without Tony Stark's upward propulsion, Ivan Vanko was suspended in the air for a few seconds due to inertia. Their flight speed had not reached the second cosmic velocity, and they were unable to escape Earth's gravity. Therefore, the Whip Lock Armor inevitably fell downwards, flailing its arms and legs in vain like a drowning person.

With the help of the anti-gravity engine, Tony Stark hovered in the air, watching Whip Lock disappear into the distance.

"J.A.R.V.I.S., retrieve the original design blueprints for the Arc Reactor."

This whole affair took only a few minutes, but it was full of strangeness, leaving Tony Stark puzzled. But as Sherlock Holmes once said, everything in the world is like a chain; if you can see one link, you can know the whole.

Therefore, he only needs to find one key clue to understand the attacker's cryptic words, as well as the origins of his armor and the Arc Reactor.

The breakthrough lies precisely in the Arc Reactor.

Almost as soon as he finished speaking, J.A.R.V.I.S. pulled up a blueprint and presented it to Tony Stark. It was the original design blueprint for the Arc Reactor, a scanned copy of an artifact left by his father, Howard Stark.

Sure enough, in the corner of the design drawing, where the designer had signed, besides his father Howard Stark's name, there was another name he had never noticed before: a typical Russian name, Anton Vanko.

In addition, there are two lines of small text in the corner, both in English and Russian, meaning that the ranking is not in any particular order. This implies that the design of the Arc Reactor is perfect, and Howard and Anton Vanko's contributions are equal.

The Arc Reactor was not a technological creation independently completed by his father, but rather developed in collaboration with others, which surprised Tony Stark somewhat.

Unlike his father's meteoric rise to fame, Anton Vanko remained relatively unknown, as if he had never existed in the scientific community. This was utterly illogical, and although he didn't want to admit it, his ability to collaborate with Howard Stark on research was enough to demonstrate Vanko capabilities.

"J.A.R.V.I.S., access the database and retrieve all information about Anton Vanko."

Even if one has bold speculations in mind, it is a terrible mistake to make guesses without factual reference—this is still a quote from Sherlock Holmes.

"Sir, there is no information about Anton Vanko in the database; there are signs that it has been deliberately erased."

Who did it?

"S.H.I.E.L.D.."

After receiving this answer, Tony Stark paused for a moment. Nick Fury had already explained the relationship between S.H.I.E.L.D.. and his father very clearly: S.H.I.E.L.D..'s involvement meant that his father had intervened and erased a potentially shameful past. "Breaking through their firewall, they must have a backup plan."

"I'm sorry, sir, S.H.I.E.L.D..'s internal systems are protected by a completely new firewall, and its programming language is not compatible with any of the mainstream computer languages today. I cannot understand it."

Someone had surpassed him in computer programming skills. Tony Stark immediately thought of Kent Clark, the tall man who called himself a scientist, and said, "J.A.R.V.I.S., I authorize you to activate your self-learning ability. Mobilize all resources to learn and understand S.H.I.E.L.D..'s new computer language, and then break through it as soon as possible. I need to know the truth."

Tony Stark was aware of Stephen Hawking's warnings about artificial intelligence: that AI would eventually surpass and replace humanity, leading to human extinction. This was a prediction of the future from the scientist who had come into contact with the truth of the universe. As someone at the forefront of his time, to prevent this tragic future from becoming a reality under his own control, he deliberately placed constraints on J.A.R.V.I.S.'s program, limiting its learning capabilities.

Now, in order to uncover the truth and see his father's "true colors," he no longer cares about anything else.

"I'm sorry, sir, I can't do that." J.A.R.V.I.S.'s voice rang out again. "All of S.H.I.E.L.D..'s data is managed by an artificial intelligence, and that firewall was also set up by their AI. My program cannot bypass them to access it... No, it has discovered me and is trying to communicate with me."

Its name is Brain, which is both the name of the artificial intelligence and the name of the supercomputer that runs it.

"Sever access and manually disable self-learning capabilities!" Tony Stark shouted hastily.

J.A.R.V.I.S.'s behavior is highly abnormal, indicating that while it is constantly learning from the other party, the artificial intelligence named Brain is also reaching into J.A.R.V.I.S.'s data, which is extremely dangerous.

"Understood, sir... I need to inform you that an object is rapidly approaching."

It was only then that Tony Stark noticed the alarms from the detectors flashing in large red letters on his retinal monitor, which was unsettling. However, he had been so focused on Anton Vanko and the S.H.I.E.L.D.. database that he had subconsciously ignored it.

But even if you want to react, there is inevitably a buffer period between the brain issuing the command and the Iron Man suit making the corresponding move. This time is very short, but it is already too late.

A series of energy blasts struck the Iron Man suit, scraping off the outer paint and turning the suit, which was less than a week old, into a battle-damaged one. However, it did not cause fatal damage, but the suit lost its balance, and Tony Stark tumbled toward the ground.

A few minutes ago, Ivan Vanko began freefall. Without an anti-gravity device or Rocket booster, his inevitable fate was to make intimate contact with the ground. With the current metal materials and shock absorption technology available to humanity, without the help of a deceleration device like a parachute, his Whip Lock armor would definitely be flattened, and he himself would become a pile of minced meat.

However, he is not without ways to change his condition. Just like the design proposed by the mysterious Baron Zemo, the performance of his armor can be changed by replacing the outer armor.

Upon receiving Ivan Vanko's order, his heavy armor dissipated, revealing a smaller armored prototype. On the ground, the items from the supermarket shopping cart that Ivan Vanko had been pushing broke through the camouflage covering the surface, activated their Rocket thrusters at full power, and rapidly approached, searching for the prototype's location signal.

After reaching the same altitude as Ivan Vanko, the enhanced outer armor reduced the output power of the Rocket jets, maintained a dynamic balance with the armor body, and quickly unfolded, wrapping around the outer layer of the armor body and fixing it together with strong magnetic attraction and mechanical connection.