Octopus at Death's Door

At Cobra's Undersea Base, Alvin stood at an observation post on the lowest level, looking down at the former Cobra researchers. Dressed in white lab coats, they scurried among the complex equipment like busy worker ants.

The old man who had kept trying to stop Alvin and the others had died in the end. When he realized the Artificial Sun wasn't what he'd imagined, he had a heart attack and died.

The not-so-young Dr. Otto was just as dispirited. Everyone had tacitly agreed to forget the name "Simon Fek." He wanted people to call him Otto. Simon Fek's career had been a man-made tragedy.

The CIA's shortsightedness and eagerness for quick results had ruined a genius's life.

Strictly speaking, the Artificial Sun—or the Super Battery—hadn't been an idle fantasy. He had succeeded. It was just that both required an extremely rare material, Iridium, to act as a stabilizer.

Dr. Yinsen had once praised the Super Battery's design to the skies, and even built several replicas to power his Combat Suit and Exoskeleton Armor.

Unfortunately, the Chitauri invasion—or whatever those aliens were—had used up all the Iridium he had. Now the Super Battery was just "cutting-edge technology" that existed only on paper.

Strictly speaking, Dr. Otto wasn't a bad person. He'd even been brought here as part of a CIA scheme. Now that he knew what his research could lead to, he'd thrown himself wholeheartedly into the work of "saving the world."

As Alvin had said, the world didn't have that many lunatics. People who truly wanted to destroy the world or cause a disaster were still few and far between.

Alvin looked at the enormous sphere submerged in the water below, then at Dr. Otto, who wore a pair of round sunglasses and carried eight mechanical arms over ten meters