Going to S.H.I.E.L.D.

Daisy considered it. If she contacted Nick Fury, some things would be much easier, but she did not want to owe Director Fury a favor. In the end, she decided to find a way herself.

After putting her mind to work, she quickly came up with an idea. "How about this? We place advertisements targeting medium and large companies and build up our reputation."

"We'll produce and distribute some brochures, introducing our philosophy and product applications to various businesses. The content of the brochures itself isn't important. The key is to coat the pages with fluorescent material so users can see them even at night."

"Think about it. Our first batch of brochures definitely won't get much attention. But when some executive is working late or heading home and sees our glowing advertisement in the darkness, what will he think? Won't he pick it up and take a look? Even if he doesn't need this service, won't it leave an impression? That's our opportunity!" Daisy declared confidently.

The others each gave it some thought. The situation she described really could happen.

"That's a good idea. You came up with it? You're very good at grasping human psychology." There was a hint of surprise in James Wesley's voice.

Daisy calmly accepted the praise. She certainly was not about to say this had been an advertising concept from the July 2011 issue of FHM.

"Analyze data, build a vast data-based net within this tangled modern society, refine every person and every event within it. We'll grasp, analyze, and process everything. This is a brand-new field. Everyone, our prospects are vast. Someday, we might even be able to influence presidential elections!"

The others neither agreed nor disagreed with this grand declaration and went off to make preparations.

David continued optimizing the program and streamlining the algorithms.

James Wesley was responsible for setting up the company. Much of the external business would need to be handled by him; after all, his image best fit the mold of a business elite.

Miss Matsumoto contacted printing plants and chemical factories. Promotional materials could not simply be distributed freely here. They also needed to undergo a whole pile of hazardous-material assessments. This was exactly the sort of thing Miss Matsumoto, who understood the law, was suited for.

At the same time, Daisy personally visited the principal of her church school. After thanking the school for its help over the years, she donated ten thousand dollars as educational funding. At her request, the other party used a few connections to speed up the review and approval process for the brochure assessments.

Everything was entirely reasonable and legal. She was merely cutting in line to have her own products inspected first.

A week later, the brochures were officially mailed to major companies. Of the fifty thousand dollars Nick Fury had generously provided, only a little over ten thousand remained.

Three more days passed before their first consulting job arrived.

A medium-sized fast-food chain had recently launched a series of new meal sets. It had submitted requests to several consulting firms at once, asking them to investigate customer satisfaction with the new offerings.

The traditional approach required a great deal of manpower and resources: random surveys, questionnaires, data compilation and analysis, and so on.

Skye Data Analysis Co., Ltd. had none of those costs. They gathered information from social forums and Twitter, processed and calculated it, and quickly came up with a relatively precise figure. Their algorithm then summarized users' complaints, filtered out the most frequently repeated issues, and listed them one by one.

Daisy and the others were only responsible for collecting the data. How to improve things was the operator's business.

When the impeccably dressed James Wesley submitted the report, the client was stunned. The speed was absurdly fast.

Another company that had accepted the same assignment had only just begun comparing customer responses, while this side had already completed the commission.

The client found it a little hard to believe, but Skye Data Analysis Co., Ltd.'s analytical report vaguely matched its own operational reports.

After adjusting the meal sets according to the survey results that very day, revenue rose three percentage points year-on-year. The person in charge was overjoyed, immediately called to terminate the other company's commission, and paid Skye Data the full seventy-five thousand dollar fee.

They had earned the money easily. The only cost had been a little electricity.

Over the following week, Skye Data took on two more small jobs in succession, earning fifty thousand and sixty-five thousand dollars respectively.

Everything was on track, and their good reputation was spreading within a small circle.

Several companies with similar consulting businesses had already noticed them. They would not hire corporate spies over a few tens of thousands of dollars, but Daisy still had to be cautious. She finally made up her mind to go to S.H.I.E.L.D. to learn. No matter what happened in the future, she needed to master this knowledge herself.

After dividing everyone's tasks further, Daisy began preparing to head to S.H.I.E.L.D. Fury had not told her the exact location, instead telling her to find it herself. Honestly, this test was not difficult at all.

Triskelion Headquarters was located on an island in the middle of the Potomac River in Washington D.C. Its official name was Theodore Roosevelt Island. The island was a little over one square kilometer in size, densely covered in woods, with winding walking paths. Several tall buildings could be seen amid the trees. That was S.H.I.E.L.D. Headquarters, though its public name was still the long and awful Strategic Homeland Intervention, Enforcement and Logistics Division.

Fury had hinted at the name S.H.I.E.L.D. Any normal person could have worked out the answer by looking at the abbreviation of that logistics division, but Daisy already knew it and had no need to analyze anything.

That weekend, she changed into a plaid shirt, jeans, and sneakers, put on sunglasses, slung on a backpack, and drove to Washington.

She only glanced at the Washington Monument, Capitol Building, and White House before losing interest. Those landmark buildings had been blown up hundreds of times in all sorts of films and television shows, so there was little novelty left in them.

Still, the environment here was nice. Lush trees provided shade, and the air was fresh. Tourists and residents alike gathered in twos and threes, reading or chatting, and the atmosphere was relaxed.

Driving northeast from the Lincoln Memorial, Daisy was soon stopped at a checkpoint by the riverbank.

After she presented the magnetic card Fury had given her, they verified her identity and let her pass directly.

She could enter, but her unknown-number-of-previous-owners car could not.

Daisy did not waste any words. She parked in the lot on the other side. Good cars were everywhere here; compared to them, her old Ford was practically an antique. She called the maid and told her to come sell the car whenever she had time. Fury had said he would provide Daisy with a new one anyway.

With her backpack on, she registered again and walked across the bridge.

Scanners, electronic eyes, radar, and other devices swept over her. When they detected her identity card, they all stopped scanning.

She was the only person on the bridge. There was no pretty senior sister to welcome her, nor any senior brother to carry her luggage. Alone, she entered this quiet, peaceful island.

Following the winding paths, turning left and right, she walked for an hour before the view suddenly opened up before her.

The massive Triskelion building occupied more than half the island. It looked three hundred meters tall. Thinking of Captain America jumping from the middle of the building, Daisy could not help sighing. She could barely manage to use her Vibration powers to offset gravity and descend slowly, but jump straight down? She did not have the physical attributes for that.