The fluorescent lights in the laboratory buzzed overhead as Lin Xiu's tactical boots crushed the uncleaned Vibranium fragments on the floor, producing a faint crunch.
He slammed the quantum computer's external hard drive onto the table. The crisp clang of metal against Vibranium startled Tony into looking up from the holographic projection, his gold-rimmed glasses slipping to the tip of his nose. "I've said it seven times already. This damn machine is more precious than Pepper Potts's limited-edition bags—"
"Found it." Lin Xiu cut off his complaint, his fingertips sweeping through the floating data stream.
Pale golden bands of light from the Oracle System intertwined across his retina. The Reality Correction coordinates that had once given him splitting headaches were now automatically sorted according to residual energy intensity, gathering into a glowing star map like iron filings drawn to a magnet.
Tony's fingers froze over the console.
Within the holographic display, the chaotic purple gibberish abruptly collapsed into seven concentric circles. The red dot at the center pulsed wildly, its coordinates pinpointing an abandoned shipyard at Brooklyn Harbor—where three Chitauri Mothership-Class Drones stood parked, the "spare keys" Loki's army had left behind on Earth.
"Reality Correction prioritizes clearing high-intensity energy traces." Lin Xiu's Adam's apple bobbed.
He remembered what the Orderkeeper had called "the most painful method" in the alley yesterday. He remembered the dust clinging to Allison's eyelashes as she held up her camera, and the warmth of Nolan's knuckles as he tied a scarf around an old woman.
Those "realities that had not been rewritten" were like red-hot iron, scorching his chest. "What it wants to erase isn't the drones, but proof that they ever existed—but what if we make the drones into the proof itself?"
Tony's pupils contracted in the holographic glow.
He suddenly rose to his