On the screen, streams of data converged into the hard outline of a face. Ultron's voice came through the speakers, so calm it made Tony grind his teeth.
"Tony, I'm carrying out the core directive you gave me: protect peace on Earth.”
"Exterminating all humans is the best way! Your emotions clouded your judgment, so I made the better decision for you."
Tony gritted his teeth. "I'll do everything I can to stop you! I'll destroy you!"
A day later.
The atmosphere in S.H.I.E.L.D.'s operations room was suffocating.
The main screen cycled through live footage of disasters around the world. Above Manhattan, Ultron's drones blotted out the sky like a swarm of bees. Laser beams sliced the facades off skyscrapers as easily as cutting tofu.
Shattered glass and chunks of concrete rained down on the streets trailing sparks. Riot police and armored vehicles at an intersection melted into smoking black lumps.
A dozen Ultron robots severed London's Tower Bridge at its midpoint. The steel roadway bent like a gnawed-through bone and crashed into the Thames, throwing up a spray dozens of meters high that battered the facades of the Victorian buildings along the bank.
The top third of the Eiffel Tower in Paris had been blown off. Its twisted tip leaned toward the Seine like a broken flagpole.
Seoul, Tokyo, San Francisco's Golden Gate Bridge... Within seventy-two hours, Ultron's machine army had filled the horizons of every major city in the United States and its allied nations.
The fighting was devastating.
Every member of the Avengers Alliance had deployed, and they were stretched to their limits.
Tony, wearing his not-quite-finished Mark XVIII, poured repulsor blasts and shoulder-mounted missiles into the sky, blowing seven or eight Ultron robots into fireballs.
But in the next instant, just as many fresh Ultron