Moonstone

At first, Doctor Zola had been baffled by Brad's idea, but after several failed attempts to dissuade him, he reluctantly agreed to Brad's proposed trade.

"But I can't guarantee that I'll be able to perfect the serum. After all, I don't have Dr. Erskine's gift for biological modification."

"That's fine. I'll have the Zola Algorithm finished soon, and then I'll give you my full support. Even if we don't achieve our goal, we'll still have the inferior serum to fall back on, won't we?"

Brad's assurances sounded gracious, but in truth, if he couldn't get his hands on a perfected serum, he wouldn't settle for an inferior version.

The Marvel Universe offered more than one path to enhancing the human body.

Recently, Hydra's intelligence had given him an excellent target.

Brad received the software package Zola sent over and began working on the Zola Algorithm.

It proved somewhat easier than he had expected.

At its core, the Zola Algorithm was an evolving, expandable algorithm built on Zola's vision of the future of computing.

It would gather data tirelessly over decades, advancing alongside the technological level of human civilization.

One day, it would develop into a big-data module, then follow specific instructions to identify potential threats to HYDRA across the world.

Given the limitations of the world's current networks, the Zola Algorithm could only reach maturity in the future.

Brad only needed to develop its embryonic version, then implant it in supercomputers around the world.

He couldn't help marveling once again at Zola's loyalty to HYDRA.

As far as Brad knew, Zola should already have put human consciousness uploading on his research agenda.

Yet he hadn't made that life-or-death technology his top research priority.

Instead, he had prioritized overcoming the obstacles to the Zola Algorithm, all for HYDRA's future world domination.

Once the task landed in Brad's hands, however, it became somewhat easier.

The world didn't even have comprehensive network defenses yet. No one could stop Brad from installing a backdoor in their systems.

Besides, Brad himself seemed capable of seeing part of the future, which would undoubtedly save the Zola Algorithm an enormous amount of computation.

He received Doctor Zola's files in the morning, and by that afternoon, Brad had more or less finished developing the embryonic version of the Zola Algorithm.

However, to encourage Doctor Zola to put more effort into researching the Super-Soldier Serum, Brad didn't tell Doctor Zola the news right away.

He hadn't pinned all his hopes on Zola.

He pressed a button on his desk. After two bursts of static, the external microphone connected.

"Arrange a plane for me. I need to go out and take care of something."

With that, Brad walked over to the bookshelf in his office and opened a concealed door.

A tall figure stepped out, dressed entirely in a black military uniform, with a peaked cap and a black mask covering his face.

Brad looked him up and down, then nodded in satisfaction.

A black sedan waited at the base's entrance. The man in black opened the door for Brad, waited until he was seated, then opened the rear door and climbed in himself.

The entire sedan sank under his weight.

A while later, the driver glanced curiously at the mysterious figure sitting beside Brad, covered from head to toe.

Brad was leafing through a stack of documents. Sensing the driver's gaze, he looked up and met his eyes in the rearview mirror.

"Are you that curious about what's under its mask?"

Brad's question was flat, but there seemed to be a chill in his voice.

"I'm sorry, Dr. Brad."

The driver hastily looked away. Cold sweat trickled down his temple as he suppressed his curiosity and focused on driving.

Brad gave a cold snort, then lowered his head and returned to the documents in his hands.

Somewhere in a pristine forest in Nevada, a man was fleeing in utter panic.

His name was Lloyd Bloch, a thief who made his living through petty theft.

But a few days earlier, he had pulled off a major heist.

Lloyd had grown tired of stealing ordinary gold, silver, and jewelry. He wanted to pull off something big to prove his criminal prowess.

So he set his sights on a meteorite in a Nevada museum, said to have come from the moon.

Although it was called a meteorite, the angular stone looked like an exceptionally pure diamond. Its interior was perfectly clear, and it refracted dazzling golden light beneath the moon.

After months of meticulous planning, he got his hands on the stone.

But everything fell apart during his escape when his nervous expression gave him away to a passing police officer who stopped to question him.

In his panic, Lloyd shot and killed an officer, then fled by car, only to veer into a thicket in his highly agitated state.

With his car wrecked, Lloyd had no choice but to escape on foot.

Fortunately, beside the thicket lay a vast forest that hadn't yet been logged.

But he had been running for far too long.

Lloyd felt utterly exhausted.

He simply sat down with his back against a tree and listened carefully for a while. Once he was certain he had temporarily shaken off the pursuing police, he couldn't resist taking the stone out of his jacket and admiring it through narrowed eyes.

"God, it's beautiful."

"I think it's beautiful too."

"Who's there?!"

Terrified, Lloyd scrambled to his feet.

Brad, who had traveled all the way to Nevada, tilted his head and gave the man in black beside him an order.

"Kill him and bring me the stone."

The man in black advanced without a word. Moments later, screams rang through the forest.

By the time the police arrived with their dogs, drawn by the sound, all that remained was the poor thief's corpse.

"It seems there really are certain connections between the worlds of Marvel."

Brad boarded the plane for his return journey, holding the Moonstone, whose brilliance couldn't be dimmed even by daylight.

Ever since he had begun doubting himself, Brad had taken precautions.

He shouldn't stake everything on research that currently made him seem like a genius.

This was his assessment of the danger posed by his severely lopsided abilities.

What if, one day, the very thing he trusted most was deliberately stripped away from him?

And so Brad had begun exploring other possibilities.

Earlier, while browsing scenes involving Captain America in his spare time, Brad had noticed someone.

A villain named Moonstone.

Strangely, not every universe's Captain America encountered this villain before being frozen.

The Captain America of this world, for instance, had never met him.

But something else had caught Brad's attention.

The way this villain acquired his powers was even simpler than how a boy called Spider-Man would get his in the future.

He stole a stone from the moon, and just like that, he gained superpowers.

More importantly, those powers were far from weak.

The person wielding them in those scenes was simply too arrogant and too stupid.

Captain America defeated him repeatedly despite being weaker.

After that, Brad deliberately looked into the matter and discovered that a museum in Nevada really did have such a stone in its collection.

But when Brad expressed an interest in buying it, the museum refused.

Brad considered using force.

But Nevada was in the United States, where Hydra's influence had yet to expand.

Afterward, Brad began investigating through the limited intelligence network at his disposal.

In the Nevada police records, he found the thief who shared the name of the man in the story.

But this Lloyd was a repeat offender and wouldn't be released anytime soon.

It suddenly occurred to Brad that, since Lloyd always managed to become the first Moonstone in other universes, there might be something he could exploit.

Perhaps he could find a way through him.

So Brad anonymously posted his bail.

He then arranged for Lloyd to seemingly stumble across a report about the Moonstone.

To be honest, security at that museum was extremely tight.

At least, both thieves Brad had previously hired had failed.

Yet Lloyd had stolen it without the slightest difficulty.

Of course, this Moonstone now belonged to Brad.

He opened his shirt, drew a small knife, and cut the skin over his heart before pressing the Moonstone against it.

The once-brilliant gem turned dull and lifeless. When Brad removed it, the wound on his chest had already healed without a trace.

"Marvel really is an incredible world. With advance knowledge, this is far easier to obtain than the results of Dr. Erskine's lifetime of work."

The man in black seated beside Brad took a cube of titanium alloy from inside his jacket and handed it to him.

Brad took the alloy and squeezed, crushing it into an irregular ball.

"One tiny Moonstone can create a warrior equivalent to an inferior version of Captain Marvel."

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