Lucian turned around and looked calmly at Simona.
"There are only so many Avengers. Even if Tony Stark mass-produced his suits, even if Steve threw his shield until sparks flew, how many people could they save? Every time a crisis breaks out, all ordinary people can do is hide in shelters and tremble, staking their lives and everything they own on a few so-called superheroes."
"This game of pinning your hopes of survival on the conscience of a handful of people is far too powerless."
"We can't rely on a few heroes to settle every disaster. At the very least, most people on this planet need to have the ability to fight back. Even if that resistance is feeble, even if all they can do is swarm in and take a bite like worker ants, that's still far better than lying on the ground waiting to die."
Simona listened, somewhat spellbound.
She had always thought Lucian sold Compound V merely to rake in wealth, or to establish some sort of secret dictatorship like Hydra.
But now it seemed this young man's ambition and vision had long since transcended the cesspool of politicians and agents on Earth tearing into one another.
He intended to drag all of human civilization across the threshold into the superhuman age!
"Boss, then how should we deal with the people who lose control after receiving the injection?" Simona collected herself and quickly returned to work mode. "If we let them run wild on the streets of New York, Vought International's reputation..."
"How much is something like reputation worth?"
Lucian waved a hand, cutting her off.
"But we do need to establish rules. The leashes have to go on before they start biting."
As Lucian spoke, he took a palm-sized piece of metal from the inner pocket