Batman Incident (2)

Inside Stark Tower, Stark was tinkering with a strange machine shaped like a flower bud. Schiller, Coulson, and Hill stood nearby watching. Finally, Stark pressed a button and said, "Remember, this UV emitter has a maximum effective range of only twenty meters. You’d better lure all the vampires together before turning it on."

Just as he finished speaking, Jarvis relayed intelligence: "A large number of vampires have appeared on Third Street in Queens."

Coulson said with a headache, "Just as expected. As soon as it gets dark, they’ll launch a full-scale attack."

"What about that bat monster?" Schiller asked.

Coulson’s headache got worse. He said, "It’s damned strange. That monster vanished!"

Stark straightened up and poked his head out from behind the machine. "Vanished? Such a huge monster, and you didn’t have someone keep an eye on it?"

"Captain fought it for quite a while. According to the intelligence he sent back, the monster wasn’t very aggressive. It seemed more like some kind of signal. Before he could figure out what was happening, the bat monster disappeared."

"Don’t let your guard down," Schiller said. "That so-called Bat God descending upon the world—this monster may have only been an appetizer. After all, if you were launching an invasion, you wouldn’t put your ultimate weapon at the front of the army."

"Exactly." Hill’s tone was grave. "Director Nick believes it was merely a sign of attack as well, and it did serve perfectly as a battle horn. Now that darkness is falling, the vampires hiding throughout New York have begun moving. Once it gets completely dark, we’ll have a hard battle on our hands."

Coulson checked his watch and asked Stark, "How many of these UV emitters can you produce within three hours?"

"Twenty at most," Jarvis answered.

"Stark Industries’ production lines are operating at full capacity. Less than ten percent of redundant capacity remains, but due to speed limitations, no more than twenty units can be produced before nightfall."

"That’s nowhere near enough," Coulson said.

"Doesn’t S.H.I.E.L.D. have any stockpiled weapons for dealing with vampires?"

"Of course we do." Hill stepped forward and rested a hand on the machine. "But they’re all individual equipment, like UV flashlights and silver-plated bullets. Look at how many vampires there are in New York right now. I don’t even know where so many of them came from…"

"So your lack of area-of-effect firepower is the main issue?" Schiller asked.

"That’s the biggest problem." Coulson sat down in a chair, placed One Hand on the table, and covered his forehead. "A well-trained agent, fully armed with every weapon that counters vampires, can ignore the gap in physical ability and magical power and handle one to three vampires."

"But the problem is that there are simply far too few agents compared to the number of vampires."

"And the police can handle one at most. Ordinary people are even less worth mentioning. Ten of them couldn’t beat a single vampire. Once the vampires launch an organized group assault, the numerical gap will increase more than tenfold."

"They have two different forms. Their humanoid and bat forms are suited to different tasks, each with its own strengths. Once they begin carrying out organized strategic attacks, the human defensive line won’t last even an hour."

"What about heavy weapons?"

Hill covered her forehead as well. "Actually, that’s the biggest problem. You know, quite a few moderates among the vampires are close to high-ranking members of Congress. The moderates claim they have no idea what happened. They insist that moderate vampires did not participate in this invasion and strongly protest against humans using heavy weapons to indiscriminately attack vampires."

"Actually, I can understand the decisions of certain members of Congress. If humans truly deploy heavy weapons like missiles, and the moderate vampires are driven into a corner, those vampires will join the invasion too. Then it will become a true war between two races."

"Many moderate vampires live in human society and play important roles. Some are even dating or married to humans. If war breaks out between the two races, social stability will suffer enormous upheaval. That’s an outcome no one wants to see."

Stark said angrily, "So we’re just going to take their hits without fighting back? Why can’t they settle their internal problems themselves? We just need an answer. Are we fighting or not?"

"I suppose those moderates told you they’re actively negotiating and trying to ease the conflict. But I can tell you clearly that most of them are waiting for that so-called Bat God to descend. Once the vampires gain the upper hand, they’ll immediately switch sides and claim they too are followers of the Bat God, born to rule humanity."

"Ambition always expands with power. Those so-called moderates are merely waiting for one side to gain an absolute advantage. They’re a bunch of fence-sitters. If humanity gains the advantage and the Bat God makes no further move, they’ll immediately claim to be envoys of friendship between the two races. But if the Bat God truly descends and brings about humanity’s doom, they’ll immediately grovel at his feet and call themselves devout believers," Schiller said.

Coulson sighed and spread his hands. "Everyone understands that. That’s our predicament right now."

"But you’ve forgotten that you still have one card left. Don’t tell me Nick still hasn’t found out where that missing network line in New York connects to."

Coulson opened his mouth, hesitating. "You mean… diverting the disaster onto someone else? But isn’t that too risky? We know almost nothing about that force…"

"That’s for you to decide." After saying that, Schiller turned to Stark. "Stop obsessing over your large-scale emitter. Can’t you change your way of thinking?"

Stark said, "What genius idea do you have this time? Let’s hear it. I really liked that cigarette of yours last time…"

"At the end of the day, isn’t the problem that individual agents aren’t strong enough and there aren’t enough of them? Why not manufacture some agents for yourselves?"

The other two agents wore strange expressions, but Stark became interested. "What do you mean? Unmanned armor?"

"Exactly. Don’t you have plenty of suits of armor sitting in your warehouse? Produce some individual equipment for them—UV flashlights, silver bullets, and so on. Can’t you equip them with that? Send them to deal with the vampires."

"Jarvis’ intelligence database doesn’t have the behavioral logic needed to fight creatures like these. But I can indeed send out a vanguard force of armor units to gather that logic, then begin optimizing."

"You can think even bigger. Stop fixating on humanoid armor, and stop always thinking about personally going out there to throw punches. You don’t even have to design and manufacture everything yourself."

Schiller walked over to the lab bench and said, "You could design an intelligent Brood Mother with autonomous computing capabilities, then place several such Brood Mothers throughout New York according to a set pattern."

"The Brood Mothers could automatically produce different types of mechanical creations according to the logic you set—light drones for reconnaissance, ground-based mechanical units, self-propelled floodlights with UV irradiation functions, biological-response units for disrupting vampire movements, and so on…"

"Once the Brood Mothers produce these machines and deploy them onto the battlefield, every mechanical creation can record its opponents’ movement patterns, note its own combat effectiveness, and transmit the data back to the Brood Mother."

"The Brood Mothers can adjust their production directions based on that information. If all the Brood Mothers gather their data in Jarvis’ intelligence database, you’ll have the broadest, most precise, and clearest regional combat network possible."

"Then you won’t have to wear that iron shell to destroy those monsters yourself. You can sit in the laboratory of Stark Tower, control everything, and become the true master of machines."

Coulson and Hill were both stunned, and a chill ran down their spines.

Strictly speaking, the concept itself was not particularly advanced. It was simply the basic principle of information warfare. But once those ideas were applied to Stark’s advanced mechanical creations, the whole scene became incredibly science-fictional, even a little terrifying.

Imagine it: several enormous Brood Mothers spread across New York, endlessly spewing out countless mechanical creations. Each possessed its own intelligence. Once they reached the battlefield, they could not only inflict effective damage on the enemy, but also send all their data back to the Brood Mothers after being defeated.

The Brood Mothers would possess incomparably advanced computing systems. Based on the information sent back by offspring that had failed in battle, they could eliminate those offspring’s weaknesses in the next production cycle and strengthen their advantages.

They could also specialize different combat units and coordinate them tactically. The steel tide unleashed by several Brood Mothers would drown the entire city and destroy every enemy within it. Steel skeletons would pierce through barriers, gear bearings would devour everything, and Stark could sit in the laboratory of Stark Tower and control it all.

Wait, wasn’t there something wrong with this direction? Coulson shuddered and said, "I think… the vampires aren’t actually that strong. We can save this tactic for later…"

But Stark’s eyes lit up. He paced back and forth, then clenched both hands into fists. "I’ve actually been considering lightweight warfare for a long time. You all know the cost of producing one suit of armor is too high. Once it’s deployed and damaged, repairs take too long. I’ve been considering a kind of armor that’s cheap, easy to repair, and can be deployed on a large scale."

"But this kind of armor has a problem. Once the cost is reduced, its processor can’t accept overly complex commands, and all of its functions will be weakened. It becomes less versatile. When facing different enemies, it may not be able to react quickly enough."

"And once I change opponents, I have to give them a complete upgrade and add new functions. The money and time involved then become nearly the same as with advanced armor. That’s not cost-effective."

"Exactly. The Brood Mother idea is excellent. Why should I repair the armor one suit at a time? I can just create an intelligent production line and let them produce themselves and repair themselves!"

"And just as you said, if they can truly gather data, analyze it, optimize themselves, modify themselves, and improve production, that has to be much faster than waiting until after a battle for me to personally make the modifications, right?"

"They can optimize directly on the battlefield and produce first-generation, second-generation, and third-generation adaptive armor specifically aimed at an opponent’s weaknesses."

"And I really don’t need to be limited by humanoid forms. Humans stand on two feet, so their center of gravity is inherently unstable. Even if armor can fly, it needs more energy. Why not give the armor more legs? Right… exactly… Spider-Boy is a great example!"

"Spider-Man can stick to walls, so armor I create can do the same. I could even give them eight legs and let them shoot webs, allowing them to climb the walls of skyscrapers with ease. As for defensive power…"

"Let me think. I can completely build a transport ship for mechanical soldiers, giving them high mobility and even allowing them to hover and fly…"

"Once the production line manufactures that kind of transport ship, armor soldiers can be folded and stored inside it, then reach the battlefield at top speed for troop deployment…"

The more Stark spoke, the more excited he became. He imagined several kinds of armor modeled after animal forms, then came up with many more design concepts involving the Brood Mother structure and troop carriers.

In the end, Stark even wanted to modify Stark Tower, turning its summit into a foldable aerospace Brood Mother. Once an alien invasion occurred, it could rapidly rise and unfold, instantly entering mass-production mode.

Coulson and Hill stood side by side. He patted his colleague on the shoulder and whispered with a tremble in his voice, "Call Nick, now! Vampires aren’t the main problem anymore. If S.H.I.E.L.D. doesn’t solve the vampire problem quickly, that technological devil Stark is going to rule the world…"

"What are you thinking? Twenty minutes ago, I recorded Stark’s speech and sent it to Nick…"

"What did he say?"

"Before the members of Congress even finished watching it, they unanimously approved the human defensive counterattack plan against the vampires."

"New York and the surrounding cities are to be placed under immediate martial law. All response forces are entering combat readiness, and we’ve been ordered to resolve this full-scale invasion within three days. We absolutely cannot give Stark any chance to show off…"