The eve of the experiment.
The air at the Lehigh Camp was filled with a repressed excitement.
Tomorrow, they would head to the secret laboratory in Brooklyn.
A mortal would be pushed onto a pedestal, or reduced to ashes on the road to becoming a god.
Lynn walked through the brightly lit camp.
His destination for this trip was the office of Dr. Erskine.
A single lamp.
A half-drunk bottle of whiskey.
A weary old man.
Dr. Erskine was staring blankly at the notebook on the table.
"Dr., are you creating a better person, or are you manufacturing a stronger weapon?"
Lynn's voice broke the silence in the room.
Dr. Erskine was startled.
Seeing that it was Lynn, his tense shoulders relaxed, and he revealed a bitter smile.
"I sometimes ask myself the same question."
He downed the remaining whiskey in his glass, the spicy liquid making him cough.
"When I escaped from Germany, I saw it."
"I saw with my own eyes how that guy who claimed to be Superman trampled on everything. He possessed power, but not a shred of mercy."
Dr. Erskine's gaze fell into distant memories.
"My life's work is to prove one thing... that a good person can become even greater."
As he spoke, he subconsciously reached out to pick up the notebook on the table and put it into his left inner chest pocket.
"Steve is a good kid."
Dr. Erskine's voice was filled with affection and worry.
"But I am afraid... afraid that this gift I am giving him will become a curse that crushes him."
"You are not giving him power, Dr."
Lynn walked to the table and poured more wine into his empty glass.
"You are just giving him a suit of armor capable of carrying his kindness."
Lynn's tone was gentle, like a patient listener.
"Do you remember the problem you encountered when you perfected the final formula? How did you solve it?"
He guided the doctor's thoughts with a tone of discussing academic problems.
Dr. Erskine was, as expected, drawn into it.
He detached himself from that anxiety of a creator, and the light of a scientist rekindled in his eyes.
He habitually took the notebook he had just put away out of his left inner chest pocket and opened a page.
It was filled with dense German, chemical equations, and symbols that Lynn couldn't understand at all.
"It's here, see? The peptide chain structure of the trans-amino acids was always unstable, until I... I found inspiration in an extract from a rare orchid; it was like a key that locked the entire structure in place."
Erskine pointed his fingertip at that complex string of formulas.
His face radiated the joy of solving a World problem.
Lynn's gaze lingered on that notebook for less than a second, then he focused intently on the doctor's face, acting as if he were listening carefully.
Left inner chest pocket.
The place closest to the heart.
How ironic.
"Dr., your life's work will change this World."
Lynn sighed with genuine emotion.
It was just that the object of this emotion was completely different from what Erskine understood.
Erskine was deeply touched by his words.
He closed the notebook, put it back into his inner chest pocket, and patted it.
"Thank you, Lynn. Being able to have someone like you understand me is the greatest luck of my trip to the United States."
"Regardless of the outcome tomorrow."
Lynn reached out and grasped the doctor's somewhat rough hands.
"You are a hero of this era."
Dr. Erskine's eyes were moist, and he gripped his hand back tightly.
The best angle for the operation is from the side-rear, completing the extraction in 0.3 seconds.
Success rate, 90 percent.
He let go of his hand and turned to leave.
"Rest early, Dr. Tomorrow, the whole World will see your masterpiece."
The door was gently closed, cutting off the light inside the room.
Lynn stood in the Shadow outside the door.
The gentleness and admiration on his face faded, leaving only a coldness like ice.
The map was written in a heavenly book.
Erskine's notebook combined the most cutting-edge biochemistry with an encryption method only he understood.
Forcing a decryption would be nothing more than a pipe dream.
He needed a key.
A genius who could understand the heavenly book, and even translate it into plain language.
In Lynn's mind, that face with a flashy mustache, forever confident to the point of arrogance, emerged.
Howard Stark.
In the temporary workshop of Stark Industries, it was always a mess.
Blueprints, parts, empty wine bottles, and cigar butts were piled everywhere.
Howard Stark was lying on a pile of blueprints, a pen in his mouth, frowning over the energy circuit of an anti-gravity stabilizer.
"I brought you some lubricant, for your brain, and for your throat."
Lynn placed a bottle of fine Scotch whiskey by his hand.
Howard looked up, saw it was Lynn, and grinned.
"Only an interesting guy like you would come to find me at this time, instead of running to church to pray like those idiots."
"I believe more in science, Howard. Especially your science."
Lynn unscrewed the cap and poured a glass for himself and Howard each.
"Speak, what kind of crazy idea do you have this time? Or do you want to discuss the energy conversion rate of Soldier Boy?"
"Something like that."
Lynn swirled the amber liquid in his glass.
"I am writing a more in-depth report for him, but I found that the public has become numb to the concept of 'he is very strong.' I want to explain this power from a more scientific perspective."
"For example, I heard that Stark Industries has an experimental'spectral analyzer.' Is its precision already capable of analyzing the internal differences of a single red blood cell?"
This question successfully piqued Howard's desire to show off.
"More than that!"
He took a big gulp of whiskey and waved his hand.
"My baby can distinguish the different imprints left on the molecular structure of your blood by the wine you drank last night and the wine you are drinking now! It can see everything!"
"Then..."
Lynn asked, pretending to be casual.
"If there is a... very special kind of blood, which itself is a... hmm, how to put it, a final embodiment of a 'formula.' Can that machine reverse-engineer its composition?"
Howard's movements paused for a moment, and he narrowed his eyes, examining Lynn.
"Your ideas are always so... dangerous, Mr. Reporter."
"Theoretically, it is possible, but it requires massive data comparison and computation, harder than finding a specific grain of sand from a pile of sand."
"I understand."
Lynn nodded, tilted his head to drink the wine in the glass, as if he were a bit drunk, and his speech became intermittent.
"Howard... tell me... tell me, isn't this World wonderful?"
"Information... we always write it on paper... carve it on stone..."
He dipped his finger in some wine and drew shapeless circles on the table.
"But... what if there is a substance... a liquid... that can record information itself?"
"Just like DNA... but what it records is not genetic code, but a set... a set of complex chemical formulas..."
"Tell me, is there... by analyzing the molecular structure of this liquid... a way to directly read out the formula inside? Just like using a record player to read a record?"
Lynn's voice became lower and lower.
Finally, he slumped on the table, drunk and unconscious.
The entire workshop fell into silence.
Only the scent of whiskey and Howard's increasingly heavy breathing remained.
The drunkenness on Howard Stark's face vanished without a trace in just a few seconds.
His genius brain was struck by the lightning of creation!
Using the method of analyzing molecular structures to read the "information" contained within?
This is not science!
This is... this is magic!
No!
This is science!
It is the craziest, most wonderful scientific conception, at least fifty years ahead of this era!
He stood up and paced back and forth in the workshop.
Muttering to himself.
"Vibration frequency... molecular bond angle... isotope labeling... my spectral analyzer... combined with a high-speed centrifuge for layering... my God... my God!"
He grabbed a napkin on the table and wrote frantically on it with a pen.
He had to capture that fleeting spark of inspiration.
Howard looked unintentionally at Lynn, who was "sleeping" on the table.
His gaze changed completely.
It was no longer looking at an interesting reporter, but like looking at another himself!
A peer with devilish imagination, delayed by a career in journalism!
"Lynn! You motherfucker... you are a genius!"
Howard patted Lynn on the back, and the latter just mumbled a sentence in his sleep.
Lynn's face was buried in his arms; no one saw that curve.
He was stirred.
Tomorrow, Dr. Erskine would create a hero.
And he would use the light and chaos of this hero's birth to quietly take away that formula.
And then use the key to open a door for himself.
This World is too much fun.
plz support me if you can
readfictional.com
patreon.com/AZFANFICTION
https://www.buymeacoffee.com/AZofficial
All the novel and fanfiction are 30 chapter ahead there.