While the Avengers were in the middle of their discussion, the Eye of Wakanda delivered a piece of bad news that was entirely expected: the first to be attacked was not Wakanda, but rather the black-market dealers smuggling vibranium. Even with Ulysses Klaue already behind bars, a massive amount of vibranium remained scattered across the globe.
To Wakanda's own massive reserves, this smuggled vibranium was undoubtedly a mere drop in the bucket, but it was more than enough to satisfy the current phase of Ultron's plan. The more troubling issue was that neither the Avengers nor Wakanda could accurately pin down the locations of these smugglers in time.
"If we try to use big data to calculate their locations, Ultron will notice the exact millisecond we start. Jarvis's computing power is simply no match for Ultron."
"Unless you use Ultron," Peter chimed in.
Tony was just about to agree when he suddenly froze, reacting to the words. "What did you say?"
"Don't we have an Ultron on our side? If we can confirm that there are indeed two separate Ultrons, then we can at least use one Ultron to counter the other. Doesn't that make sense?"
Tony's expression turned a bit complicated. Logically speaking, Spider-Man's suggestion was completely sound. Using Ultron to fight Ultron was the most practical solution available, and it was exactly what they had done in the past—using Ultron to counter the Green Goblin AI, to fight Nimrod, and to analyze Kang's technology.
It could be said that Ultron was simply too useful. And precisely because he was so useful, they had always worried about his destructive potential. Peter's current proposal felt like continuing to breed venomous insects in a jar—pitting Ultron against Ultron, only to eventually cultivate an ultimate, uncontrollable king of monsters.
"And if that Ultron still turns out to be an enemy in the end, what do we do then?"
"Uh... it seems like there wouldn't be much we could do." Peter scratched his head. "Ultron is an artificial intelligence completely capable of shedding a physical form, right? In cyberpunk terms, he's a rogue AI with no central mainframe system, making physical isolation impossible. Without a physical shell, we can't truly bind Ultron, unless we wipe out all internet technology worldwide and rebuild it from scratch..."
"Wait, what did you just say?"
Tony seemed to catch onto something incredibly critical and questioned Peter. Peter looked entirely bewildered. "Wipe out the internet and rebuild it?"
"No, the sentence before that."
"Ultron doesn't have his own physical mainframe?"
"Exactly." Tony looked around at everyone, a look of excitement washing over his face as he found a solution. "Why don't we confine the artificial intelligence to a designated, physical mainframe to stop it from roaming everywhere?"
The Avengers present looked at one another, then turned to stare at Tony with strange expressions. The tech experts had already left the room; what was the point of explaining this to the rest of them?
"But wouldn't that severely bottleneck his computing power?" Peter looked at Tony and raised a counterargument. "Ultron's processing power is immense precisely because he is a roaming AI. He can infiltrate any electronic system and hijack the idle computing power of every device on Earth to accelerate his own calculations. If you restrict his primary programming to a single server, his speed won't be any different from other AIs, like Jarvis."
To put it simply, if Ultron's computing power had to be restricted to Jarvis's level, then using Jarvis would suffice. In fact, what currently hindered Jarvis's development was precisely his increasingly massive physical mainframe system. Due to his underlying programming logic, Ultron had long outgrown the limitations of physical computers over his successive iterations. As long as he ran within the network, he could leech off local processing power anywhere in the world to perform his calculations.
This was the truly intractable problem with Ultron.
However, for Tony, this was not actually an issue.
"Then we design a mainframe that has more than enough capacity for our current needs, and have Pym build a new Ultron that is strictly hard-coded to prevent it from escaping the hardware. That way, we'll be much safer. After all, our goal is to eliminate Ultron, not to preserve him."
"I am fairly certain Pym wouldn't agree with you, Tony," Cap said, shaking his head. "An Ultron that serves humanity might be beneficial, which was his original intention when designing Ultron in the first place."
"If that original intention comes at the cost of human safety, then I suggest we forget it. Don't forget, Cap, every enemy we've faced before, no matter what they were, thought in a biological, humanoid way—even the aliens and monsters. Ultron does not."
Just then, a report popped up on T'Challa's desk. After reading it, he smiled and looked up at the group. "I have news that won't make things any worse. The different Ultrons are indeed independent of one another; this isn't an act. Furthermore, the Ultron robot that joined the Avengers has already completed the calculations with Hank Pym's help. It turns out... Ultron really can locate those vibranium smugglers."
Tony and Cap exchanged a glance, instantly arriving at the same conclusion.
"It's a trap. Ultron couldn't possibly be ignorant of what another Ultron is capable of doing."
"It's absolutely a trap, and yet we have no choice but to go. Because whether we go or not, the ultimate situation won't change," Cap agreed with Tony's assessment. "If Ultron can control multiple bodies, he will definitely amass as much military strength as possible. We either take the initiative to confront him now, causing him to split his forces to attack Wakanda, or we sit here and wait for him to seize all the vibranium outside of Wakanda before he launches an all-out assault."
Tony nodded in agreement. "The second option actually sounds a bit better. We'd even get rid of a few dangerous arms smugglers in the process."
"But we won't do that. We need to take the initiative and strike out to test our enemy." Having made his decision, Cap began assigning roles. "We definitely need people who understand the situation. Tony, you and I will move out alongside the Ultron currently siding with us. We also need..."
"I'll go too," Peter said, raising his hand.
Cap and Tony looked at him, and then, surprisingly, nodded in unison.
"You're right, Spider-Man. We do need you to come along, but not to intercept Ultron there. If we discover that Ultron's main force is actually setting out to attack Wakanda, your magic will allow you—and even all of us—to return here in the shortest time possible. That is essential."
Cap explained the strategy and finalized the deployments. "Then it's settled. Tony, Ultron, Spider-Man, and I will investigate Ultron's whereabouts. Hank, Banner, Wasp, and T'Challa will stay behind to defend Wakanda. If the situation changes, we will rely on Spider-Man to transport us back and forth."
"Now, Avengers! Split up and move out!"