~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
For 40 advanced chapters, visit my Patreon:
Patreon - Twilight_scribe1
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
The group of Skrulls did not abandon their attention on Henry just because he showed no interest in them.
One of them asked,
'So how are we supposed to deal with this Kryptonian cockroach? This isn't a green-star system. And in our current state, we don't have the conditions to modify a star.'
Another said,
'Hmm… does anyone still remember the traits of Kryptonians? I only remember that under a red star they become very weak, and under a green star they weaken to the point of death.'
'Who would remember an enemy we defeated nine thousand years ago? I only remember how they performed under red and green stars. Red stars were the stellar type of the Kryptonian system, while the green star of the Barrington system was the battlefield where the Skrull Empire annihilated the Kryptonian fleet.'
'Then what happens to Kryptonians under a yellow star?'
All the Skrulls tilted their heads and stared straight at the sunlight. Unfortunately, human pupils and optic nerves couldn't handle that level of brightness. Their eyes were quickly overwhelmed, tears streaming down their faces as they were plunged into brief blindness.
Well, they were soldiers—which meant they were academic slackers. Who still remembered detailed Skrull imperial history anyway? If they even knew about Kryptonians at all, their teachers should've been satisfied.
'Looks like we can only contact General Talos and ask him what he plans to do. Hopefully this Kryptonian cockroach won't interfere with our plans.'
This group of Skrulls came from the same warship. Unfortunately, their vessel had been sabotaged by captured Kree elite star-commandos, forcing the soldiers aboard to escape in lifeboats and make emergency landings on this planet designated C-53.
General Talos was the leader of these Skrulls, so when in doubt, it was only natural for them to think of their commander.
However, after landing on Earth, most of them lost contact with one another.
According to protocol, they all immediately transformed into the forms of the planet's natives to avoid attracting the attention of the local governments. Especially since their natural forms differed greatly from those of humans, disguise had always been the Skrulls' top priority.
Now, they needed to find a way to reconnect.
Still, not everyone agreed with seeking their leader's instructions.
The most ambitious among them, Irvin, spoke up:
'There's a reason Krypton was ostracized by the entire universe, even to the point that their homeworld was sealed in the Phantom Zone—those inside can't get out, and those outside can't get in.
'General Talos has his own objectives. Shouldn't we help shoulder the burden by dealing with this Kryptonian ourselves? We don't know how he broke through the seal to reach planet C-53, nor do we know his purpose.
'If he's colluding with the Kree, what then? What if he interferes with General Talos's plans? Even if we can't eliminate him, we should at least make sure he can't cause trouble for us.'
The Skrulls looked at one another. One asked,
'Irvin, what do you plan to do? Assassinate him?'
'No. We do what we're best at—infiltration. We'll penetrate this planet's native governments and let them deal with the Kryptonian for us. All we need to do is provoke conflict between the two sides. The key principle remains concealment.'
Everyone nodded in agreement. Intelligence work and infiltration were skills almost every adult Skrull possessed. As for sowing discord, no one did it better than them.
Although this was their first time on such a backward planet, by stealing appearances and fragments of short-term memory, they quickly identified the best way to frame someone in this native society.
Each of them found a suitable role and entry point. If their current identity didn't work, they would simply steal another.
For Skrulls, this was as routine as breathing. Everyone moved with practiced ease.
---
The man being targeted, of course, had no way of foreseeing that he was being plotted against before ever encountering his enemies.
Henry went to work as usual.
His first task was, naturally, to monitor the maintenance and upgrade progress of the various post-production software suites, followed by the research progress on the UHD encoder–decoder.
Since many of these were collaboratively developed programs, Henry introduced a distributed version-control system—Git—for shared development on the local network servers.
This way, he didn't need to personally visit each department. By checking Git, he could roughly grasp the project status. Gantt charts marked everyone's expected progress; if someone fell behind, he could simply go over and check in.
Although collaborative systems like CVS already existed—and were licensed under the GNU General Public License—CVS had certain limitations and flaws. Henry decided to skip it altogether and go straight with the more user-friendly Git.
Because this network functionality relied on the supercomputer "Hollywood Kid" and associated servers, Git naturally caught Tony Stark's attention and was soon adopted internally by Stark Industries as well.
Henry's condition was simple: release it under GNU, and he'd provide manpower for maintenance. Use it however you like.
Tony Stark had no objections. The publicly released version would only be the generic build anyway. Internal upgrades—encryption and enhanced network security—were internal matters.
Many GNU-licensed programs worked this way. Those capable of modifying them tailored them to their own needs. As long as they weren't sold commercially, everything remained within the license.
As for whether modified versions were made public, that depended on circumstances. Stark Industries' internal usage involved company secrets and in-development projects, so of course they wouldn't foolishly expose them and leave vulnerabilities for malicious actors to exploit.
Beyond official work, Henry inevitably used the supercomputer's resources for some private projects—mainly developing his own EDA and simulation software.
Once chip fabrication processes reached the nanometer scale, relying solely on his old methods—using his super brain to coordinate his senses and hand-build chips—carried a high risk of error.
At that scale, a single mistake meant scrapping the entire chip and starting over.
To reduce that risk, designing and simulating first to identify potential issues was far less frustrating than building directly and failing.
At the same time, Henry began experimenting with topological core architectures, pushing toward the realm of quantum computing. This also allowed him to avoid endlessly shrinking traditional fabrication processes just to increase instruction-cycle speed.
Without supercomputers enthusiastically funded by Tony Stark, relying only on the crude machines he'd cobbled together at home, who knew how many years it would take to research these things.
As someone with high-level access—and the ability to quietly obtain administrator privileges when needed—Henry found it trivially easy to do his own work without anyone noticing.
Only when Tony himself came to the West Coast did Henry restrain his usage of the supercomputer a bit.
As for whether the young master noticed his activities, Henry didn't care much. After all, Henry himself would also find ways to hack into Tony Stark's virtual machines, just to see if there was any interesting black tech worth studying.
Another, less important task was that the production department would place pre-screened projects or scripts on Henry's desk for selection, complete with their evaluations, marketing plans, and projected profits.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
🎉 Power Stone Goal Announcement! 🎉
I'll release one bonus chapter for every 500 Power Stones we hit!"
Let me know what should I do
Your support means everything—let's crush these goals together! Keep voting, and let the stones pile up! 🚀
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~