Chapter 260 — New Ground
Time had passed since Marcus's last visit.
Not just a few minutes, but enough that the residence had settled into a slower rhythm. The days since then had become almost comfortable. Naruto and Mindy spent a lot of their time playing games, arguing over them, and competing with each other over things that did not matter much at all. Saeko had found her own quiet pace. Diana often moved between watching the others and simply enjoying the atmosphere. Gaius, as usual, kept to himself more than the others, though he was not nearly as distant as he had once been.
Tony, meanwhile, had become completely absorbed in his own work.
That was why, when the knock came at the front door, it felt almost like a break in the routine.
Three knocks.
Not loud, but firm enough to be clear.
A voice answered from inside a second later.
"Coming!"
Mindy had called out from near the entrance.
She opened the door almost immediately, and Marcus stood there on the other side, already waiting with a polite expression and a medium-sized case in hand.
"Oh, Marcus, come in," Mindy said.
Marcus nodded and stepped inside.
As soon as he entered, he moved toward the living room without wasting time. The others were already there. Tony sat at one side with a communicator spread open in front of him. Several parts had been removed from it, and he was clearly in the middle of examining its structure in detail. Holographic schematics floated in the air beside it, each one showing something different: material composition reports, internal circuitry diagrams, and component classifications. Thin, precise nanotechnology arms moved with extreme accuracy, helping Tony take the device apart and study it piece by piece.
Beside him, a laptop sat open.
Music was playing from it.
Tony was focused on the communicator, but the music gave the whole scene a strangely casual feel. It made the room feel less like a technical lab and more like someone's private workspace.
Marcus noticed that immediately.
Tony looked up when he saw him.
"Jarvis, turn off the music, the guest is here."
The laptop responded at once.
"Right away, sir."
The music stopped.
Marcus glanced at the laptop for a moment but chose not to comment.
By this point, the number of strange things he had seen since meeting this group was already far too high for him to react to every one of them. An advanced AI assisting Tony Stark barely registered on the list anymore.
What he did not realize was that JARVIS was fundamentally different from the smart AIs used by the UNSC.
Human smart AIs inevitably developed rampancy. As they aged, they accumulated errors and became increasingly unstable, eventually reaching a point where they effectively thought themselves to death. Most lasted only around seven years before they had to be retired.
JARVIS suffered from none of those limitations.
Had Marcus known that, he would have been far more surprised than he was now.
Tony glanced at the case Marcus was carrying and then leaned back slightly in his seat.
"Marcus."
Marcus nodded.
"Tony. I came here with what I promised."
He lifted the case slightly.
"I brought three plots of land. I had no idea what size you would need, so I bought three. Small, medium, and large."
Tony smiled.
"I don't need anything big."
Marcus gave a small nod, though he still remained silent for a moment. He opened the case and pulled out a flat, metal-looking device that projected a holographic display above the table.
Three land plots appeared in the air.
One small.
One medium.
One large.
Each had a different shape and size, and the small and large seemed to be in a different section of land outside the main city.
Marcus gestured toward them.
"Pick one here, and ask me if you have anything you want to know about it."
Tony looked at the projections, then at the details floating beside them.
"Medium," he said after a moment.
He was quick about it, but not careless. Most of the land looked like natural terrain, and the medium plot was the one that appealed most to him. It was also the closest one, and while it had a building on it, the building itself looked old, like a house that had been left standing for a long time.
The size would be enough.
More space would always help.
Marcus nodded.
"This is not far from here. I will call for demolition of the building there."
Tony shook his head.
"There is no need. I'll handle it."
Marcus looked at him, a little uncertain.
Tony explained with the kind of confidence that usually meant he already knew exactly what he was doing.
"Otherwise it might take too long if you guys did it."
"Then I'll send the information to your communi—"
Marcus stopped himself.
He had been about to explain that he would forward the details and location through Tony's communicator, but his eyes shifted to the table.
The communicator was no longer in one piece.
Several components were spread across the tabletop while Tony's nanotech arms continued working on them.
Marcus paused, staring at it for a moment.
Tony noticed the look and immediately explained.
"Just add it. Don't worry, it's not broken. I've already figured out how it works. I can put it back together anytime."
As he said it, he lifted one hand.
The tiny nano arms moved quickly, almost like they were answering a silent command. In a matter of moments, they reassembled the communicator exactly as it had been before. The parts clicked back together with clean precision, and the device looked whole again.
Marcus watched the process, then nodded.
He did not say anything else.
He had already seen enough to understand that Tony knew exactly what he was doing.
"All right," Marcus said at last. "Then I will leave now."
Tony did not stop him.
Before leaving, Marcus glanced toward Naruto and Mindy.
The two of them were sitting together, playing games on a communicator hologram. They were deeply absorbed in it, and Mindy looked like she was only one bad move away from getting annoyed. Marcus could not help smiling a little at the sight, though he quickly steadied himself and turned away before anyone could really notice.
Then he left.
For a moment after that, the room settled back into quiet.
Gaius, who had heard the entire conversation, finally came over.
Tony looked up when he approached.
Gaius stopped near the table and asked directly, "Tony, are you going to bring out the fabricator to create the workshop?"
Tony shook his head.
"I will use the fabricator," he said, "but not for the creation of the workshop. There are already parts in the Parcel System for me to create a lab."
Gaius nodded, taking that in without issue.
Then he spoke again.
"Then I will ask for your assistance in creating technology to facilitate our trade with the humans here."
Tony nodded at once.
"No need to worry."
He paused, then looked at Gaius more carefully.
"Do you have the technology in your Parcel System?"
The question made sense to Tony. Most of them already used the Parcel System to store weapons, equipment, and even ordinary items. It functioned like an inventory with space far beyond anything normal. If Gaius had the technology already packed away, then that would make things much easier.
Tony added another thought.
"Do you need Jarvis to analyze the technology so it could be traded fast?"
Gaius answered immediately.
"I already have the complete technology in my mind. I know what it can do and how to create it down to its matter."
Tony stared at him for a moment.
The surprise was visible.
He already knew Gaius was intelligent. Ultramarines were not simple warriors. They were leaders, scholars, and disciplined thinkers. But hearing Gaius say that he understood the technology down to the matter itself gave Tony a different impression entirely.
It made Gaius sound less like a soldier with technical knowledge and more like a scientist in his own right.
Tony folded his arms.
"I see. That's good. We only need to ask ONI for materials for studying, to see if our technology could be used by them, or at least have a way to have them used it."
Gaius nodded in agreement.
The concern was not unreasonable.
Their travels had already shown that universes did not always share the same foundations. Naruto's world had chakra. Other worlds had their own strange systems. Even when things looked similar on the surface, the deeper structure underneath could be entirely different.
Energy systems were only one part of the problem.
The material itself mattered too.
There was no guarantee that the same element, the same alloy, or even the same physical property would behave in exactly the same way from one universe to another. A tool designed under one set of rules might not work the same way under another.
Checking compatibility first was only sensible.
After a brief pause, Gaius spoke again.
"Then let us go there."
Tony nodded.
"Yeah."
He stood up.
The nanotech arms that had helped him work on the communicator rested on the table for a moment as compact metallic pieces.
Tony placed a hand over them.
The pieces responded instantly, flowing up his arm like liquid metal before disappearing into the nanotech housing surrounding his arc reactor.
He and Gaius headed toward the front door.
That alone drew the attention of everyone else in the room.
Tony was not leaving alone.
Gaius was going as well.
Mindy looked up first.
"Where are you guys going?"
Her question made the others glance over too.
Tony answered plainly.
"We had Marcus get a plot of land for us to make a workshop. That will facilitate our exchange of technology with them."
That explanation was enough to kill most of the curiosity in the room.
Naruto glanced up briefly.
"Oh."
Then he immediately went back to his game.
He and Mindy were still playing through the hologram, and the moment he saw her distracted, he started pushing his advantage.
Mindy noticed almost immediately.
Her eyes narrowed.
"Naruto! You're cheating."
Naruto didn't even look guilty.
"It's not. It's your fault you're distracted."
Mindy reacted instantly and turned harder toward her communicator.
She looked genuinely offended now, and the game became a full argument in under a second.
Tony shook his head at them.
Diana, standing nearby, watched the scene with a small smile.
"Have fun then," she said.
Tony nodded.
Gaius did the same.
Then they left the residence together.
Outside, the day waited for them.
Far beyond the city, a routine long-range scan picked up a faint distortion at the edge of known space. It lasted only a moment, just enough to register before the system automatically corrected it.
A technician glanced at the readout, then leaned closer.
"…must've been interference," he said after a quick check, and marked it off without much concern.
The reading disappeared from the active display.
Still, the system quietly flagged it for background logging before moving on.
Nothing else followed.
At least, nothing that could be confirmed.
~~~
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