On that day, July 16, 1945, we did not just split the atom. We broke the seal that was holding worlds apart. The Trinity explosion did not only tear matter. It ripped the very fabric of reality. Into our world, there poured mana, the fundamental, primordial energy of magic. This event, which forever divided history into a "before" and an "after," became known as the Trinity Breach. Magic was transformed from a concept that was reserved for charlatans into a new, unexplored field of science.
The physicists, the chemists, and the engineers who were working on the Manhattan Project involuntarily became the world's first technomancers. We approached magic, not with prayers and rituals, but with oscilloscopes, spectrometers, and the scientific method. Miracles acquired the form of differential equations. Spells were transformed into reproducible algorithms. And artifacts began to be assembled on conveyor belts. Our magical universities smelled, not of dusty tomes, but of plastic and solder, and they resembled MIT more than they did Hogwarts.
A new era of human creation began with the testing of a weapon of mass destruction. There was a grim irony in this. As a young theoretical physicist, I was standing in the scorched desert of Alamogordo and looking into the blinding heart of the first explosion. I saw the birth of a new universe. I understood that, from that moment on, the science of magic had become the new meaning of my life. Thus, I became a pioneer of thaumaturgy.
I not only studied spells. I taught them to others. I wrote textbooks and scientific treatises. I gave lectures in crowded auditoriums. I was one of the authors of the Standard Model of Metaphysics, which classified magical effects just as physics classifies elementary particles. My main achievement was bringing magic from the realm of personal art into the realm of industrial engineering.
The passion and the work of my entire life became Applied Thaumaturgy, artifacting, and enchantment. I was not a combat mage. It was more correct to call me an engineer, and I liked that far better. My philosophy was that magic is too elegant to be used like a barbarian. I did not throw fireballs. I created self-guided drones that did this for me. I did not heal wounds. I constructed medical auto-docs that automatically applied healing spells.
I died in deep old age, surrounded by my students, as the head of the world's largest metaphysics research institute. My mind, until the very last day, struggled over the great task of creating a self-sustaining source of pure mana. Perhaps the time had come to pass this relay on to another. I would pass it on together with all of my knowledge. I would pass it on together with my understanding of fundamental laws. Together with...
I sharply inhaled, and the cold oxygen burned my lungs.
I woke up.
What was that?
I lay on the bed, and I could feel a cold sweat on my forehead. In my head, there reigned an absolute chaos. This was not a dream. This was an echo. It was the ghost of another's life, lived to the very end and imprinted into my consciousness. I did not remember the names, the students' faces, or the taste of morning coffee. But the magic, it was imprinted in me with photographic precision.
How did that magic work? Previously, this question had been a key one for me. Now, it did not exist. My updated mind instinctively understood the structure of any spell, its source, and its operating principle. I was like an experienced programmer who looks at an unfamiliar code and immediately sees its architecture, its dependencies, its vulnerabilities, and the places where it can be optimized.
I had the skill of a master artificer engineer. This was no longer just knowledge. It was the muscle memory of the mind. It was the practical experience of decades of trial and error. I knew which materials best conducted mana. I knew how to stabilize an unstable spell by using a metaphysical radiator. I knew how to cobble together a simple magical concentrator from a stick and a stone. Now, I could design and create the most complex magical artifact from scratch.
The most valuable part was the researcher's methodology. This was not a set of ready answers. It was an ideal method for finding them. It told me how to set up an experiment. It told me how to isolate variables. It told me how to analyze a failure and turn it into a breakthrough. Any new, unknown magic of this world was not a threat to me. It was, primarily, a scientific problem. I instinctively knew how to approach its solution.
There was, however, one colossal problem. I needed magic. I was a geologist who was locked in a room without a single stone. I could not begin to interact with this world's magic without receiving some initial data, without receiving at least one spell or one magical effect. Sooner or later, I would encounter it. I could be patient. Or, I could simply turn to S.H.I.E.L.D. There was a high probability that, in their archives, something interesting could be found.
Speaking of S.H.I.E.L.D., where the hell was I? I was clearly not in my bed.
Only now, when the storm in my consciousness had settled, did I pay attention to the surrounding world. There were white walls. There was a measured, insistent beeping of instruments. There was the smell of antiseptic and medical alcohol. I was in a hospital ward.
I lay there, entangled in wires and tubes like a marionette. Sensors, which were attached to my chest and my temples, had already informed the world of my awakening with a quickened rhythm. At that same moment, the ward door silently opened, and a man in a white coat entered. He was a doctor. On his badge, which had the S.H.I.E.L.D. logo on it, was engraved the name "Dr. Landrose."
At the very least, Hydra had not kidnapped me. That was encouraging. Despite the oxygen mask that was tightly fitted to my face, the doctor caught my silent, questioning gaze.
"After you unexpectedly lost consciousness," he began, in a calm, well-practiced voice, while glancing at the monitor, "our initial hypotheses were standard ones. We thought it might be an aneurysm, an extensive stroke, or a hidden form of epilepsy. But, as soon as we connected the instruments to you, it became clear that everything was far more complex."
"Give me more details, doctor." I croaked through the plastic mask. My voice felt alien and weak.
"Your electroencephalogram," the doctor pointed to one of the monitors, where a chaotic curve was still dancing, "showed a cerebral storm. Your brain activity exceeded all conceivable limits. We have never seen anything like this in a living person. Then, you went into a coma. Your blood tests showed off-the-charts levels of stress hormones and tissue damage markers. It was as if your body had simultaneously been in a car crash and had received a direct lightning strike."
He paused, to let me comprehend what he had said.
"The ultrasound and the MRI recorded multiple petechial hemorrhages throughout your body, especially in your brain and your central nervous system. The most striking thing was that, simultaneously with this destruction, we saw an anomalous physiology working at an extreme capacity. Your regeneration activated with an incredible speed. Essentially, inside your organism, a war was being waged. One part of your body was methodically destroying itself, and the other part was immediately restoring itself, but it was restoring itself in an altered, more efficient form."
Damn it. In brief, this was a complete and total mess. I had been exposed on all possible fronts. The Iron Blood had essentially saved my life, or it had been the System. The latter was more likely the cause of this destruction. The Iron Blood had desperately patched up the holes.
"And what is your verdict, doctor? And why are you telling me all of this?"
"Regarding the second question, it's a direct order from Director Nick Fury." Landrose shrugged. "Regarding the first, officially, there are suspicions of a latent meta gene activation. Please note, it's not an X gene. A coma and physical trauma in such a case is a natural, though extreme, process of an organism restructuring itself into a new, more powerful configuration. What that configuration is, we have not determined."
The doctor pronounced the last part with a sincere, scientific regret. I began to ponder what I had heard, and they were not far from the truth.
What had happened to me was a forced neuro-spiritual integration. More than eighty years of another person's life experience, academic knowledge, muscle memory, and emotions had been imprinted into my neural network in a very short amount of time. This had caused a catastrophic synaptic overload. My neurons had begun to fire chaotically, like wires in a burning panel, which had led to an uncontrolled spike in the metabolism in my brain. My blood vessels had begun to burst, and this had caused multiple micro-strokes and hemorrhages. The coma was not a disease. It was a protective mechanism. It was an emergency shutdown, one that was performed to prevent a complete burnout of the central processor.
The technomancer knowledge was not just theory. It was decades of practice. It was specific finger positioning for casting charms. It was movements, calibrated to the millimeter, for rituals. It was reflexive reactions to magical threats. This information had flooded into my motor cortex, and my body had begun, instinctively and at a cellular level, to adapt. My nervous system had laid down new, more efficient paths to my muscles. My muscle fibers, and even my bone structure, had undergone a stress restructuring. This process had caused the myriad of micro-traumas that S.H.I.E.L.D. had recorded as damage markers.
Most importantly, this had happened at the spiritual level. My soul did not just receive new data. It had literally merged with the imprint, with the echo, of another person's soul. My Reiryoku, all of my spiritual energy reserve, had been thrown into the furnace of this process. It had simultaneously fed the mental restructuring and it had powered my regeneration for the repair of my physical body. That had been the other helper, besides the Iron Blood. The coma had been needed, not only by my brain, but by my soul, so that, in the silence and the darkness, I could archive, organize, and integrate another's experience. I could turn it from chaotic data into my own, integral part.
I had survived a second birth. It had been a painful, cruel, but significant one.
S.H.I.E.L.D. was right about one thing. Before them, there now lay a new being. This transformation had cost me a great deal. I felt this at an instinctive level. I felt it at the very limit of my physical and spiritual capabilities. Now, I was certain that I would not survive one more such restructuring, if it was caused by an information package that was above the "Uncommon" level. My body and my hardware had limits, and this skill had exhausted them almost to the very bottom.
Consequently, I needed to increase the body's potential itself and to expand its boundaries. For this, the Extremis would be the most suitable. Ideally, I would not just upgrade it. I would completely reassemble it from scratch. I would create, not just an improved virus, but an ideal super soldier serum. It would be based on a synergy of ideas that were inspired by Blade's blood, Connors' serum, Gwen's unique genes, and, of course, the Extremis itself.
The thought was dazzling. If I took the Extremis as a foundation, but I completely cleaned it of its initial, unstable code, leaving only an elegant platform for the implementation of other genetic drivers, then, with Blade's blood and Connors' serum and the rest, the output could be a Perfect Extremis.
True, there were the nanobots. Without them, I would be nowhere, but the nanobots were too convenient for a fine control of pyrokinesis. For now, I would use physical nanobots. Could I cheat here, too, and create nanobots from Vibranium or Adamantium? I already had the extracts for working with them. Even better, I could create an alloy. An Adamantium and Vibranium alloy. A Proto-Adamantium. It would be an absolutely indestructible metal that would additionally absorb any energy. Was creating something like that realistic? The engineer inside me was already rubbing his hands in anticipation. There still remained the Uru and the magical metals to study.
"Ahem. I'm not distracting you from your plans for world conquest, am I?"
A familiar, slightly sarcastic voice tore me from my designs. The doctor had long since left the ward. Standing at my bed was the local outfit's director. While I had been knocked out, he had applied a considerable effort to protect my defenseless carcass. Since the question was a direct one, I removed the oxygen mask.
"No, you're not distracting me. You'd better tell me, how long was I in a coma?" I asked.
"It's been almost three days. It's three p.m. on Wednesday, October seventh." Nick Fury answered, carefully studying my face. "Now it's your turn. What the hell was that? And I know that you know the answer."
"I'm not going to go into the details, Nick. Everything has its price. Including my knowledge."
"A meta-genius." Nick Fury chuckled.
"And how are the same Stark or Reed Richards not meta-geniuses?" I parried.
"At a minimum, because it devalues a titanic labor." Nick Fury cut in. "They built their genius brick by brick. You apparently downloaded it into your head in a single night. Speaking of building. The laboratory for your needs, in the building that was allocated for the company, is fully ready."
"Finally." I couldn't restrain a relieved exhale.
"But not all of the bureaucratic red tape has been resolved yet. Nevertheless, it's functional. You can start forming your staff and you can start thinking about how you're going to announce yourself to the world. You said you wanted to become a public face." He reminded me, with a slight mockery in his voice.
"And is the Proteus the best announcement? Especially since the patent will be expedited, thanks to your help."
"This is an announcement for a very narrow circle. It's primarily for the military and the intelligence agencies." Nick Fury explained. "If you were a flamboyant playboy, like Stark, whom every dog knows, then that would work. This is a niche product, and it's uninteresting for mass consumers. This is assuming that I correctly understood your desire to become, not just an arms baron, but something bigger."
"You understood correctly. Then I'll go the path of least resistance and maximum coverage."
"Oh?" Nick Fury raised an eyebrow with interest. "That's curious."
"I'll simply create the world's most popular app." I answered briefly, remembering such a wonder as TikTok. It was simple, it was viral, and it would change the rules of the game.
There was one key nuance that had allowed TikTok, in its time, to not just take off, but to become a cultural phenomenon. It had been a global pandemic. Here, there was none, yet. A blind copying of trends from my past world into this one wouldn't work. On the other hand, this world had its own, far more powerful and permanent, catalyst. I called it "Incident Economics." My app would explode, not from boredom and isolation, but from the constant cocktail of chaos, fear, and admiration.
Every day, in New York, or in any major city, some incident happened. There was a Hulk fight with the Abomination, shaking the skyscrapers. There was Spider-Woman flying past your window on her webbing. Then, the Green Goblin would arrive, and the hell would begin, live. The traditional news channels were popular, but they were too slow and too censored. They showed the consequences. My app would be a platform for instant, raw, unfiltered content, directly from the scene. It would become the main information source and a way for people to cope with the constant stress of living in this insane world.
A pleasant bonus was that, with this platform, I could announce myself. In my past life, bloggers with ten million subscribers were authorities on par with movie stars. Here, that niche was empty. It would be a sin to miss it. I would blink, and Stark, with JARVIS, would create something similar in a couple of weeks. No, I couldn't blink.
Blink. That would be a name. Blink. "You would miss the main event of your life." The slogan came to me.
My thoughts flashed practically instantly, and my thinking became more systematic. Every question became an engineering problem. But I didn't have the time to scatter myself. I had to prioritize. My personal enhancement was the foundation of everything.
Meanwhile, Nick Fury observed my thoughtful silence and he spoke.
"The IT industry is divided among some strong players. But, for some reason, I don't doubt you." he said.
"I doubt you, Nick." I probed. "Specifically, I doubt that sandbox that you prepared for me in the laboratory."
This question was sitting in my subcortex and it was eating up my operational memory.
"Do you think that I'm an idiot?" Nick Fury's voice was even. "You can disassemble every piece of equipment, screw by screw. You can scan every centimeter of the walls. You will not find anything. Especially since you have, on your team, a living radar in the spider girl. Who, if not you, understands the simple fact that it's impossible to reverse engineer a complex production process from small snippets of information? Even the most advanced surveillance systems have blind spots, and they give fragmentary data."
"I'm reassured, partially." I admitted, noting, mentally, that Gwen Stacy wouldn't be in the laboratory twenty-four seven, and that any surveillance equipment had "on" and "off" functions. "But the personnel problem still remains. There will not be any incomprehensible people in my company."
"Besides the external perimeter security, which my agents will provide as they risk their lives for the safety of your employees, there will be no one else from me. You are free to do what you want with your company. The main thing is that we have a fruitful cooperation with S.H.I.E.L.D. We, on our side, will not put obstacles in your way. We will remove them from it."
"Is this you subtly hinting at those who will inevitably pressure us? The Department of Defense, the NSA, S.W.O.R.D., competing corporations? Will S.H.I.E.L.D. be able to handle that level of protection?"
"The contract has a clause that states that any cooperation with other government parties is only allowed after a coordination with us." Nick Fury said, with a predatory smile. "Sometimes, you will have to share. You can set the conditions and the price for that. Fleece them for three skins. I permit it."
"Good. I understand." I nodded. Now, the rules of the game were clear. "If you'll permit me, I would like to finally visit my laboratory."
"Agent Coulson will go with you." Nick Fury agreed.
"Whoa. What an honor for Coulson?" I raised my eyebrows. "And what about Natasha? How is she doing, after Elena's death?"
"Coulson is one of the best. He'll ensure your safety." Nick Fury answered, and he ignored the second part of my question. "With Natasha, everything is stable."
He turned and exited the ward without saying goodbye. I was left alone with my thoughts, and I was already sure that the doctors were hurrying my official discharge.
//==============//
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