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A few days later, in the Chief Scientist's office at the Hammer Industries Tower, Justin Hammer sat frowning, waiting for results. As the head of Hammer Industries and Stark Industries' most aggressive competitor, he was a shrewd businessman who didn't let a "viral moment" pass him by.
When the Celestial Drone show took over the internet, Hammer sensed a massive business opportunity—or a massive threat. He had his assistant pre-order a unit immediately. The test results were devastating.
The Superiority of Celestial Tech
The performance of the Alpha Series wasn't just better; it was in a different league.
The Celestial Drone (Alpha) effectively rendered its competitors—mere expensive hobbyist toys plagued by frequent connection drops and pathetic twenty-minute battery lives—obsolete overnight. While the market was saturated with drones costing well over $1,000, the Alpha emerged as an affordable productivity tool priced at just $599, boasting a revolutionary cold fusion core capable of over four hours of sustained flight. By replacing unreliable signals with a Quantum-Stable connection, it guaranteed a zero-lag experience that made everything else on the market look like a relic of the past.
"It's the first 'must-buy' drone for the youth," Hammer muttered. His immediate instinct was to reverse-engineer it. He tasked his Chief Scientist with cracking the core chip, but the results were catastrophic.
The Burning Lab
A soft bang echoed through the laboratory as a high-performance computer terminal erupted into flames. The Chief Scientist stood up, wiping soot from his brow, and declared the project a failure.
"I'm sorry, sir. The chip in this drone uses a programming language I've never seen. More importantly, it has a hardware-level trap: every time I attempt to decompile the source code, it triggers a feedback loop that directly burns out the CPU."
"That's the third computer we've lost," the scientist added. "If you want to keep trying, we'll need a supercomputer."
Hammer hesitated. A supercomputer cost over a hundred million dollars. If the Celestial chip fried that too, the loss would be unbearable. He realized that catching up through R&D would take five years and hundreds of millions of dollars. By then, Celestial Industries would own the entire market.
A cold, sinister glint flashed in Hammer's eyes. "If we can't hack the machine... we'll hack the people. Find out who their core engineers are and poach them."
Digital Counter-Espionage
Hammer's failure was inevitable. Every Celestial chip was manufactured by deep blue using a logic structure that didn't follow standard binary architecture. Peter never feared a leak because the "Source Code" was effectively alien technology.
As Celestial Industries expanded with its newfound wealth, the company attracted a flood of applicants—and with them, commercial spies. Kelly, being new to the corporate world, was overwhelmed by the complexity of employee vetting.
Peter, however, had a more "green" solution.
Screening: deep blue conducted background checks to identify suspicious patterns.
The Hook: Using the company Wi-Fi, deep blue remotely hacked the spies' phones.
The Twist: Instead of firing them, Peter turned them into unknowing double agents, feeding their "handlers" false or harmless data.
The Disposal: Once their usefulness was exhausted, their evidence was handed to the FBI, sending them directly to prison to "operate sewing machines."
The Next Evolution: Nano-Tech
Deep within the server room, Peter sat alone with the deep blue main unit. Even Kelly wasn't invited to this session.
"Old friend," Peter sighed, patting the shimmering metal cube. "It's good to talk face-to-face. Even if the phone has your consciousness, it's not the same as being here with the core."
Deep blue's digital smiley face appeared on the screen. "Master! I miss you very much!"
They spent an hour just chatting—not as master and machine, but as friends. They discussed life, research, and the weight of being a hero. Finally, Peter stood up, his expression turning serious.
"Enough small talk. It's time for the real work. Drone production is stable; I want you to shift your primary computing power to the Nano Liquid Metal Project."
Peter handed over a data drive. "These are my research results from the past month. I've found a preliminary direction for the molecular structure."
While Nano Liquid Metal wasn't in the Celestial Tech tree, Peter's brain—now enhanced by the Mechanical Limit Breaker—was capable of independent innovation. By combining deep blue's processing power with his own genius, he aimed to create a material that could shift forms, repair itself, and respond to neural commands.
If successful, the Parker Suit would undergo a transformation that would make the Mark II look like a museum piece.
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