Daisy rattled off lines she didn't believe a word of. The generals listened intently, each one silently impressed. This agent had real political sophistication—every phrase polished. The "Counter-Terror Combat Drone" branding was especially well-chosen. Justin's earlier "Conqueror" and "Scourge" line names had been tone-deaf on arrival.
Our goal is to help the Afghan people, help the Iraqi people. "Conquerors," "Scourges"—what message does that send? We're the good guys!
Generals have to be politicians, too. Secretary Robert nodded approvingly and gestured for her to continue.
"Our second-generation product has entered lab development. Development of the new Army model is in its final stages. The other three variants will complete their upgrade cycles within six months. Hammer Industries guarantees the Department of Defense that the modular architecture keeps upgrade costs under half the original build price. A few component swaps, and you'll see a significantly more advanced product."
All that upgrade talk was smoke. She'd taken the 1.0 build and downgraded it to 0.1. Now she was telling the Pentagon that the company was pouring everything into a state-of-the-art 0.2. Happy? Pleased?
The Pentagon wasn't that easy to snow. They voiced their appreciation for Hammer Industries' research push, but they wanted to see what the drones could actually do in combat.
"The drones can be deployed to the front lines. We have a military operation in Mosul in three days. Hammer Industries is welcome to join." The dark-skinned, powerfully built Air Force Chief of Staff, General Haig, spoke with authority.
Daisy nodded and accepted. Against Iraqi insurgents, the drones were absurdly overpowered—even the 0.1 version would steamroll them.
Hm? Just as she was about to bring them out to watch Justin's presentation, the room plunged into darkness. Daisy tilted her head and listened—she could even hear the shock and irritation from the public outside.
"Probably a power fault in the Stark Industries compound. They have backup systems. It should come back online any second." Daisy moved to reassure them. The generals stayed composed, but their security details all drew their sidearms.
Backup power kicked in within thirty seconds, and the lights came partway back. The voltage was unstable, though—the lighting flickered erratically, throwing the room into a bad-horror-movie strobe.
"Miss, half of New York is blacked out." The Maid had been standing by outside. The instant her vision came back, she'd rushed in.
At the same moment, the generals' phones started going off. Daisy had three or four phones herself, some dialing out, some ringing in.
It took a full five minutes for Secretary Robert to hang up. The Secretary was ex-CIA, a man of considerable stature—whichever party took the White House, he usually stayed on. The Department of Defense was stable, as institutions went.
The old man's face darkened like someone owed him millions. "It's Victor von Doom. An NSA agent spotted him apparently drawing power from the city grid."
Daisy had gotten roughly the same intel through S.H.I.E.L.D. Fury was treating this as a priority. To keep things from escalating further, he wanted her on scene as an observer—and was assigning Black Widow to assist her.
Widow, already briefed, burst into the conference room and waved Daisy over. They were heading to a side room to change into tactical gear.
"Ms. Johnson, can the drones be deployed for this?" Secretary Robert called out.
Could her 0.1-model drones take on Doctor Doom? That was a joke. Doctor Doom, a top-tier supervillain, wasn't something drone soldiers could handle.
But that was the future Doctor Doom—the one who'd wed magic and technology at their peak. Not the current Victor von Doom, a man whose investments had just imploded, who'd been clipped by cosmic rays and developed minor abilities, and who was refusing to go home.
Version-0.1 drones versus Version-0.1 Doctor Doom?
Daisy stopped mid-step. She was perfectly happy to bully the civilians of Mosul with these drones, but she couldn't exactly turn down the chance to field-test them against Doctor Doom. She'd oversold the drones earlier, and now she had to eat it. She could only hope the Fantastic Four, already in the fight, would do some of the heavy lifting.
"Fine. The drones will join the action." She hurried with Black Widow into a nearby changing room and slipped on her tactical uniform.
Given how much trouble Doom could be, the Atomic Cutter was brought to standby status.
Widow rode her own motorcycle. Daisy perched on the shoulder of a drone soldier, and the two of them roared across the city.
New York's power was coming back in patches. Residents were trickling out onto sidewalks, asking each other what the hell had just happened.
The Baxter Building—the main battlefield—was chaos.
His company had declared bankruptcy. A decade-plus of work, gone in one stroke. And finding out that his beloved Susan had tangled herself up with Reed again—all of it had shattered whatever composure Victor von Doom, a genius with off-the-charts intelligence from birth, had left.
The cosmic rays had been stronger and more penetrating than Reed Richards'—Mr. Fantastic's—calculations had accounted for. The observation chamber Reed had designed for Doom didn't fully block them. When the rays passed through the metal, they picked up a portion of the metal's properties and layered those onto Doom, mixed in with the cosmic radiation.
If the radiation the Fantastic Four absorbed was a 1, then Daisy and the Maid had absorbed a 0.75. Doom, shielded by his metal chamber, had taken only a 0.5.
His powers were incomplete. He needed to siphon electricity to use them.
Old grudges and new wounds rose to the surface. The man in the metal mask and dark-green robes was now pounding the Fantastic Four into the ground.
Reed and Susan were scientists. Their combined lifetime experience of physical combat could be counted on one hand. Neither one was a fighter. Their command of their own powers was still in its early, primitive stage.
Johnny was a pro at peacocking and hitting on women. His combat experience topped out at bar brawls. The only real frontline asset in the group was the Thing, Ben.
With his dense, armored body and massive strength, Ben was blocking most of Doom's attacks while, alongside him, the Human Torch—Johnny—backed him up with high-temperature fireballs.
Against three inexperienced flyweights and one rock-skinned bruiser, Doom had natural combat talent. His childhood in Latveria had been shaped by violence, and even as he'd moved away from direct confrontation into the life of the mind—believing intellect trumped muscle—reality had just clubbed him in the head. His decade-plus of hard-earned wealth had been wiped out by the capital markets, with not a scrap left behind.
Doom had internalized a new truth: this world still ran on power. He was done chasing wealth. He would take back everything he'd lost with force.
Threadbare as his new ability was, between sheer conviction and a razor-sharp mind, Doctor Doom was single-handedly keeping the Fantastic Four on the defensive.