The locations where Ultron dropped these "Ultron Pillars" were almost exclusively densely populated areas. Because of this, America was gifted two—one on the East Coast and one on the West Coast.
At this moment, Captain America was in Los Angeles, the largest city on the West Coast, fighting alongside the Thunderbolts against Ultron. Looking up at the massive structure floating in the sky directly above Los Angeles, Cap was rendered completely speechless.
How on earth were they supposed to deal with this thing?
"This thing popped up all of a sudden, just like a Citadel from the Combine." Standing off to the side, War Machine looked up at the sky in resignation. He took a deep breath and turned to Cap. "By the way, the President has entered Cheyenne Mountain. The interior has been completely disconnected from the internet, relying solely on landlines—the old-fashioned corded telephone type—to ensure security."
Cap nodded, then looked at Colonel Rhodes in confusion. "What's a Combine Citadel?"
"Uh, it's from a video game plot. A massive alien fortress drops onto the ground, leaving everyone powerless to resist. Facing an alien force called the Combine, human civilization suffered total defeat after resisting for just seven hours." War Machine explained the game's story. "The game's called Half-Life 2. If you ever get a free moment, Cap, you should try it. It's pretty good, though the game is a bit old."
"...Why is it 2? What about 1?"
Rhodes thought for a moment on how to answer the question. "Earth hadn't lost yet during 1."
"Then I'd better start with 1 first."
While Cap was speaking, Hank Pym's voice came through his earpiece. "Cap, can you hear me, Cap?"
"I hear you, Hank."
"Great, I couldn't reach anyone else. Uh, Cap, there's something I need to tell you—"
"If it doesn't pertain to the operation, let's leave it until after the battle is over."
Cap cut Pym off in one sentence. After a moment of silence, Pym took Cap's cue and continued, "I've analyzed these giant towers that just appeared. The imagery shows these devices are different from the S.W.O.R.D. mothership. They can't permanently remain in our timeline. The reason they can exist in 2013 is that they have spatiotemporal engines inside them. That is the key to maintaining the stability of these towers."
"You mean if we turn off the engines, these things will return to their original timeline."
Cap received a firm affirmative. Following Pym's resolute "Exactly," Cap asked another question. "Alright, so next question: how do we deal with the possibility of Ultron dragging these things back again? We can't fight these things over and over again. We don't have the time."
"I have a candidate in mind. He can head to S.W.O.R.D. to take control of Kang's spatiotemporal teleportation device, thereby preventing this from happening again."
Cap knew who Pym was referring to. He nodded and said, "I'll help handle things here," before ending the call.
Having only heard Cap's side of the conversation, War Machine asked curiously, "How's it looking?"
"What we need to do is get inside, find a spatiotemporal engine, and shut it down." Cap realized what Ultron was planning as soon as he finished speaking. "If we do that, we'll definitely have zero time to stop Ultron from spreading himself across the network and the physical world. It's a trap."
After hearing this, Colonel Rhodes let out a helpless sigh. "But we don't have a choice, do we?"
Agreeing, Cap turned to War Machine. "So, where are Carol and the rest of the Ultimate Ultimates?"
New York, 11:00 AM.
Peter was fighting side by side with Cindy. The power Ultron possessed to disrupt Spider-Sense was indeed effective. Furthermore, since Cindy was not an Avenger, Ultron could unleash his attacks against her with even fewer restraints.
"And Ultron doesn't view modifying human bodies as harm at all—he thinks of it as a gift!"
As Peter spoke, he used claws formed from the Anti-Venom symbiote to tear an Ultron bot in half. "Which means forcibly modifying people into Ultron-humans is completely acceptable to Ultron!"
Even forced modification wasn't considered harm in his eyes, even if it completely disregarded their personal free will.
Cindy remained silent, continuously attacking to subdue the Ultron-humans and shred the robots. As a Spider-Totem, her final special ability was the capacity to weave webbing of different elemental attributes.
It was precisely thanks to the suit woven from this special webbing that she was able to keep herself from being brainwashed and fight up to this point.
However, more and more Ultron bots swarmed toward them, trying to capture Peter and her for human modification. Sensing Peter turning around, Cindy leapt into the air to clear space for him. Peter immediately yanked an Ultron bot over and blew it apart with a single punch.
Peter then looked over at Cindy. "Are you okay?"
Cindy nodded. Then, both of them heard similar detonation sounds. Looking up, they saw giant towers descending from the sky.
All in all, regardless of anyone else, Peter was in a terrible mood. He was utterly baffled by what was happening and what kind of madness Ultron had pulled off this time.
Fortunately, a few minutes after contacting Cap, Hank Pym finally established contact with Peter and offered an explanation.
"In other words, Ultron is baiting us into deactivating the towers—he's doing this on purpose."
Peter looked up at the towers in the sky, then thought of the ordinary people who had been modified, or were about to undergo modification, by Ultron. If Peter and the others went off to climb the towers, who would protect these ordinary citizens?
"If you have sufficient combat power, sending just one or two people could resolve the issue."
Hank maintained his stance. After a few seconds of silence, Peter looked at Cindy and weighed his words carefully. "If we plan to eliminate that thing, we'll need to organize a team to charge up there and shut down the core engine, while the rest stay below to handle things."
He was definitely going up himself. Truth be told, even if you combined all the superheroes stationed in New York, they might not be able to fight as effectively as he could. The question was whether he needed teammates, and if so, who to choose.
"I'm coming with you," Cindy said crisply and decisively. "I... I can provide protection for everyone. Just don't leave me behind."
"Don't worry, I won't."
While Peter was still picking candidates for the tower climb, Hank Pym was back at the Avengers Compound, analyzing the pillars through a massive display. Suddenly, all the screens in the room went black. Pym took a deep breath and turned around to look at "Ultron" lurking in the shadows.
"He's coming. Are you ready?"