Ignoring Tony's words, Chen Chen subtly glanced at the evacuated crowd around them. Their faces displayed a range of emotions, most prominently confusion and fear. Any violent clash between two powerful forces evokes the most primal, fundamental terror in people, even when one of those forces is meant to protect them.
Silently, he drew a fiery red circle in the air before turning to Tony. "It's time to leave, Tony. The files you have are Killian's criminal evidence—they'll be crucial for our next move."
"We need to go back and extract useful information from them."
"Is Killian planning to use War Machine next?" Tony examined the documents, their pages filled with AIM's logo and details about advanced intelligent machine enhancements. The description clearly identified these as War Machine. His face darkened. "What the hell is the military thinking?! Not this again!"
The existence of War Machine was a compromise Tony had made with the US military years ago. At the time, Tony's high-profile behavior had constantly kept him in the public eye.
Members of Congress and the Air Force were eager to force him to hand over the Arc Reactor and his armor technology. But what kind of person was Tony?
Unsurprisingly, negotiations broke down. To ease tensions, Tony appointed his close friend, James "Rhodey" Rhodes, who held a unique position as both his friend and a US Air Force Colonel, to serve as a "lubricant" between him and the military.
While Tony refused to surrender his technology, he allowed Rhodey, representing the military, to use the Iron Man Armor. This helped to de-escalate the situation between him and the armed forces.
However, a new problem arose. Due to War Machine's unique nature, it was authorized by Tony but could also be modified by others.
In the plot of *Iron Man 2*, the military authorized Tony's rival, Hammer Industries, to upgrade War Machine. This later allowed Ivan Vanko (the villain of *Iron Man 2*) to exploit this opportunity and remotely control the armor.
To Tony's surprise, the military seemed unwilling to learn their lesson, actually allowing Killian to tinker with the War Machine.
"Jarvis, contact Rhodey immediately," Tony said urgently.
"Contacting Colonel Rhodey. Now connecting," the AI butler Jarvis replied in his elegant voice.
*Beep, beep, beep...*
"I'm sorry, sir. The call failed. Colonel Rhodey's communicator is out of contact."
Hearing Jarvis's response, Tony's face darkened. He let out a soft breath, then slapped his cheeks with both hands, as if trying to shake himself out of his funk.
"Don't worry, Rhodey will be fine. He's a soldier; he's faced life and death for years and come out alive every time. This won't be any different." Chen Chen, holding a laptop, emerged from the hallway and hurried toward Tony.
"Right now, we have something more important to do, and this is the key."
He gently raised the laptop.
"The key? What did you find?" Tony asked, his interest piqued.
"The file Ms. Davis gave us also contains an AIM account for War Machine."
"Perhaps it was kept for easier information processing, or simply because his account hadn't been deleted yet, which is why I can still use it. And... once I logged in, I found a lot of interesting videos."
As Chen Chen finished speaking, a faint smile curled at the corner of his lips. He then placed the laptop in front of Tony.
A video was playing on the screen.
It resembled pre-experiment interviews, with the subjects all being Extremis Virus-infected individuals Chen Chen and Tony had encountered in Tennessee. Each of them bore distinct disabilities; missing limbs were the norm.
Suddenly, a man with long golden hair appeared in the video: Aldrich Killian.
"We'll inject you with medication regularly. The sensation will be... exquisite. But you mustn't become addicted. Any sign of addiction will result in your elimination.
You're already useless, disabled individuals. Now, you have a precious opportunity, an opportunity beyond the imagination of ordinary people. You will become the vanguard of a new evolutionary species.
I promise that when you look back on this in the future, nothing will make you prouder than having participated in this grand experiment."
The video then showed several test subjects being secured to vertical beds by researchers. Restrained by straps, they were injected with something.
As the experiment progressed, the subjects gradually began to glow with orange or golden-red light. Horrifying veins bulged on their bodies, and sweat beaded on their faces. Their tightly clenched jaws seemed to be holding back screams, clearly enduring unimaginable pain.
One of the women—the one Chen Chen had killed in the bar—was shown with her previously mangled left hand regenerating at a visible rate. The missing part of her hand spread outward like embers from a burning coal, forming a complete hand.
"The Extremis Virus can actually regenerate limbs directly?" Tony frowned, continuing to watch.
Another male test subject in the lab, unlike the woman, was screaming wildly. The Extremis Virus injection had covered his body in orange light, and his mouth, stretched open in agony, seemed on the verge of spewing flames.
A researcher standing nearby leaned closer and immediately noticed something was wrong. "We have to get out of here! Take the other test subjects and leave immediately! Don't worry about this man!"
The video showed the empty laboratory, where the wailing man suddenly exploded, the violent energy destroying the video recorder.
The video ended there.
"Phew..." Tony said, his face grim as he finished watching the video. "No wonder there were no shrapnel fragments at the explosion site. It was a human explosion."
"From the perspective of human evolution experiments, what Killian did was undoubtedly a failure. But for him, this failure became a new opportunity. Without explosives or shrapnel, a highly concealable human bomb perfectly suits terrorist tactics. That's why he sought out the Mandarin."
"What's our next move?" Tony asked Chen Chen, his voice serious.
"I've just obtained the Mandarin's address. Let's arrest him first, then we'll settle the score with Killian."
-----------------------
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