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The heart of the energy conversion facility.
Here, vast volumes of nuclear energy were converted to electrical power every second. With existing technology, it was impossible to achieve zero loss across the transport and conversion process. The percentage lost was small. But against a base this enormous, even a one-percent loss represented a staggering quantity of energy.
And in front of Ethan, the countless arcs of electricity writhing through the air like pythons were the physical manifestation of that loss, the wasted energy bleeding off the conversion process in lethal quantities.
As Ethan moved to go deeper into the zone, Colonel Tolliver's voice patched through into the armor via J.A.R.V.I.S.
"Mr. Mercer. That's enough. Please. Don't go any deeper. The voltage in the inner zone is on an entirely different order from the arcs you've already absorbed on the periphery. We have all seen the true performance of the seabed reactor tonight. That much has been proven beyond any doubt. As for the transmission line problem, we can continue developing it in time. The Hidden Dragon program will cover the whole Republic eventually. It does not have to be tonight, and it is not worth your life."
Ethan understood the colonel's concern.
But the colonel had no way of knowing what kind of technology this armor concealed, backed by the engineering of the Marvel framework.
Ethan's footsteps did not stop.
In the control room, Tolliver watched the armor continue inward and felt sweat bead on his forehead.
The Hidden Dragon program was important. That was true. But importance was relative, and it depended entirely on what you set it against.
Even Tolliver, a man whose expertise was leading soldiers into battle and little else, understood what kind of talent Ethan Mercer represented to the scientific standing of the entire Republic. Why else would the state have made exception after exception for him?
Tolliver thought of the three suits of powered armor Ethan had built for the military.
Ever since the state had released word of those three suits, the frequency of the Aurelian Republic's carrier strike groups conducting their so-called "patrols" near the Southern Sea and the Eastern Sea had visibly declined. When they did come to make trouble, they no longer dared to do it so brazenly. A single carrier group rarely came alone anymore. When they came, they came in formations of two or three groups together, as though a lone carrier no longer felt safe in waters the Republic could now contest.
The Aurelian Republic had issued statements describing the increased deployments as routine Pacific patrol activity. But anyone with eyes could see that the Aurelian Republic had been genuinely unsettled by three small devices. And the Republic of Valoria was enjoying the situation enormously. Simply by possessing the armor, by having it sit in a hangar, the Republic had raised the cost of a single Aurelian "patrol" by more than ten million. Such a bargain did not come along often.
A single casual invention, with that much strategic deterrent power.
And the inventor was not yet twenty years old.
Anyone could work out exactly how important this person was to the whole of the Republic. Set aside one Hidden Dragon program. A hundred of them would not be worth a single one of this young man's toes. And Tolliver was, at this moment, watching that irreplaceable young man walk deeper into a zone of energy that would kill a main battle tank.
Inside the armor, Ethan recognized that the colonel meant well. But at this specific critical moment, the steady stream of worried dissuasion was, frankly, becoming a distraction.
He muted the channel.
He took a deep breath, and continued deeper.
The instant he crossed into the inner zone, the arcs of electricity, as though they had located their prey, abandoned every other path and lunged toward him.
In the control room, every heart climbed into every throat.
An arc of current as thick as a forearm bridged a hundred meters of space and arrived in front of Ethan. Under everyone's gaze, in the next instant, it slammed into the surface of the armor.
Millions of volts, carrying a current to match, hammered into the Mark VII.
The impact of the energy flow drove Ethan back several steps.
A blinding flash, and the result of the first true exchange between the armor and the ultra-high voltage became clear.
In the control room, Tolliver stared at the screen, his eyes fixed.
The armor was still standing in the field. He let out a long breath.
Ethan had survived the first arc.
But the situation was not encouraging. The blow had been heavy, and it was clear that even the Mark VII's defenses had not fully absorbed it. On the abdomen of the armor, a deep electrical scorch mark had been burned into the plating. Sparks burst intermittently from the wound, broadcasting the severity of the damage the suit had just taken.
And that had been one arc. Countless more waited.
Inside the armor, Ethan was shaken as he looked at the red warning J.A.R.V.I.S. had thrown up.
He had considered the possibility in advance. But he only knew for certain after the real exchange. Millions of volts was no joke. Ethan would have bet that if a second arc struck the same spot, the Mark VII would not survive it. The suit could not, in its current configuration, withstand the inner zone head-on. Not unless he successfully synthesized Vibranium and integrated it into the armor's construction. Until then, trying to tank this voltage directly was wishful thinking.
But.
That was only as far as direct resistance went.
Against this terrifying high-voltage current, the Mark VII was not without means. It simply could not win the contest by enduring. It could win it a different way.
"J.A.R.V.I.S. Activate Second Mode."
The instant the command left him, the arcs of electricity surged up and surrounded him again.
"It's over. It's all over."
In the control room, Tolliver looked as though his soul had left his body. He slid down to the floor.
The first pilot of the Hidden Dragon program had not only failed. It had cost Ethan Mercer his life. It was the worst possible outcome conceivable, by a wide margin.
Tolliver could already imagine the scale of what the Republic was about to lose because of these few dozen seconds. And all of it was his fault for failing to stop the kid. He was a sinner against the entire country. If he had known, he would have ordered his soldiers to stop the young man out on the perimeter, by any means necessary, missiles included.
But it was far too late for that now.
Just as the colonel was being swallowed by despair and guilt, beside him, a technician suddenly cried out in startled delight.
"Everyone. Look."
Tolliver did not register the words at first.
"Mr. Mercer isn't dead."
Tolliver's head came up. He scrambled off the floor, abandoning every consideration of dignity.
"Show me. Let me see."
The technicians, catching the predatory intensity in the colonel's eyes, hurriedly cleared a path.
The image on the main screen entered Tolliver's view.
The armor on the screen was surrounded by countless arcs of electricity. But strangely, the moment those arcs touched its surface, they seemed to be tamed. The lethal hostility went out of them entirely. The blinding discharge, after circling the armor a few times, dissipated completely against the plating, drawn in and gone.
When the intense light faded, the Mark VII appeared on the screen once more.
It was the same armor. Outwardly, nothing seemed to have changed.
If there was a difference at all, it was the miniature reactor at the center of the chest plate.
Tolliver could not be certain it was not a trick of his eyes. But for a split second, he was almost sure the reactor was glowing slightly brighter than it had been before.
Inside the armor, Ethan watched J.A.R.V.I.S.'s status display with a flicker of genuine satisfaction.
The Second Mode was the Mark VII's answer to the energy problem, and it was the reason Ethan had not hesitated to walk into a zone that would have killed any other person on the planet.
The armor could not survive the inner zone by resisting the discharge. The materials science to tank a million volts head-on did not exist in his current build, and would not until he had Vibranium plating. But the Mark VII did not have to resist the discharge.
It could absorb it.
The Second Mode reconfigured the armor's external surface into a high-capacity energy intake. Rather than treating the incoming arcs as an attack to be deflected or endured, the suit treated them as a power source to be harvested. The lethal current that should have destroyed the armor was instead being routed, channeled, and stored, the suit's chest reactor accepting the overflow and converting the assault into reserve charge.
The arcs that should have killed him were, instead, charging him.
It was, Ethan reflected, a deeply elegant piece of engineering. The same principle that made the seabed reactors safe, that made his entire technology base coherent, applied here too. Energy was not the enemy. Energy was the entire point. The trick was never about building a wall strong enough to stop it. The trick was about building a system smart enough to use it.
And the inner zone of the conversion hub, the million-volt forbidden region that no human could approach, was, to a Mark VII running in Second Mode, simply an unusually generous power supply.
J.A.R.V.I.S.'s voice came quietly into the helmet.
"Sir. Second Mode stable. Intake nominal. Surface arc damage is being offset by the incoming charge faster than it accumulates. We can remain in the inner zone indefinitely. The breaker assembly is forty meters ahead."
Ethan adjusted his grip on the replacement circuit breaker still braced against his shoulder, set his stance against the pull of the arcs, and started walking forward, into the heart of the forbidden zone, toward the breaker that was going to save the city.
The arcs came for him with every step.
The armor drank every one of them.