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Inside the armor, watching the energy percentage climb steadily on the holographic display, Ethan felt a wave of appreciation for the engineering he was wearing.
This was, after all, the suit that had gone toe to toe with Thor in the first of the Avengers films.
Beyond its formidable defensive capability and the substantial arsenal mounted across its frame, the Mark VII possessed another genuinely overpowered ability: energy absorption. In Stark's initial clash with Thor, this exact function had been demonstrated on screen. Thor's lightning, ranging from hundreds of millions to billions of volts, had been something the armor could ultimately process and turn to its own advantage. Against that benchmark, the mere million-volt arcs of the conversion hub were trivial.
With Second Mode active, the arcs that had posed a fatal threat moments earlier now posed no obstacle whatsoever. The overflowing energy still rushed toward Ethan relentlessly, but apart from making the chest reactor glow a little brighter with each strike, it accomplished nothing.
These were the kinds of details about Marvel-universe technology that lived only in Ethan's head, drawn from the System's source materials. No one else in the world knew the reference. To everyone watching, the armor was simply, impossibly, drinking lightning.
In the control room, the staff finally felt the crushing weight lift from their chests. They did not dare imagine the punishment they would have faced if anything had happened to Ethan Mercer on their watch.
Beside them, Colonel Tolliver's eyes were wider than a bull's.
Several million volts. Modern humanity had no method of withstanding energy at that magnitude. The only options were to avoid the current entirely or to channel it safely into the ground, the way a lightning rod protected a tall building. Those were the only two strategies that existed.
And yet, in front of his eyes, Ethan's armor had taken no evasive measures at all. It was standing in the heart of the discharge and stubbornly absorbing every lethal impact.
And it was worse than that.
The armor was not merely surviving the ultra-high-voltage current. It was absorbing it and converting it into stored energy for its own reactor.
Is he using the most lethal voltage on the planet as a power bank?
Tolliver had heard of harvesting solar energy. He had heard of tidal energy. He had never, in his life, heard of harvesting ultra-high-voltage electrical discharge, because the entire engineering world considered it an impossibility. At this rate, in a few years, humanity might be charging its phones from lightning strikes.
As Ethan advanced, he reached the core of the conversion facility.
Through the dazzling light, he finally got a clear view of the whole assembly. The conventional transmission wiring, overtaxed by the surge, was already faintly emitting the smell of scorched insulation. Without prompt replacement, a citywide blackout across Ashford was inevitable. The converter linking the new and old lines, which Ethan had personally supervised during construction, was sound, no issues there. The only damaged component was the ultra-high-voltage circuit breaker.
When Ethan's gaze settled on the failed device, his expression darkened.
With his expertise, the root cause was immediately obvious, and it was not what the field technicians had assumed. The breaker had not failed because of a blown fuse or substandard manufacturing. The breaker had failed because of an extremely tiny missing component at its core.
A flaw that small would have been nearly impossible to catch during a standard factory inspection. Under ordinary operating conditions, it might never have manifested at all. But under extreme conditions, under the several-million-volt pressure of a deliberate overload, the minute defect was magnified without limit, and it became the single point of failure that brought the entire Hidden Dragon program's first night to the brink of disaster.
If Ethan had not previously acquired the new-energy armor and this flight pod, a catastrophic electrical accident tonight would have been unavoidable.
He thought about the bizarre surge in Ashford's consumption earlier in the evening, and the missing component in the breaker, and the two facts clicked together into a single picture. This was not a malfunction. This was a conspiracy aimed squarely at him.
As for who was behind it, Ethan already had a strong suspicion.
But the immediate priority was not to chase the mastermind. The immediate priority was the breaker in front of him. He set the suspicion aside, shifted the replacement unit on his shoulder, and got to work.
Meanwhile, at the Sterling Energy branch office in Ashford City, Daniel Brandt, the project manager sent down from headquarters, sat in his borrowed office, working through a cigarette and a great deal of internal conflict.
He was pulled in two directions, and both directions hurt.
On one side, he hoped the scheme would fail. He had worked in the energy industry long enough to understand, completely, what the Hidden Dragon program's success would mean for the entire nation. And as a citizen of the Republic, he wanted his country to grow stronger and more prosperous. He did not want to be the man who sabotaged that.
On the other side, as a father, he could only pray for a successful citywide blackout in Ashford. He could only pray that Rouse's scheme worked, that the police came for him, that he was taken away in handcuffs. Because only then would Rouse fund his son's treatment. Only then would the boy be saved.
It was an unbearable place to sit, hoping simultaneously for his country's success and for his own ruin, because his child's life depended on the second outcome.
While Brandt was lost in this, Aaron Shaw, the branch manager, having pieced together what was happening, came in.
The door slammed against the wall.
Shaw walked in with a grim face, crossed straight to the desk, and without a word punched Brandt in the face.
The forty-something project manager could not take the blow. He spat blood and went down, unable to immediately get back up.
Shaw was not finished. He stepped forward, grabbed Brandt by the collar, hauled him up, and snarled into his face.
"Brandt."
"Since you arrived in Ashford, have I treated you badly even once? I gave you and your headquarters people every courtesy. Good food, good lodging, full cooperation. And now you turn around and bury me in this. Why."
Brandt tilted his head, spat the clotted blood from his mouth, and produced a bitter, helpless smile.
"I have my reasons. But you're right. I dragged you into it, and you didn't deserve it. If you want to hit me again, go ahead."
The defiant, beyond-caring resignation in the man's face drained the fight out of Shaw. He released the collar and slid down to sit on the floor.
"Do you understand what we've done? Sabotaging a flagship national project at the most sensitive possible moment. We are both going to prison. Both of us. What in the world could be worth that. What could possibly be worth your freedom."
The mention of New Future, and the shape of the scheme, triggered a sudden flash of understanding in Shaw. His head came up.
"It's Rouse. Isn't it."
Brandt did not answer, which was answer enough.
"Of course it's Rouse. He's the only one with an irreconcilable grudge against New Future. He's the only one with the capability and the sheer nerve to make a move during a window this sensitive."
The realization stripped away every trace of Shaw's long-held deference toward his superior. He cursed, viciously.
"That son of a bitch. I followed him for years. If I never made a major contribution, I at least worked myself to the bone for him. And now, the moment it serves him, he drops this on my head without so much as a phone call. A rotten, gutless businessman like that deserves exactly what New Future is going to do to him."
He vented for a while, and then, gradually, he steadied. When he spoke again, his tone had shifted toward persuasion.
"Brandt. Listen to me. I don't know what Rouse promised you. I'm not going to pretend I understand whatever situation you're in. But what could possibly matter more than your own freedom? Whatever happens here tonight, it is not going to escape the state's attention. New Future has the full backing of the cabinet. When the investigation comes, and it will come, we are both going to prison."
He pushed himself up off the floor.
"So here's what I think we should do. We go, right now, and we shut down the metallurgical equipment ourselves. We stop the overload before it does permanent damage. And then we expose Rouse. We turn on him. We hand the state everything. Names, orders, the whole scheme. It might count for something. It might be the difference between a sentence and atonement."
He looked down at Brandt, still on the floor, still bleeding from the mouth.
"Whatever he promised you, Brandt, you can't collect on it from a prison cell, and you can't collect on it if you're dead. There has to be a better way out of this than the one he gave you. Help me shut it down. Then we deal with the rest together."
Brandt looked up at him.
For a long moment, the father who had hoped for his own arrest, who had been prepared to trade his freedom for his son's life, said nothing.
Then, slowly, he began to consider that perhaps the impossible choice Rouse had handed him was not the only choice on the table after all.