Sean's heart jolted, his surprise even showing on his face, "Ultron?"
He hadn't expected the major event that was supposed to occur after the Battle of New York to arrive so prematurely.
In the original timeline, the Avengers officially formed after repelling the Chitauri invasion and purging the remnants of HYDRA...
It was then that Tony obtained Loki's scepter, embedded with the Mind Stone, which became the foundation for creating Ultron. But now, none of the six Infinity Stones had surfaced... only the Space Stone, known as the Tesseract, remained sealed within S.H.I.E.L.D.
Tony tapped his empty glass, the alcohol stoking the fiery passion deep within him. He leaned closer to Sean, who stood behind the bar, and whispered, "I want to put armor around the world. This fragile blue planet needs Ultron."
Uncontainable excitement like molten lava erupting from a volcano threatened to burst Tony's heart.
The idea of creating Ultron had lingered in his mind for a long time, but it wasn't until the Hulk's appearance shattered his dream of single-handedly protecting the world that he resolved to bring Ultron to life.
Tony's head tilted toward Sean as he spoke softly, "You know J.A.R.V.I.S., my AI butler... He manages my life, commands my suits, and aside from Pepper, he handles more than anyone else. But in the beginning, he was just a natural language user interface. I kept adding functions and data to that framework, and then, at some point, J.A.R.V.I.S. was born."
Sean set down his glass of Scotch and pondered before asking, "So you want to create an artificial intelligence, just like J.A.R.V.I.S.?"
"No, something far more powerful. It will command my Iron Legion. I'm planning mass-produced armor. The entire planet will be under its surveillance. Major crises and terrorist attacks can be stopped before they even happen..."
"Wait, Tony." Sean raised a hand, his gaze piercing as he studied the overly excited Iron Man, "Your plan is riddled with problems. The most critical one being who controls it? Assuming Ultron is successfully created, who wields this sword of Damocles hanging over humanity? You? Or S.H.I.E.L.D.? And how do you ensure Ultron won't... betray humanity?"
Tony froze. Sean's words were like a bucket of cold water, briefly dousing the flames in his heart. But after a moment, his eyes gleamed again.
Sean shook his head with a wry smile. There was no way a few words would dissuade someone as stubbornly confident as Stark.
Among the elite ranks of the Avengers, Iron Man was undoubtedly a true genius. Unlike Bruce Banner, Tony wasn't just a scholar in the sciences. He had a far more visionary perspective.
As Captain America would say, every time someone tries to win a war before it starts, innocent people die...
But Tony always aimed for immediate, sweeping solutions... This was a trait born from his genius-level arrogance. He didn't care if others couldn't keep up, he only focused on achieving his goals as efficiently as possible.
Often, this meant his good intentions led to disastrous outcomes...
"These issues–"
"Alright, convincing the world's top genius clearly isn't within my abilities." Sean cut off Tony's rebuttal with a resigned sigh, "Take me to see Reed. He must be in your underground lab I presume."
The Iron Man armor detached automatically, its components disassembling around the arc reactor in his chest. Tony stepped out, then after calling for Pepper, he slung an arm around Sean's shoulders and led him down the stairs to his expansive private laboratory.
Reed was rapidly typing away at a computer, his elastic arms stretching freely as he simultaneously designed an interface and filled it with massive amounts of data.
In the holographic projection J.A.R.V.I.S. displayed, a colossal data stream took shape. It was the embryonic form of the Ultron program.
"Hey, Sean. I knew Stark would bring you here." The sight of the young man didn't surprise Mr. Fantastic in the slightest, "Completing Ultron's design, generating a functional interface, and evolving it into true artificial intelligence... the workload and difficulty are immense."
When it came to scientific research, Reed shed his usual reticence and became downright talkative, "We don't even have a basic reference point. J.A.R.V.I.S.'s data alone isn't enough. That's why I thought of you and Umbrella's Red Queen. I've seen what that little girl can do. She could serve as Ultron's framework!"
Sean glanced at Tony. So this was their real goal. Without the Mind Stone from the original timeline, even the combined intellects of Iron Man and Mr. Fantastic couldn't truly create Ultron.
They needed external assistance... and Umbrella's AI was their first choice. Using the Red Queen and J.A.R.V.I.S. to refine Ultron's programming was an interesting idea.
What they didn't know, however, was that the Red Queen was merely a subsidiary thread of Skynet. If Ultron's program incorporated her data, it would be leaving a backdoor open for Skynet...
"I don't mind providing the Red Queen as a reference." Sean shrugged in agreement.
Tony and Reed exchanged an excited high-five.
Mr. Fantastic eagerly began explaining Ultron's nascent form, pulling up the mostly completed foundational framework: "I've embedded Ultron with basic commands for autonomous learning and reasoning, hoping it can develop human-like cognitive abilities. The highest-priority directive in its core command library is protecting Earth's safety, and no one can alter that..."
"How long until you can complete it?" Sean asked curiously.
He was genuinely eager to see what Ultron would look like when crafted by the combined genius of Tony Stark and Reed Richards. Meteorologist Edward Lorenz once said that the flap of a butterfly's wings in the Amazon could cause a tornado in Texas two weeks later.
This referred to how even the tiniest initial conditions, when amplified, could lead to vastly different future outcomes.
Sean, being a butterfly that shouldn't have existed, had already begun altering this world's fixed trajectory.
"It won't happen anytime soon." Reed hesitated. Even with the Red Queen's enhancements, Ultron wouldn't be born overnight.
The three of them holed up in the basement, discussing Ultron's design philosophy and filling in the rudimentary framework.
Tony wanted to encase the world in impenetrable armor, shielding it from all harm, while Reed saw this as a feasible and monumental plan. The two were in perfect sync, with Sean merely providing the Red Queen's initial data.
Of course, anything related to Skynet remained classified within the core database, accessible only to Sean himself.
It wasn't until Pepper came down to call them for dinner that the trio realized how much time had flown by. Lifting their heads from the staggering volume of data, they exchanged glances and burst into hearty laughter.
Reed smoothed his disheveled hair and headed upstairs first, no doubt to face Susan's complaints. Sean, however, stopped Tony, who wore a relaxed smile.
"Why tell me all this? You definitely haven't told Pepper or S.H.I.E.L.D., so why me? Because of the Red Queen?" The young man gazed at Ultron, now steadily accumulating more modules and data, his eyes reflecting complex emotions.
Tony paused, his face half-hidden in the shadows of the overhead lights.
After a long silence, he answered, "Maybe because you're just an ordinary person, Sean. Those superheroes who fly around and seem invincible... they're no different from anyone else. They feel fear, terror, even despair..."
"...Most people don't see that. The despairing masses don't realize that beneath the armor and masks, superheroes are flesh and blood too. They can be beaten, killed, erased."
Tony stepped onto the stairs, hesitating briefly before adding quietly, "And like I said before, I don't have many friends."