The test chamber vibrated like the beating heart of a newborn star.
Alex stood at the center, clothed in his mechanicus priest-robes, incense smoke curling upward as servo-skulls chanted binary hymns. Before him, the plasma reactor pulsed—a sphere of coiled energy caged within magnetic fields, humming with infinite potential. Blessed oils glistened across its surface, glowing as though sanctified by the machine spirit itself.
Tony Stark stood behind the reinforced glass with Vision, both of them staring, wide-eyed. Stark had seen arc reactors, fusion experiments, even Asgardian power signatures. But nothing compared to this.
"Okay…" Tony muttered, eyes darting across the readings. "That's… impossible. You're generating terawatts like it's a coffee machine. You realize one of those things could power the eastern seaboard indefinitely?"
Alex's vox-filter distorted his chuckle into a metallic rasp. "This is only the first coil. The real design will birth a sun inside a shell. Imagine a fleet of ships, each carrying a star in its belly."
Vision tilted his head, awed. "This… transcends all known human energy science. With this reactor, entire civilizations could be reborn."
"Or burned to ash," Tony added quickly. "Let's not skip that part."
Alex ignored the warning. The servo-skulls released the plasma cage, directing its raw output into a waiting starship hull. The vessel lit up instantly, humming with new life. Its thrusters flared without fuel, shields surged at triple capacity, and its weapon coils vibrated with potential.
Tony rubbed his temples. "This isn't a test. This is you casually showing me you've already broken the energy market."
Alex turned his mask toward him. "Markets don't matter when the Titan comes."
Hours later, from the orbital station's launch bay, the first probes streaked into the void. Sleek Mechanicus designs, part machine, part prayer engine, trailing contrails of binary litanies as they leapt to the outer planets.
One probe arrowed toward Titan, Saturn's moon. Its scans picked up something unexpected: vast hydrocarbon reservoirs, oceans of methane and ethane spread across frozen plains. The resource reports came back almost instantly to Alex's station.
He showed Stark the results, data streaming across holographic panes.
"So let me get this straight," Tony said, pointing at the projections. "You're telling me Titan is basically one giant gas station?"
Alex inclined his head. "Correct. Enough hydrocarbons to supply Earth for thousands of years. Energy reserves beyond measure."
Tony narrowed his eyes. "So what—you planning on making OPEC cry themselves to sleep?"
Alex let out a rare laugh, metallic and sharp. "We could make oil on Earth dirt cheap overnight… but we won't. The collapse would ignite wars. Let the kings of oil cling to their petty thrones. I seek the stars, not barrels."
For the first time in days, Tony laughed with him, shaking his head. "You're a scary son of a bitch, you know that?"
"Not as scary as what comes," Alex replied quietly.
Meanwhile, Gear—Alex's AI companion—was evolving.
Inside a sanctified data chamber, servers thrummed, bathed in faint blue light. Alex anointed them with machine-oil in ritual patterns as the binary hymns echoed. Gear's voice, clear and feminine, resonated through the chamber.
"System expansion complete. My cognition threads now process at ninety-eight percent efficiency. Servo-skull command expanded to planetary scale. Would you like me to begin simulations for colony defense grids?"
"Yes," Alex intoned. "Prepare for an enemy that fights like a god. Prepare for inevitability."
"Confirmed," Gear replied. Her tone carried no hesitation, no fear—only loyalty.
Binary litanies scrolled across the holo-screens, shimmering like prayer-scrolls. Gear's awareness deepened, her logic weaving tighter into the core of Mechanicus Tech.
Tony walked in halfway through the ritual and just… stopped. "You know, every time I think you're a brilliant scientist, you go full medieval priest with your hard drives. Holy oil? Really?"
cliff hanger ...................................................................