Hearing the voice, Tony and Stephen turned their heads simultaneously.
"Look who's here? The God Among Men has come to inspect the mortal realm," Tony teased. "Want a drink? Whiskey?"
"If you have fresh milk, I'll take a glass," Homelander replied.
Tony casually took a bottle of milk from the refrigerator nearby and tossed it over.
Homelander caught it steadily, unscrewed the cap, and took a sip.
Then he turned to look at Stephen and proactively extended his hand.
"Nice to meet you, Dr. Strange. I've heard a lot about you."
"Mr. Homelander." Stephen reached out to shake it.
"Just call me Anthony; there are no outsiders here," Homelander said, retracting his hand with a relaxed tone. "I heard from Tony that you're a genius."
"He doesn't usually praise me like that," Stephen glanced at Tony.
"I'm always honest behind people's backs," Tony shrugged.
It was also the first time Strange had met this boss, who was revered as a god, in a private setting.
He carefully examined Homelander.
There was no condescending arrogance, nor the aggressive pressure characteristic of those in power.
The affability Homelander displayed in front of the cameras was surprisingly identical in private.
This consistency in his demeanor couldn't help but make Strange feel favorably toward him.
The three of them chatted briefly about the progress of the experiment.
When he heard that the Braindance technology had achieved a substantial breakthrough, Homelander nodded with satisfaction.
But he didn't dwell on that for too long; instead, he threw out a core question.
"I've read your clinical reports. Progress is fast, but I have a critical question."
Homelander's gaze swept between the two, his tone somewhat serious.
"How do you plan to solve the problem of cyberpsychosis?"
Upon hearing this question.
Tony and Stephen exchanged glances, both of their expressions becoming grave.
This was the first time they had heard this specific term.
But just from the literal meaning, the two smart men immediately understood its implication, and it was also the biggest pain point they had encountered in recent clinical trials.
Previously, when using Tony's external, wearable version, although the functionality was limited, the volunteers had no abnormalities.
But ever since Stephen took the lead on deep human augmentation, problems had appeared.
A small portion of the volunteers who participated in the augmentation began to exhibit a series of bizarre behaviors one week after recovering from surgery.
Intermittent irritability, auditory hallucinations, a desire for destruction, and even occasional cognitive dissociation.
Although the initial symptoms were not obvious, they would only get worse in the long run.
Stephen and Tony called it "Neuro-Dissociative Syndrome," but the term "cyberpsychosis" from Homelander was clearly more fitting.
"Cyberpsychosis..." Tony repeated the term in a low voice. "A very fitting name."
"Currently, we are helpless against this symptom," Stephen frankly admitted the predicament.
"We hired the best team of psychology experts in the Federation," Tony added. "Those guys who charge ten thousand dollars an hour talked to them for hours.
"In the end, they couldn't even categorize the symptoms."
"I plan to recruit another hundred brain specialists to overcome this difficulty."
After hearing this, Homelander slowly shook his head.
"Finding another two hundred won't help. Cyberpsychosis is not a realm that psychologists can solve, and it certainly isn't something that can be suppressed by a few Prozac pills."
Tony and Stephen frowned.
"Why?" Stephen asked.
"Cyberpsychosis is, in essence, a chronic terminal illness born from a combination of physiological overload and psychological trauma," Homelander explained.
"In fact, every implant is frantically plundering the bandwidth that originally belonged to the human native nervous system."
"The brain needs to forcibly adapt to those electrical signals that do not belong to carbon-based life."
"Over time, this leads to chronic pain and hormonal secretion disorders. When he looks at himself in the mirror,"
"they will start to wonder, 'Am I still human? What is the difference between me and a vending machine on the side of the road?'"
"The distortion of self-cognition, combined with the continuous overload of the nervous system, forms a vicious cycle."
"Ultimately, they become what I call cyberpsychosis."
After listening, Stephen and Tony both fell into deep thought.
"It sounds like this path might not work, Anthony," Tony frowned. "If you're right, perhaps we can only stop the advancement of human augmentation technology and return to external gear?"
"Don't give up so quickly..." Homelander encouraged.
"Don't always try to find solutions from a scientific perspective," Homelander threw out his suggestion. "Change your mindset. For example, the end of science... is mysticism?"
The laboratory was silent for two seconds.
Then, Tony let out a scoff.
"Mysticism? Do you mean gods like Thor who fly around swinging a hammer?"
"I feel they are just aliens who have mastered high-end technology; in essence, it's still science."
"Your feeling isn't entirely correct, but it's not wrong either," Homelander didn't completely deny Tony's judgment.
"But the mysticism I'm talking about is something from another dimension."
"For example... the soul."
"The soul?" Stephen raised an eyebrow and pursed his lips.
"Mr. Homelander, I have seen countless dissected brains."
"Brain matter, nerves, blood vessels... but I have never found a single gram of substance called the soul in any of their crevices."
"The soul is merely a placebo fabricated by carbon-based organisms to mask their fear of death."
Stephen said firmly.
Tony chimed in from the side: "Hear that, Anthony? The top neurosurgeon has spoken. If you want to discuss God or the soul with us, turn left when you go out; there's a church two blocks away."
"Oh, is that so?"
Homelander looked at these two stubborn geniuses, knowing that words alone wouldn't wake them up.
He took a step forward without warning, moving so fast that the two of them couldn't react in time.
He extended both palms and pressed them against Tony's and Strange's chests, respectively.
"Hum——"
Tony and Strange only felt their vision go black, and an intense sensation of weightlessness swept over their entire bodies.
The next second.
Their vision returned.
But the scene before them stunned these two knowledgeable geniuses.
"What the f*ck! Hell! What happened?!"
Tony screamed in terror; he found himself floating in mid-air, his feet unable to touch the ground at all.
What shocked him even more was that he saw, one meter in front of him,
another Tony Stark standing there with his eyes closed, motionless, his body still maintaining the posture of having been pushed by Homelander.
He looked down at his own hands, which appeared in a semi-transparent, phantom state.
"Is this a holographic projection? Or a Braindance hallucination?!" Tony flailed his arms, trying to grab the experimental table next to him, but his hand passed directly through the tabletop.
"Incredible... Am I dead?"
Compared to Tony's panic, Stephen Strange's reaction was much better.
Although he was also shocked by this scene that defied his cognition, his pupils shaking, he didn't scream and shout like Tony.
He looked down at his own hands.
No scars, no signal transmission lines.
These were his "Hands of God," steady as a rock, from before his car accident.
***************************
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