"And we're not that inhumane either."
"In order to make sure company secrets aren't leaked while still showing that we care about our people, brain-control chip technology was born."
"It can cut off your neural perception under any circumstances, even if you're captured by spies or intelligence agencies and tortured for information, so you won't be forced to talk under pain."
"And more importantly, it can take over your body in combat. With its assistance, even an ordinary person can fight at three hundred percent efficiency."
"As for safety, you can rest easy. There absolutely won't be any problems."
After seeing the two of them freeze in shock at the final page, the one about the brain-control chip, Killian patiently explained it to them.
For him, accepting the company's brain-control chip was basically the same as placing your life in the company's hands, so he was always willing to be patient in situations like this.
In fact, if Killian himself had not been the one handling this, the company would have very humanely given them half a month to think it over.
Refusing was not a problem either.
It would just mean they could not touch the company's core projects and would instead be assigned to peripheral work step by step.
And to make the company's ranking system even more attractive, every employee could receive three free T-3 antiviral injections no questions asked, while T-2 and T-1 would be given free to all core project members and project leads.
That was not even counting the hidden benefits, housing, cars, and plenty more.
"This..."
After hearing Killian's explanation, Anton clearly hesitated.
Setting the safety of the procedure aside, the idea of placing his life in someone else's hands from now on filled him with concern.
Ivan, however, was far more straightforward.
Before his father could even fully react, he had already picked up a pen and signed his name.
Seeing that his son had already done it, Anton said nothing more and could only resign himself to signing as well.
"Welcome. From this moment on, you've officially joined AIM."
"Starting today, both of you are senior employees of the company. Ivan, for the next period of time, your priority is taking care of your father. Once your health is fully restored, the company will assign you new work."
"And the company is equipped with an AI assistant. If you have any questions or need anything, just tell it."
Once the signed contracts were taken away by the secretary, Killian smiled and spoke to the two of them.
Then, after exchanging a few more pleasantries, he headed outside.
Meanwhile, Ivan began receiving a T-1 antiviral serum injection in the medical room.
...
On the other side, after all of that had been handled, Killian received another piece of good news.
The three-million-square-meter plot in the Miami suburbs that had been purchased for AIM's innovation campus had finally been completed.
It had cost hundreds of billions of dollars, consumed an enormous amount of manpower and material resources, and in the later phase had been fully handed over to AIM's robotic construction teams, which worked around the clock, twenty-four hours a day.
After ten months of nonstop effort, it was finally done, the largest technology innovation park in human history.
From now on, AIM employees would no longer need to work inside an overcrowded business park packed with dozens of other companies.
That same evening, Killian personally went to inspect the entire innovation campus.
The campus was mainly divided into four zones.
First was the office zone, responsible for public reception and everyday operations. The centerpiece there was the one-hundred-story central tower.
Floors 1 through 30 were open work areas accessible to the outside world.
Everything above the 30th floor was reserved for company executives.
The top floors, 90 through 100, belonged exclusively to Killian.
The 100th floor was designed as a private leisure level, with a lounge, gym, library, bar, and even a semi-open rooftop landing pad.
That part had been directly inspired by the top-floor layout of Stark Tower.
And on top of that, there was a stealth helicopter kept on standby there twenty-four hours a day, with performance and efficiency several times better than the helicopters currently in use.
Floors 90 through 99 had been specially built for Killian as a multifunctional laboratory integrating research, fabrication, and production.
From biological cloning work to mechanical manufacturing, everything had been concentrated there.
It was basically a miniaturized factory.
There were some technologies Killian needed to complete personally, and this was where he would do it.
As the head of the company, there were certain projects he could not conveniently let the outside world know about, so he would handle them here himself, sometimes with the help of a few trusted subordinates.
Below that, the office floors were assigned according to rank and function, and even if not every space would be used immediately, almost every position had one reserved.
Aside from that, there was also the product showcase zone.
That was where AIM's newest products would be displayed and opened to the public for hands-on体验.
At the moment, the zone featured the companion robot, Baymax, holographic projection technology, and the newly upgraded Pioneer smartphone.
One especially noteworthy point was that with holographic projection technology maturing, more and more game developers had started focusing on it.
And because AIM had opened up free external licensing for the platform, countless game companies had already begun adapting their existing games to it and launching them there.
Unexpectedly, the results had been exceptionally good.
In fact, you barely needed anything except an open space, and people could play all day without stopping.
That caused holographic projection to explode in popularity all over again.
Still, that was a matter for the gaming side of things. As far as Killian was concerned, steady technological development remained the proper path.
After touring the research zone and the manufacturing zone in turn, Killian finally arrived beneath the tower, where the underground research base had been built to the highest defensive standards.
What made this base different from the others was the enormous underground superstructure directly beneath it, a cavernous space the size of dozens of football fields.
Inside it, several colossal steel frames seventy to eighty meters tall were gradually being assembled by construction robots.
And there, just as expected, was Otto, the doctor who had originally overseen controlled nuclear fusion.
"Otto, how's it going?"
After taking a transparent elevator down to the central platform and spotting Otto standing there with blueprints in hand, carefully watching the robots at work, Killian asked.
"Boss! Everything is progressing normally."
"At the current pace, if nothing goes wrong, the first nuclear-powered mech can be completed within a year."
Hearing Killian's voice, Otto, who had been so focused on the plans that he did not notice him at first, looked around before finally spotting Killian behind him. Then he immediately answered with respect.
To be honest, after successfully completing controlled nuclear fusion, he had thought the boss would have him settle into some other advanced research project.
What he had not expected was for AIM to begin a project this massive instead, a nuclear-powered mech program.
At this point, the money being burned on it every month was painful even for him to watch.
Tens of millions of dollars poured out like water as materials were purchased nonstop.
It had been less than four months, and they had already burned through tens of billions.
And that was before even getting into the core systems still waiting ahead: the specially designed nuclear turbine engine, the ultra-torque drive system, the high-performance gyroscopic stabilizer, plasma cannon, energy blaster, intelligent tracking munitions he wanted to add, and more.
All in all, even with finished blueprints and labor on hand, Otto still needed a huge amount of time to push the progress forward.
One year was already the absolute minimum, with his schedule compressed to the extreme. He was basically living in nonstop work mode.
"That's fine. There's no need to rush this. Just take care of your health."
"This is going to be one of the pillars of our future. Whether AIM can truly rise to its feet when the era of explosive technological growth arrives will depend on you, Otto."
After hearing Otto's report, Killian patted him on the shoulder and spoke earnestly.
"Don't worry, Boss. Building it is only a matter of time."
"Still, there's something I want to ask. Could you clear something up for me?"
Otto nodded, but he clearly still had a question weighing on him.
Although working at AIM meant he technically only needed to do his own job well, sometimes he still did not want to remain completely in the dark about the bigger picture.
"Of course. Go ahead."
Killian nodded for him to continue.
"Please forgive my bluntness, Boss, but in the current age of warfare, I honestly can't imagine what kind of role a giant mech like this is supposed to play."
"In terms of destructive power, a single nuke can do far more than it. In terms of mobility, yes, maybe it's agile for something that size, but by modern standards it's still basically a giant target."
"In fact, because of its scale, soldiers aren't even necessary. Anybody with a gun could hit it."
"So, Boss, I truly don't understand the practical battlefield value of a giant mech like this."
"And beyond that, the standards for a suitable pilot would be extremely strict."
"Honestly, if you replaced this with something closer to the normal-sized combat robots Stark just released, I'd be confident I could build something even better with our current technology."
Once Killian gave him permission, Otto finally voiced the deepest doubt he had been carrying this whole time.
In his mind, small mechs made sense. They could combine mobility, heavy firepower, and manageable operating cost, making them a natural weapon of future tech warfare.
But giant mechs?
Those seemed useless.
At best, they looked like walking fire magnets.
Unless AIM could also invent a true energy shield.
But if that became the goal, then the technological requirement jumped to an entirely different level.
The power source might already exist.
Shield technology did not.
And without some kind of force-field protection, a steel machine like this would probably get crippled by a few missile salvos.
More importantly, even from the current stage of development and spending, Otto could already tell that one finished machine would never cost less than one hundred billion dollars to build.
Even after the process stabilized and the tech matured, the final price would still be unlikely to drop below fifty billion.
And fifty billion dollars meant something.
To put it in perspective, in 1990 a W80-1 nuclear warhead with a fifty to one-hundred-fifty-kiloton TNT yield cost about seven hundred twenty thousand dollars. Even adjusting upward for modern cost increases and higher-yield weapons, a huge-yield nuclear weapon still only cost around a million dollars, and even that was arguably above its real production value.
Which meant that once this giant mech project moved from development into full production, and all the technology matured, the cost of one mech at fifty billion dollars would be comparable to fifty thousand high-yield nuclear warheads.
And that was without even factoring in hydrogen bombs, which were more devastating for the same cost.
What did fifty thousand high-yield nukes represent?
Enough to overturn the surface of the world.
Enough to wipe out the United States twenty times over.
Enough to destroy every country on the planet ten times.
It would not destroy Earth itself, but it could absolutely change climate, destroy ecosystems, trigger ice-age conditions, and wipe out vast amounts of life.
That was the scale of value being poured into a giant mech.
And beyond being huge and carrying futuristic weapons, it did not seem to offer anything else.
Surely the boss was not already thinking about future space wars?
But even there it did not make sense.
If civilizations were already fighting across the stars, who would still be playing close-range boarding battles with oversized humanoid machines instead of just firing planet-killer beams and energy batteries from a distance?
Thanks to the explosion of sci-fi films in recent years, Otto had watched plenty of them for inspiration.
And to be fair, a lot of real research began from concepts someone else first proposed in fiction, only for later scientists to refine and realize them.
That was why he had developed a basic working assumption.
Even in space warfare, he still could not see where this thing would fit.
From a normal perspective, Otto's doubts were completely reasonable.
But this was the Marvel universe.
A setting where even the greatest conquerors in the cosmos still settled things with melee weapons.
Did Otto really expect them all to fight sensibly with long-range annihilation technology?
"I admit your argument makes a lot of sense."
"For warfare on Earth, compared to modern military doctrine, a machine like this really doesn't have much practical value."
"But what if you change the perspective?"
"What if the war becomes a planetary war, and this becomes humanity's landing infantry platform?"
"Yes, a nuclear bomb or hydrogen bomb can obliterate a zone or destroy a facility. But the essence of war is occupation. It's control. It's plunder. And to do that, in the end, you still need people. You still need infantry."
"And turning infantry into mech-equipped assault units is one of the most effective ways to reduce casualties while drastically improving individual combat power."
"Trust me. In future warfare, this will absolutely become mainstream."
"And AIM isn't going to limit itself to Earth forever."
"Otto, our goal is the stars. Since we already have the capital, the manpower, and the conditions, why wouldn't we prepare that step in advance?"
After listening to Otto's concerns, Killian answered with a smile.
Never mind the final battles of the future, where both sides ultimately fell back on massive frontline troop warfare. Even in some of the most iconic interstellar conflicts, like the all-gold Sovereign fleets, they still relied mainly on remotely operated fighters and energy salvos in orbital combat.
Under those conditions, close-range combat was practically guaranteed to remain relevant.
So why not prepare for it now?
Of course, the real key was that with his current technological prestige, the points needed to exchange the Jaeger design were actually cheap, because on its own it did not contain much truly exotic black tech.
Aside from the plasma cannon and the drift system, AIM already possessed the most important component, nuclear energy.
So exchanging the design for a giant mech had been easy.
And besides... who said this thing would be useless on a planetary battlefield? Who said it had to remain a giant target?
Killian had already set his sights on energy shielding.
That concept already existed in plenty of science fiction and in parts of Marvel itself.
In fact, even before his reincarnation, British scientists had already been working on a primitive version of such protection.
The principle was to use electrical pulses to block attacks from rockets, shells, and similar projectiles.
The method involved combining supercapacitor materials with a vehicle's armor, turning the armor into a massive battery. When the vehicle detected an incoming attack, the stored energy would be discharged across the armor, generating a powerful electromagnetic field.
The scientists working on it claimed that this field would form a brief protective barrier that could deflect incoming projectiles. Even if it only lasted a fraction of a second, if timed correctly, it could prevent a direct rocket impact from producing a successful explosion. And because the supercapacitors could recharge rapidly, the system could also defend against repeated attacks.
This was essentially electromagnetic armor shielding.
Yes, it was lower-tier than a true energy barrier.
But it still proved one thing.
With current science, something along these lines was absolutely possible.
The real problem had always been energy.
(End of Chapter)
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