"That's obviously impossible. Nanotechnology hasn't been applied to Sentinel robots on a large scale yet."
Magneto caught the source of Fenris's surprise and explained, "Before we launched our sudden strike, their Sentinel robots were being iterated at a rate of roughly once every three years.
"Whether it's nanotechnology or the various materials used for the body, everything is still in the exploration stage."
"I see."
Fenris nodded, then asked, "So do we have any way to counter the Sentinels yet?"
"No. These machines were designed from the start to be highly targeted. Until Hank's research produces results, it'll be very difficult for us to come up with an effective countermeasure."
Magneto shook his head. "Now that they know we've discovered their plan, they'll definitely accelerate their research. They're in the dark and we're in the open. It'll be very hard for us to keep up with their pace.
"Once this war begins, it's destined not to end easily. If we want to gradually seize the initiative, then the only way is to dig out every last one of their bases and wipe them out completely."
"But our biggest problem right now is that we have no idea where their main base is..."
Professor X let out a sigh and rolled his wheelchair out from behind the table. "Now that the Arctic base has been destroyed, they'll hide themselves even more carefully. If we want to drag Bolivar out with precision, it'll be next to impossible."
Even a clearly non-core Arctic research base had been outfitted with countless psychic shielding devices. Even with Cerebro, a full carpet search by Professor X would require an enormous amount of time.
"Who says we can't find them?"
Listening to the three of them openly discussing everything in front of him, while he repeatedly failed to get a word in, Nick Fury seized the first opening he saw and finally spoke, drawing all their attention to himself.
"What do you mean?"
Fenris turned and looked at Fury's hologram.
"Kid, there are a lot of things brute force can't accomplish. But that doesn't mean power can't."
"If it can't be done, that only proves one thing: your clearance isn't high enough."
Nick Fury smiled slightly, unable to hide the satisfaction in his eyes. "As it happens, I'm exactly the man with clearance high enough."
As he spoke, he projected a huge world map into the middle of the conference room.
Immediately afterward, several large red markers were highlighted by Fury.
"These places I've marked are all projects that, over the past several decades, consumed enormous amounts of money, manpower, and material resources, despite their purpose remaining unknown.
"Without exception, every one of these projects had all traces of its existence erased after completion by certain people. Only a few scattered, obscure clues remain, enough to let us infer a little.
"They're spread all over the world. Even Antarctica, the most remote of places, has them."
"After investigating and filtering things down over this period, I marked the locations most likely to be connected to Bolivar Trask. Those are what you're looking at now."
Seeing the three of them staring intently at the map, Fury added, "Compared to searching blindly like before, like looking for a needle in a haystack, narrowing the scope this time should make things easier for you."
"The Arctic, Antarctica, the Americas..."
Fenris's eyes moved back and forth across the map. There were dozens of marked locations in total.
Judging by the scale of the Arctic base, which had housed several thousand Sentinel robots, if all of these marked sites were bases built by Bolivar, then the total number of Sentinels might already exceed tens of thousands.
And once wartime production began, that number would become even more terrifying.
"This is horrifying..."
Professor X murmured to himself.
Against a sky-darkening tide of Sentinels, most Level One, Level Two, and even Level Three mutants would have almost no ability to resist, aside from a very small number of exceptional individuals.
Magneto also fell silent. His fists clenched tightly, as though he wanted to strike immediately and sweep every one of those bases off the map.
"Sokovia?"
A web of dense lines spread across the map. Fenris's gaze shifted, and suddenly he spotted a familiar place name.
It too had been marked in red.
"Director Fury, are you sure your intelligence is accurate?"
Fenris pointed at the red marker representing Sokovia. "The military really chose this place as the site for one of their highest-security bases?"
If nothing unexpected had happened, Hydra should also have a secret facility somewhere near Sokovia.
Could it be that Hydra and the military faction represented by Bolivar had, without knowing it, somehow ended up becoming neighbors here?
"The information I gave you is absolutely reliable. You can rest assured."
Fury seemed a little irritated by Fenris's doubt.
Question his character if you wanted. But questioning the intelligence of a king of spies was a naked insult.
"Even if this isn't one of Bolivar's bases, it was still built with enormous resources. There's no way it's completely clean."
Fury's was obvious now, and he finally showed his hand. "There are a lot of things I'm not in a convenient position to do. But you and Magneto don't really have those kinds of restraints. If you go take a look, no one can stop you."
"Director Fury, with that much scheming in your head, be careful you don't eventually scheme yourself into a trap."
Fenris gave Fury an expressionless glance.
"Fenris, you misunderstand me."
Seeing the atmosphere turn cold in an instant, Fury's expression changed, and he hurried to explain. "This is mutually beneficial to begin with. If we find anything, both sides gain. We share information, and it's a win-win. Isn't that better?"
...
Fenris turned away and said nothing more. Instead, Professor X frowned. Rather than feeling pleased by this intelligence, he seemed troubled.
"Fenris, I think we may have underestimated the situation."
"What is it?"
"From the intelligence we recovered from the Arctic base, we learned that communication between the subsidiary bases built by Bolivar and the main base was already extremely secretive. Especially when it came to absolutely classified information like the specific location of the main base, the subsidiary bases knew nothing at all.
"For major decisions, every exchange between them was carried out through a randomly assigned intermediary with a highly unusual."
Looking at the map, Professor X let out a low sigh. "In other words, unless we dig out the main base directly, then no matter how many subsidiary bases we destroy, the result will be exactly like the Arctic base: we'll gain nothing.
"And if you hadn't restored those files, not only would we have failed to obtain detailed information on the Sentinels, we never would have known about this intermediary at all."
"This..."
Bolivar's caution far exceeded anything an ordinary person might imagine. Fenris frowned. "That mysterious contact can still be tracked down, can't he?"
"Using the clues from the Arctic base, finding that intermediary wasn't difficult. In fact, I had already locked onto him very quickly."
Professor X rubbed his brow with a headache. "But earlier today, that person, along with the smuggling group from Africa, seemed to be deliberately captured by someone. They disappeared almost at the same time."
"So..."
"The trail went cold again."
(End of Chapter)
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