"The Arctic base had barely been hit, and then the very next moment, the one contact who might have known anything about the main base's location was silenced. Even the smuggling group vanished along with him without a trace..."
At that moment, even someone as seasoned as Magneto, not to mention Nick Fury, could not help feeling that this was truly difficult.
Compared to Stryker, who liked to sabotage people from the shadows, Bolivar was far more cunning and far more ruthless. He was like a venomous snake lurking in the dark. When he did not strike, he remained invisible. But the instant he did, it was always meant to kill.
Even though they had moved first this time, they still found themselves constrained at every turn, unable to fully investigate.
"Damn it. What's so scary about an enemy like that?"
Magneto shot to his feet. "Charles, tell me where that contact disappeared, and where that smuggling group vanished. I'll investigate personally.
"I refuse to believe anyone in this world can hide a secret this massive without leaving a single flaw. Even if Bolivar were a god, I'd still drag out his weakness."
"They disappeared in..."
Charles named the two locations one after the other.
The two places were tens of thousands of kilometers apart. One was in Nunavut, in northern Canada. The other lay deep in the Pacific Ocean.
"So either Bolivar has people in both places, and he carried out his clean-up simultaneously."
"Or he has some kind of spatial transport method similar to Fenris's, or else an extremely advanced technological method. That would be the only way he could eliminate two exposed threats in such a short amount of time."
Professor X shook his head. "Whichever possibility it is, none of them are ordinary. You must proceed with caution."
"Fine."
Magneto nodded and started to leave.
"Hold on a moment."
Fury suddenly spoke up from the side, stopping Magneto in his tracks. "I still have one more lead about Bolivar himself. You may find it more interesting."
"About Bolivar personally?"
Fenris asked.
The information they currently had on Bolivar, the so-called father of the Sentinels, was already pitifully scarce. How could a man this suspicious and this cautious possibly leave behind extra clues for S.H.I.E.L.D. to uncover?
"Fenris, I told you before. There are many things brute force can't solve, but that doesn't mean authority can't."
Fury brought out the intelligence he had obtained without any preamble and displayed it in front of the three of them.
"Before I became Director of S.H.I.E.L.D., Peggy Carter was the one handling this sort of matter.
"Back then, Bolivar was in unusually frequent contact with S.H.I.E.L.D. for a period of time, especially in regard to technical exchanges in certain fields."
Fury pulled up a dense web of clues, though most of them were only fragments and incomplete records. "Although they were later ordered destroyed for certain reasons, bits and pieces like these still couldn't escape me."
"Technical exchanges?"
Fenris quickly skimmed through the information, then could not help asking, "S.H.I.E.L.D. actually has technology of its own?"
"Why wouldn't we? Fenris, can you stop being so biased against us?"
The naked skepticism darkened Fury's expression. "Have you ever heard of digital life technology?"
"Digital life technology, as the name suggests, means uploading human self-awareness into a digital world, allowing one's consciousness to survive in another form even after the physical body is completely gone.
"Bolivar himself was a dwarf. If he managed to master that technology, then the current him may no longer be living in a human form at all. He may have discarded his imperfect flesh and survived instead as a digital life-form."
Fury explained, "That would explain why we know almost nothing about him, and also how he can maintain secrecy on such an absurd level.
"Of course, this is only a hypothesis. It may not reflect reality."
Fury sighed, then added in a half-joking tone, "Or maybe he got clues from S.H.I.E.L.D. about the super-soldier serum and turned himself from a dwarf into a muscle-bound giant like Captain America."
"Come on. Your General Ross spent a lifetime researching the super-soldier serum, and all he got out of it was a big green monster he couldn't even control himself. I don't believe Bolivar would pin his hopes on such a dead end."
Fenris flatly rejected Fury's guess, rubbing his chin as he thought.
"Digital life..."
The temptation of gaining another form of immortality inside a digital world was simply too great. If such a technology were ever made public, it would drive countless people insane and easily trigger worldwide upheaval.
And Fenris had no idea whether S.H.I.E.L.D. possessed digital life technology or not, but he did know that S.H.I.E.L.D.'s old enemy, Hydra, definitely had at least one successful case.
Arnim Zola.
"Could it be that the one conducting technical exchanges with Bolivar wasn't S.H.I.E.L.D. at all, but Hydra buried inside S.H.I.E.L.D.?"
Fenris raised a brow as another possibility suddenly occurred to him.
"So S.H.I.E.L.D. currently has digital life technology, then?"
Fenris looked toward Fury.
If that kind of technology really existed, then Fury would definitely have been the first one to back up his own consciousness.
"No."
Fury shook his head with an expression of genuine regret. He clearly found the idea tempting too. "Every lead was destroyed. These fragments are the only things I could recover. I've already told you everything."
"What's the point of overthinking all this digital life nonsense and all these missing clues? If we drag the man out into the open, we'll know everything."
Magneto could not sit still any longer. He grabbed Fenris by the arm. "Come on, Fenris. We'll go check the place where that contact disappeared first, and then we'll flatten these bases one by one. I refuse to believe Bolivar can keep sitting still after that."
"Calm down, Erik."
Professor X tried to stop him.
"Charles, they're practically pressing the muzzle of a gun against mutantkind's forehead already. How am I supposed to stay calm?"
Magneto let out a cold snort and flicked his hand casually. Fury's holographic projector sparked with a burst of static and immediately died on the spot.
Fury had never expected that one second they would still be speaking normally, and the next second he would be thrown out. Back in his office, he stared at the black screen with widened eyes.
"This Magneto is way too realistic. The second I stopped being useful, he turned on me faster than I do."
"Wait, that's not right. What happened to our information exchange?"
Fury's mind turned, and suddenly he seemed to realize something. He slapped the desk in frustration.
"Fenris still hasn't told me the information he promised!"
Whoosh—
The next moment, a dimensional portal opened, and a thin slip of paper was extended through it. Fenris's slightly teasing voice followed.
"Director Fury, you've got hidden dragons and crouching tigers all around you. You'd better be more careful in the future."
"What?"
Fury froze, not understanding what Fenris meant.
He instinctively took the slip of paper. A short line of writing appeared before his eyes.
"Cut off one head, two more shall take its place."
(End of Chapter)
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