Chapter 104: Green Goblin Technologies: Astartes Power Armor
Knock knock knock.
An urgent rapping at the office door brought Matthew's attention up from the financial reports spread across his desk.
"Come in."
William Birkin pushed through the door immediately, barely containing his excitement. His expression was that of a man who had been hungry for a very long time and had just smelled something excellent. His desire was transparently visible, not the kind that had anything to do with the lower half of the human body, but pure appetite for scientific achievement and the recognition that came with it.
"Boss! I'm requesting two more research teams."
"Didn't I give you a batch of people recently? You're short already?"
William launched into his explanation, so wound up that he was stumbling slightly over his words. "There's enough, there's enough, but... but two new projects just landed, and..."
He made his case: dividing researchers too thinly across too many projects was inefficient. Concentrating resources produced faster results for the company.
Matthew noted, without comment, the difference between the William who spoke to his own subordinates and the William who was currently speaking to him. He looked down again at the financial reports, where the expenditure line had been going steadily up.
He considered it briefly.
Fine.
Money could be earned back. Research momentum, once lost, was harder to recover. And his income now came from considerably more than Umbrella Corporation. Stark Industries, Oscorp, Fisk's underground operations, all three had been generating at a pace that made funding a handful of research teams a matter of routine.
"I'll arrange two more teams for you. But I want to see the research pace improve in return. I don't want to look at your project board in a year and a half and find everything exactly where it is today. You understand me."
Matthew turned his pen slowly in his fingers as he said it.
William nodded with deliberate seriousness. "Boss, you have my word. I won't disappoint you or the company."
"Good. If that's everything, you can go."
William, having gotten what he came for, did not overstay. He excused himself with a brisk step and a noticeably lighter bearing. He had not entirely come down from what learning about Alexia's fate had done to his mood.
As the door closed, a familiar voice reached Matthew through the mental network.
"Boss. Based on the concepts and blueprints you provided, the first set of Astartes Power Armor has been completed. Would you like to come take a look?"
Osborn's voice. Matthew stood up immediately, returned a brief response, and walked to the Osborn Industrial campus.
Osborn Industrial Park, Zone 23.
The zone was under complete lockdown. Signal blocking active, internal cameras switched off, total information containment.
In the center of the open floor, Osborn stood looking at the finished product with visible satisfaction.
Following his gaze: a set of power armor standing motionless at the center of Zone 23, bout 2.8 meter tall.
Imposing was an understatement. Even unpowered and standing still, the sheer mass of it communicated something that did not require explanation.
Reliable.
The researchers who had worked on it had been quietly confused throughout the project. Who was this for? No human being grew to this height under any diet plan available. And the operating weight: could a person actually control something carrying this much steel?
These questions had circulated throughout the build process. Since the pay had been adequate, nobody pressed them very far.
The sound of steady footsteps from behind.
Osborn turned. When he saw Matthew, his expression shifted into something enthusiastic enough to be slightly alarming. "Boss! You made it." He moved forward quickly and cleared the remaining researchers away from the armor's immediate vicinity.
Matthew acknowledged the greeting with a brief nod and gave his full attention to the Astartes Power Armor.
It was currently in its raw state, no paint, no surface treatment. The metal presented itself as it was: dense and cold under the overhead lights, every surface texture visible without a coating to obscure it.
The shoulder pauldrons were terrifyingly thick, like two shields bolted flush to either side of the torso.
The chest plate was a single forged arc, pressed from one piece. Its surface was not smooth. The micro-texture of the metal's own grain was visible under the matte finish, the natural result of enormous forming pressure. In the workshop lighting it held a dull metallic sheen that had nothing borrowed about it.
At the waist and abdomen, overlapping plates interlocked in layers, the gaps between them nearly invisible at a normal viewing distance.
The legs were the thickness of bridge supports. Whatever a kick from one of those produced, "a bruise" was probably not the right way to describe the aftermath. "Scattered in pieces" was closer.
No decoration anywhere on the exterior. No heraldry, no sash, nothing that did not serve a purpose. Clean and purposeful in every line.
Matthew studied it and gave a satisfied nod.
Osborn moved in beside him. "Boss, this was designed entirely to your specifications. Oxygen circulation, life support, everything needed to keep the wearer alive across varying battlefield conditions. And despite how heavy it looks, once the power is active, even a baseline human can operate it fully and perform high-difficulty movements."
Matthew looked at a specific section of the chest plate. "Did you actually achieve the one-to-one replication I specified?"
Osborn took a moment before answering.
"One-to-one replication is nearly impossible for the materials you described. But we did perform a localization adaptation."
A localization adaptation.
Osborn read the question in Matthew's expression and explained.
"The steel you specified in the blueprints: we can't manufacture that. So we worked with available alternatives. The main structural material is a gold-titanium alloy combined with homogeneous steel, with composite armor lining inside. For additional hardness on the exterior, we plated the outside surface with a layer of sub-Adamantium alloy."
He paused.
"As for the drive transmission and power source: that's where the person you introduced to me made all the difference." A smile.
He brought his hands together once.
A figure stepped out from deeper inside Zone 23.
Long hair, roughly mixed black and white. Darker complexion. Built solidly. Both arms covered in tattoos up to the shoulder. The look of someone who had lived through things.
Ivan Vanko. Also known as Whiplash. The final antagonist of Iron Man's second major engagement.
"Mr. Anton's contribution to the completion of this armor cannot be overstated."
This was true. Without Ivan Vanko, the manufacturing timeline would have extended by an order of magnitude or more. At this point in time, the only people on the planet capable of designing wearable powered combat armor were Tony Stark and Ivan Vanko.
Matthew had considered going to Tony, and decided against it. Tony kept his armor technology close, and raising the topic directly would have been the kind of intrusive question that cost goodwill. On top of that, Tony was currently occupied with managing the element in his system and had no bandwidth for armor design work.
After weighing the options, Matthew had directed Osborn Industrial to take the project, and introduced Ivan Vanko as a new resource, now a loyal addition to the operation.
In terms of raw scientific output, Vanko didn't come close to Tony Stark. But for what Osborn Industrial needed, he was more than sufficient.
And in the timeline still ahead, Otto Gunther Octavius would be joining Osborn Industrial as well. With talent of that caliber in the building, the company was going to look very different than it did today.
Ivan Vanko walked forward and stood before Matthew with a respectful bearing.
"Boss."
"Allow me to walk you through the drive system and power source."
He turned to the armor.
"I disassembled the arc reactor you provided and reverse-engineered a replica. Full one-to-one was not achievable, but I reached ninety-eight percent fidelity. Power output is stable at ninety percent of the original's rated capacity."
"For sustained operation, I designed an energy vault inside the armor, an integrated cluster of multiple reactors. Full operational capacity runs for a hundred and sixty-eight hours continuously. In standby, the estimate is thirty years."
"The armor's primary movement system uses electromuscle bundles throughout the frame." He let a small note of genuine interest enter his voice. "Additionally, I incorporated a small quantity of symbiote material into the interior."
"If the electromuscle bundles are damaged in field conditions, the symbiote component can serve as an auxiliary movement system in their place."
"That was possible because of the reproduction-specialized symbiote you provided previously."
Matthew had indeed given Osborn a second symbiote beyond Carnage. This one had been lightly optimized but more extensively modified, and the custom trait he had specified for it was reproduction. A biological production unit. The kind of symbiote that existed primarily to generate offspring.
In practical terms: a pig.
The resulting offspring were lower quality than a properly developed symbiote, but they made the Astartes Tyrant line considerably more durable as a component.
What Matthew had not anticipated was that Ivan Vanko had found an application for the same material inside the power armor itself, using it to make the suit more adaptive and considerably more capable than a purely mechanical frame would have been.
He looked at the armor again with that in mind.
This had been an unexpected development in the best sense.
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