Chapter 145: Heat Vision Acquired. And Spencer's Conspiracy.
The matter was closed.
On the flight back, Matthew received a notification from the System.
[System: +6,000 points. Blood God incident contained.]
[Cumulative System points: 42,000. Pass reward unlocked: Blessing x5. (Deposited to System storage.)]
[Next reward milestone: 50,000 cumulative points. Keep utilizing System rewards to benefit the people.]
[Remaining System points: 11,000.]
The Blood God incident was over, but the broader extermination campaign against vampires continued. Umbrella had accumulated a substantial number of them during that period, enough that the containment levels inside the building were running at capacity.
The two months that followed were quiet. Matthew was content to let them be.
During that time, he learned that Thor had successfully lifted Mjolnir.
Unfortunately, due to a scheduling conflict, he had missed the Destroyer's arrival in New Mexico and hadn't been able to observe or test what that thing was actually capable of up close.
The quiet days continued until a message came through from Thomas, who was heading up Extremis development, and pulled Matthew out of the comfortable rhythm he'd settled into.
The research floors.
Thomas had results, and he'd been waiting at the laboratory entrance since early morning. The time passed minute by minute until the elevator at the far end of the corridor opened and he moved to meet it.
"Boss!" Thomas's face was bright, his step lighter than usual.
Watching him approach, Matthew's expression, which had been neutral a moment ago, shifted into something warmer.
Not for Thomas specifically. For what Thomas's team had produced.
The Extremis Virus.
"I saw your message."
"If I'm reading it right, the first-generation Extremis Virus is complete?" Matthew asked.
Thomas answered without any hedging. "That's right. First-generation Extremis is done. And with Veronica's help, we've also managed to optimize the defect profile. Stability is significantly improved."
Matthew gave a satisfied nod. He reached into his pocket, took out a Bank of America card, and placed it in Thomas's hand.
"There's a hundred and fifty million in there. Password is six eights."
"That's the bonus for this. Distribute it to your team on my behalf."
"How you split it is your call. I'm not going to manage that."
"The only condition is that everyone who worked for me comes away with something worth having." He said it the way someone mentions a detail about dividing a cake: casually, as though the amount involved didn't require any particular tone.
Thomas, holding the card, swallowed hard.
A hundred and fifty million.
Just the bonus.
He watched Matthew walk past him, and the only thought left in his head was this: staying had been the single best decision he'd made in his entire career.
He'd expected a bonus. He had not expected a bonus at this scale.
"Something wrong? Not enough?" Matthew called back without turning around.
"No! No, not at all!" Thomas answered immediately.
Not enough. It was more than enough.
A man's most important quality was knowing how to be satisfied. Greed had a ceiling, and the smart ones knew where it was.
This was the survival principle he lived by.
[System: +50 points. Thomas Chips feels like he made exactly the right call. Favorable impression: large increase.]
With the bonus in hand, Thomas fell into step behind Matthew with noticeably more enthusiasm and led him to the results of the research.
The Extremis Virus was contained in a small canister. The color was a pale, faint orange.
"Boss, this is what we've produced."
"Extremis Virus. Post-injection, it substantially enhances the host's physical capabilities and activates the brain's repair functions, pushing the body into an accelerated healing state."
"Beyond that, the virus generates extreme internal heat capable of melting steel, and allows the host to release that heat in a controlled manner to a meaningful degree."
He continued through the specifications. Once he'd finished, he opened a refrigeration unit with the efficiency of someone who had already thought about this moment, removed a prepared row of Extremis samples, and transferred them carefully into a temperature-controlled case nearby.
"Boss, these are the samples I prepared for you in advance."
Matthew looked at him and let something approving show in his expression.
He took the case Thomas offered, put a hand briefly on his shoulder, exchanged a few words, and left the research floor.
As for Aldrich Killian, Matthew offered him a couple of brief, perfunctory words of acknowledgment, then moved on without further attention.
Once Matthew was gone, Killian peeled off his protective gear.
He turned to look at the row of Extremis samples that had just walked out the door and made no effort to hide what was in his eyes.
"Thomas." His voice was flat. "I genuinely cannot believe you just handed our research over to him like that."
"That's something we put enormous time and effort into. Working around the clock. And you just gave it to him?" He looked at Thomas standing nearby.
He couldn't understand how Thomas could do that without any apparent difficulty.
Thomas glanced at him, pulled out the bank card Matthew had just handed him, held it where Killian could see it, and looked back with an expression that had none of the deference he'd shown in Matthew's presence.
"Are you serious? Do you understand the basic situation here? This is our job."
"What you're calling 'our research' is a task that Mr. Lawrence assigned to us."
"And do you think we'd have gotten here without the facilities and equipment he provided?"
He let that land, then continued in the tone of someone delivering professional advice they expect will be ignored. "Mr. Killian, let me tell you the single biggest mistake you can make in this line of work."
"Never get something valuable in your hands and start thinking about how to keep it for yourself."
"Take what's yours. That's all. Stay in your lane."
"Once Extremis is formally released, the recognition and money that comes back to both of us will be more than either of us can spend. Mr. Lawrence operates that way."
Killian's expression as he listened to this was not a comfortable one.
He didn't agree. He never had.
To him, Extremis was something he had made. It was like a child. You didn't hand your child to someone else.
He was in exactly the same position William Birkin had been in, thinking exactly the same thoughts. Birkin had been unable to separate himself from the G-Virus, to the point that he would rather have died than give it up. The attachment had consumed him entirely.
Now the same thing was happening to Killian.
He didn't want to let go of what he'd built.
And beyond that: Killian had never been suited to working under anyone. He had joined Umbrella to get access to the resources he needed to finish Extremis. Now that it was finished, the idea of using it on his own terms, setting up independently, and leaving Umbrella had taken hold.
Meanwhile, back in his office.
Matthew set the temperature-controlled case on the table and took out one of the pale orange canisters. As he did, the System panel produced its own assessment.
[Extremis Virus (Enhanced): Rewrites the user's DNA to enhance physiological function and activate the brain's repair and chemical recoding centers.
The user gains powerful regenerative healing capable of closing all wounds, along with meaningful enhancements to strength, reaction speed, and overall physical resilience.
Additionally, the user's metabolic processes generate extreme heat, reaching temperatures in the thousands of degrees, with meaningful conscious control over the release of that heat from the body.]
He read through the System's description of Extremis.
What struck him was that because this version had been developed and refined with Veronica's involvement, the instability that had plagued the original in its source material was simply absent. In the original, subjects who couldn't handle the formula would combust. This version had no such failure mode. It was the complete version, with no remaining drawbacks.
No optimization required.
That said, the raw capability was still limited relative to what Matthew already had. The healing enhancement and physical upgrades added nothing meaningful to his existing profile. The one ability that still had some value to him was the heat generation and its controlled release.
[Heat Response LV2: Generates and controls large quantities of thermal energy through cellular metabolic processes. Maximum instantaneous output: 3,000 degrees Celsius.
Cost to upgrade: 4,000 System points.]
"Upgrade."
Blue light, immediate.
Heat Response moved from Level 2 to Level 3 in the same instant.
Three thousand degrees became five thousand five hundred.
Five thousand five hundred degrees. The surface temperature of the sun.
It was difficult to imagine a biological organism producing that kind of thermal output from within a human body.
Still, the human body. Always full of surprises.
He looked at the upgraded figure, then set aside any thought of further upgrading for the moment.
He opened the fusion interface and added himself and the Extremis Virus to it.
The System responded immediately.
[Extremis Virus + Matthew Lawrence (T + V + G-Virus + E-Type Mold + Green Goblin Formula + Spider-Man Serum): Compatibility 100%.]
[Fusion available at no cost.]
"Fuse."
The Extremis canister in the interface vanished.
What replaced it was a shift moving through Matthew's body from the inside.
Heat capable of melting steel moved freely through him, filling every part of him, and from the outside he was producing light. He looked, for a moment, like a small human-shaped sun.
The luminescence lasted just over a minute before it settled.
Once his body was calm again, Matthew took stock of what had changed.
He raised one hand.
The pen on the desk flew to him instantly.
He focused, and light rose from his palm.
Along with it came heat, severe and immediate. The air around his hand distorted visibly under the output.
As his palm moved toward the pen, he didn't even need to touch it. The gold casing couldn't sustain the temperature radiating from his hand and began to melt before contact.
If he hadn't already placed a localized gravity field underneath to catch the result, the molten gold would have burned through the carpet beneath it.
He looked at this, then experimentally opened his mouth and exhaled gently at the air in front of him.
A stream of fire came out.
Genuinely impressive in scale.
He also nearly set the desk on fire.
After that, he abandoned any further indoor testing entirely.
Though breathing fire for its own sake wasn't really the goal. Matthew opened the directed modification interface and told the System precisely what he wanted.
"I want the heat generated by Heat Response concentrated and released through both eyes, with meaningful kinetic force and cutting capability, and a substantially increased effective range."
The System produced a matching modification option before he'd finished speaking.
[Heat Vision: Converts the thermal output of Heat Response into a highly focused plasma beam, with significant kinetic force and efficient cutting capacity.
Cost to modify: 3,500 System points.]
"Modify."
Three thousand five hundred points gone.
What replaced them was a mild burning sensation behind his eyes.
He stood for a moment with that unfamiliar heat sitting in his gaze, and found himself genuinely tempted to go up to the roof in the dark and demonstrate the new capability to no one in particular.
Elsewhere. Umbrella headquarters.
A dim conference room. Spencer sat in his wheelchair, his face without expression, his thoughts entirely contained.
Time moved past.
At some point, the display on the far wall came to life. A figure appeared on the screen.
"Oswell Edward Spencer. My old friend." A pause. "So. You're ready to move?"
Spencer raised his head and looked at the figure on the screen. "Yes," he said, unhurried. "There are no other options left."
"I won't pretend otherwise. I never imagined that boy would grow to where he is now."
"Even his teacher ended up losing to him. And losing his shares along with it."
"Heh." The figure's voice was even. "I assumed at first he was just a second-generation heir trying not to lose what he'd inherited. That seems to have been wrong."
"So. Do you want my help?"
"He did, after all, remove your teacher and Vane Carter."
Spencer gave a slow nod. "Though you wouldn't be helping me. You'd be helping yourself."
"He isn't only looking at my shares. He's looking at yours."
"Once I'm gone, I don't think you'd last long after. If one falls, the other follows."
The figure on the screen absorbed this and offered a small, noncommittal shrug. No denial.
And so a conspiracy that touched on the survival of everyone in that room began to take shape.
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