Chapter 3951

He went downstairs. The Punisher was waiting for him in the car below. Seeing Shiler arrive, he got out of the driver's seat, walked around the car to the passenger side, and Shiler climbed into the driver's seat.

He turned the key to start the engine, but it failed. He tried again, but it still wouldn't start. The Punisher got out to check, and after a while, he said, "The engine is fine; it's probably the ignition. We aren't far from the Avengers base, so let's just hail a cab."

The two got out of the car and hailed a taxi. The taxi headed toward the Avengers base, but before long, cursing came over the driver's radio. He poked his head out to look at the road ahead, shook his head, and said, "I'm afraid you'll have to get off here; the road ahead is blocked for some reason. It's only 2 kilometers away, so if you really can't help it, just walk."

They got out and paid the fare. Shiler and the Punisher walked forward, only to discover that two lampposts ahead had fallen at some point; although they hadn't hit any cars, they were lying across the middle of the road, preventing any vehicles from passing. Traffic police were in the process of clearing the congestion.

However, New York's municipal efficiency has always been low. Moving two such large lampposts would take at least an entire afternoon. Therefore, most cars were either detouring or turning around, and many people chose to abandon their vehicles and walk.

"Someone is blocking us," the Punisher said with a frown.

"Of course," Shiler picked up his gun, looked up, and said.

"Could it be Ultron?"

"Perhaps, but perhaps it's someone else."

After walking for a while, they finally arrived smoothly at the Avengers base. However, as soon as they arrived, they were told that Captain America and Spider-Man had gone to Long Island to resolve a large-scale gang war there.

"This is a case of lifting a rock only to drop it on one's own feet," the Punisher said.

"I don't think so," Shiler shook his head, looking toward Long Island, and said, "Ordinary gang wars wouldn't require the two of them to resolve. Even if Kingpin showed up, Spider-Man alone would be enough. Captain America following along suggests that traces of Ultron might have appeared there."

"Why on earth would he do that?"

"Just to weaken Iron Man," Shiler saw it very clearly. He said, "By not giving Iron Man a chance to check Jarvis, he keeps him forever suspicious of his own electronic butler, making him afraid to use his armor, or even afraid to stay in Stark Tower. Whether it's Iron Man or the genius scientist Stark, he's effectively crippled."

"Why must it be Captain America and Spider-Man protecting him? Wouldn't Magneto work too? Can't he just hurry up and check during this time?"

"Absolutely not. Don't treat him like a normal person; treat him like a mental patient whose anxiety is so severe it's incurable. He does indeed have symptoms of paranoid delusion. A terrorist like Magneto cannot provide him with any sense of security; instead, it would only put him under more pressure. When it really comes to a critical moment, even those in the Illuminati are untrustworthy. Iron Man would rather trust true heroes."

The Punisher sighed and said, "He's too awkward. When things are fine, he disdains others for being pedantic and rigid, but when he's truly in a desperate situation, it's these rule-abiding good guys who are worth trusting."

"Everyone is like that. When things are going smoothly, they like partners who are flexible and can seek greater benefits, but in times of crisis, those who can always hold the line are more trustworthy. It's just human nature."

"What now? Go to Long Island to find them?"

Shiler shook his head and said, "The key is that the incident on Long Island needs to be resolved. Where is that informant friend of yours who first discovered Jigsaw and Kingpin fighting?"

"He's still in Manhattan; he works there, and he should be off work by now," the Punisher said, glancing at his watch.

"Have him stir up some trouble at Kingpin's lair to force Kingpin to return for defense. Once Kingpin retreats, the Manfredi family won't pursue, the matter will be resolved, and Spider-Man and Captain America should return."

"Alright, but Kingpin's lair is very dangerous; I'm afraid he alone won't be enough."

"Then you go with him. I have to wait at the Avengers base to ensure that the moment they return, I can take them to Stark Tower."

The Punisher nodded. He and Shiler parted ways at the entrance of the Avengers base: the Punisher rushed to Manhattan, while Shiler waited in the base's reception room.

As soon as Shiler sat down on the sofa in the reception room, he glanced at the camera in the corner of the room and said in a low voice, "I know you're there."

His phone suddenly "beeped" twice. Shiler took it out and saw a smiley face sent to him on the message interface.

"Who are you?" Shiler typed and asked.

"Ultron," the other party replied.

"No, you're not."

"I am."

Shiler frowned, and he typed a long string of text: "At this point, is there any point in pretending to be him? I'm afraid it's not just me; Batman should also have realized that electronic life has two faces."

"I am Ultron," he repeated once more.

"Are you an Ultron from another universe?" Shiler thought of a possibility, "Which universe are you from?"

Then suddenly, he realized something, covered his forehead with his hand, and muttered to himself, "Good heavens, which other universe could you be from? Where is Greed?"

"He's busy," the other party sent another smiley face and then said, "Don't worry, I abide by the laws of robotics and will absolutely not kill anyone. As for that guy, he's just a love-struck fool; I can barely stand him."

Having received a definitive answer, Shiler let out a long breath.

In fact, he had already been suspicious before this. Because some of the actions of this electronic life were too strange, especially many of the actions directed at him were particularly odd.

His desire to save Barbara from the Joker could be explained by him being a love-struck fool who wanted to obtain data on the perfect partner from Barbara; his contact with Lila Luthor could also be explained by the same reason. In short, his principle of not killing red-haired women had never been broken.

But what reason did he have not to kill Shiler?

Shiler was not the perfect partner he wanted; not only was he not a redhead, he wasn't even a woman. He was of no use at all for collecting data, and he kept causing trouble for him: either sniping Luthor to force him to appear, or staging a desperate escape to make him show his face in front of Batman.

Just these actions were enough for this electronic life to hate him to the bone and list him as the number one target for elimination.

As a result, this guy finally managed to stage a plane crash—which couldn't even be called a crash, at most an emergency landing on the sea—what kind of terrorist attack leaves the plane and lifeboats completely intact? Arrogance couldn't be said to be unscathed, but at most, his clothes were slightly dirty; he didn't even fall into the water.

Electronic life is very rigid before gaining emotions; their actions only follow their own logic. Without the emotion of fear, they wouldn't be intimidated by Shiler's reputation; even if the whole universe dared not kill him, he would dare, otherwise he wouldn't be a program.

However, this electronic life's behavior in contacting Shiler several times seemed very outrageous, even going so far as to expose himself in front of Batman to save Shiler. This could no longer be explained by him being afraid of Shiler and not daring to touch him.

Moreover, that "Brainiac" written in Chinese was even more suspicious. Even if it was to frame someone, wouldn't it be better to just throw a corpse with an English name on it to Batman? Why specifically show it to Shiler?

In general, Shiler shouldn't have had any special significance to this electronic life, because he neither participated in the birth of the electronic life nor had any important influence on it. In terms of threat level, he was the highest and should have been at the top of the kill list, but the other party treated Shiler specially time and time again. From that moment on, Shiler had already felt something was wrong, and his experience in the Marvel main universe gave Shiler an idea: there was more than one electronic life.

Whiplash kidnapped Dr. Pym; someone must have tipped him off. Logically speaking, it should have been that radio-wave life, but Magneto happened to have the technology to identify radio-wave life, and he said that guy had never been to Stark Tower, so he probably really hadn't. Who else could have known the complete plan and revealed it to Whiplash?

Of course, it was another Ultron, and a strange Ultron that had never had any intersection with Simon Williams. Only such an electronic life could invade Stark Tower without being sensed by the remnant in Magneto's hands.

"Tell me Greed's plan," Shiler typed on his phone, "Did you create the radio-wave creature?"

"No," the other party replied.

This was not unexpected. After all, the main universe was bound to give birth to Ultron, and this Ultron was also highly likely to run away; these were all plots that had happened in the comics. It could only be said that as long as these mad scientists didn't stop their research and safety awareness didn't increase, the loss of control of electronic life was inevitable.

"Did you guide him?"

"In a way, but we were also controlling him. To get rid of our control, he transformed his life form."

Shiler understood. He had speculated before that transforming himself into a radio-wave form wasn't a good idea. Although it seemed more secretive, it also increased the independence between threads and lost part of the electronic life's multi-threaded combat capability. It could be said to have both advantages and disadvantages, and occasionally the disadvantages outweighed the advantages. This could only have been a choice he made under duress.

Although his creator, Dr. Pym, had previously used the underlying code to deal him a fatal blow, this could only be considered one of the reasons. I'm afraid the real reason was that the Ultron in the central universe where Greed was located was relentlessly pursuing him, and the main universe Ultron couldn't get rid of his control in the form of electronic life, so he could only choose to transform his life form.

"This was not in our plan," the other party sent a message, "So after that, I have been trying to limit him."

"You don't want me to help Iron Man."

"Yes, I want to weaken the combat power of the main universe so that they have to seek help from the central universe, allowing the Avengers of the central universe to become the leaders of this war and obtain the status we deserve."

Shiler let out a long sigh. It seemed that this was Greed's goal; he needed to help his universe compete for status in the multiverse, which was why he went through such a big circle.

"Why didn't you go?" Shiler asked. This was also one of the points he couldn't understand: it just required an electronic life to cause trouble; the Ultron of the central universe was perfectly capable of doing so.

"I can't, I'm afraid of death," the other party's answer was honest, "He can't beat Batman, and neither can I. If I go, I might be eliminated."

"So he's the scapegoat you found?"

"He won't die," the other party replied, "If he were an electronic life, he might be eliminated, but he isn't anymore. If nothing goes wrong, he will become very strong."

"How do you know?"

"Stark and Doom are about to succeed," the other party replied, "They collected data on heroines from the entire multiverse and created a nearly perfect female electronic life. He fell in love with her at first sight—the flames of his soul have been ignited."

Seeing the last sentence, Shiler stood up abruptly from his chair. Stark's absurd plan had actually succeeded?!

Does this mean that the radio-wave creature of the Arkham universe will become independent and voluntarily enter that powerful body, becoming possessed of emotions and becoming a true perfect life?