Chapter 1652: End of Spring, and an Era of Troubled Waters

It was always far easier to tear something down than build it up. Since it was just destroying the Helicarriers, Tony had much less to do.

All he needed to do was indicate where the self-destruct devices might be.

When the three carriers attacked each other later, these locations couldn’t be touched.

Hence, he had to do his best to dismantle them.

Some useful components could be kept, like the intact Chitauri equipment.

Away from the carrier’s programming, it was impossible for these things that were left behind to self-destruct.

It was safest to tear down such a huge Helicarrier.

Also, if they were turned into scraps out in the wild, it would be useless even if Hydra blew up. Blowing up some agents and opponents wouldn’t make any sort of impact, let alone cause chaos.

This time, Tony needed to fly half an hour to get to the carrier.

Luke took advantage of this time to take some things from the carrier, mostly those that might cause disaster. He didn’t touch anything else.

He wasn’t interested in the Chitauri equipment. Many of the things here were initially sold by the bigshot who sold everything.

For Tony and Luke, these were just study samples to provide a direction in their tech research.

The government and Hydra, on the other hand, outright used these as weapons and researched them on the fly.

Now, the results were right in front of them.

Tony very consciously copied the data.

Although it wasn’t experimental data, the thinking behind the design of the three carriers was very clear.

For an expert like Tony, what he saw could spark random ideas.

He would use his insight to make up for the rest.

Half an hour later, Tony stopped and informed Luke, “It’s done. Your friend has control now.”

Luke nodded and said on the team channel, “Everybody, go offline.”

There was a series of pings as everyone went offline.

Luke waited for a moment before he looked unhappily at the robot that was being controlled by Tony. “Do you think going offline means hacking into this model’s system?”

The robot didn’t react.

Luke sighed and slapped it on the back.

Far away in New York, the tycoon felt his vision go dark. “Jarvis, check the remote control system.”

Jarvis said, “Sir, there is no signal from the robot.”

Tony opened his eyes and took off the semi-circular helmet on his head. “D*mn it, you actually literally disconnected me?”

Luke’s slap had been aimed at the signal receiver.

For the maker, the difference between building and destroying something was very simple.

Tony sat up and said regretfully, “I wanted to watch how that bigshot retrieves the equipment, but now… I can only use the surveillance cameras. Jarvis, record everything over there. I’m going to get busy.”

Jarvis said, “Yes, sir.”

Tony had SHIELD HQ’s files, including info on the Helicarrier. Black Egg had also given him a huge pile of resources before this.

Now, every minute he tarried was a waste of these resources.

He could satisfy his curiosity later. For now, he could use the resources himself. Whatever junk was left after he was done could be traded with the bigshot.

The tycoon could still differentiate between what was important and not.

Of course, it wasn’t because a certain paranoid person was too unreasonable, and had uncovered Tony’s ploy to play dead in the robot.

On the other side, Luke picked up the robot that had been disconnected and put it away in his inventory in a hallway that didn’t have any surveillance cameras.

Tony had left a backdoor in the Helicarrier’s system and was still monitoring his every move.

It was completely like him to do so — he wouldn’t be who he was otherwise.

Confirming that he hadn’t missed anything during his cleanup, Luke looked down at a wide, uninhabited plain in Virginia, and finally had the only robot left on the carrier open fire.

In an instant, the three carriers hovering at low altitude in a triangular formation above the plain pointed their cannons at each other, and countless missiles locked onto each other.

Boom! Boom! Boom!

Swoosh! Swoosh! Swoosh!

The sky exploded, as if with fireworks, as swarms of missiles drew countless twisted lines in the air.

Luke’s Level 1 clone stood on a small hill in the distance.

Under the bright and beautiful late spring sun, the plain was filled with lush green grass and vibrant flowers in shades of red, white, pink and purple.

The three carriers in the sky that were still firing wildly put on one last brilliant performance amidst their ruin.

After a long while, Luke suddenly smiled – he found it.

Part of the image of the scene in front of him almost perfectly matched the other half of Elena’s drawing in his head.

It was only right to finish what was started.

After recording the last scene, he turned around and left.

All that remained was three Helicarriers that crashed onto the plain and exploded with thick smoke.

…

At that moment, D.C. was in chaos.

All sorts of orders and questions flew through the FBI, the CIA, Homeland Security, the Department of Defense, the military, and the White House.

Various unknown operatives entered D.C., whether stealthily or openly.

At that moment, nobody dared to trust anyone but themselves.

What Natasha released wasn’t just SHIELD’s secrets, but also most of the information on Hydra which Nick Fury had.

She even posted her conversation with Pierce.

The news spread like wildfire throughout the country.

However, she didn’t release the information to online media.

For most ordinary people, knowing these things was meaningless.

Even if Michelle Geber stepped down, or even if the entire American government stepped down, it would make no difference.

At most, it was just switching to different spokespeople, and the chaos wouldn’t last.

In the end, the meat was still in the pot for the capital corporations. Those on the bottom rung of society would always be at the bottom. It was impossible for them to gain much from this matter; instead, more people would die.

This event wasn’t like the California earthquake, which people could still run from.

Even if the people knew the truth, there was nowhere for them to run. Even if they went to another country, most of them would still only be part of the populace.

No country had that many positions for everyone to stand on the top.

What Nick Fury wanted to do was destroy Hydra and SHIELD together and complete his revenge.

Overthrowing the old world order was pure wishful thinking – that would just be helping Hydra achieve its goal of causing chaos in the world.

Hydra wasn’t just in America; killing one head would just give other heads more room to grow.

Luke was very satisfied with this situation.

The two clones and the others, with the exception of the Ninja Squad and Damon and Mindy, began to take down Hydra all over America.

While Luke obediently showed his face daily in New York City, he secretly used remote-controlled robots to cause major disappearances in northeast New York, New Jersey, Massachusetts and Vermont.

If it were any other time, the American government would’ve flipped by now.

But the government was now in chaos. A lot of people were now missing, whether it was because of someone else or they had gone into hiding themselves.

The whole of America was in a mess, and there was no risk to Luke’s operation.