"This is truly a revolutionary invention!" The Deputy Director led Thea inside, a trace of excitement visible on his usually stoic face.
It was no wonder he was excited. Thea had gone to great lengths to have them produce this "revolutionary" product. Gideon had reverse-engineered the finished alien product into a very low-level version. Thea then issued commands for them to research it, constantly using suggestion spells to "inspire" them along the way, making them believe this was the culmination of their collective wisdom. That was how the product before them came to be.
Of course, the results from the Red Room Laboratory played a significant part. Adapting products from different civilizations to suit one's own planet involved too many disciplines. This was why Thea insisted on investing in the Red Room despite being able to find alien technology; technology was easy to find, but talent was rare. A state could gather top talents from various fields, but she personally didn't have that kind of prestige yet.
"This product is priced at one million dollars per unit... isn't that too expensive? Many ordinary people won't be able to afford it," the Deputy Director asked, a thought suddenly occurring to him.
"It's not expensive. To the wealthy, it's just the price of a car; how can one put a price on something that saves lives? As for the average family, we can manufacture simplified versions to donate or sell cheaply to major hospitals and residential communities. In the future, they could even be installed on street corners like ATMs, completing treatments for a small fee."
Thea explained nonchalantly. She didn't actually care about the money. The software in every machine would scan the patient's basic information. This data would eventually be fed into the AI. Combined with the facial recognition software Felicity had developed previously, Thea would hold information on the majority of people in the country, perhaps even the world, in her hands. That was the truly priceless asset.
A.R.G.U.S. had agents planted all over the globe; they received intelligence at the slightest disturbance. Lex Luthor had launched hundreds of satellites into Earth's orbit. Bruce Wayne had fewer satellites, but his Watchtower space station was worth a hundred of them. Compared to them, Thea was lagging far behind in intelligence gathering. If she couldn't compete in the sky, she would compete on the ground!
"Here is the list of participants for this trial." The Deputy Director handed her a document.
Thea took it casually and flipped through it indifferently. "Huh?..."
Staring at a photo attached to the document, she saw a young man—handsome, in a certain light. Thea glanced at the registered name: "Roy Harper."
"Is there a problem with this person?" The Deputy Director noticed the momentary change in her expression and asked nervously.
Thea flipped through the pages again. The applicant had applied for this free treatment opportunity because his mother had a large abdominal tumor. The agreement stated that it was experimental and carried certain risks, but it also guaranteed coverage for all subsequent medical expenses.
"He's the one. Arrange for his mother's surgery as soon as possible," Thea didn't say much to the Deputy Director, closing the file and handing it back.
Only after the Deputy Director left did Thea let out a thoughtful breath. Roy Harper was a key member of Team Arrow, codenamed "Arsenal." He had participated in many operations with the Justice League and the Teen Titans. That was one thing, but most critically, in the original timeline, he was Thea's lover. She later took the codename "Red Arrow" because of this man.
Thea stood alone, gazing at the sky. Perhaps outside this atmosphere, beyond the universe, there really were supreme beings who set the rules. But so what! Thea's will was like iron; she would not be shaken by anything. Her thoughts were simple and direct, summed up by the words Yao Fei had taught Oliver on Lian Yu back then: "Survive. Survive!"
All these years, she had studied hard and trained desperately, running forward without stopping, simply because she feared being discarded by this world—feared that her fate would be decided by those few guys in the sky wearing capes.
"Bullshit fate!" Thea cursed softly. Just then, the Deputy Director notified her that everything was ready.
"Let's begin." Standing on a high vantage point, Thea nodded slightly, signaling the start.
Two female nurses supported an old woman as they walked into the medical pod. Roy Harper, wearing a red hoodie, waited outside, looking somewhat nervous.
Thea had no intention of going down to meet them. She wasn't concerned about the patient's safety either; even in the event of a major medical accident, her magic could pull the patient back from the brink. She just wanted to see how effective this medical pod, reverse-engineered to its most primitive version, really was.
Staff outside the pod quickly completed the body scan. Since the old woman had no prior health data recorded, they had to operate on the spot. Staff determined the surgical plan based on the scan results and input it into the computer.
The medical pod's door closed, and the old woman fell under anesthesia. Several robotic arms began to work: incision, excision, hemostasis, suturing. A surgery that would originally cost tens of thousands of dollars and take a skilled doctor hours to complete was finished in less than ten minutes. The patient's vital signs remained completely stable.
"So fast?" Roy Harper, who had been pacing anxiously outside, was truly startled by the speed. The staff showed him the excised tumor and the patient's various vital readings.
Roy Harper didn't dare to believe it completely. If this data was real, his mother could go home this afternoon. He was terrified that these large corporations were using poor people like them for human experiments. If they weren't desperate due to poverty, he wouldn't have applied to be a volunteer. The medical staff had to talk him down, but he insisted on staying on-site, waiting for his mother to wake up.
"Miss Queen, it looks like the experiment was very successful!" The Deputy Director was excited. This was the culmination of their collective wisdom, and as the person in charge, his name would also go down in history.
"Don't stop the experiments. Tomorrow, I will arrange for personnel to submit an application to the Federal Government. It goes on sale in a month." If it were just launching in Star City, a word to Moira to go through the motions would suffice—that was the terrifying power of their mother-daughter collusion. But to launch nationwide, they needed Federal approval.
Three days later.
"Miss Queen, these two say they are FBI agents and want to see you..." The assistant nervously led two people into Thea's office. The agents were a man and a woman. The man was a sturdy middle-aged African American, and the woman was white and very young, perhaps the same age as Thea.
The two flashed their IDs. "We are from the FBI. My name is..."
Thea glanced at them, stood up from her chair, and tapped the empty air above her desk. A holographic projection appeared in the room. "Badge number 332589. Let me check..."
As she input the badge number, the projection immediately displayed the owner's information. However, the owner of that badge number was a white man. Thea pointed at the projection and said to the middle-aged black man, "This guy is the real FBI agent. Who are you? Or rather, who are you people?"
The middle-aged man and the young woman looked at each other in silence. Thea had seen through their fake identities, which was why she so blatantly hacked into the FBI database. Now that their disguise was blown, the middle-aged man could only helplessly take out another ID.
"I am from the D.E.O (Department of Extranormal Operations). I am Director Hank Henshaw."