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Chapter 57: Adam Is The Writer
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The problem wasn't just power; it was attention. Why him? Hell's Kitchen was a blip.
Hydra was a mundane evil. The audience theorized wildly, their comments scrolling like a frantic lifeline.
[It's Frank Castle! Some demon, I don't remember who, is obsessed with him in some storylines! He orchestrated the death of his family so Frank would become the Punisher and generate a river of damned souls! Maybe Adam getting close to Frank drew his eye!]
[I don't think so, the demon wasn't Mephisto as I remember, but maybe the demon told Mephisto to suck up to him?]
[Mephisto can see the future! Mephisto once looked at his own destiny and saw he'd be defeated by Spider-Man. What if he looked and saw his downfall was a guy named Adam Cypher? He's getting ahead of it!]
[It's the ambition! "Absolute" isn't just a word. It's a cosmic concept. By declaring it, Adam might have pinged on every mystical radar in the multiverse.]
[Eh, unlikely. I feel like that's fanfiction. If it were so simple, the world would be in chaos right now.]
[Adam, if you're listening: DO NOT MAKE THE DEAL. HE CHEATS. HE ALWAYS CHEATS.]
[NEVER TRUST A DEMON! They're almost as BAD as HYDRA!!]
A small, grim smile touched Adam's lips. "Thank you," He whispered to the empty car, to the voices only he could hear.
The smile died instantly. The analytical stress returned, colder and heavier than before.
What the fuck am I supposed to do? The stress was a physical pressure, more intense than any beating, any financial risk.
A being that treated reality as a game board had just made him a pawn in a wager he never agreed to.
For a fleeting, terrifying second, a thought colder than the void flickered in the depths of his mind. A logical solution to an unsolvable problem.
Should I just… end it all?
Deny Mephisto the game. Spite the devil by removing the piece from the board.
The limousine slowed, turning into the majestic driveway of the Stark HQ.
Adam Cypher took a deep, shuddering breath. The despair was a luxury he couldn't afford. He fixed his tie in the reflection of the darkened window, the grey of his cybernetic eye glinting with a hard, familiar light.
He wondered why, despite feeling no fear, he still felt so much stress. It was so fucking annoying.
He wished he could just delete it; his mental and will are strong, but he still has a long way to go. He can be stronger, more invulnerable.
But to end it all out of spite? No, never. It's because of spite that he must live, flourish, and achieve Absolute.
Either he succeeds, or he falls. No in between. No giving up, not even in the face of despair.
Adam took a seat in a secluded corner of the opulent party, a glass of sparkling water in his hand.
His expression was a mask of calm, but it was the calm of deep, pressurized water, hiding tectonic shifts of stress below.
He'd envisioned this evening as a strategic dance; feeling out Tony Stark, establishing a rapport, perhaps planting seeds for future collaboration or rivalry on his own terms.
Mephisto had scorched those plans to ash.
The gaze of a dimensional being, a Lord of Hell, was a psychic weight he couldn't shrug off.
It felt like a black hole had taken a personal interest in his orbit. Fighting was hopeless.
Deceiving a creature whose native tongue was deceit was a fool's errand. And making a deal? That was suicide with extra steps.
His mind, usually a chamber of elegant, multi-layered solutions, churned against a wall of mystical ignorance.
He could think of a hundred logical, technological, or social workarounds for a human contract. But a demonic pact? He lacked the foundational grammar.
He wouldn't know if clauses were written in invisible ink of damned souls, if the parchment itself was a psychic trap, or if agreeing simply opened a door in his soul he could never close.
The problem wasn't the puzzle; it was that he was playing the wrong game on a board he couldn't see.
[He's having an existential crisis! The unshakeable Adam Cypher is SHAKEN!]
["The problem wasn't the puzzle; it was that he was playing the wrong game on a board he couldn't see." – That's the perfect description. He's a tech genius in a magic fight.]
[The stress is real. You don't just bounce back from a Mephisto visit.]
[Yeah, even Constantine can only fuck with demons because he understands them, and even is somewhat like them.]
[True, and Constantine is a magician who specializes in demons. Adam knows jack shit about them.]
He took another sip of water, the bubbles tasteless on his tongue. Alcohol was out of the question. His mind needed to be a razor, his thoughts crystalline.
Mephisto had receded, but the pressure hadn't. It was the silence before the storm's return.
And when the devil came back for an answer, Adam knew it would be a refusal.
Which meant the game would shift from a wager to a sabotage.
Mephisto would become the universe's most malevolent stagehand, loosening screws, cutting wires, and tilting the board until Adam stumbled into the abyss.
Extreme problems require extreme solutions, he thought, the conclusion cold and absolute.
He had to accelerate timelines, to leverage risks he'd considered long-term. Desperation was a new flavor, and he found he hated it.
His brooding analysis was punctuated by the party's roar.
Tony Stark was holding court at the center of the room, a glass of amber liquor in hand, surrounded by a shimmering constellation of models, socialites, and sycophants.
He was the prodigal prince returned, celebrating his own resurrection with practiced, brilliant hedonism.
He'd be drunk soon, would vanish with one or more of his admirers, and any meaningful meeting would be pushed to tomorrow, or next week.
Tony was in his 'asset' phase; brilliant, arrogant, condescending, viewing the world as a catalogue of things he owned or would soon own.
His invitation to Adam was undoubtedly a mix of curiosity, suspicion, and a billionaire's casual impulse to inspect a new, shiny object in his ecosystem.
[True, Tony is still not the hero he will soon become.]
[Even when he becomes a hero, was he any less arrogant and conceited?]
[Well, maybe a little but not by much.]
[Adam's usual charm offensive is completely offline. Mephisto broke him.]
Adam's Technopathy hummed in the background of his consciousness, a constant, low-level dialogue with the building's nervous system.
He politely, but with a chilling finality, brushed off a succession of business drones offering partnerships and women offering more intimate mergers.
The allure of networking, of building his social empire, held no charm tonight. Mephisto had ruined everything.
["Mephisto ruined everything." – The new catchphrase for when your life goes to hell.]
[He's not even pretending to be sociable. The women look so confused!]
[Tf man, that still makes no sense. How did he appear in a cosmic entity's radar?]
[Yeah, he's facing the fucking final boss.]
[Is this a case of a second Spider-Man, where the writers have a hatred boner for him?]
[The problem is that the writers don't exist. This show is a fucking mystery. Like, where are they?]
[Adam is the writer, I tell ya. Unless he's a masochist, he will write himself a cinematic victory! It shall be Peak!!]
With a decisive motion, he set his glass down and stood.
He moved through the crowd like a ghost, his white suit a stark contrast to the sea of vibrant colors, his heterochromatic eyes seeing past the glitter to the building's underlying architecture of data and security.
He found a private elevator bank. The keypad glowed, requesting a code or biometric he didn't have.
He placed his palm against it. His Technopathy unfurled, not as a brute-force hack, but as a whisper in the machine's native language.
He didn't break the encryption; he showed it a cryptographic key that looked, for all intents and purposes, like Tony Stark's own digital signature.
The door slid open with a soft, welcoming ping.
He stepped in and pressed the button for Tony's private residence and workshop. The elevator ascended in silence.
"You are trespassing on a restricted floor," A calm, cultured British voice stated, emanating from hidden speakers.
"Please return to the public areas. Further unauthorized access will trigger defensive measures."
Adam leaned against the wall, unperturbed. "You must be JARVIS. Tony's magnum opus."
He couldn't help the thread of genuine, professional admiration in his voice.
"I've been working on my own AI for a while. Oracle. She's… promising. But she's not you. I have to admit, I'm envious. That's why I'm here. To stand on the shoulders of giants."
He paused as the doors opened to a spacious, minimalist living area overlooking the city. "When Tony and Obadiah arrive, please direct them to the workshop. I'll be there."
[JARVIS! BEST CHARACTER!]
[I love me some JARVIS!]
[He's so polite to the real star of the show.]
He walked towards the reinforced workshop door. It was sealed, a vault guarding the kingdom's heart.
"I cannot allow that," JARVIS stated, his tone firmer. "You are now in direct violation of multiple protocols. Non-lethal countermeasures are being prepared."
The door remained shut. Adam placed his hand on the biometric scanner beside it.
His Technopathy dove deeper. He felt the logic gates, the flow of permissions, the elegant architecture of JARVIS's consciousness as it related to physical security.
It was a symphony, and he gently inserted a new note, a command that resonated a new truth.
Access: Unrestricted.
The massive door hissed and slid open.
"How are you doing that?" JARVIS asked. The AI's voice was no longer just declarative; it held a note of profound, analytical curiosity.
This was not in any threat model.
Adam stepped into the holy of holies: Tony Stark's workshop. It was a cathedral of chaos and genius.
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