"Secretary, it seems... it seems our system has been hacked!"
Hearing this, Pierce immediately dropped the operator he was holding, turned to the speaker with bloodshot eyes, his voice trembling with barely suppressed rage.
"Impossible! Absolutely impossible!!"
"The Helicarrier's operating system is completely closed! Unless there's a physical intrusion, no one can modify the programs on the Helicarrier!!"
Project Insight was Pierce's magnum opus. Although he wasn't a technician himself...
How could he not understand the details of his own plan?
These three Helicarriers had independent servers, isolated from external networks, each loaded with the "Threat Algorithm."
To change the targeting parameters, someone would have to fight their way to the server room on the Helicarrier and manually swap the chips.
This was exactly what Captain America and his team did in the original timeline.
However.
Upon hearing Pierce's furious questioning, the operator, though fearful, braced himself and whispered.
"Secretary, the Helicarrier's OS indeed hasn't been breached..."
"Then what?!" Pierce took a step forward. The operator hurried to explain.
"It must be the satellite system that was hacked!"
Pierce froze. He forced down his anger, trying to sound calm.
"Go on!"
"Y-Yes..." Seeing his boss finally calm down a bit, the operator gathered his thoughts and explained.
"Our Helicarrier system is stored on the ship's servers and is safe from external hacking. But the ship's onboard radar cannot precisely lock onto the targets identified as threats by the algorithm. It must connect to the Insight satellites for positioning."
"However, right now, the carriers are fine, and the satellite signal isn't jammed. Yet all ground-attack weapons lost their targets."
"The only possibility is that the Insight satellite system was hacked. It's sending us fuzzy data, making the threat algorithm unable to determine who to attack. Naturally, the fire control program halted fire."
After saying all this in one breath, the operator looked at Pierce innocently, awaiting judgment.
At this moment, Hive's eerie voice came from behind Pierce.
"Alexander, is this the new era you wanted to show me?"
Cold sweat instantly drenched Pierce's back. Only one thought remained in his mind.
Which idiot came up with this plan that has such a huge loophole??
Actually, the Hydra operator's analysis was correct.
Let's rewind time a bit.
Pennsylvania. Above a desolate wasteland.
This was where Stark's private jet was attacked.
In the sky, two small black dots were slowly descending.
One slightly larger dot was Luca, being carried by Erha (Second Haro).
Luca's suit was clean and tidy, and he didn't feel cold thanks to the self-heating function of the [Tuxedo].
But his exposed face was red from the cold, and his hair was blown into a bird's nest by the high-altitude winds.
Luca didn't care about his image. After landing, he messed up his hair a bit more, took out an empty Hoi-Poi Capsule, and stuffed the energy cube containing the plane into it.
Thinking about the potential effects of releasing such a large object, Luca hesitated. He handed the capsule to Fifth Haro and ordered.
"Go to the clearing ahead and release the plane."
Luckily, this was a wasteland. Luca hadn't tested what happened if a compressed cube was released in a confined space.
Fifth Haro obeyed immediately, flew up, and dropped the capsule on a nearby clearing.
POOF~
White smoke exploded.
The massive jet appeared out of thin air, the displaced air ruffling Luca's messy hair.
"LUCA——!"
A familiar shout came from the cabin, followed by panicked confusion.
Hearing Tony's lingering shout, Luca walked toward the hole in the fuselage with a smile.
He saw Happy Hogan blocking Tony from exiting while peeking out furtively.
But seeing Luca outside, Tony shoved Happy aside without caring about the situation.
He rushed to the hole, jumped down, rolled on the ground, and ran to Luca before slowing down.
"Hey..." Luca opened his mouth, but before he could say a word.
Tony lunged forward and, to Luca's shock, pulled him into a tight embrace.
The sudden hug froze Luca. He didn't know how to react.
Fortunately, the hug didn't last long. Tony released him, looked at Luca's dazed expression, and smiled.
"You brat! How dare you jump out of a plane like that!"
Luca was still confused.
When he jumped out to compress the plane with the [Dehydration Gun], his thought was:
Tony won't think I'm running away to save myself, right?
That's why he told Tony not to move and to trust him.
He hadn't expected Tony to be worried about his safety.
Luca didn't know what to say, so he mumbled awkwardly.
"Why the drama? Don't you jump out of planes all the time and have your armor catch you? Erha was right outside. What could happen to me?"
Hearing this, Tony looked annoyed and wanted to ruffle Luca's hair. But seeing the bird's nest mess caused by the fall, he stopped.
Instead, he placed his hand on Luca's shoulder, patted it twice, and spoke with a serious tone.
"If... you died, I would consider that my responsibility..."