Marvel Magic Case Files

Chapter 713 The Weak Federation (First Update)

Thanks to the construction team's astonishing speed of construction, Salomon and the witch were able to move into the renovated manor.

The entrance hall, reception hall, living room, study, kitchen, dining room, and indoor swimming pool have been completely renovated, shedding their state of disrepair since 1898. The billiards table in the games room has been removed and replaced with an oversized sofa and game consoles, while the once empty wine cellar is now filled with wine, whiskey, and brandy. The parking lot has been fully renovated, with a helipad added, and the three-bedroom butler's cottage has been gifted to Diana to serve as a lounge and armory for her and her patrol squad.

Salomon had many reasons for fleeing New York to Oxfordshire. The least obvious was that he needed to spend a lot of time on his upcoming studies, but the most important reason was that the aftermath of the Pym Technologies bombing had reached him. Anyone with a keen eye would have discovered that Salomon and Dr. Pym Hank had been in contact before the bombing.

The intelligence agencies' protection of Salomon's information was outrageously strict, even allowing them to control nearby cameras at any time. However, in the era of the Internet of Things, even dashcams can become surveillance devices, not to mention the data search capabilities far exceeding those of the artificial intelligence created by Harold Finch, the ultimate artificial intelligence created by artificial intelligence—Vision. Anyone's mobile phone camera can become a source of evidence. It's simply impossible for the intelligence agencies to hack into the electronic devices of every passerby Salomon brushes past; the workload is too great and too unrealistic, unless Salomon carries subroutines and mobile terminals with him.

In fact, the sorority has been gradually training its members in communication skills and plans to create a specialized communications team responsible for disrupting enemy communications and ensuring the smooth flow of information, thus protecting Salomon's information security. The development of related equipment has already been submitted to the Ministry of the Interior, awaiting solutions from the Martian Foundry or Shuri.

After the sorcerer gifted the purchased jewelry to the witch, the witch's apartment received an uninvited guest.

"We need to talk." Agent Hill wasn't wearing her agent uniform, but rather a smart women's suit. Behind her, an android wielding a buzzing chainsaw sword and a bomb gun was confronting two armed men accompanying her. The chainsaw sword's fuel fumes filled the hallway with a burnt smell. The two armed men with black armbands hesitated. They didn't want to face the Sorority's security team. They didn't believe their bulletproof armor and body armor could withstand a large-caliber bomb gun, and they didn't want to know what the consequences would be of being slashed by a chainsaw sword.

"You broke the agreement, Maria," Salomon said softly, leaning against the doorframe.

"What agreement?" The female agent met the sorcerer's dangerous gaze without flinching. "If there was any agreement, it was you who broke it first. We need to talk, Salomon, about the Pym Tech explosion, about your increasingly disregard for the law. Don't deny it; you can't hide your riot suppression from many people. Superheroes without constraints..."

The sorcerer waved his hand impatiently. The loud whirring of the chainsaw sword interrupted Agent Hill's impassioned speech, and the fluorescent blue charging coils of the plasma weapon gradually lit up, ready to heat the compressed air to the temperature of a solar flare. "Unless you want war, I suggest you shut up," he said. "I don't want anyone to know this address, and you've brought other people to visit."

Even though the sorcerer was unarmed, his gaze still sent chills down the spines of the two agents, making them feel as if they were being stared at by a predator at the top of the food chain. Without rigorous psychological training, these veterans of the Middle East wars might very well have drawn their weapons due to PTSD.

Within the Avengers, Vision is in charge of psychological treatment. While he can't fully utilize the Mind Stone's power yet, adjusting his stress responses shouldn't be a problem. Agent Hill actually had contingency plans for Vision's psychic abilities; she worried he might exhibit the mind-control abilities Loki displayed during the Battle of New York. She wasn't sure if Vision had faked this to avoid alienating the agents, like those AIs in horror robot movies who deliberately fail the Turing test.

Her hostility towards Vision was no less than Salomon's.

“I’m not here to cause you trouble, Salomon. I’m here to warn you. I just got back from Washington, where many people are eyeing Pym Technologies’ technological reserves, just like they were with Stark Industries before Stark became Iron Man.” Agent Hill gestured for the armed men to lower their guns to avoid a real conflict. If someone accidentally fired a shot, she was certain she wouldn’t leave here alive. “This is the will of a nation, not the will of an individual! If you continue like this, sooner or later you’ll be on the opposite side of everyone. No matter how bad your relationship with the Avengers is, Captain Rogers and Stark see you as one of them—” she said, “—a guardian fighting to protect this world. They might stand idly by, or they might get mired in this mess. I can’t guarantee what will happen in the future, I just hope you think about the consequences before you do something like this next time.”

From these hints, Salomon had already discerned Washington's attitude toward the Avengers.

All it takes is a pretext, and a whole set of bills to restrict the Avengers will be introduced. Perhaps the bill has already been drafted and only needs to be named to pass both houses of Congress. Neither Democrats nor Republicans, liberals nor conservatives want to see an Avengers team that disregards the law and acts arbitrarily, unless they act in the name of diversity or Christianity, which anyone with a sound mind knows is impossible.

Washington's proposal of this bill is not without basis.

Federalism's weak control cannot reach every corner of society. The management of vulnerable groups is accompanied by violence, smuggling, and other crimes, becoming a social problem as important as racial discrimination, gender diversity, feminism, and environmentalism. Today, empowered individuals in American society can only rely on spontaneous self-governance by the public or state governments to enact their own laws, yet even these methods fail to solve the problem. Almost every seemingly insignificant social issue gains the power to cause significant disruption in the United States.

For example, religion, transgender homosexuality, and racial discrimination.

It is said that some rural religions in the United States are recruiting individuals with enhanced abilities, attempting to orchestrate a modern crusade, promoting doomsday theories, extraterrestrial arrivals, and atonement, and urging believers to devoutly believe in God in order to be reborn in the future apocalyptic catastrophe—even Kamar-Taj, who is usually oblivious to worldly affairs, has been drawn to these people. After repeatedly confirming that the priest had not received any revelation or extradimensional help, and was merely spouting nonsense to make money, the sorcerers reluctantly allowed this absurd activity to continue.

Maria Hill's stance was clear: she wanted Salomon to keep a low profile until the bill was formally passed.

Although Salomon's name was not known to the world, that didn't mean that no one would discover his identity in the future (the Avengers never had the same level of secrecy as S.H.I.E.L.D. in the past; if it weren't for Hydra, S.H.I.E.L.D.'s secrecy as an intelligence agency would be top-notch), and thus seek revenge. Salomon sensed the changing circumstances, so he ordered the construction team to speed things up and, while he was at it, acquired a large collection of artworks from his adoptive mother to furnish the estate.

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(End of this chapter)