Chapter 38:
Upon hearing Tony's thoughts that the planet's gravity would double from the merge, I felt some panic rise within me. That wouldn't actually happen, would it? That would be really, really bad. Billions of people wouldn't be able to handle double gravity and would die. The only beings that would survive were supernatural or physically enhanced humans.
[Well… that is how math works. If you double the mass, you get double the gravity. Although, it will actually be slightly less than double because the Earth will also increase in size.]
"Wait, hold on a minute!" Clint exclaimed. "If the gravity is going to double, doesn't that mean that humans lived under stronger gravity over 1000 years ago? Why couldn't we handle it now then?"
Tony answered him. "The explanation, to that question, is that we've all gotten weaker. Over the past 1000 years, our bodies adapted to the lowered gravity. Our bones are now more brittle, our organs softer, and our muscles less dense. We humans were able to handle going from high gravity to low gravity. The opposite will not be as true. Sure, some people will survive and eventually adapt, but that will take another thousand years minimum." He explained.
"Could the super soldier serum work as a solution?" Natasha asked.
Fury raised an eyebrow. "You want to give the entire world's population the super soldier serum!?"
"Yes?" She answered questioningly.
"It could work," Tony said. "But the problem is the complete formula has been lost, and employing it was extremely time and energy-consuming. If Steve were here, he'd tell you. The entire process of turning him into a super soldier took over an hour with a full room of equipment. Now imagine doing that for 8 billion people." He explained. His logic was reasonable. The time it would take alone was staggering. This wasn't as simple as just giving everyone a quick injection.
"It's not just 8 billion people." I cut in. "It's 16 billion. There are all the people on the other Earth as well." Tony was correct. The super soldier serum would be a...
"Shit… I forgot about all of them." Tony said.
[Quest issued: Save both Earth's Human Populations from Devastation! → Discover and employ a method to allow the humans to survive the world's gravity doubling.]
[Reward: +5 Levels]
[Failure: Billions will die.]
I dismissed the quest screen after giving it a quick glance. This was one I couldn't afford to fail.
"Well, isn't this situation just perfect!?" Fury said sarcastically. "First we had the Hand, then we had evil wizards, then we had fucking Hydra, and now we have the apocalypse. Your dad is a real piece of work, Layla.
"Was." I answered almost instinctively.
"What?" Fury asked.
"He was a real piece of work. That's why the spell failed in the first place. He's gone…" I explained to everyone.
"…" There was palpable silence as they all were once again shocked speechless from my declaration. I think this broke them even more than the news of the apocalypse.
"Well… shit." Fury said.
"Good thing The Captain isn't here to hear all this. He might have just broken with that news." Natasha added. "The love of his life just passed, and the only thing holding him up was the belief that she was resting in peace in Heaven. If he knew that wasn't the case…"
"And he never will know. And nor will anyone else. We'll figure this out because that's what SHIELD is supposed to do." Fury explained. He had a determined look on his face. "Stark, you're one of the smartest people in the world and have a lot of equally smart contacts. Anyone in the genetic field who can help us with strengthening people's bodies, I want them brought in." Fury said to the man.
"I don't work for SHIELD but sure. I guess I have some contacts. Now that I think about it, there was this one creepy guy from my past who has been spamming me messages about his brilliant think tank creating a miracle drug or something. I guess I might as well see where that goes." Tony said. "You want to help me on that, my beautiful assistant?" Stark asked me.
I just gave him a smirk. "I don't technically work for Stark Industries but sure." I gave him the same response he gave Fury. Tony laughed at my cheekiness. I did wonder who he was talking about though? Was it Aldrich Killian? We should have been a long way off Iron Man considering Iron Man two's racetrack event happened 3 days ago. Maybe the man hasn't become a supervillain yet, and his Extremis serum could actually be used for good? I could only hope.
Following that, our meeting came to a close. I, unfortunately, had to temporarily say goodbye to Natasha as she was given the task of trying to track down any leads on Hydra with Clint. I still wasn't sure where Coulson and Steve were, but I assumed they were doing the same.
…
A few hours later Tony and I were sitting on his private jet flying back to the States. I vowed to myself that I would master teleportation asap so I wouldn't have another 16 hour flight.
"So Layla, about that gold sword…"
There was some haggling, but Tony ended up buying the thing off of me for a solid million dollars.
XXX
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