Stark sat in front of his computer repeatedly rewatching a video. In reality, he had already gathered all the information he should have, but his obsession-like actions were because he was deliberating internally.
After a while, he picked up the phone to call his subordinate only to change his mind and say, "Send someone to... forget it, I'll go myself."
Ending the call, Stark put on his mask and flew in the direction of San Francisco, precisely where Bruce and Aisha's new residence was located.
Ssoon enough, a shiny silver-white figure landed in a small backyard, where Iron Man noticed he had stepped on something.
Lowering his gaze, he found a colored plastic shard and many more around it. Looking around, Stark wondered, had there been a localized storm? Why is the slide in pieces?
Just as he thought this, a small head peeked out from a window. Seeing a face that resembled Bruce Wayne's, Stark froze.
His own daughter?
Bruce bringing a daughter so young to an unfamiliar universe didn't make sense to Stark, but he didn't forget his purpose and chose to proceed into the house.
The little girl didn't seem scared or run away. She just stood there by the window staring, seemingly observing him.
But Aisha was indeed too young, she looked younger than the age of 7 and seemed too young for school, so Stark didn't think such a small girl could have much cognitive ability.
He crouched down and asked, "Isn't your dad home? Where's your mom?"
Aisha shook her head at him.
"That's not good." He patted her head and added, "California State law stipulates that parents can't leave a child under 10 alone in the house for more than three hours. Your dad must be gone for quite awhile, right?"
Aisha nodded.
Sighing lightly, as if empathizing for irresponsible parents and sympathizing with the child, he put his hand on Aisha's shoulder and said, "It's dangerous for you to be here alone. Should uncle take you out for a meal?"
Aisha hesitated a bit, but eventually nodded.
Stark used his mask to scan Aisha, finding no electronic devices on her. He didn't believe that Batman would use his daughter as bait, so she must have some abnormalities which compelled Batman to bring her along.
The Ultimate Iron Man wasn't hesitating because he was reluctant to harm a child, the potential abnormalities with Batman's daughter made him worried.
If a child made Batman guard her around the clock, her abnormality was probably no trifle.
In the end, Stark decided to take a chance. He had no other choice, as his predicament was far more severe than Batman's.
For some reasons, Stark had to time travel back to change the course of events, but unlike before when Shiller brought him back to directly replace this timeline's Stark, he became another version of himself.
In other words, there were two Ultimate Iron Men in San Francisco at this point. One belonged to the current timeline, nicknamed the "White Can," and the other belonged to the future timeline, also known as the "White Can."
As he anticipated this, the future timeline's White Can attacked the present one as soon as he arrived and gained control of the Stark Group. Leveraging his insight of the future, he started to make arrangements ahead of time to avoid the dead end he encountered in the future.
But this was not easy as he had not redeemed himself and still had an evil plan, which meant he still had to face resistance.
Moreover, the present White Can, who was knocked out by the future one earlier, had run away and was hiding somewhere, ready to ambush and strike the intruder. Therefore, the future White Can had to resolve this quickly.
Taking along a little girl with unknown conditions increased the risk, but no game could be played without putting Batman at a disadvantage. So, Stark decided to throw caution to the wind, "Nothing ventured, nothing gained," and took Aisha away.
Meanwhile, Bruce, as per the agreed time, arrived at the Osborn Group's medical experiment center by car. This visit was distinctly different from his previous interview experience.
Firstly, there was a long line of people in hazmat suits registering participants at the entrance before you could enter the compound.
Freaked by the situation, some who had initially agreed to participate wanted to back out, but they were promptly presented with contracts stating that they could face insurmountable debts that would lead to bankruptcy and homelessness if they didn't oblige.
Indeed, these test subjects were not homeless. Even with the transformative effects of the experiment, homeless people couldn't meet Osborn Group's stringent appearance requirements. Even if they seemed attractive, they wouldn't meet the cleanliness standard.
Some were scared by the penalty and nervously agreed to proceed with the experiment despite their fear. Some were defiant and tried to walk away, only to be jostled onto another car by the security agents wielding taser guns. Who knows where they were taken.
Bruce suspected these people would still end up as test subjects, albeit under different circumstances. He wanted to save them, but it was soon his turn to proceed.
Bruce remained calm and obedient throughout the process. The person doing the registration looked at him as if to ask, aren't you scared? Bruce looked at him and said, "I have a daughter, I need money."
The person nodded, thought for a moment, and finally wrote something on Bruce's registration form, then let him proceed.
Bruce deliberately said this, for he knew that a person with something to lose can sink to very low depths. He wanted to create this image so that some of the worst things would happen to him instead of others.
Taking his registration form, he walked inside, took a ride, got off, walked a bit, then caught the next ride. After many twists and turns, he finally took an elevator to go underground.
Throughout the whole process, Bruce of course didn't remember the route. He's not some kind of special agent. By the time he was on the second ride, he was already completely disoriented.
Upon entering the underground facility, this truly looked like a medical research center, filled with researchers in white coats and machines he couldn't even begin to understand.
Those like Bruce who were test subjects were told to undergo a comprehensive physical examination. Although they had already submitted standard medical check-up reports, this advanced biotech company evidently required more detailed information.
The moment he began his check-up, Bruce noticed something unusual. They took blood samples four times, and each time it wasn't just ten or twenty milliliters, but a full 100 milliliters, as if they were rare blood disease patients.
The next was a urine test, which was even more outrageous. Regardless of what they were testing for, wasn't there a limit to how much they needed? The staff actually made them wait in the restroom for two rounds, and the stool test was the same.
Then, there were hair examinations, cell tests, oral sampling. In short, any sampling related to the human body they could think of, they carried out. Not only were there numerous tests, but the sample amounts were also exceptionally large. After being scraped for oral cells a few times, Bruce felt numb in his mouth.
The whole examination felt as if an alien who had no basic understanding of humans wanted to understand the human body structure thoroughly, hence organizing this kind of examination. Otherwise, Bruce really can't explain why they even needed his toenails.
And then the most absurd thing happened - they needed to conduct a mental test. Bruce was aware that his mental condition can't be considered healthy, so he was a bit worried that he might expose himself. In the end, the result was the examining doctor patting his arm and telling him not to be too stressed.
However, during the test, Bruce could clearly feel that the results were not very optimistic. When he came out, he saw several doctors gathered in the waiting room next to him, frowning and discussing something.
The soundproofing of the building was too good, so Bruce couldn't hear anything. And he doesn't understand lip-reading. But anyone with normal intelligence could deduce that there must have been some issue with the test results, and these doctors seemed to be in disbelief.
Bruce deliberately lingered at the door for a while and quickly saw a person who looked like a leader coming in. When he heard that the test results were abnormal, he seemed not to be shocked but delighted.
So now the question was, what was this abnormality? Bruce was clueless. To be honest, he didn't observe any abnormality among the people around him.
But the abnormality soon appeared right before his eyes, because there was a fight up ahead.
The examination procedure here was similar to that organized by schools, except with more staff. Workers in protective clothing led the test subjects divided into four groups to participate in different examination sessions in different sequences.
In Bruce's group, there were three black people and two white people, the rest were brown-skinned people. One of the white people was a skinhead, covered in various tattoos, and had been shouting loudly since the beginning.
It appeared that one of the black men couldn't stand his behavior and they began to argue, which quickly escalated into a brawl.
This situation was inevitable where there are crowds. They were just two hot-tempered guys who happened to cross paths. But what happened next was hard to explain. Everyone else, even those from other groups in the far distance, came over to join the fight.
Just like that, all the test subjects became insanely aggressive, randomly attacking everyone. Bruce nearly got taken down by a sweeping kick from an Asian guy next to him.
Things happened too fast. Even the security personnel present didn't have time to react. By the time they realized what was happening, they were knocked down.
Next, the white man in the center of the battlefield gouged out the black man's eyeballs. Meanwhile, a brown-skinned big guy picked up a chair and smashed the white man's skull in.
The situation was completely out of control. Bruce was not unable to defeat them but felt it wouldn't be wise to join the fray at this time.
Sure enough, the security personnel quickly arrived. They fired warning shots at first, but no one seemed to care. Everyone continued fighting fiercely. Those with weapons used their weapons; those without used fists and teeth. It was as though they held deep grudges against the others.
Amidst the chaos, Bruce found an opportunity to trip up a security officer and snatch a taser from him. He then took advantage of the commotion to kick the taser under a cupboard.
About ten or so minutes later, the chaos was finally brought under control. The security staff escorted the test subjects away from the examination site. Those not injured continued with their examination.
As Bruce looked back, he noticed that in addition to the cameras mounted on the walls of the entire examination center, there were also quite a few cameras on the security personnel who had entered the room last. They were conspicuous action cameras, obviously hurriedly worn.
Due to the previous chaos, several examination staff close to him had fallen on the floor. Bruce took this opportunity while they were still unconscious to check them and found something strange about their buttons.
Although he couldn't recognize the device model, he was sure they had audio and video recording functions.
This situation didn't feel like a human experiment at all but seemed like a professional filming event that was set up because they knew such an incident could take place. Now, the question was, how did they know the direction in which things would develop, and why would they film these events?