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The person most troubled by Henry's sudden trip to Alaska was none other than John Garrett and the group who had carefully prepared a trap to capture Henry Brown.
To verify Henry's whereabouts, Garrett even sent agents to investigate the small town.
One of them was hauled into the sheriff's office for questioning on the very first day.
In a place like that, unfamiliar faces stood out far too much.
Forget seasoned spies—even if the King of Spies himself showed up, the entire town would stare at him like some exotic animal.
Because the target never stepped into the trap as expected, Garrett lost his chance to establish a connection with Norman Osborn.
And this missed opportunity might very well be a once-in-a-lifetime loss.
People shouldn't assume they would be given a second chance in front of magnates operating at that level, especially not someone as forceful and experienced as Norman Osborn.
Given the influence major corporations wielded in American politics, perhaps only S.H.I.E.L.D. Director Alexander Pierce had the standing to meet someone like Norman Osborn, chairman of a top-tier corporation, on equal footing.
Was Norman Osborn tempted by alien biological samples?
Of course he was.
Anyone who said otherwise would be lying.
But not to the point of dirtying his own hands for an uncertain possibility.
Opening a convenient back door and taking a share of the profits after the fact was already the limit of what Norman Osborn was willing to do.
If John Garrett could not act, Osborn would simply pretend nothing had happened rather than intervene personally.
And that was exactly what he did.
He ignored the opportunity.
Life seemed to return to normal for everyone.
That was, of course, assuming John Garrett didn't decide to get revenge by informing Nikolai Semyonov of everything that had happened—plunging the Russian scientist, who had enjoyed several years of comfortable living, into constant anxiety.
People often said that nothing frightened someone more than fear itself.
Once Nikolai learned that his former colleagues from the research institute had all died because of the same target, could he really continue believing he was safe?
Could he truly live without worry?
Having lived through the Soviet era and experienced its purges, secret interrogations, and other methods firsthand, Nikolai certainly did not believe the protection of the Stars and Stripes guaranteed his safety.
Those twenty-three former colleagues living in America had already provided the perfect counterexample.
His newfound tendency to panic at every little disturbance naturally affected both his daily life and work.
The peaceful days he once enjoyed were gone.
As the worry stretched on, he eventually found himself unable to sleep without alcohol or sleeping pills.
Because Nikolai knew exactly what they had done in the past.
And he knew that today's retaliation had been earned.
More than twenty people were dead already.
What chance did he have of being the lone survivor?
What nobody expected, however, was that Henry himself paid almost no attention to these developments.
Nor did he remain in that nameless Alaskan town.
His actions were exactly as he had said they would be.
With some dried provisions and Katie as his companion, he ventured into the frozen Alaskan wilderness.
While they were not within the Arctic Circle itself, daylight in Alaska had already shortened to a little over six hours per day.
Had they gone farther north into the Arctic Circle, they might have experienced sixty-four days of polar night without seeing the sun at all.
The aurora was a physical phenomenon produced under specific environmental conditions.
It primarily occurred in high-latitude regions roughly ten to twenty degrees from the geomagnetic poles, within a band three to six degrees wide.
At the edge of the Arctic Circle, being closer to the pole did not necessarily improve one's chances of seeing it.
To observe the aurora, one needed clear skies and freedom from modern light pollution.
In Alaska, the best viewing period generally ran from September through March, between ten at night and three in the morning.
Although Alaska had famous aurora tourism destinations such as Fairbanks, Henry's goal was to escape civilization and its noise.
Naturally, he had no intention of going somewhere like that.
Once he disappeared into the wilderness, it was as though the entire world had lost track of Henry Brown.
No one could contact him.
Combined with the fact that he had already resigned from Stark Pictures and had no close relations, there was simply no way to reach him.
It wasn't tax season yet, and his finances were straightforward—money sitting in bank accounts rather than tied up in trusts or other complicated structures.
Citibank certainly wasn't going to freeze or mysteriously lose funds that had been legally deposited and clearly sourced.
Doing so would damage the bank's credibility, and that was worth far more than a few tens of millions of dollars.
Because of these circumstances, even anyone hoping to replicate the methods once used to seize the Arden family's assets found themselves with no leverage whatsoever.
They couldn't even report him missing in any meaningful way.
Henry was effectively alone in the world.
No one could demonstrate inheritance rights, business obligations, creditor claims, or any legal relationship requiring Henry Brown's presence.
Under American law, anyone could report a person missing.
But unless the reporting party possessed legal authority—such as guardianship, medical power of attorney, proof that the missing person belonged to a protected vulnerable group, or similar documentation—the police would do very little.
At most, if they located the individual, they might notify the reporting party by phone that the person was alive.
They would not disclose the individual's location.
Nor would they drag that person back to meet whoever reported them.
The purpose was to prevent law enforcement from becoming accomplices to criminals.
After all, some people "disappeared" specifically to escape abuse or evade private debts.
Tony Stark, who had accepted Henry Brown's resignation, also appeared completely unconcerned about his former star employee.
He never mentioned Henry's name in public.
Then again, even during Henry's tenure at Stark Pictures, Tony Stark had never publicly discussed him.
That much had not changed.
As for Hollywood?
Who would miss him?
Just some technical geek who happened to get lucky by investing in a big ship movie.
Whether it was 20th Century Fox, the primary investor, or Paramount Pictures—the studio Stark Pictures had effectively snatched the project from—any mention of Henry Brown in public was almost guaranteed to be accompanied by sarcasm and mockery.
After all, Henry had carved off a huge slice of the Titanic pie for himself.
Paramount hadn't gotten a bite at all.
The cake had been right in front of them, only to be snatched away at the last second.
How could they not hold a grudge?
There was another group harboring resentment toward Henry as well.
The production team behind The Matrix, which had entrusted its computer-generated effects work to Stark Pictures.
The Wachowski brothers, serving as both producers and directors, had originally hoped to replicate James Cameron's success.
Their plan had essentially been to camp outside Stark Pictures and drag the company's CEO to the Hollywood Kid supercomputer center every day, forcing him to sit down and work on visual effects.
Instead, the man simply quit.
Fortunately, the Hollywood Kid supercomputer remained just as powerful as ever.
And the effects team had been thoroughly tempered by their experience on Titanic.
Creating the visuals envisioned by the Wachowskis posed no major problems.
As a result, production and post-production on The Matrix continued smoothly and methodically.
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