Director Johnson was a respectable figure at this point—loudly hawking combat robots in public didn't fit the image. Justin Hammer had no such reservations. Put eyes on him and he became someone else entirely: animated, theatrical, completely in his element.
Right now that overgrown sales mascot was addressing the assembled world leaders with impressive conviction. In his telling, Magneto was something between a boogeyman and a force of nature—a man who drank human blood for breakfast, consumed hearts for sport, whose very name was enough to stop babies crying.
"Your man is really overselling this," Emma said, materializing at Daisy's side. She'd entered through S.H.I.E.L.D.'s private access channel, the mutant detectors having been switched off by a certain someone in advance. "Erik isn't anything like that."
Daisy smiled and said nothing. What Magneto was actually like was completely irrelevant. What mattered was what the world's leaders believed he was like.
The Department of Defense delegation didn't care about the price. They were first on record: Buying. Name the figure. A hundred and fifty million per unit? Give us ten.
The remaining governments filed their orders in sequence. Under the circumstances, they had every reason to be afraid. Magneto's reputation was well established; nearly every person in that room had at least a general awareness of him. They'd all fought their way to wherever they sat, and none of them had any interest in being dissolved into a puddle of water. Besides—this was national funds, not their own money. Buy.
This one wanted one. That one wanted three. The order sheet reached eighty-plus units before anyone had time to second-guess themselves. The ability to neutralize Magneto was worth every number on that invoice.
Everyone left satisfied: Daisy had orders, the national leaders had a security guarantee, all parties felt they'd gotten the better of the deal. A handful of smaller nations purchased single units—not that they had any intention of paying full price like honest customers. Their plan was clearly to take them home and take them apart. Who'd be fool enough to actually buy combat robots at face value when you could just reverse-engineer the thing?
Daisy was unconcerned. Reed's engineering operated at a tier that would leave most national science programs puzzling over the schematics for a decade.
After the summit hall cleared, Daisy and Emma met privately to work out the structure of their arrangement—then brought Hammer into the room.
The final agreement: Emma's Frost International would trade a five percent equity stake for five percent of Hammer Industries currently held by Justin Hammer.
Emma's network was wide and varied. Frost International's portfolio included modeling agencies and talent management firms—exactly the kind of high-visibility, high-glamour environment that Justin Hammer had spent his adult life trying to access. Beautiful people of every description, on demand. He'd have settled for far less.
All three parties left the table content. Hammer got the spotlight. Daisy—who already held Hammer Industries equity through both S.H.I.E.L.D. and HYDRA channels—had further diluted Hammer's personal share while cementing her position as the largest shareholder in Hammer Industries; through the cross-equity swap, she'd now tied her interests to Emma's. Two companies interlocked was only the first step. Future collaborations were already forming in her head: bundle an Ex-Wife Missile purchase with a diamond-encrusted handbag, offer fifty rounds of ammunition as a loyalty reward on premium lipstick purchases.
The summit was over. Jean was still nowhere to be found. Daisy fell back on the most low-tech approach available to her. Go to sleep. Go looking.
"Hey—where did you run off to, lady?!" She burst into the White Hot Room to find Jean sitting on the ground, staring at nothing. She ran over immediately.
"Daisy?" The reaction was not what she'd expected. "How did you get in here? Quickly—tell Professor Xavier I need to be rescued!"
"Uh…" Daisy took a long look up and down. This was Jean? The real Jean was in here? Then the version outside—that was Dark Jean? The corrupted one?
Things had apparently become considerably more complicated than she'd anticipated.
She glossed over the details of how she'd gotten in, and redirected to the practical question: where, physically, was Dark Jean—the other personality?
The answer surprised her even more.
Jean reached outward with her mind, probing the external world. The two personalities were more closely bonded in this timeline than in the original; she could catch fragments of what was happening outside.
She closed her eyes. Careful analysis. "The sky is very bright. Three light sources. The natural environment feels… comfortable. This is a warm place, a welcoming one. The people here—they're strong. No, that's not right—their life-force runs very deep. This doesn't feel like Earth?"
Daisy pulled out her star map—the one Danger had decoded a tenth of—and began cross-referencing.
Good news: still within the Milky Way.
Bad news: a very long way from Earth.
"Where am I?" Jean asked quietly.
Daisy studied the data for a long moment. "If I'm reading this correctly—you're in the Cygnus constellation. In the system we call Deneb. Over a thousand light-years from Earth."
"You're in a safe location. The people there—they're Zenn-Lavians. Long-lived. A utopian society."
Jean heard no immediate danger and still didn't fully relax. She extended her senses again, sweeping for any sign of catastrophe she might have triggered.
Nothing. No earthquakes, no sudden fractures in the ground. Dark Jean hadn't done anything destructive.
"The energy here is so… clean." Jean sat quietly for a moment, voice somewhere between reverence and relief. "Not a trace of aggression anywhere. Like being washed from the inside."
Daisy wasn't in a position to explain that this was Silver Surfer's homeworld—that Norrin Radd had traded himself to become Galactus's herald, and as part of that deal Galactus had agreed to pass over Zenn-La.
She promised to pass the information to Xavier's School, said her goodbyes to Jean, and stepped out of the White Hot Room.
Back in her body.
Over a thousand light-years covered on a whim—like commuting from New York to Washington. The casual ease of it made Daisy genuinely envious. But she kept her word and brought the news—good, bad, somewhere in between—to the waiting faces at Xavier's School.
The reactions were various.
Professor X's primary expression was relief, though he covered it with appropriate solemnity. He'd been genuinely afraid that Jean would do something catastrophic to human life. Her being out there doing whatever she was doing to a species of entirely unrelated aliens was, from his perspective, a best-case scenario. Even if those aliens were peaceful and decent, that was between them and the universe—not his jurisdiction.
Storm was a complicated mix. Concern for a friend on one hand. On the other, the quiet, unspoken pressure of living alongside someone who was essentially a human-shaped volcano, always primed to erupt. And somewhere underneath that, a small voice she wouldn't quite admit to: with Jean gone, maybe Xavier's School could return to normal. Maybe even the coffee would be drinkable again.
Cyclops was simply worried. Was Jean eating well out there? Did she have somewhere to sleep? Would the locals treat her badly? The questions kept coming.
Regardless of anyone's feelings, Jean was not on Earth. Daisy wasn't about to open her mind as a transit corridor and let everyone pass through the White Hot Room to visit Jean—and without Phoenix Force access, none of them could get in under their own power.
"Professor?" Cyclops turned to Xavier with undisguised hope, waiting for an answer.
This one had genuinely stumped the old man. Over a thousand light-years of distance. No X-Men technology covered that kind of gap. Unless Jean decided to come back herself, they had no means of reaching her from Earth.
"Can S.H.I.E.L.D. help?" Charles Xavier, still acting on principle, still treating Jean like the daughter he'd never had. "Daisy—how far can your ability teleport?"