Skye blushed under Harry's amused gaze.
"Just once."
"Role-playing girl, using a van's GPS coordinates as a key is indeed a pretty good idea." Harry shrugged.
Facing reality, Skye could only lower her head in silence.
"So what now? Are you going to kill me to silence me?"
"Ma'am, why on earth do you think we must be the bad guys? Look at the prosthetics on those disabled people and their smiles, and look at the people we saved at the Stark Expo. What makes you think that? Science fiction? Neuromancer? Blade Runner?"
Skye nodded silently.
Harry thought for a moment. He originally wanted to retort, but upon careful consideration, Osborn wasn't exactly a good guy either.
After a moment of silence, Harry took a contract out from the table.
"If you're really curious, why don't you go see for yourself what ctOS is actually used for?"
Seeing the paper agreement, Skye's expression became animated, and she pointed at herself in disbelief.
"You want to hire me?"
Harry nodded.
Anyway, Skye had nowhere else to go, and in a few years, she would be tricked away by S.H.I.E.L.D. anyway. It would be better to trick her himself than to let S.H.I.E.L.D. do it. Besides, S.H.I.E.L.D. was an organization of Agents, while Bone was a hacker. Wouldn't it be a perfect match for Skye to manage the city network with Bone?
Bone was also a veteran hacker; weren't a group of positive-energy tech workers much better than Agents who spent their days killing and fighting?
"To be precise, it's not Osborn hiring you, but the Grady-Fluhr Company, the company currently responsible for developing ctOS. I've already spoken to them about you."
Skye's eyes darted around, wondering what she was thinking.
But it didn't matter what she was thinking; she posed no threat to Harry anyway.
"As for the underground Base, that's a trade secret, so don't even think about it. Stark has trade secrets too; are you going to expose Stark's trade secrets as well?"
"However, if you want, you can investigate the secret Base that the New York municipal government paid people to dig."
S.H.I.E.L.D. rarely skimmed money from corporations; their main power lay within the United States government. After all, skimming from a corporation was considered theft, but skimming from the United States government was just a reasonable expense.
Skye was a bit surprised:
"You're letting me investigate your secret Base?"
Harry smiled without saying anything. What did your investigation of S.H.I.E.L.D. have to do with him? He couldn't wait for her to investigate S.H.I.E.L.D. and uncover everything about them.
Soon, Skye completed the onboarding process, though Bone looked quite reluctant.
He was a mature hacker—having even gone legit as a white hat—so he knew just how energetic these immature hackers could be.
But this was the boss's arrangement after all, so he had no choice but to squeeze Skye into the project team.
Skye's appearance was just a minor episode, and the deployment of ctOS in New York continued on schedule.
Another day of work ended, and Harry and Norman finally had time to have a slow-paced dinner together at home.
"The situation in Illinois has basically been resolved. Those materials were very useful, and the state government was very cooperative with the operation," Norman said.
"So, is Illinois effectively ours now?"
Norman nodded with a smile, and the father and son clinked glasses.
"Colonel Rhodes wants us to upgrade those special versions of the power armor and then sell them to them," Harry brought up the matter.
Just as Harry expected, as soon as these power armor with special functions appeared, the Military immediately demanded that Harry provide these versions to them as well, and Harry naturally agreed.
These new versions of the power armor sold for a high price. The heavy power armor that could form a small mobile The Bunker sold for 30 million USD each. The Military was discussing establishing a new Military unit, centering on this small The Bunker to form a small fortification group integrating air defense, long-range strikes, and logistics.
As for the medical-type power armor, that thing was tied to Osborn Group's medicine, so naturally, it wouldn't be cheap either.
Due to the introduction of these weapons, the war seemed to be heading in a direction different from the original plot.
But Harry wasn't too worried—HYDRA wouldn't allow the war to end anytime soon.
"And some congressmen, or rather some people, want us to sell weapons to both sides to keep the war going," Norman said.
That was just like Stark Industries under the previous leadership of Obadiah Stane, earning money from both sides.
If it were purely for the company's development, selling wouldn't be out of the question.
But once this precedent was set, who knew how many of the sold weapons would end up in the hands of HYDRA.
Harry didn't want to be fighting interstellar wars while HYDRA used Osborn equipment to attack him at home.
"No way."
Harry's refusal surprised Norman a little.
After all, selling weapons to both sides was standard procedure for arms dealers; money was money, and it didn't matter who it came from.
"Since that's the case, fine. Although we'll earn less, not leaving any handles behind is also a good choice."
Norman shrugged and cut a piece of steak.
While eating, Harry suddenly remembered something.
"Father, do you remember a genetically modified spider project in the company?"
Norman recalled for a moment and nodded.
"I remember. It was a reasonably successful experiment, but its practicality was too poor. Whether for Military or civilian use, those spiders eventually became ornamental products. Why?"
Harry thought for a moment and decided to turn on the holographic projector.
"Father, do you remember Dr. Connors' animal serum research? I created a genetically modified spider serum and found that it has a super-strengthening effect on specific people."
Hearing this, Norman was stunned.
He didn't know about this!
"I also remember that the people in charge of this project were a couple named Richard Parker and Mary Parker, but they only completed half of the project and recommended Dr. Connors to take over their research."
Hearing this news, Harry fiddled with the dinner knife in his hand, digesting the information.
Judging solely from Norman's words, Spider-Man's parents seemed closer to the The Amazing Spider-Man version—in this version, they were biologists.
But the Spider-Man's parents in this version seemed very afraid of Osborn Group. Judging from Norman's tone, he didn't seem to have done anything to the Parkers.
This was a bit confusing.
However, considering that the Harry of this World, which was himself, was not a movie character, perhaps Spider-Man was the same.
"Later, the plane they were taking had an accident. They had a son, I've seen him; he looks like a smart little guy."
Speaking of this, one had to mention what Harry had done before.
As everyone knows, in most Spider-Man works, Harry Osborn and Peter Parker are two good brothers.
But in this World, Harry had previously spent all his time studying hard, which meant he didn't know Peter before.
And Norman didn't seem to have mentioned the Parkers much either.
It wasn't until he knocked on Ben Parker's door for the first time to ask for the genetically modified spider that it was his and Peter's first meeting in this World.
The dinner knife in Harry's hand kept flipping. Over the past year, he had reaped many benefits by relying on his knowledge of the plot, but now he realized that there were some things he still needed to confirm himself.
If he kept developing silently for the arrival of Thanos, only for Galactus or something else to show up midway, that would be hilarious.
He needed to have more in-depth contact with Peter.
If he were to rank his favorite superheroes, Spider-Man would probably be in the top three.
In his previous life, when Harry was in middle school, he watched Spider-Man, and Peter was just in middle school. As he grew older and watched Spider-Man movies, Peter was just in high school and college.
When he grew up a bit more, in the comics, Peter had reached the age of marriage, although Spider-Man didn't end up with a happy marriage.
The Spider-Man of this World was not the good brother that Harry Osborn grew up playing with.
Considering this Peter's age, he might end up having to say "My brother, Osborn" later on.
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