I Became a Knockoff Arms Dealer in the Marvel World

After Tony Stark repeatedly destroyed batches of Jericho missiles, the supply in the Middle Eastern battlefield seemed endless, with more and more missiles surfacing every day. Left with no other option, he reached out to S.H.I.E.L.D., asking them to send their elite agents to investigate the origin of these mysterious arms.

As an intelligence organization under the World Security Council, S.H.I.E.L.D. had around 300,000 elite operatives and countless secret bases worldwide. Even though they had been infiltrated by Hydra, their intelligence capabilities were still formidable. They quickly deployed Black Widow, Natasha Romanoff. Even though Carl had cleaned up every trace, she was still able to find a small clue.

Carl, sitting in his office deep underground in the Hive Base, looked at the holographic projection of Black Widow on his screen. He felt a headache coming on. Black Widow was currently disguised as an ordinary employee within the Umbrella Corporation headquarters. Although she thought her infiltration was flawless, the AI, Red Queen, knew every detail of her movements from the moment she entered.

Red Queen, the artificial intelligence that ran the security of the Umbrella headquarters, had access to all surveillance cameras throughout the building and locked onto the "ordinary" employee from the instant she stepped in.

"Even though my abilities have greatly improved, compared to S.H.I.E.L.D., it's still not wise to confront them directly yet," Carl muttered to himself.

After two years of growth, Carl had injected himself with the perfected T-virus, greatly enhancing his speed, strength, and overall physical condition. He had even unlocked telekinetic powers, which were a remarkable boost to his abilities. Moreover, he had developed an uncanny sixth sense that allowed him to detect the surveillance of satellites, akin to Spider-Man's "spider-sense." This ability had saved him from countless dangers when he was expanding his influence.

However, Carl had now reached a bottleneck in his development. The more advanced genetic weapons like Spider-Man's modifications or the X-gene enhancements were still out of reach due to their high costs. Over the past years, he had spent nearly two billion U.S. dollars developing the Umbrella Corporation, investing in cloning technology, memory implantation, T-virus bio-weapons, AI, and armed satellites. The first-tier technologies available in his system were almost all purchased, but those in the second-tier were prohibitively expensive, with prices starting at a billion dollars each.

Carl had to slow down his expansion. He decided to focus on growing Umbrella until it could influence global affairs before considering purchasing second-tier technologies. This was also because, as of 2010, the Marvel universe hadn't yet reached its most dangerous phase, so he opted for a strategy of low-profile development.

Now, though, things were about to change. Black Widow was right above him in the Umbrella Tower. Given S.H.I.E.L.D.'s unmatched intelligence abilities, once they noticed anything unusual about the Umbrella Corporation, they would certainly investigate. Confrontation was inevitable. The only question was whether to face them aggressively or to compromise for now.

Carl considered his options carefully.

A little girl in a red princess dress suddenly appeared as a holographic projection to Carl's left. It was Red Queen, his AI assistant.

[BOSS, should we send armed guards to capture Black Widow? Based on intelligent simulations, the success rate of capture, assuming no property damage, is 79.13%. If we deploy Agent Ada Wang, the success rate will rise to 98%.]

Ada Wang was a special agent cloned by Carl, instilled with the memories of a highly skilled operative. She was one of his most elite agents.

Carl, wearing a tailored suit and sipping wine from the 1999 vintage of Bortus Winery, sat back in his leather chair. After hearing Red Queen's suggestion, he furrowed his brow and hesitated for a moment, remaining silent.

After a while, Carl made up his mind. Although he wasn't afraid of confronting S.H.I.E.L.D., doing so would undoubtedly disrupt his arms trade, which was his lifeblood. If he went to war with S.H.I.E.L.D., it would be challenging to find buyers who were willing to risk being targeted by the organization.

S.H.I.E.L.D.'s influence was immense, and most buyers would shy away from dealing with Carl if they thought they might be pursued by S.H.I.E.L.D. agents. So, Carl realized he couldn't afford to take direct action against Black Widow yet.

"Monitor her closely for now," Carl finally said. "As long as she doesn't find the Hive Base, we won't take any drastic actions."

Red Queen acknowledged the order with a respectful nod.

[Understood. Assigning Black Widow's status as D3-level ordinary employee. Ongoing surveillance will continue.]

With that, Red Queen's hologram disappeared. Carl's gaze remained fixed on Black Widow's projection.

"I'll give you a bit more time to live," Carl muttered under his breath. "I hope you don't uncover anything. Otherwise, I won't hesitate to eliminate one of Marvel's main characters."

Though Black Widow was attractive, Carl was no saint. Since entering the arms trade in 2008, he had already sold nearly a hundred million AK-47 rifles and billions of rounds of ammunition. Most of these rifles had ended up in war-torn regions, and Carl knew that every life lost to those weapons had his fingerprints on it.

For him, there was no turning back.