Infinite Metaverse

Chapter 3: Infiltrating Stark Tower

One month later.

Fu Qinghai sat in his cubicle by the floor-to-ceiling window, staring out at the bustling streets of New York with a look of utter frustration.

Damn Stark Industries internship recruitment!

He glanced up at the distant, gleaming structure of Stark Tower. Even now, he was still a full three blocks away from it!

In his previous life, Fu Qinghai had heard of this kind of situation. Some subsidiaries or smaller companies under large conglomerates, unable to attract enough applicants due to their lack of fame, would borrow the parent company's name for recruitment. In reality, the employment contract would be with some obscure little company. It was a trick often played by large state-owned enterprises and private corporations.

But who would have thought that even the mighty Stark Industries would stoop to such tactics?

The company Fu Qinghai was currently interning at, called Berkhart Visual Effects, wasn't even a subsidiary of Stark Industries. At best, it was a closely collaborating supplier with some shared equity.

And yet, they had the audacity to recruit under Stark Industries'name?

Fu Qinghai recalled the unusually smooth interview process. He had thought his forged documents were flawless and his explanations airtight. Turns out, they didn't care whether he was real or fake.

'The world is simple; it's people who are complicated. So, the clown was me all along!'

He looked at the computer screen in front of him and the piles of documents. This mind-numbing, repetitive work didn't require the expertise of a "Stanford Ph.D." like him. Even a graduate from some no-name university could do it.

Fu Qinghai's mood was a mix of frustration and resignation. He was now one step further from becoming the CEO of Stark Industries.

The only silver lining was that the internship salary was decent enough to keep him afloat in New York, sparing him from lining up with the homeless for some meals.

His instant coffee had gone cold. Sitting at his desk, Fu Qinghai gazed longingly at the entrance of Stark Tower in the distance, as if staring at an unattainable goddess.

The midday sun was as scorching as it had been on the day of his interview, casting shimmering reflections on the glass facade. 

Suddenly, Fu Qinghai thought he saw a faint shadow flicker across the glass.

"Huh?" He squinted, trying to get a clearer look, but it was too far away to make out.

"Was I just seeing things?" The glare from the sun was intense, and Fu Qinghai wasn't sure what he had seen.

"Probably just my imagination. Hmm… I've been in the MCU for over two months now, and I haven't seen any other suspected reincarnators. That voice in my head hasn't reappeared either." Fu Qinghai pondered. How long would it take for him, a fake Ph.D., to infiltrate Stark Industries?

Not only had he failed to steal any of Stark Industries'technology, but the legendary Assimilation Points also seemed like a distant dream.

"Tsk…" After a moment of thought, Fu Qinghai clicked his tongue and stood up to refill his coffee.

Suddenly, a deafening 'BOOM'echoed through the air. Fu Qinghai quickly turned to look out the window.

In the distance, a massive hole had been blown into the midsection of Stark Tower, thick black smoke billowing out. The explosion was so powerful that Fu Qinghai, three blocks away, felt the floor tremble beneath him.

The office erupted into chaos as his colleagues rushed to the windows.

"What's happening?"

"A terrorist attack?"

"Look, it's Stark Industries! It's smoking!" someone pointed out.

"Oh God, are the aliens back?" one employee prayed, likely traumatized after the Chitauri invasion.

"Quiet! Quiet! Everyone, back to your seats!" A short, stocky supervisor emerged from his office, trying to restore order. 

But the employees ignored him, crowding around the windows to watch the chaos unfolding at Stark Tower. The Battle of New York a year ago was still fresh in everyone's minds. Even now, parts of the city remained in ruins.

Fu Qinghai stared intently at the scene. Traffic was gridlocked, people were fleeing in panic, and NYPD officers were rushing to the scene. The distant wail of fire trucks was already audible.

'I have to get over there.'A thought in his head urged him.

'I need to check this out!'Fu Qinghai decided. Though he didn't know what was happening, he sensed this was no ordinary incident. Stark Tower's security was notoriously tight. Anyone capable of causing an explosion in the middle of the building was no ordinary threat.

Driven by an inexplicable urge, Fu Qinghai pushed past his colleagues, ran down the stairs, and emerged onto the street. People were fleeing in the opposite direction of Stark Tower. No one wanted to stick around for the spectacle. Living in disaster-prone New York had taught them basic survival instincts.

Fu Qinghai, however, moved against the flow of the crowd, making him stand out. Police officers were setting up barricades, and a few cars had collided in the chaos.

"Hey, kid, you can't go—" An officer began to stop Fu Qinghai.

BOOM!!! Another explosion rocked the area.

This one came from near the top of Stark Tower. Smoke poured out, and shards of glass and chunks of concrete rained down like hail. People on the street ducked for cover.

Fu Qinghai and the officer instinctively crouched. Seizing the moment, Fu Qinghai sprang up and sprinted toward Stark Tower.

As he ran, he could hear his heart pounding in his chest.

'This is dangerous! Extremely dangerous!' His rational mind screamed at him.

But Fu Qinghai's inherent recklessness overpowered his reason. He had been in the Marvel Cinematic Universe for a full month now, achieving nothing. In his previous life, he had been a corporate drone. Was he going to spend half his life in this Reincarnation World as a useless cog in the machine?

"Besides, according to that message, don't I have three lives?"

Fu Qinghai reached the entrance of the tower. Injured people were streaming out, crying and bleeding. He slipped inside and saw the once-bustling lobby in complete disarray. Fallen pillars, unconscious bodies on the floor, and security guards frantically tending to the wounded.

"This isn't the time to play hero, and I don't know first aid anyway." No one paid him any attention as he navigated the wreckage and headed for the elevators.

The explosions had reached the upper floors. There was no time to take the stairs. Fu Qinghai grabbed a keycard from the chest of a half-corpse in a blue security uniform. He avoided looking at the gruesome lower half of the body and held his breath against the nauseating smell of blood. Using the card, he accessed the elevator.

'Ding!' The elevator was still operational.

Fu Qinghai pressed the button for the highest floor available. The 45th floor lit up.

"Huh… So, this security guard's clearance only goes up to the 45th floor." Fu Qinghai took a deep breath as the doors closed and the elevator began its ascent.

As the elevator rose, Fu Qinghai forced himself to calm down and think about what he might encounter.

"Someone has invaded Stark Tower. A violent intrusion. What are they after?"

In the original timeline, this was around the time of Thor's events. There was no mention of what the other Avengers were up to.

That likely meant the intruders weren't part of the main storyline. They were probably reincarnators like him! Fu Qinghai's heart tightened. Reincarnators bold enough to violently invade the Avengers' headquarters in New York were undoubtedly far stronger than a newbie like him. And judging by their methods, they were likely on the opposite side of the conflict.

Another explosion rocked the building, causing the elevator to shake and the lights to flicker. Fu Qinghai grabbed the handrail to steady himself.

He suddenly remembered the faint shadow he had seen earlier. Could it be connected to this?

'Ding!' The elevator doors opened.

Fu Qinghai cautiously peeked out. The 45th floor was a mess—shattered furniture, bullet holes in the walls, and a couple of bodies. While there were fewer corpses than on the ground floor, the walls were splattered with blood. Aside from the signs of battle, the floor was eerily quiet.

Compared to the chaos outside, the silence here was unsettling.

Now that he was here, Fu Qinghai wasn't in a rush. The adrenaline that had driven him to storm the upper floors had worn off. He took his time to observe and think. He approached a headless body in a suit slumped on a couch. The neck had been cleanly severed, and a cascade of half-dried blood stained the back of the couch. The head lay on the floor behind it. The body's relaxed posture suggested the victim hadn't seen the attack coming. A Stark Industries ID badge, now bloodstained, hung from the suit's chest.

Another body lay near the stairwell entrance—a burly white man with a beard, wearing a shirt and jeans under a desert-camouflaged GEN2 bulletproof vest. He clutched a heavily modified AR-15 rifle. Fu Qinghai's instincts told him this wasn't standard Stark security attire. The charred, ten-centimeter-wide hole in the man's chest hinted at something else.

'Could this be a wound from Iron Man's repulsor blast?' Fu Qinghai wondered. If so, this man was likely another reincarnator.

After a thorough search yielded no useful information, Fu Qinghai pried the rifle from the man's stiff grip. He familiarized himself with the safety and trigger, then crouched low and moved cautiously up the stairs through the gaping hole left by the explosion.

46th floor. 47th floor. 48th floor.

Along the way, Fu Qinghai tried accessing every electronic device he could find.

"Please enter password."

"Facial recognition in progress."

"Insufficient clearance. Access denied."

The devices gave him the same frustrating responses.

"Damn it!" Fu Qinghai cursed under his breath.

This was a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to reach the upper levels of Stark Tower, yet he had gained nothing. Fu Qinghai was just a well-rounded office worker, not some genius hacker. And even a genius hacker would struggle to breach Stark Industries' firewalls.

As Fu Qinghai continued his search, occasional explosions and tremors from the top floors reminded him of the ongoing battle.

"Whoever's fighting Iron Man must be no ordinary reincarnator." Fu Qinghai hesitated as he reached the stairwell to the top floor.

He had infiltrated Stark Tower, but he had nothing to show for it.

His frustration was one thing, but more importantly, he remembered the faction he had chosen a month ago: 'A. Avengers Faction.'

If—just if—Iron Man were killed on the top floor, even though this was Thor's timeline, Tony Stark was one of the MCU's Big Three. His death would drastically alter the course of the Avengers storyline.

The reincarnators daring to challenge Iron Man clearly had a plan.

Fu Qinghai thought again about the message in his head: 'Reincarnation Lives x3.'

"Screw it!" Fu Qinghai gritted his teeth.

No matter how well-planned their scheme was, no matter how powerful they were, no matter how weak I am… today, I, Fu Qinghai, am going to crash this party!

With that resolve, Fu Qinghai began inching up the spiral staircase at a snail's pace, doing his best to stay silent and listen.

The sounds of battle above had quieted, replaced by faint voices.

"So, Mr. Stark, even if you don't value your own life, you should consider the lives of your woman and friends. Now, give me what I want." The voice was young but menacing.

A weak voice responded, "I don't know what you're talking about… some damn cube. There's nothing here you want."

"It's your father's legacy! How could you not know?" The young voice grew angry. "Look at this face—Virginia 'Pepper' Potts, your poor little secretary. The next second, this face will be blown apart by a .44 Magnum!"

Classic villain dialogue.

"You should be talking to Nick Fury, not me. Ha… just get it over with. I never thought I'd survive the Battle of New York only to die at the hands of some idiot mutant."

"Mutant? I'm no filthy mutant, Mr. Stark. You know nothing of Gaia's will, nothing of the great power of Orochi!" The young voice dripped with arrogance.

'Gaia's will? Orochi's power?' Fu Qinghai's mind raced.

'Wait… is this from The King of Fighters?'

Fu Qinghai's breath hitched. Earlier, he had wondered what kind of reincarnator could stand up to Iron Man. But if the intruder was a vessel for Orochi from 'The King of Fighters', given the power scaling in that universe, even Tony Stark in his Mark 42 armor would be no match. At the very least, he'd need the Bleeding Edge suit to put up a fight.

But the fact that the intruder was only holding his own against Iron Man suggested he wasn't Orochi's full incarnation—just a temporary vessel.

'Just' a temporary vessel? How arrogant.

"Murakami, stop wasting time. The other Avengers are on their way. Let's just kill him and cash in the Assimilation Points," a gruff voice interjected.

Fu Qinghai had reached the top floor and was now sitting by the glass door, listening to the conversation on the other side.

"No, the other Avengers won't get here that fast. We've got Iron Man cornered. Let's have some fun with Mr. Stark…" The young voice chuckled coldly, clearly not satisfied with just the Assimilation Points from killing Iron Man. He had bigger ambitions.

"I have to do something, or Iron Man's done for," Fu Qinghai thought. He decided to peek through the door.

Slowly, he leaned his head out to see what was happening.

What he saw nearly froze his blood.