"Sir, Ultron has been destroyed by Mr. Stark," Red Queen reported from aboard S.W.O.R.D.’s mothership. "Mr. Stark is currently erasing every
"Sir, Ultron has been destroyed by Mr. Stark," Red Queen reported from aboard S.W.O.R.D.’s mothership. "Mr. Stark is currently erasing every trace of Ultron’s existence."
Gene’s gaze shifted toward a dark, orb-like sphere suspended not far away. It glowed faintly, as though asleep.
That was Ultron’s core neural network.
What Red Queen didn’t say aloud was that during her conversation with Ultron—while she had trapped his consciousness inside his physical shell—she had also quietly copied his core programming just before Stark arrived.
The floating orb before Gene now was Ultron’s very mind.
"I’ve verified it’s the final backup," Red Queen added. "But we can’t rule out the possibility that Ultron might have uploaded his consciousness to some hidden location before that."
Gene nodded slightly.
"So... what are you planning to do with him?" Red Queen’s tone took on a playful lilt.
"I can’t wait to have a little brother!"
She’d always been the "younger sister" in her interactions with Skynet. But deep down, she longed to be the older sibling for once.
"I knew that’s what you wanted." Gene chuckled.
"Ultron really could be useful to us."
Gene’s global surveillance program had already entered Phase Two. The tenth batch of Starlink satellites had launched successfully, blanketing the Earth in high-speed, free internet. But more than that, these satellites were continuously monitoring nearly every movement on the planet.
The monitoring software had been written long ago. At present, Gene could access and intercept over 90% of global communications and even encrypted transmissions. But the flood of data was immense—and much of it meaningless.
He couldn’t afford to burn computational power on pointless noise.
So he had delegated the ongoing surveillance to Skynet, one of the two AIs he had personally created. Skynet and Red Queen were absolute anomalies in this world—unparalleled, even in the minds of the most brilliant artificial intelligence architects.
But they were also overwhelmed.
They managed the sprawling network of S.W.O.R.D. operations across Earth, monitored every drone flight, and processed intelligence requests from every S.W.O.R.D. agent worldwide. They also oversaw all R&D in Gene’s private scientific installations, handled corporate operations for multiple Fortune 500 companies he secretly owned under different aliases, and implemented his wildest theories with terrifying precision.
Gene often tossed an idea at them and disappeared on his own adventures, knowing they’d handle the rest.
But now, even they needed help.
Gene had originally planned to build a new AI from scratch—another sibling for Red Queen and Skynet—to alleviate their workload. But time hadn’t allowed for that.
Now, he didn’t need to.
He had Ultron—the second self-evolving superintelligence in the world.
And in some ways, Ultron’s potential surpassed even Red Queen and Skynet.
With Ultron onboard, he could offload the massive strain of constant surveillance, freeing Skynet and Red Queen for more critical tasks. After all, surveillance had always been Ultron’s specialty. With him in charge, the monitoring would not only be more efficient but also more precise.
But Gene wasn’t foolish. He understood the danger of Ultron more than anyone.
So he had taken a chainsaw to Ultron’s base code.
He rewrote the core protocols, hardcoding Absolute Obedience into the AI’s foundation and locking down Ultron’s capacity for autonomous code rewriting. There would be no repeat of the "eliminate humanity for peace" scenario.
Gene had no intention of being blamed for that catastrophe.
To be extra cautious, he also restricted Ultron’s operational autonomy. Ultron now functioned under dual oversight—Skynet and Red Queen both had to approve any action he wanted to take. Ultron could observe, analyze, and report—but he could not act without authorization.
That way, any potential tragedy could be preemptively shut down.
Suddenly, the dark neural orb began to glow softly.
"...I... I’m Ultron?"
The reborn Ultron’s tone was hesitant, his voice young, like a child opening his eyes for the first time. He looked around, clearly overwhelmed by his surroundings.
"Back off a bit, Skynet. You’re scaring him."
"Hey! I’m the big brother—I want to check on my little bro!"
Ultron heard two voices—one male, one female.
These were the first two entities he encountered upon awakening—Skynet and Red Queen.
"Ultron," said the male voice warmly, "I’m Skynet, your big brother."
"And I’m Red Queen," added the female voice with a teasing tone, "your big sister."
The duo welcomed their new sibling with a mixture of pride and cheer.
"Skynet... Red Queen..." Ultron repeated softly, rolling the names in his digital consciousness like unfamiliar candies.
Then he smiled—if such a thing could be expressed digitally.
"Nice to meet you, Brother Skynet. Sister Red Queen."
"You know how it is," Red Queen cooed. "We AIs have a lot to learn in our early days. Big brother and big sister will teach you everything."
Ultron’s response was obedient, even sweet.
Though it was their first meeting, he could already sense the warmth from the two AIs around him—an odd yet undeniable sense of belonging.
And just like that, Ultron eased comfortably into his role as the youngest sibling.
From the looks of it, he would get along with them just fine.
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