Solomon held tightly onto Lorna's hand, afraid that if he let go, she'd dash off and vanish without a trace.
As previously mentioned, Solomon never hid his actions from those he considered potential followers. So when Lorna insisted on seeing the children Solomon had rescued, he agreed—but not by letting her visit their living quarters directly. Instead, she would observe through the network and surveillance cameras in his office. "Malnutrition, illness, fear, language barriers. According to our established protocols, we're currently supposed to reduce their mental stress," Solomon said as he dimmed several of the display windows on his computer screen to make the images clearer for her. "That's why we released a sedative gas through the ventilation system. The dose is small, but it calms blood vessels and nerves, so they don't die of fright."
"Crude, but effective," Lorna nodded. "So what's your plan after this? And who's this woman?"
"Ah, Ms. Romanoff, I didn't expect you to arrive so quickly!"
"Before you throw these children into a lab, I had to do something," Natasha Romanoff pushed open the door and plopped down on the chair opposite the oak desk. The operation in the Immortal City had no high-level secrecy, so it wasn't surprising that Natasha used her clearance to learn about it. Solomon wasn't particularly shocked either. "You've already made NATO troops suffer, but I didn't think you'd go so far as to abduct people," she said. "This is far more aggressive and bold than establishing colonies in Africa. Hello, young lady."
Romanoff glanced toward Solomon, silently questioning why there was a minor in the room.
"Don't worry about her. She's not one of your government-protected marshmallow kids."
The girl angrily yanked her hand out of Solomon's, but the mage wasn't fazed. Emotional outbursts and a touch of rebellion were perfectly normal for someone her age.
"Let me say this again. I took them from hunger and fear and gave them the right to survive and the dignity all humans deserve. I'll educate them with whips and books alike, and I'll shape them to bear the future mission of the human race. Even if Steve Rogers were standing here, I'd say the same. If Tony Stark thinks his Avengers can solve everything, then he should take a good look at the disasters his military-industrial complex has created through greed. If I could, I'd pour flamethrower fuel into their ears to cleanse their minds—I truly believe it would improve their lives."
"What about the children's parents?"
"I don't think they'll need parents in the future, nor will they remember them," the mage answered bluntly, unapologetic about his actions. "The serums produced in our bio-labs can help them forget their stupid, worthless pasts and focus entirely on their studies. The Immortal City will become their refuge. That's far better than growing up to praise false gods, pull triggers, and kill heretics like some half-baked theological dropouts. And yes, you guessed right—they will have their personalities erased and be remade into loyal, resolute, and dutiful human beings. They will strive for the freedom of their species, not the foolish freedom of the individual."
Clearly, Natasha Romanoff couldn't accept this. The methods of the Immortal City reminded her too much of the Red Room. The only small comfort she found was that the Immortal City wasn't doing this for personal gain—that was the one thing she could hold onto.
"The Immortal City will establish an academy system to train and screen them through military drills and cultural education," Solomon said, pulling a hefty 300-page document from a drawer and handing it to her. "This is the curriculum plan. It's a gradual, highly scientific approach. After graduation, the children will be absorbed into different departments of the Immortal City, where they'll contribute in the fields they excel at most."
"Latin, military training, and a few art courses?"
Solomon nodded.
"Academy instruction will be extremely rigorous—none of the slack you see in public schools. Corporal punishment is permitted. They'll have access to the best teachers and the finest equipment. Their entire lives will be in service to humanity as a whole. They'll become steel and gunfire. I know you're about to throw some heroism argument at me, but the truth is that so-called heroes are just ordinary people who stepped up."
"Have you ever considered how much impact your actions have?" the agent said helplessly. "Every move you make affects thousands, maybe millions of lives—like what you're doing now. I'm not denying the effectiveness of your methods, but you seem to be acting with urgency, like something terrible is coming. You're preparing for it with ruthless determination. That's not how normal people think, Solomon. I honestly don't know how to judge what you're doing."
"I don't need anyone's judgment, Natasha."
At that, the fuming Lorna let out a dismissive snort.
"But you were right about one thing," Solomon continued. "A disaster is coming, and I must do everything possible to ensure the survival of the human race. That is my duty, and I will not be afraid just because I carry the fate of millions. I've never claimed to be a hero. I am only human, and the future is not mine alone to bear. Everyone must give their all." He shot a stern glare at the girl trying to undermine him. "That's the fundamental difference between me and the Avengers. This isn't something you can brush off with 'we did our best.' It's 'we must win.' If the Avengers oppose my methods—if they think their soft idealism can bear the weight of all humanity, and they'd rather let mankind surrender than fight with everything we have—then I'll solve that problem first. We can't afford to lose. The Avengers have no right to represent humanity in surrender. I think I've made myself very clear."
Silence fell over the room. Lorna, now satisfied, crossed her legs and flipped through one of the Immortal City's dull financial ledgers.
The conversation had come to a close. Natasha didn't want to waste more time on sociology debates, nor did she want to provoke Solomon into turning around and wiping out the Avengers in one fell swoop. "Then what's this?" she asked, picking up a printed sheet from the table. "You're not recruiting these kids just to make them part of some department, are you?"
The paper—only placed on the desk a few minutes earlier—was filled with densely printed individual identifiers and genetic comparison results.
"Just a routine medical checkup," Solomon replied evasively, snatching the paper away.
It was a report from Maya Hand and her genetic lab. The children's DNA had been compared against ancient remains that Solomon had dug up from graves all over the world, tracing the ancestry of each one. In truth, this was a preliminary stage in creating more Imperial Guards. The first, Constantine, had Macedonian royal blood. When Solomon bestowed power upon him, he also integrated certain kingly traits into his personality. After all, the Imperial Guards weren't just weapons—they were also extensions of Solomon's will, his advisors and enforcers.
He needed more of them. So whenever the Immortal City found age-appropriate children, they were genetically sequenced to search for candidates suitable for genetic alchemy. Natasha had once glimpsed Constantine in his childhood form only because the production process was still in the experimental phase at the time. She never realized that the golden-armored giant who followed Solomon everywhere was the same boy. After centuries of slaughter training on alien worlds and exposure to the Time Stone, Constantine was now over two hundred years old. As for Solomon himself, thanks to accelerated time and temporal travel, he had long lost track of his true age.
He'd since given up on the idea of keeping count and simply told himself he was still twenty-one—though the real number was far, far higher.
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