After finishing his conversation with Quicksilver, Henry made an excuse to leave and secretly headed to the hidden base on the eleventh floor.
The thought of telling the mutants about this place never even crossed his mind.
Although his identity as an alien hadn't been exposed to the entire world through the mutants, it certainly wasn't a secret among them.
Being an alien was a potentially useful bargaining chip, but in reality, Henry's invulnerable body made obtaining samples for testing extremely difficult. Unless Henry voluntarily provided things like saliva or hair, there was practically no way to get usable biological samples from him.
Under those circumstances, how could Henry possibly reveal that he possessed technology more advanced than anything on Earth?
Rather than gambling on the mutants' discretion, he would be better off treating every single one of them as someone incapable of keeping a secret.
So Henry came to the secret base alone.
He found Gilgamesh and the other two had already been here for quite some time, eating potato chips while binge-watching a TV series.
True couch potatoes.
The reason was that the television screen here was actually the enormous image produced by a projector.
In 2003, CRT televisions were still the mainstream. LCD displays were only just getting started, and large-screen models were practically unthinkable.
Plasma TVs existed as a large-screen alternative, though they would eventually disappear from the market. But the viewing area of Henry's projector depended only on the size of the projection screen.
Combined with custom-built, home-theater-grade speakers, watching movies in the secret base offered a cinema-level experience.
Even if you waved a fistful of cash around and bought every high-end consumer appliance available, you might not be able to assemble a setup this good.
Henry had even cracked the country's cable television networks. And thanks to a backdoor he had left in Stark Industries' film library, he could freely watch all the old movies that the company's digital department had digitized.
He wasn't simply freeloading, either.
From Atari and the Nintendo Famicom to the latest PlayStation 2 and Dreamcast, he had bought one of practically every home gaming console.
It was almost as though he were trying to revisit the childhood he'd lost—or make up for all the things he'd missed back then.
He hadn't collected every game cartridge or disc, though.
He mainly focused on a few major game companies, collecting complete sets from them along with various classic titles.
It was fair to say that this was probably the biggest source of spending in Henry's life since traveling through time.
Compared with the compensation he'd received from Sony, the amount he'd spent here was practically a drop in the ocean.
Now all this equipment had become a way for the three immortals to pass their free time.
Henry didn't stop them.
As long as they didn't spread the technology or information outside, he didn't particularly care.
Cassandra had even paid out of her own pocket to replace the sofa in the secret base for a more comfortable binge-watching experience.
The new sofa could unfold into a bed. Simply pulling out and extending the footrest turned it into something comfortable enough to lie down on.
Henry watched his workshop gradually transforming into a place for professional shut-ins.
He endured it.
Because once you added ice-cold soda and high-calorie pizza, the place was practically too comfortable to ruin.
But Henry hadn't come here today to slack off with the three immortals.
He went to the control console and began reviewing the surveillance footage transmitted by the Sparrow drones.
When the U.S. military attacked Xavier's School for Gifted Youngsters, the Sparrow spy drones that had been monitoring the mutant school immediately seized an opportunity to attach themselves to the military helicopters.
The plan was to track the soldiers back to their secret base.
There was, however, a limit to the helicopters' range.
No matter how capable the U.S. military considered itself, they couldn't simply fly a helicopter directly from Westchester County, New York, all the way into Canada.
They could get relatively close, sure.
But the actual destination was clearly beyond the helicopter's range.
So the military first flew to a military base within New York State, transferred to military transport aircraft, and flew into Canada.
From a Canadian military base, they then transferred back to helicopters and finally reached the secret facility inside the dam.
During this process, the six Sparrow drones split up and followed different targets.
Only one group was tracking William Stryker.
The other followed a random group of soldiers.
Because of this, the two groups of Sparrow drones became separated.
Only the drones following William Stryker crossed into Canada.
The other group appeared to have remained behind at the first military base.
This made one thing clear.
William Stryker hadn't personally led his own elite forces in the assault on the mutant school.
Instead, he'd simply taken a random military unit, equipped it with anti-mutant gear, and gone into action.
That revealed something important.
This wasn't merely Colonel William Stryker acting on his own.
The operation had been conducted through the official U.S. military chain of command.
Someone at a higher level had authorized it.
So had the current President approved this?
Henry didn't know who the president had been in the movie.
But the current president of the United States in this world was the same man who had been president before Henry traveled through time:
George Walker Bush.
The second Bush to become President of the United States.
This man, whom Henry regarded as possessing little more than a handsome face, had sent troops into Iraq and now apparently approved an assault against mutants—specifically, the X-Men, who had maintained relatively good relations with the authorities for years.
Regardless of whether George W. Bush had personally ordered these operations, someone willing to authorize them had to accept responsibility for the consequences.
An ordinary person wouldn't casually make decisions tantamount to starting a war.
Unless they were simply a terrible person.
The realization also served as a warning to Henry.
What he was facing now wasn't some band of mountain bandits or a rogue warlord.
It was a war machine backed by an entire nation.
Unfortunately, even with the risk of provoking the U.S. military, Henry still had to deal with the Stryker father and son.
A poisonous snake that was always ready to bite, combined with a venomous fang capable of taking down even a Kryptonian.
Every additional minute those two remained alive was an irresponsible risk to Henry's own safety.
In the past, Henry had been willing to take risks because he relied, to some extent, on his apparent immortality.
But Mastermind had already managed to trap his consciousness once.
Regardless of whether that had actually cost him any time in the real world, Henry had no desire to experience it a second time.
The problem now was deciding whether to strike before the X-Men made their move or afterward.
From what Quicksilver had told him, several children from the mutant school had fallen into the military's hands, and the X-Men would eventually go rescue them.
Professor X and Cyclops had also presumably been captured by William Stryker's people.
That meant the remaining X-Men would inevitably clash with Colonel Stryker and the military.
And it would happen soon.
Judging by the movie's ending, there was no question that the villains ultimately lost and the protagonists emerged victorious.
Henry wasn't sure whether reality would follow the same script.
But the moment the X-Men and the U.S. military clashed would be the perfect opportunity for him to fish in troubled waters.
It seemed like the obvious choice.
But there was one enormous, uncontrollable variable.
Jean Grey.
The host of the Phoenix Force.
Henry had no confidence that the abilities of his power armor alone would allow him to kill a key figure like William Stryker right under Jean Grey's nose.
He couldn't even be certain that the X-Men would actually kill someone who had treated mutants so ruthlessly.
And ever since the battle against the Sentinels, Henry had encountered Jean Grey several times.
They hadn't actually clashed, but there had always been an undercurrent of unpleasant tension between them.
That faint hostility was enough to prick at Henry's senses.
It seemed that even if Jean Grey had forgotten certain things, the Phoenix hadn't.
Henry had paid the price of one ruined eye to seriously injure the Phoenix the last time they fought.
If they fought again now, Henry had no confidence that he could defeat her.
At best, he might avoid losing—but he'd still have to pay a price.
The Minotaur armor was a disposable identity.
If the Phoenix forced him to reveal his true body, he'd lose far more than he'd gain.
So there was only one opportunity.
Before the X-Men made their move.
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