"You sure you want this? It's not legal." Dr. Greene said, putting a bug detector on the desk and thumping a file onto the glass. We were in a generic office building, but he had a corner office and a sweeping view of D.C.'s downtown. Was he surveying of his future conquest? Or was he some sort of twisted patriot? After all, the Hydra agents clearly thought that Captain America might join them in the movies.

I lifted the file off the glass table, thumbing it open. It had what I was looking for. I slapped it shut and grinned. "And nobody will be able to trace it to me?"

"There's no way," Greene said, the small smile on his face putting me at unease. "It'll be an independent discovery if you can crack it. You won't have to name it something ridiculous like 'Pym Particles'"

I weighed the moment in my mind. Should I hand it back? But then I shook my mind loose of it. The problem with abandoning it now is that whatever entrapment Greene might be scheming for me here I was already trapped.

"Yeah, I want it. These are going to revolutionize civilization. The applications are practically endless."

"Good to hear," Greene agreed. "You still planning on focusing on domestic functions like delivery?"

"Sure," I said, doing my best to sound mild about it. "Imagine 'skyscraper production facilities' throughout the Midwest. Mobile hospitals that can be deployed in emergencies throughout the world. If I can get it cheap enough, the sheer amount of space you could save by having people carrying cars in their pocket... Urban design would be transfigured." In truth, I was not committed to domestic functions at all.

In the movies, Tony said he had privatized world peace - That was... not happening in this timeline. It was now April and Tony seemed to be becoming less and less active as Iron Man - His focus was on expanding his ARC reactor tech. That made me nervous. Iron Man was a crucial element of the defeat of Thanos' forces in Avengers. A future where New York was nuked? Very sub-ideal.

But I didn't have any idea of why Tony was behaving this way. It wasn't like I couldn't ask anyone, "Hey, why isn't the world's richest man fighting terrorists in his power armor?" So I was doing something risky to ensure I had an easy way to deliver a nuclear warhead into space.

"Andromeda said that you were a dreamer but I wasn't sure if I believed her." Greene said, interrupting my internal monologue.

Wouldn't that sound like they were passing around reports on me? Or was I supposed to infer that it was part of her recommendation for our little "informal" network? "Well, far be it from me to argue with such a beautiful woman."

"Keep that up and you'll be a happily married man," he said, slapping me amicably on the shoulder.

I blinked. I hadn't been thinking about marriage at all, to be honest. In retrospect, I suppose I should have been. She was from the same evangelical culture as me and there was a chance this thing was sincere for her. We'd been going out for months. It must have been on her mind at least.

"Yeah, thanks for this," I said, stuffing the folder under my arm.

"Always happy to help our golden goose, Mike," he said as I walked out to the door.

Golden goose? I was a sure investment, I guess, but I almost paid back money too fast to be a golden goose. You'd basically get better returns on the stock market. Well, whatever makes them happy.

---

"How's your project going," Drama asked, propped up against me in her pajamas and flicking through tv channels.

Pym Particles were the first genuine challenge of my entire career in this universe. Mostly I was sandbagging dangerous developments like fusion power and laser guns. I could have pulled a veritable Lex Luthor, but I was trying not to. I was too close to Hydra and I was pretty sure that being too far from Hydra would mean a bullet from the Winter Soldier.

"It's going slow."

"Wow, a problem the Mighty Michael Trent can't solve over a weekend," Drama said, leaning against me. The clicking of channels, something I was having to reacquaint myself with, was our evening's entertainment. "Ugh, there's nothing on."

"In ten years, there will be streaming services, so many streaming services that we can watch whatever we want whenever we want. And what we will do instead is spend twenty minutes scrolling through the shows."

"No, I'd watch something. There's nothing on."

I grinned a knowing grin and she sat up indignantly, "I would!"

"You wouldn't," I said, the confidence of future knowledge bearing me up.

Ensure your favorite authors get the support they deserve. Read this novel on Royal Road.

"Well, looks like I'm controlling the remote in ten years."

I suppressed my natural reaction and flashed a smile, "It really doesn't matter who flips the channel." That got a glare. I thought for a moment, "I'll prove it!"

"How on earth will you prove that?" she asked.

It wouldn't be that hard. Vocal synthesis was already advanced in the MCU by this point. Back in my world, 3D modeling was already enabling movies like Gemini and This Person is Not Real was already creating simularcums that resembled real people. If you merged those together, you could make being a director something a lot more like being an author than being a boss of a big store. "I'll make movie production radically cheaper. There will be a massive explosion of creativity, we'll have ten times as much TV for half the price. Then you'll see." An emotion flashed across Drama's face that I thought was fear. "What's the matter? Is that a problem? Do we have... friends in Hollywood?"

"I mean, we have plenty of friends everywhere..." Drama said, standing up and pacing. "But it's just... Maybe don't do that to win an argument."

"Winning the argument is a bonus. Think of the cultural renaissance that would inspire!" Now that I was considering the possibility, it was genuinely exciting. I could expand cultural production in the first world by a ton. And, bonus, it would undermine Hollywood and if I wanted a radical militarization to defend us against extraterrestial threats, I needed to do that anyway. "Look, if our friends want in, we can cut them in. It's not a big deal. All for one and one for all, right?" Was giving Hydra the keys to Super!Youtube a great idea? Probably not. But it was that or not doing it at all and I still definitely needed to undercut Hollywood on that front.

Drama sucked in a breath and said, "I'm going to take a walk and make a call, see what I can do. You stay here, handsome."

One of the things about Drama's house is that she has it bugged with little cameras. So if she said, "Stay here" then stay here I would have to say. But it's not like I hadn't anticipated that. I had bugged Drama's phone. So, pretending to listen to music on my (very primitive) iPhone, I started listening in on her conversation.

"I need to give him the book," Drama's voice said.

"Honey," her mom said on the other end of the phone. "You know that will advance his progress substantially. Are you sure he's ready?"

"He's ready." Drama said, her voice firm. I doubted I would think the same if I were in her position, not that I knew exactly what the book meant. I ignored the feeling in my stomach at manipulating her feelings. "Even if he's not, he's too dangerous to leave on a loose chain." Okay, don't feel quite as bad. "He's brilliant, Mom, a whirlwind of creative destruction. He's holding back."

"And why on earth would he do that?" Mrs. Albertson asked.

"He worries about job losses from his stuff, usually. He started talking about the movie industry, he seems certain he can capture the whole thing." I mouthed shit under my breath. Yeah, that hadn't been subtle. That's what you get for wanting to win an argument more than considering the little things.

"Well," the sound of her mom on the other end of the line seemed genuinely frightened. That's a bad sign. "You're right, then. We can't leave such an asset loose. It's in with us or in the ground. Try to get the book into his hand without provoking his suspicions. This is urgent, Drama."

"Yes, Mom," Drama said as if she was being told to use to protection. "Hail Hydra."

"Hail Hydra."

When she came back, she said she'd been setting up some meetings for me next week and she'd tell me when they got back to her. When I was leaving, she leaned against my chest, "You know how I read a Christmas Carol?"

"Yes," I said, knowing where this was going.

"I have a book that's really important to me," she said, "And I want you to read it."

"Of course, dear," I said with a smile.

She beamed and I thought it was sincere. This hall of mirrors of a relationship was sometimes very frustrating. She went off to her room and brought back a thick, hardback book that would look respectable on any office shelf.

"Well, I definitely got the stiff end on the length," I said with a wry grin. The flash on her face made me feel bad for teasing, "I'll read it as quick as I can."

The spine read, "The Phoenix Protocol" and I felt like I was getting closer to the edge as I headed out for the night.