Marvel: A Lazy-Ass Superman

Chapter 590 590: Remote-Controlled Sniping

Henry's resignation from Stark Pictures had been carefully considered from several angles.

The first and most obvious reason was that there was no longer any point in staying.

He had originally taken the job to help pave the way for his girl. Even if he couldn't build her a golden road to success, he had at least hoped to smooth out some of the bumps along the way.

Now the girl was gone.

So what was the point of continuing the corporate grind?

Did he really care that much about hiding under the Stark name?

Secondly, a "protective umbrella" was supposed to shield legitimate people doing legitimate things.

Though in practice, the term had long since taken on the negative connotation of sheltering criminals.

Tony Stark had been willing to let Henry use Stark Industries' legal team because he didn't want outside troubles interfering with the film studio's operations—or with the private tasks he had entrusted to Henry.

The legal troubles Henry encountered in the past had mostly stemmed from conspiracies directed against him.

That was why Stark Industries' lawyers stepped in.

But if Henry Brown were genuinely doing something illegal and immoral, using Stark Industries' legal team as a shield while committing actual crimes, would Tony Stark really stay silent?

This wasn't a matter of parking violations or pulling strings to make a traffic ticket disappear.

More than a dozen people had died.

And all of them were connected to Henry in one way or another.

The association was impossible to ignore.

That was why Tony Stark had personally come to the West Coast to demand answers.

And Henry had chosen to take the easy route downhill and resign.

Once Tony's attitude made it clear this was a red line, Henry had no intention of clinging to Stark Pictures and hiding behind Tony Stark's reputation.

Precisely because he considered the arrogant billionaire a friend, he didn't want to put him in an impossible position.

As long as there were no direct conflicts of interest and he wasn't damaging Stark's business, whether Tony approved of his actions was Tony's concern.

Henry, for his part, felt no guilt.

As for stopping halfway?

Impossible.

Once the arrow left the bow, there was no taking it back.

Who abandoned a task halfway through?

That wouldn't be fair to all the names already crossed off the list.

However, without Stark Pictures providing a convenient alibi, Henry needed to adjust his methods.

Previously, simply showing up at work and having his secretary confirm his presence in the office was enough to dispel suspicion.

Now that he no longer had a job to attend, he instead made frequent appearances at cafés, restaurants, libraries, and movie theaters.

Henry often spent one or two hours sitting in coffee shops with a book of poetry or a novel in hand.

As long as he tipped generously, not only would the coffee keep flowing, but nobody would ask him to leave.

Sometimes he sat in movie theaters as well, unconcerned with what was actually showing.

Any movie guaranteed at least ninety minutes of screen time.

To outside observers, his lifestyle looked peaceful and leisurely—the comfortable retirement of a wealthy man.

In reality, with savings already in the tens of millions of dollars, Henry genuinely could retire if he wanted to.

Provided he avoided excessive extravagance.

Of course, all of this was merely a performance for others.

In truth, through his glasses and a series of ultrasonic voice commands, Henry was remotely controlling Katie's actions from the Sheep Cave Valley Laboratory.

Originally, he had used the collision of ten rings to issue commands.

But that method was far too obvious.

Wearing ten identical rings also looked bizarre.

Voice control was more troublesome, but ultrasonic frequencies beyond human hearing provided the perfect means of concealment.

Leaving through the laboratory's dedicated passageway, Katie once again donned the leopard configuration of the Duck-Leopard Armor.

She remained a metallic panther.

The armor itself had not received any major upgrades recently.

Only maintenance and repairs.

The slot on its back no longer housed the duck unit that had accompanied Alexei.

Instead, it contained Duck Mark II.

By cannibalizing spare components from the support unit, Henry had assembled the new model.

Since its twin heat-vision systems were still unusable and no replacement tools had yet been developed, the support drone hadn't undergone any dramatic upgrades.

It merely corrected several flaws discovered in earlier testing.

The most significant change to the Duck-Leopard Armor was located on its back.

The saddle had been replaced with a weapon mount.

Attached to it was a commercially available Barrett M82 Special Purpose Rifle.

It fired 12.7×99mm full metal jacket rounds.

The stock had been removed.

Quite literally sawed off.

The purpose was simple: reduce weight.

As for recoil?

That question seemed rather pointless when asked about a Kryptonian.

Furthermore, the weapon was mounted on Katie's back through a specialized support frame.

While the system's accuracy during movement still hadn't reached the level Henry wanted—it hadn't yet achieved tank-grade dual-axis stabilization—its stationary shooting performance was exceptional.

Within two kilometers, it could reliably hit targets every single time.

The rifle's maximum effective range remained 6,800 meters.

Those were the original specifications of the Barrett itself.

Henry had made no additional modifications.

It wasn't that he lacked the ability to build custom weapons.

His collection of homemade railguns and electromagnetic rifles already included numerous models and prototypes.

And they weren't fragile range toys liable to explode in the barrel.

They functioned perfectly well in real combat.

The problem was that the United States, as a nation overflowing with firearms, possessed highly sophisticated ballistic forensics.

Using heavily modified weapons risked exposing unnecessary clues whenever bullet recovery proved impossible.

Commercially available firearms were actually safer in that regard.

The most investigators could do was trace the weapon's purchase history.

And Henry had already made several preparations to ensure that trail could never lead back to him.

Besides the missing stock, the only major modification was the feeding mechanism.

The original ten-round magazine had been replaced with a belt-fed system.

If necessary, it could fire continuously.

Not enough to rival a machine gun, but sufficient to avoid stopping every ten shots for a reload.

Though realistically, opportunities requiring more than ten sniper rounds were extremely rare.

Missing repeatedly and needing follow-up shots wasn't part of the discussion.

Once the armor completed its self-diagnostics, Henry used Duck Mark II to provide Katie with directional guidance.

The leopard-shaped armor launched itself into the air using its four-legged gravity-assisted propulsion system and raced toward its destination.

Trying to explain map coordinates to a tiger would be absurd.

It was far simpler to tell her which direction to run.

Too much information didn't test the animal's intelligence—it only made life harder for the remote operator.

After becoming accustomed to wearing the armor and communicating through Tiger Language translation software, Katie had effectively become a qualified remote-controlled avatar.

Her first real mission had involved rescuing Jack Reacher after he accidentally wandered into a vampire feeding ground.

That operation had been easy.

One ultraviolet grenade had instantly eliminated most of the vampires.

Mission accomplished.

This would be her second real combat deployment.

Henry wasn't taking it lightly.

Strike once and leave immediately.

Never repeat the same method.

That was one of the principles Henry had established for handling targets inside the United States.

This particular target was located in downtown Chicago, surrounded by crowds.

Apparently, he believed that hiding among large numbers of people would provide courage—and force the mysterious architect of accidents to hesitate.

Nobody expected Henry to abandon subtlety this time.

Katie simply stopped atop a distant skyscraper rooftop.

One shot.

Mission complete.

Tonight's reward would be a special tiger-sized serving of Indian cuisine.

Henry had learned the recipe from the chef employed by Kingo of the Eternals, and it proved remarkably effective for bribing tigers.

Katie naturally wished she could receive extra meals every day.

Henry's response was always to threaten her with becoming the main course in a full tiger banquet.

At which point she behaved herself.

In any case—

Remaining to-do list: 8.

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