The atmosphere of a winter day close to Christmas was finally breaking the cold and silence, displaying some lively, worldly scenes. Outside the balcony, shuttles full of passengers cut through the morning sky from time to time, adding a unique vitality to the morning.
Shiller was still living in Eddie's house, not because he didn't want to move back to his clinic, but because both of his only places in New York had been involved in accidents.
Arkham Sanatorium Skyline Train Station was almost completed, but Jarvis suddenly cut his power, causing the construction to be urgently stopped. Even though it was quickly taken over by automated machinery, the promised quiet feature wasn't installed. Thus, even though it was operational, the noise made it impossible for Shiller to rest well.
The small clinic in Hell's Kitchen was also bombed. Eddie took Bob there last time to collect some medication when Bob casually tossed the bomb, meant for blasting a flying shuttle, into the basement.
Later, Bob, coveting the expensive drugs in the clinic, decided to break in and steal some in the middle of the night. As a novice, he broke in at night, inadvertently set off the bomb in the basement, and almost killed himself. The explosion caused the collapse of the clinic and made the entire ground floor uninhabitable.
Shiller had no choice but to continue living with Eddie. Luckily, Eddie had made a decent amount of money as an editor and was also willing to live a more modest life, so he rented a large house on the edge of Hell's Kitchen for the same price.
The house Eddie was renting had three bedrooms, two living rooms and two large terraces. Although it was a more traditional apartment building, both Shiller and Thor could live there comfortably, considering the size.
A few days before Christmas in the early morning, Shiller was up at 5:30 in accordance with his extremely punctual biological clock. The first thing he did after getting up was take medication. Of course, this wasn't the painkiller he used to numb the brain, but certain anti-anxiety drugs.
Because of the existence of the gray mist, Shiller did not have any physical disease. Thus, these drugs had become comfort drugs as well. He would take them whenever he remembered to; if he forgot, then he just skipped it.
Shiller took off his sleeping cap and entered the bathroom to clean up. Then he began searching for ingredients in the fridge to make breakfast.
Just then, the door was suddenly knocked. Listening to the urgent knocks coming from outside, Shiller furrowed his brow.
He knew that this couldn't be a courier or newspaper delivery person. There was no delivery service in this neighborhood, and even if there were, they wouldn't knock on the door like this. It was as if they would start shooting if you opened the door a second late.
Shiller put down the lettuce in his hand, walked over to the door, opened it, and found a bruised Stark standing outside.
Shiller looked up at the air above his head, rubbed his eyes, and then closed the door with a "bang".
Upon reopening the door, Stark slowly withdrew his hand that was about to knock on the door again. After being sure that this wasn't an illusion, Shiller looked at Stark up and down and realized that he was not in good shape.
The first thing he noticed was that Stark was wearing a special battle suit, which was different from the nano technology and collapsible designs he had developed before. It resembled the primitive version of the armored battle suit. The type that you had to walk over to, then the battle suit would close and begin to function.
Even this primitive battle suit wasn't complete. Stark wore only the chest armor and the left arm armor. The entire right arm armor and the left hand armor were all missing. He was also only wearing one complete leg armor. The other was missing from the knee down.
Shiller opened his mouth. Before some more critical words could come out, he glanced at the wound on Stark's face. He cleaned up his language a bit before saying: "Recently, is it your ambition to give all your Mechas a fashion show?"
Stark extended his arm without armor to touch the wound on his face, winced, then looked at Shiller with a bright smile. Shiller also smiled back. However, he didn't mean to make way. Consequently, Stark could only press his fingers together and tell him, "A small experiment went wrong."
"What's going on?" Eddie walked out, rubbing his eyes, keeping one eye open while the other was closed. Just as Shiller moved aside, Stark "whooshed" into the house.
Eddie licked his lips, looking at the disheveled Stark from top to bottom. Venom's voice came from his mouth:
"From the size of the impact on your battle suit and the direction of the scratches, you seem to have just been hit by a large truck. Before I mock you, I must ask you a question. Didn't your mother teach you not to knock on the door so hard when you're not sure if someone's sleeping inside?" Seeing the saliva spraying out of Venom's mouth, Stark stepped back a little disgustedly and wiped the surface of his battlesuit with his hand. Then he gestured at his body with a surprised look at Shiller and Eddie and said, "Didn't you guys notice anything special about this new battlesuit?"