AHumanMadeMOFO
patreon
Chapter 197: Resurrecting Super-Soldiers (2)
🕑 Added 2025-01-31 17:00:16 +0000 UTCAside from Fritz’s secret stash, the Winter Soldier also smuggled out a batch of vibranium during the retreat—quite a significant amount.
Since Josh had greater control over the Winter Soldier's programming, this vibranium ended up in his hands as well.
In addition, the CIA, as the primary U.S. intelligence agency involved in the Wakanda operation, had played a crucial role in the war.
President Truman, ever the pragmatist, generously allocated the CIA a 5% share of the American vibranium haul—though that was only 5% of what the U.S. had acquired.
That number might seem small, but the U.S. military had already claimed half of the vibranium to begin with.
Then, considering the vast number of government agencies and private sector demands, the CIA getting 5% was actually a huge win.
In fact, it was enough to make FBI Director J. Edgar Hoover furious—since the FBI was only getting half of what the CIA was getting.
Truman's favoritism wasn't just because of his good relationship with Josh.
He also realized that the CIA would be a powerful tool in managing global affairs in the coming Cold War.
And, of course, Josh’s subtle hints along the way helped Truman realize that the FBI had become too powerful—and that Hoover had been in charge for too long.
From his appointment as director of the FBI's predecessor, the BOI, in 1924 to 1947, Hoover had been in power for 23 years.
This was almost unheard of in a country where government positions usually had short terms.
But dealing with Hoover was a long-term game, and Truman had plenty of patience.
With all these factors combined, Josh now had a considerable amount of Vibranium at his disposal.
At least he no longer had to struggle in his dealings with Yuri.
As for other trading partners, vibranium is completely unnecessary.
The third dimension of trade needs no explanation—the other party is just a child, about the same age as his own children, making proper communication impossible. To this day, Josh still doesn't know what kind of world this is, or even the child's name.
The fourth trade dimension, The Equilibrium, has Errol Partridge, and the fifth, the Mummy Dimension, has Cai Lin—both are broke. The huge trade imbalance has left them deep in debt, with no clear way to pay it off. Besides, they have no real use for vibranium, so there's no need to bother with them.
After sharing the vibranium with Yuri and Daenerys, Josh returned to his own world to get on with his busy work and daily life.
"Directorate, Major General Ledford from the War Office wants to see you, along with Dr. Woodward," his secretary reported one day as he worked in his office.
"The War Department? Ledford?" Josh frowned. He had never heard of this general, but that wasn't surprising. There were too many Major General to keep track of. Still, if the request had reached him, it meant that his subordinates had already verified their identities.
"Let them in," Josh nodded.
Soon, a forty-something Army Major General and a scholarly-looking man in a suit and glasses were escorted into his office.
'A Major General in his forties? A bright future,' Josh thought.
"Mr. Kahn, we're here today because the Army has a special project and we'd like to work with your organization," Major General Ledford said right after the introduction.
"Oh? What kind of project?" Josh asked curiously.
Instead of answering, General Ledford looked at Dr. Woodward who had come with him.
"Director Kahn, this project is an offshoot of Phase Two of the Rebirth Program. While researching the Super Soldier Serum, I accidentally discovered a unique substance that can keep a dead body active, essentially allowing fallen soldiers to be 'revived'. This is the initial goal of our project," Dr. Woodward explained as he adjusted his glasses. As he spoke, he pulled a folder out of his briefcase and placed it on Josh's desk.
Josh's expression became strange when he heard this.
Reviving dead soldiers? T-virus? Damn, are they trying to create a Resident Evil scenario?
Fortunately, after flipping through the documents, Josh realized that it wasn't a virus, but rather a chemical that kept the tissues active. It required continuous injections to maintain effectiveness and was not contagious.
That was a relief—no zombie apocalypse, at least.
But after reading some more, Josh frowned again.
This wasn't the T-virus. This was the Universal Soldier.
And considering the two dead super-soldiers, Luke and Andrew, it was hard not to think of certain Hollywood action stars. (TL/N: The Original Names were Luc and Andrew but I already translated Luc as Luke so I will keep it that way in the future.)
"Sounds like an interesting project. But I assume you've already done some preliminary testing? Does this substance really bring people back to life?" Josh asked after a long pause.
"You misunderstand, Mr. Kahn. This is not true resurrection. It simply reactivates the body. The revived corpses have no consciousness—at most, they retain a few scattered memories from before death," Dr. Woodward clarified.
Oh, that was fine then. If it really resurrected people, Josh would have rejected it immediately. He didn't want some supernatural being in charge of death knocking on his door.
"I see. But your main purpose isn't just to cooperate with us, is it? You want the two dead super soldiers, don't you?" Josh grinned.
It was obvious—the real reason they wanted CIA’s cooperation was for Luke and Andrew’s corpses.
"Yes, Mr. Kahn. Based on our initial studies, this chemical has limitations. When injected into normal corpses, the body temperature rises rapidly. When it exceeds a certain threshold, the body goes into a protective hibernation, like a coma. They will only begin to move again when the temperature drops. But super soldiers don't have this problem," General Ledford explained.
Josh immediately understood—they must have already experimented on some dead super-soldier.
"Since that's the case, I don't mind cooperating. But I have one question—if these revived corpses have no consciousness, how do you plan to control them?" Josh asked curiously.
In the original Universal Soldier timeline, the story took place in the 90s, when computer technology had advanced enough to use microchips to control the soldiers.
But it was still the 40s. How were they going to control them?
They weren't seriously going to implant full-sized radio transmitters in their heads, were they?
With the technology of this era...
"With vibranium, sir!" Dr. Woodward replied immediately. "Howard Stark discovered a new property of vibranium—it can store and transmit information. A vibranium bead the size of a marble can handle massive amounts of data storage and transmission."
Oh, so they were making something like the Kimoyo beads from Black Panther.
While this technology was far from what we saw in the movie, the basic concept was already taking shape.
Howard Stark really was a genius. Vibranium had only been around for a short time, and he had already discovered new uses for it.
If vibranium weren't so rare and expensive, with Howard's rate of research—even without Josh's interference—the world's technological progress would still be decades ahead of schedule.
But using vibranium for Universal Soldiers? That budget was going to explode.
