Since the old interest groups led by Roxxon had already lost the battle for the presidency, Harry could now push the Osborn Power Grid forward without restraint.
Under Norman's integration and with the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission taking the lead, Osborn reached a cooperation agreement with various state-owned power bureaus. Within the jurisdiction of these bureaus, Osborn would establish separate joint-stock companies with them to promote the new generation of Fusion Power Stations and the Osborn Power Grid.
As for those regions where only private companies held out, Osborn easily completed mergers and acquisitions of them.
At this time, the importance of manpower became evident. Even though Osborn's semi-mechanized construction crews were extremely efficient, this land of over nine million square kilometers was not small.
Now Harry could only hope that these engineers would complete their studies as soon as possible and then throw themselves into Osborn's construction projects.
He still had a system task to build a nationwide power grid for the U.S. that remained unfinished.
On the other hand, because the mining project targeting 16 Psyche now had top talent from all over the World, space personnel were no longer an issue. Harry planned to produce 100 mining spaceships by the end of the year, selling 70 to the United Nations and keeping the rest for his own use.
These engineering ships were modified from the Handy engineering ships and were named "Miner."
Space was a brand-new field. Osborn's materials science database was being updated every day, but it would still take time to fully Master these alien materials.
Now, the only system task Harry could actively push forward was:
[Task Chain: Bloodline]
[Task Progress: Treat 5,000 patients with different genetic diseases and record the causes: 4,657/5,000]
[Collect 50 types of human genes with positive traits: 22/50]
Progress on genetic diseases had been very fast. Under the direction of Dr. Connors, this project attracted a large number of genetics experts after passing its initial startup phase, and this research methodology had become a mature medical practice.
But the other progress bar required Harry to push it forward himself.
Killian's version of Extremis had given Harry 10 points of progress. After improvements by Tony and Dr. Hansen, the new strain of Extremis might contribute some more progress, but it was still not enough.
What Harry could set his sights on now were some of the superpowered individuals wandering outside, such as Luke Cage.
This muscular Black man's abilities were "invulnerability" and immense strength. Quantitatively speaking, his skin could withstand handgun fire at close range, and his strength was around 25 tons.
This big bald guy had been on the run for a long time. The human experimentation performed on him was a Super Soldier research project from the previous administration. If Norman didn't look for it, naturally no one would take the initiative to show him this data.
But since Norman requested to see it, naturally no one could stop him.
By pulling up the footage of Luke Cage in prison and inputting this data into ctOS, the system could accurately locate him in this city of 8 million people through various methods such as posture analysis and facial recognition.
Right now, this guy was sweeping the floor in a barbershop in the Harlem District.
Harry went up to the rooftop, stepped onto his Flyer, and flew toward the Harlem District.
The Harlem District was mostly populated by ethnic minorities, especially Black people, so gang culture was very prevalent here.
However, since ctOS went online, gang activities here had changed their flavor, mainly focusing on "civilized disputes." If someone fired a gun, police officers wearing power exoskeletons would arrive on the scene within 5 minutes. Then, the zone isolation devices would rise, trapping them like turtles in a jar; even with an armored vehicle, they wouldn't get far.
Of course, there were still some reckless young men who liked to attack police officers, but the outcome was usually not good.
But people are creative—to what extent? Last month, a gang fight occurred in a newly built large public restroom in the Harlem District. Because the restroom was considered a private space, ctOS could only monitor footage outside the restroom.
So, these people organized a transaction in the restroom, which eventually turned into a melee, even managing to evade ctOS surveillance.
It was said that the officers who arrived at the scene took a week of sick leave; the scene was just too disgusting.
Soon, Harry arrived at the barbershop where Luke Cage was. The Master of this barbershop was once a famous gang member: Henry Hunter, who had washed his hands of that life after a great realization and opened a barbershop here.
This barbershop was equivalent to a "safe zone" in the Harlem District.
To avoid being surrounded by enthusiastic fans when he landed, Harry found a place to step off the goblin glider and walked to the barbershop.
"Ding-ling—"
Pushing open the door, a retro bell rang. Henry looked up, and seeing Harry's face, he was speechless for a moment.
Luke Cage walked out from behind the counter while sweeping the floor. Seeing the shop suddenly go quiet, he looked up in confusion.
He saw Harry Osborn abruptly appearing at the door: "Hello, Mr. Carl Lucas—though I should call you Luke Cage now, right?"
Luke Cage's pupils shrank—he was still a fugitive!
The atmosphere on the scene suddenly became tense, and Henry was also somewhat at a loss:
If it were some gang boss who had broken in, he would know how to talk, but Harry Osborn...
The two were simply not on the same level. Anything Osborn casually threw out would be worth more than all the gangs in the Harlem District combined!
Never mind the gangs, the annual GDP of the Harlem District wasn't even as much as Osborn's output for a few months!
Harry spread his hands innocently: "Why so nervous? Isn't this a barbershop? Am I not welcome?"
"I'm here for you, Mr. Cage. I don't think I need to say it for you to know why. Do you want to talk here or somewhere else?"
Luke Cage looked at his old man, Henry, then at the few people in the shop, and finally took off his work clothes, saying to Harry: "Let's talk in the back."
The so-called back was just an alley, which was dirty and smelly. ctOS had solved security and urban management issues, but if someone insisted on littering and urinating or defecating anywhere—Harry couldn't control that; it wasn't something he should worry about.
"It seems Mr. Osborn has never seen the situation here. This is the Harlem District, a dirty and messy place." The muscular Black man seemed to have accepted his fate, becoming more talkative.
However, his tone carried a sense of complaining that ethnic minorities received too little and were being discriminated against.
"Actually, I have seen it," Harry said. "Besides, ctOS has a unified plan for the entire city's trash disposal routes. The things on the ground here couldn't possibly have been thrown by other groups, right?"
Luke shrugged. He wasn't some human rights ambassador; some things really couldn't be blamed on others.
It was just that the issues with ethnic minorities had always been quite difficult to solve. These guys, accustomed to gang activities, weren't even willing to attend the schools Osborn opened for them for free. This had always been a problem.
Harry originally just wanted to ask Luke for some blood for research, but now he suddenly felt he could also create a Black leader to make these gang kids do something productive.
Otherwise, they didn't want to learn new technology, and when asked to sell their labor for some work, they complained it was dirty, which made things very difficult for him.
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