by Alex Irvine
“Stark’s escape bore unexpected fruit,” Raza said.
Stane nodded slowly. “So this is how he did it.”
“This is only a crude first effort,” Raza said. “From what my men tell me of their recent battle, I believe Stark has perfected the design.”
He handed Stane a set of grainy surveillance photos showing a man in red-and-gold armor wreaking havoc in Gulmira. Two of Raza’s men brought in a battered laptop and reams of yellowed paper filled with drawings and schematics.
“What’s this?” Stane asked.
“The inside of Tony Stark’s mind,” Raza replied. He shuffled the papers around until they fit together like a giant jigsaw puzzle. The puzzle revealed the form of Iron Man.
“These contain everything you will need to build this weapon,” Raza said as Stane studied the plans. “Stark has made a masterpiece of death. A man with a dozen of these could rule from the Pacific to the Ukraine. You dream of Stark’s throne, Mr. Stane. It seems we have a common enemy.”
Stane ran his fingers over the armor, putting his hand through the hole in the chest plate.
“If we are back in business,” Raza said, “I give you these designs as my gift. In turn, I hope you will repay me with the gift of iron soldiers.”
Stane smiled and put his hands on Raza’s shoulders.
“Take this gift as advance payment,” Stane said. A sharp whine sounded close to the back of Raza’s head. For a moment, Raza looked puzzled. Then he collapsed to the ground, a victim of Stane’s hidden sonic Taser. Stane removed the earplugs that had protected him from the device’s effects.
“Technology. It’s always been your Achilles’ heel in this part of the world,” Stane said. He showed Raza the tiny Taser, barely the size of a thumb drive. “Don’t worry. It’ll only last for fifteen minutes. That’s the least of your problems.”
He glanced at the ring on Raza’s hand. “It’ll be pretty hard for you to explain this to your master.”
Stane turned and exited the tent. As expected, his men had easily rounded up Raza’s troops. The warlord’s men knelt, bound and gagged, near the SUVs.
“Crate up the armor and the rest of it,” Stane told his lead guard. “All right. Let’s finish up here.”
Gunfire sounded as he walked back to the lead SUV.
Tony was working on final repairs and a few upgrades to the suit when Pepper came in. “Hey,” he said. “You busy? Mind if I send you on an errand? I need you to go to my office.”
He took a finger-sized USB drive from his worktable and handed it to Pepper.
“You’re going to hack into the Stark Industries mainframe and retrieve all the recent shipping manifests. They’re probably under ‘Executive Files.’ If not, they put it on a ghost drive, in which case you need to look for the lowest numeric heading.”
“And what do you plan to do with this information if I bring it back here?” Pepper replied.
“Same drill,” Tony said. “They’ve been dealing weapons under the table, and I’m going to stop them. I’m going to find my weapons and destroy them.”
“Tony, you know I would help you with anything,” she said. “But I cannot help you if you’re going to start this again,” she said.
“There is nothing except this,” Tony said. “There’s no art opening, no benefit, no business decision to be made. There’s the next mission and nothing else.”
“Is that so?” Pepper said. She paused. Then she set the USB drive on the table and said, “I quit.”
Tony arched an eyebrow at her. “Really? You stood by my side when all I did was reap the benefits of wholesale destruction, and now that I’m trying to protect the people I put in harm’s way, you’re going to walk out?”
“You’re going to kill yourself, Tony,” she said. “I’m not going to be a part of it.”
“I’m not crazy, Pepper,” Tony said. He couldn’t lose her. More than even she knew, he depended on her. “I just finally know what I have to do… and I know in my heart that it’s right.”
She looked at him for a long time. Then, like she was reading his mind, she said, “You’re all I have, too, you know.”
CHAPTER 16
Pepper hurried through the darkened halls of Stark Industries. She knew the corridors like the back of her hand. But sneaking around for Tony made her nervous.
Fortunately, she hadn’t run into anyone on her way to Tony’s office. She turned on his computer and plugged in the device he’d given her.
The gadget quickly began hacking into all the computers in the network. It took a moment, but it located the ghost drive and Pepper spawned a window full of folders. As she opened each, she got more and more surprised and angry.
Orders for Jericho missiles, shipping manifests, schematics, and blueprints flashed on the screen.
“What are you up to, Obadiah?” she asked quietly.
An icon for a video file appeared on-screen. She clicked it open and watched as the image sprang to life.
The picture showed Tony, very beaten up, tied to a chair in a cave. Thuggish-looking guards surrounded him. One of the guards spoke.
“You did not tell us that the target you paid us to kill was the great Tony Stark,” the brutish man said. “As you can see, Obadiah Stane, your deception and lies will cost you dearly. The price to kill Tony Stark has just gone up.”
Pepper’s jaw dropped. Just then, the office door opened, and Stane walked in.
“So, what are we going to do about this?” he asked.
Pepper tried to look Stane in the eye, but she was also watching the progress of the download as the USB drive copied all of Stane’s files—including the hostage video. She nodded at Stane and tried to smile.
“I was so happy when he came home,” Stane said. “It was like we got him back from the dead. Now I realize… well, Tony never really did come home, did he? Breaks my heart.”
“Well, he’s a complicated person,” Pepper said. Stane started to come around the desk to greet her and at that moment the download finished. She was just able to click back to the home screen and cover the USB drive with a newspaper before Stane got close enough to see what she was doing.
“He’s been through a lot,” she went on. “I think he’ll be all right.”
“You are a very rare woman,” Stane said. “Tony doesn’t know how lucky he is.”
“Thank you,” Pepper said. As smoothly as she could, she swept up the newspaper and in the same motion pinched the USB drive out of the computer. “I’d better get back there.”
Stane walked her to the office door. “Is that today’s paper?” he asked as she was walking out.
She stopped, suddenly terrified that he was onto her, that he would try to do something to her. “Yes,” she said. All she could do was try to play it cool.
Stane came over to her and extended a hand. “Do you mind?”
“Not at all,” she said, handing it to him.
He grinned. “Puzzle.”
“Of course,” she said.
“Take care,” Obadiah said.
Pepper walked down the hallway feeling like she had a huge bull’s-eye on her back. In the elevator, she kept waiting for an alarm to go off… but she got to the lobby and was walking across it when she saw Agent Coulson of S.H.I.E.L.D. at the security desk.
“Ms. Potts,” Coulson said, “did you forget our appointment?”
“Nope,” Pepper replied, latching onto his arm. “Of course not. Right now. Come with me.” She took his arm and started walking faster.
“Right now?”
“Yeah, walk with me,” she said. “I’m going to give you the meeting of your life. Your office.”
As soon as they were out the door, she felt like she could breathe again. At least for now.
In a subbasement of Stark Industries, Obadiah Stane spoke to a group of the company’s best engineers. Before them sat Iron Man’s old gray armor, disassembled into its component pieces.
As the engineers worked to replicate the
armor’s parts, Stane walked among them, supervising.
The head engineer took him aside. “Mr. Stane. Sir, we’ve explored what you’ve asked of us and it seems as though there’s a little hiccup. Actually, um…”
“A hiccup?”
The engineer nodded. “Yes, see, to power the suit… sir, the technology doesn’t actually exist. So it—”
“Wait, wait, the technology?” Stane repeated. He pointed at the Arc Reactor, looming over them. “William, William… here is the technology! I’ve asked you to simply make it smaller.”
“Yes, sir.” The engineer nodded. “That’s what we’re trying to do, but… honestly, it’s impossible—”
Stane glared at him. “Tony Stark was able to build this in a cave. With a box of scraps!”
“Well,” the engineer said, “I’m not Tony Stark.”
Tony finished getting the suit back up to speed and went upstairs, figuring a shower and something to eat would be next on the agenda. His phone chirped and he noted Pepper’s number on the caller ID. He answered the phone and started to greet her when sudden paralyzing pain shot through his entire body.
Tony slumped on his couch as Obadiah Stane came into his field of vision and showed him a device Tony recognized as a sonic Taser.
He heard Pepper’s voice coming from his phone. “Tony? Tony, are you there?”
“Breathe,” Stane said with a wicked smile. He hung up on Pepper and removed the earplugs that baffled the Taser’s signal. “Easy, easy. You remember this one, right? Shame the government didn’t approve it. There’re so many applications for causing short-term paralysis.”
He set a briefcase down on the couch, opened it, and took a knife out to cut a hole in Tony’s shirt, exposing the mini Arc Reactor. “When I ordered the hit on you,” Stane said conversationally, “I worried I was killing the golden goose. But, you see, it was fate that you survived that.”
Tony tried to move, but all he could do was track Stane with his eyes. He could hear, he could see, but he couldn’t move his arms or his legs. Stane used the knife to loosen up the Arc Reactor in its housing. “Do you really think that just because you have an idea, it belongs to you? Your father, he helped give us the atomic bomb. What kind of world would it be today if he was as selfish as you?”
Stane twisted the Arc Reactor and loosened it from the housing. Then with a snap, he pulled it out of Tony’s chest.
Tony felt his heart slow down and begin to stop.
“Ohh, isn’t it beautiful,” Stane said. “Tony, this is your Ninth Symphony. This is your legacy. A new generation of weapons with this at its heart. Weapons that will help put the balance of power in our hands. The right hands.”
He stood up and put the Arc Reactor in the briefcase. Then he snapped it shut and looked down at Tony, who was struggling to breathe. “I wish you could have seen my prototype,” Stane said. “It’s not as… well, not as conservative as yours. Oh, and it’s too bad you had to involve Pepper in this.”
Stane turned then, and without another word, he walked out of Tony’s house, switching off the lights on his way.
CHAPTER 17
What do you mean he paid to have Tony killed?” Rhodey blared. “Why should Obadiah…? Where is Tony now?”
Pepper tried to keep her voice calm. “I don’t know,” she said into the receiver. “He’s not answering his phone, and Jarvis didn’t pick up, either. Will you go to the mansion and check on him? I’m going to look in the labs here.”
“Is that safe?” Rhodey asked.
“I’ve got some government men with me,” Pepper replied. “I think we can handle it.”
“If Tony’s at the mansion, I’ll find him,” Rhodey assured her.
“Thanks, Rhodey.” She signed off, glad that Agent Coulson had brought five other agents with him. They’d need a small army to go against Stane and the resources of Stark Industries.
Her first priority, though—now that she’d convinced Coulson to help her—had to be finding Tony. If he was on campus, the high-tech lab below the Arc Reactor would be the place to start looking. Unfortunately, Stane would know that, too.
A chill ran down Pepper’s spine as they headed for the lab. She prayed that she and Rhodey weren’t already too late.
Obadiah Stane stepped into the subbasement lab of Stark Industries, below the Arc Reactor. In his hand, he held the glowing RT heart he’d stolen. The overhead lights were off; everyone had gone home. Only the dim red security lights lit his way as he walked purposefully across the room.
The prototype armor—the armor that would make Stark’s shareholders even richer—stood in a corner, next to the Sampson cluster machines that had manufactured it and the original armor.
Carefully, Stane opened the new armor’s chest plate and locked the stolen heart into place.
The sensors in the faceplate of the helmet glowed to life—twin eyes, burning red in the darkness.
Stane smiled.
Tony gasped for breath as the elevator doors slid open, revealing his workshop. He tried to take a step, but his knees buckled and he fell on his face.
Slowly, painfully, he began crawling across the workshop floor. He could see his goal—encased in shatterproof plastic—sitting on the table on the far side of the lab: his old chest piece. Thank heaven Pepper had saved it.
It was less than fifty feet away, but it seemed like miles. Tony’s heart pounded. At any moment, the shrapnel might kill him.
He reached the bench and hoisted himself up, fumbling for the plastic container. His hand brushed against it, but he didn’t have the strength to move it. He collapsed to the floor and lay there, thinking that it was really going to happen. He was really going to die. And so was Pepper.
Then the case fell to the floor next to him.
He looked up and there was Dummy beeping and whirring. Tony said something he never thought he’d say to Dummy: “Good boy.”
With the last of his strength, he smashed the case and got the old RT in his hand.
Maybe, thanks to the dumbest robot in the lab, he wasn’t quite dead yet after all.
Agent Coulson placed something on the hinges of the locked door leading to the subbasement lab. Pepper’s pass code wasn’t working for some reason, and none of them wanted to waste time trying to figure out why. “Oh, what’s that?” she asked. “Like, a thing that’s going to pick the lock?”
“You might want to take a few steps back,” Coulson said, and did exactly that himself.
Everyone retreated around the corner of the stairwell and crouched down. Coulson pressed a button and the door blew off its hinges. Pepper thought, not for the first time, that maybe she was in the wrong line of work.
Agent Coulson led the group through the smoking doorway and into the corridor beyond. Pepper noticed the security camera staring down at them from one corner of the ceiling. If Tony was here, would he be watching them? Would Stane?
The huge laboratory ahead was dark, lit only by the blinking lights of the automated machinery, which filled the room almost to overflowing. It had been a long time since Pepper had been down here, and everything looked different—sinister.
“Tony?” she called tentatively. “Obadiah?”
Something moved in the darkness. Pepper jumped. All the agents drew their guns and swung around. Coulson shone a flashlight in that direction.
But it was only a battered suit of armor—apparently the one Tony had used to escape his kidnappers.
“What’s that?” Coulson asked.
“New project,” Pepper replied. “You shouldn’t even be seeing it.”
“Looks pretty old to me,” another of the agents commented.
“I wasn’t talking about the armor,” Coulson said, “I was talking about the empty hooks next to it.”
Pepper looked at the hooks, perplexed. Just at that moment, something grabbed one of the agents at the rear of the group and yanked him into the darkness.
Rhodey reeled back and kicked the front door of Tony’
s mansion off its hinges. Inside, the home was eerily dark and silent; Jarvis didn’t greet Rhodey as he entered.
The living room was in shambles. Furniture lay overturned, several lamps had been broken. An untouched, deep-dish pizza lay on the coffee table.
“Tony?” Rhodey called. “Jarvis?”
There was no answer.
“Tony, where are you?”
Rhodey went to the elevator leading to the lab, but it seemed to be locked on the lower floor. He found the stairway and jumped down the steps three at a time. The door to the lab was locked, too, so he kicked it open.
His jaw dropped as he stepped inside. The entire workshop seemed to have been turned into an armory. Electronic components lay everywhere. Rows of helmets, boots, and gauntlets filled the laboratory shelves. Two suits of gleaming armor hung in the middle of the room, suspended by cables that were attached to the ceiling. They looked like the surveillance photos Rhodey had seen of the UAV that attacked the Gulmiran rebels.
“Tony?” he called again.
Tony Stark lay on the floor, looking like eight miles of bad road. But he was alive. Robotic arms moved around him in an intricate dance, performing surgery on Tony’s chest plate.
“Tony, you okay?” Rhodey asked.
Tony gazed darkly at him. “Where’s Pepper?”
“She’s fine. She’s with five agents. They’re about to arrest Obadiah.”
The robot arms finished their task and retracted into the ceiling. “That’s not going to be enough,” Tony said, standing. He took down the red-and-gold armor and began putting it on.
“What’s the plan?” Rhodey asked.
“I’m going after Stane,” Tony replied. He finished donning the armor and lowered the helmet over his head.
“That’s the coolest thing I’ve ever seen,” Rhodey said.
Tony almost cracked a smile, but he was all business. Rhodey understood why. He’d been almost killed twice by his friend and mentor, and now his… well, Pepper wasn’t his girlfriend. But she meant everything to him, and she was in danger.
