He moved the zoom lens in closer. The torturers of Room 101 were skilled. They knew who was watching from the other end of the many cameras. They always made a show of it; not too fast, not too slow—and they enjoyed their work.
Modok stared fixedly at the screen as the men in Room 101 began to find out, from dossier and painful experimentation, just what it took to break Marla Gafford.
They always broke them before they killed them.
It was more fun that way.
They did enjoy their work.
Ten
Modok’s mind wandered. The torturers were beginning to repeat themselves, in an attempt to prolong the awful agony of the once-human wretch in their clutches.
The woman had failed. It had not been her fault. How could she have known? But failure was not to be condoned at AIM. If one were allowed to get away with failure, anyone could. Criminal activities could not afford failure. The forces of what they so nobly and egotistically-called “Good” could afford to fail now and again; not “Evil.”
She had to be made an example. The woman was no longer important. She had served her purpose. There was no way she could be put back into normal society. She wasn’t good enough to retain as a tame scientist. She had a larger purpose: instruction.
There was a slight twinge in Modok’s mind. There had been a time when he, too, had been but a tool—a thing to be used, a pawn.
They had needed a volunteer. An intelligent volunteer, not one of the robotlike humans that AIM used as hands and muscles. They had come and grabbed him from his laboratory in the research department of Advanced Idea Mechanics—just took him. They left his notes, pencil, and calculator on the workbench; left his terminal glowing, his ham sandwich uneaten.
He hadn’t volunteered. He knew the monstrous work in genetic engineering the Scientist Supreme was engaged in. It was nothing he wanted to even think about.
But the Scientist Supreme needed an intelligent volunteer. The computer had been given the specifications by an impatient overlord. Three names had come forth; he was the closest.
He had seen the great, slanting, cylindrical test chamber, its thick observation door gaping, and he struggled against the hardened muscles of the guards.
“No! No! I’ve done nothing! Nothing!”
“Silence!” a guard snarled, trying to keep the operation moving smoothly. “The Supreme One needs a volunteer—and you are he!”
“Place him in the alteration chamber,” ordered the Scientist Supreme in a chill voice.
Modok had stared at the bald, bearded man in horror. “No! No!” he pleaded, but they ignored him, tying his thrashing arms and lifting him up. “Don’t! You can’t—! You mustn’t—!”
It shamed Modok now to think how he had begged, how piteously he had pleaded, the spittle coming from his mouth, his eyes bulging with fear. The Scientist Supreme had been utterly cold.
“Your cries are useless. Your fate is sealed!”
They put him into the chamber, dumping him unceremoniously, then slamming and dogging down the heavy door. The hirelings had moved away quickly, but the victim’s moans and pleas were heard over a loudspeaker until the Scientist Supreme cut him off.
“You are a nothing,” he informed the unfortunate “volunteer.” “A nobody. One of the countless, nameless agents of AIM!” The scientist’s fingers had moved expertly across the faces of several banks of controls, setting, switching, adjusting. “But, when we have finished . . .” His finger stabbed down at a control.
The alteration chamber was bathed in red lights. From the window set into the hatch everyone could see the figure of the test subject go rigid, then collapse limply. The Scientist Supreme looked closely at a television monitor that showed a close-up of his subject, bathed in red light.
“You will be a living, breathing computer, with the greatest brain on earth!” Already there were changes, anticipated by the scientist from his earlier animal subjects. They had had to be destroyed, but this one would not be. “You will be the deadliest weapon in our arsenal,” he whispered fiercely to the contorting features of the unconscious man.
For more than twenty-four hours the experiment went on. The red light changed to blue, to yellow, back to red. The changes were soon evident. After a few hours, even the tough soldiers of the AIM army did not care to look. What had once been a man was now something horrible.
“It is done!” exulted the Scientist Supreme as the automatic machinery stopped. To one of his white-coated helpers he said, “We have created the ultimate intelligence!”
The scientist moved across the laboratory and stared directly into the alteration chamber, his assistant at his side. The Scientist Supreme looked down with triumph in his eyes. “We’ll call him . . . Modok . . . since he is a Mental Organism Designed Only for Killing.” He looked for approval from his assistant and saw the disgust on the man’s face as he stared into the chamber.
“But . . . look at him,” the assistant said in a shaky voice. “He has become a freak, an inhuman monstrosity!”
The Scientist Supreme’s voice grew very cold. “But he has served his purpose . . . or will, if he lives. I imagine I must construct some sort of locomotion for him. A sort of wheelchair, perhaps.”
The immense head and infantile body within the chamber stirred. The scientist’s assistant saw the dawning realization in Modok’s grotesque face.
“What am I?” Modok demanded. “What have you done to me?” His eyes had looked up at them, filled with both hate and fear. “What have you done?”
The Scientist Supreme answered crisply, coldly. “You are now Modok. You are the most powerful brain alive! With you serving the cause of AIM nothing can ever stop us!”
They had taken him out, too physically weak to even support his own head. A special chair had been made and he had been strapped into it. The Man in the Iron Chair—only there were no Three Musketeers to rescue him, to turn him back into the ordinary man he had once been. There was no escape—there was only one thing to do: triumph.
The Scientist Supreme had made one fatal error, one which Modok’s invigorated brain quickly spotted. “They made me stronger than they know!” he realized. “I have the power to mentally destroy them all! Therefore it is they who shall serve Modok . . . and those who refuse shall die.”
Modok remembered with fond nostalgia how he had destroyed the Scientist Supreme with the first of many brain blasts. Those who failed to swear allegiance at once were also killed. Within an hour he had assumed command of the forces of AIM. Advanced Idea Mechanics had never been the same.
Onward and upward. Modok’s features contorted in what could have been a smile. He had had his triumphs . . . and his defeats. The ill-chosen lot that called themselves superheroes had made his life miserable at times. He had barely escaped with his life more than once. The United States Army, Navy, Marines, FBI, and CIA were nothing against him—gnats. The British commandos, the Israeli strike forces, the Russian tank corps—bugs.
But always it was Captain America, Iron Man, and their brightly costumed cohorts that defeated him. He, Modok, possessed the most brilliant intelligence that had ever been seen on Earth. There was no doubt of that in his mind. He was the Scientist Supreme, the Engineer of Excellence, the Master of Men. He gritted his teeth, as wide as piano keys, and let his hatred and loathing build.
Captain America—that GI retread cryogenically transported decades beyond his time—he is my “favorite” enemy, he and Iron Man. And I shall use one to destroy the other. With the secret of Iron Man’s supersuit, I shall send battalions of armored minions against the Avenger Mansion. None shall escape. None.
The conquering of the United States would be secondary. The conquest of the world would easily follow. Armies of human robots—brainwashed and retrained—in Iron Man’s armor would sweep across the world. Fleets of aerial carriers would spill them out in endless streams. Washington, New York, Chicago, London, Bonn, Moscow, Rome, Cairo, Tokyo, Peking—they would all bow to Modok. The
y would crush one another trying to be the first to pay tribute. They would idolize him, praise him, fear him—but never love him.
Modok struck a blow at the control board. The screen with the sight of the torturers taking down the remains of Marla Gafford was blotted out.
World conquest was a disease. Doctor Doom had it, Modok knew, but not even his superarmor could stand up to fleets of Iron Men. He, too, would join the rush to declare Modok “Master of the World”—a god, perhaps; the greatest mind the world had ever seen.
Yes, godhood by acclamation would be just about right.
For now, anyway.
“Master?”
“Eh?” Modok lifted his immense head to stare at the quavering figure at the foot of the column. “Yes, Jerek?”
“Master, the foreign buyers are here.”
“Send them in.”
The servant bowed out and soon four important-looking men entered. They were dressed in the ordinary uniform for businessmen—conservative blue, white shirt, polished shoes, and dark tie. But each item was handcrafted, expensive, and carefully selected. Expert tailors had hidden, as well as they could, the signs of corpulence and corporate dissolution. Savile Row tailors, used to Texas millionaires and Arabian billionaires, had dressed them perfectly.
But the perfect fittings could not hide what they were from Modok. He knew them, knew others like them. Greedy men, men without scruples or ideals, nickle-and-dime world dominators.
“What can I do for you?” he boomed from his special chair atop the thick column. The height of his chair was psychologically selected for maximum effect—both on his visitors and on himself. He liked looking down at humans. It made them even more like insects.
The man called Salvadore stepped forward. There was no sign of fear on his face. Excellent poker player, Modok thought, but the delicate sensors implanted in the floor picked up his heartbeat and respiration and transferred these findings to small screens hidden from the view of anyone on the floor.
He is afraid, Modok thought with satisfaction. Excellent.
“The weapons, your . . . your excellency?”
He will one day pay for that pause, Modok thought. “I shall have the weapons you ordered at the time agreed upon,” Modok said in a cold voice.
“I . . . I do not think you will,” Salvadore said.
Dodd and Solomon nodded quickly, nervously. The Oriental remained silent.
Anger thickened Modok’s voice, but he held himself in check. He needed these men . . . now. He needed their money. It was a very large amount. “And why do you think I shall not be able to deliver?” The chill anger in his voice made the Oriental run the pointed tip of his tongue over his dry, wrinkled lips.
Dodd spoke nervously. “It’s Stark, that Tony Stark. It’s on the telly. I thought you might have seen it,” he finished lamely.
“No,” Modok answered. “I was . . . was watching another show. What is it that the eminent Anthony Stark has done?”
Dodd looked at Salvadore and they both looked at Solomon, who swallowed and spoke up in a high voice. “Stark International is . . .”
“Go on,” Dodd said in a whisper.
“Stark is going to put the plans for the Iron Man suit up for bid on Friday.”
The news hit Modok like a mind blast, but he let none of it show on his impassively ugly features. “Yes? And what has this to do with our deal?” The four men exchanged worried looks. “I . . . and not Tony Stark . . . will deliver the suits for bidding as scheduled.”
“The . . . the suits, not the plans?” Solomon asked.
“You said the plans!” Dodd protested.
“I have decided to retain control of the plans. I will offer the armor to the highest bidders . . . plural, not singular . . . at the specified time.”
“But you said—” Dodd began.
“Silence!” Modok thundered. He pointed down at them. “You listen to me. The plans were bait, and you were the catch. Now the rules change, for I am the one who makes the rules. I will sell suits, manufactured by me from the plans of Tony Stark, to the highest bidders.”
“But with suits like that, a small army could—” Dodd said.
“—conquer any country that—” Salvadore cried.
“You lied!” Solomon shouted.
Modok ignored the accusations. “I would think it in your interest to cooperate. Whoever gets a sufficient number of suits first has a certain edge, shall we say?”
The Oriental stepped forward, bowed, and then spoke in a thin voice. “Has the honored Modok seen the television announcement?”
Modok stared at him for a few moments. The Oriental seemed less cowed than the others, and he represented a considerable market. “No, I have not.”
Modok turned at once to his controls, activating a video tape-recorder bank that taped all the major networks. He ran it back until he recognized Tony Stark on the screen.
It was a press conference, held in the auditorium of Stark International. The picture showed Stark, in a dark jacket and white turtleneck sweater, as he entered the room, followed by his secretary, Sitwell, and some others Modok recognized from the thick SI file. The television announcer was saying, “Today, in an unexpected news conference called at the ultra-secret Stark International headquarters, playboy Tony Stark made a startling statement.”
The screen cut to a close-up of Tony Stark, who was reading from a prepared statement. “Today I have sent cables to the leaders of forty-nine nations and nineteen multinational corporations, asking them to have authorized representatives here, at Stark International, for an auction to be held this Friday.” He looked up into the glare of the television lights. “I am putting up for bid the powered suit made famous by my friend Iron Man.”
There was a murmur that drowned out some of his next words and Modok strained to hear. “—the suit you have seen over the years employed by that individual known popularly as Iron Man has been in various stages of development. You have all seen its evolution, I’m sure.” Over his next few words was a collage of shots—some made by professionals, some by amateurs—of Iron Man in action.
“All scientists make tests and conduct field trials. I think you will agree that Iron Man’s armor has passed those tests. I consider the powered suit sufficiently developed to offer it for sale . . . under certain carefully selective conditions, which have all been made clear to the prospective customers. I am a businessman, first and foremost. My company exists to make a profit, as well as to serve the needs of our country.” There was a rising murmur, but Stark put up his hand. “The suit alone is for sale, not the weapons system contained within. It is the suit that people want, not the weapons.” He smiled. “I do not think all my customers will be power-hungry would-be world conquerors. With minor adaptations, offered as options, the suit made popular by my friend Iron Man could be used on the ocean floor . . . perhaps to do underwater archaeology, to hunt for oil or mineral deposits, treasure, or to farm the seabed. It can stand pressures impossible for existing suits and still function at optimum.”
Tony paused, then looked around as he enumerated other possible nonmilitary uses of the famous armor. “Outer space . . . exploration, colonization, erecting solar energy-collection structures. Mining . . . the suit’s immense strength would be a great aid here, and lessen the fear of tunnel failure. Construction . . . rescue operations . . .” He hurried on quickly, explaining other points, but they cut the sound and the television reporter was giving his views on what this meant.
Modok knew what it meant, and cut off the channel with a slap. He turned to glare down at the foreign buyers, but they seemed to have gained some confidence.
“You’ve got to give buyers what they want,” Solomon said.
“You said you could get us the Iron Man’s plans,” Dodd said. “Then you switched and the best we could get was the suits.” He waved a hand at the television screen. “All right, mate, that’s what we can get from Stark—direct, with no worries about being illegal.”
> “Yeah,” Salvadore said, raising a fist. “If Stark will sell to us . . . or our agents . . . direct, and guarantee its condition and function—”
“And it looks like he will,” Dodd butted in. “He’s like us, a businessman. If the price is right—and it will be, I assure you—he’ll sell.”
“And we’ll buy,” Solomon added.
“So, honored Modok,” the Oriental said, “perhaps at another time we might do business again, eh?” He bowed. The other men were already almost out. The Oriental paused at the door and bowed again, then left.
They had barely escaped alive. Modok’s finger had been poised over a deadly, red button. But to kill them would be only a momentary pleasure and a lasting annoyance. He’d have to retrain—i.e. intimidate—another set. That would take time. He needed money soon, so the fastest deal was the best deal.
He needed something to make him feel better. He turned to a screen and pressed a button. At once a man came hurrying into the room seen on the screen. He was both frightened and proud.
“Master Modok! An honor, sir, an honor!”
The man’s face changed as Modok gave him an order. “Oh, no, please, master . . .”
“Do as you are told!” The fierceness in Modok’s voice wilted the man’s resolve. He turned and left the room, coming back with the others. Modok watched as they obeyed him. It did not make him feel very much better, but it changed their lives forever.
Eleven
“Ya gotta let me do it, Boss,” Happy Hogan said. He and Tony Stark had been arguing for ten minutes. “I can handle it. I’ve doubled for ya before.”
“Those were emergencies, Hap.”
“So is this.”
“I won’t let you risk your life, Happy,” Tony said firmly. “You’re my friend, now what kind of friend would—”
“Boss, Boss, ya hired me as yer chauffeur and yer bodyguard, remember? I still got muscles. I work out. I can stand anything.” The ex-fighter shrugged and exposed both his palms. “Besides, Iron Man will be followin’ me, right?”
Marvel Novel Series 06 - Iron Man - And Call My Killer ... Modok! Page 10
