Marvel Novel Series 06 - Iron Man - And Call My Killer ... Modok!

by William Rotsler

  Yes, and this one, too, would pay for his insults, Modok smiled. He would be the perfect first subject for Modok’s newest invention, something conceived in idle thought, but giving the AIM leader immense pleasure. It was a simple operation, really. A small hole drilled in the skull. A plug of bone and flesh removed and a probe inserted. Right to the pleasure center. Intense pleasure. Intense pleasure, pleasure going through and beyond until every sensory impulse was the sheerest and most exquisite pain. The rustle of clothing against the skin was like a massive file scraping away flesh. Footsteps were smashing blows to the ears. Lights were spikes driven into the eyes. The victim’s own screams would feel as though the head were being ripped open by a dinosaur’s teeth. The rumbling of an empty stomach was the savagery of a score of ravenous rats.

  Yes, indeed, the perfect end of this foolish pug, with his futile posturing against the might and power of Modok. And then, after him—Iron Man. That would be a delicious experience indeed, seeing Iron Man on the rack, plugged into his Ultimate Pleasure Unit.

  Abruptly, Modok’s thoughts were brought back to Happy Hogan. He gazed down at the defiant fool, and realized the ex-fighter had been speaking for some time.

  “—ya that Iron Man will rip this place apart, sink ya and yer whole crummy outfit, deep-six the lot of ya, wait and see!” Happy stood with fists on hips, glaring up at Modok, but his expression changed when the hideous head began laughing.

  It was a pleasant laugh, really, one of sincere amusement. “You pitiful worm!” One of Modok’s relatively spindly arms rose and he made a gesture. “Bring in the crate!”

  A door slid back almost at once and four strong men brought in a wooden crate. Happy recognized it at once and his throat tightened. It was the crate containing the Iron Man armor. A beam of light went on, aiming down from the high ceiling, bathing Happy and the crate in a bright glow. Happy blinked, his eyes darting from the crate back up to Modok. Then, in from the still-open door came a platoon of uniformed AIM thugs, each with an AIM machine gun in his hands.

  “Why are ya guarding a crate of empty armor?” Happy asked, the nervousness ill-concealed in his voice. He attempted a laugh, as if this were proof of AIM’s stupidity.

  Modok chuckled again, his voice rising in genuine amusement. “Such fools you are! You and your Tony Stark thought you were so smart, using this transparent trick as a ploy to find our secret headquarters.” His voice grew louder and angrier. “But Modok is infinitely smarter!” His hand waver before his bulging eyes. “I knew the reason for Stark’s sudden decision to auction his own armor. I, Modok, knew at once how he hoped to trick me. Me, Modok, he tried to trick!” Modok laughed, but there was a knife in his voice, a snarl in his sudden abrupt gesture.

  “Fire!”

  The platoon of machine gunners was ranged in an arc around the crate and at once they leveled their weapons and began firing. The lead slugs careened off the concrete floor with whining screams and sent Happy jumping toward the wall for cover. The wooden crate disintegrated under hundreds of slugs, with splinters of wood flying in every direction. The noise was deafening and Happy put his hands over his ears. Even some of the AIM technicians at their consoles lunged to their feet and scampered away to safety.

  Then, without warning, the crate exploded and a gold-and-red figure rose from the riddled crate. Iron Man!

  He stood under the hail of bullets as the machine gunners emptied the last of their clips against his armor. The slugs ricocheted off and the empty cartridges tinkled to the floor in a metallic rain. Then, one by one, the guns fell silent—and the silence was deafening.

  Happy looked up from his protected cover behind an AIM minicomputer. An ugly gash in the metal near his head showed how close he had come to having his head shot off. But his concern was for Iron Man, who had secretly replaced the empty armor in the crate with himself and had patiently ridden out his hunch, lying motionless in the wooden coffin.

  However, Iron Man was unscathed and was already launching himself by his boot-jets right up at Modok. There was a rush of air as lights shot down between Modok and the charging Iron Man. Happy blinked as he realized they were not lights, but reflections—reflections from an immense slab of clear, tough acrylic, easily a foot thick, dropping down between Modok, in his semicircular cubicle, and the rest of the control room. The plastic panel struck the floor with a thud, and hidden metal locks latched, sealing off the AIM master from the attack. In that same moment, Iron Man, unable to maneuver in time, struck the panel with bone-shattering force, and rebounded across the control chamber. He struck the far wall and slid to the ground with a clatter.

  Iron Man recovered quickly and brought up his hands to send a twin repulsor-beam blast against the clear plastic. But before he could do so, the machine-gun squad was on him. Their automatic weapons having proved ineffective against his armor, they were attempting to immobilize him by sheer numbers, long enough for their bomb expert to slap a double fistful of plastic explosive against an armor joint and blow off an arm or leg.

  The AIM sergeant in command bellowed hoarsely for the explosives expert as Iron Man was buried beneath a horde of yellow-clad agents. Happy heard the slap-slap of running feet coming from behind him and whirled to stop the gallop. Happy’s scarred fist swung and connected, lifting the surprised explosives expert off his feet. Happy jumped on him with both feet, a crude but effective action, and ripped the explosive from his hand. Hogan tore apart the fusing mechanism and threw the slab of plastic explosive in one direction and the fuse in another.

  Happy looked around at Iron Man in time to see the yellow uniforms explode in various trajectories away from the Golden Avenger. Their screams echoed in the room and the AIM technicians around the room began fleeing by every exit, deserting their screens and controls. They were not combat troops and were clearing the area for those who were.

  Another door slid open and another squad of AIM troopers charged in. The one in front carried the ugly, black, metal shape of a nerve tangler and he aimed it right at Iron Man. But the armored Avenger was too quick. In a swift, flowing motion he seized an attacking agent by the shirtfront and hurled him straight at the person leveling the nerve tangler. The man fired, but his beam struck the screaming human cannonball a second before the cannonball struck him. But that time Iron Man was plowing through the newly arrived squad, heading toward the plastic shield around Modok.

  Perched in his power chair on the pillar, Modok watched the fight calmly. He flicked a switch and a screen blipped into life. He could see the assembled foreign buyers sitting entranced before another screen, watching the fight. “You see, gentlemen, this armor has advantages. You have seen how impregnable it is, even against the jacketed slugs of our own superior machine guns. The bullets were, of course, armor piercing. That is, they would pierce any ordinary shielding that a human body might carry, such as the newest fiberglass and armorall shields developed by the United States Army and certain police agencies.”

  Modok’s voice was calm. He was selling. Iron Man’s advance was stopped by the necessity of immobilizing another AIM trooper who had scooped up the nerve tangler and was attempting to get a clear shot at the Avenger. His aim was deflected by his own bustling, angry agents, and he sent three of AIM’s best assault troops crashing to the floor, unconscious.

  Iron Man seized the nerve tangler itself, crushing it in his armored glove, shattering the delicate electronic circuitry. A side slap sent the soldier flying across the floor to he in a motionless heap. Then Iron Man once again charged toward the plastic shield, this time to the point where it was latched to the floor. His obvious intent was to use his repulsor rays to wreck the latches and give him access, under the thick plastic, to Modok.

  “As you can see, gentlemen,” Modok said, “there is no motor impairment. He moves as easily in the armor as you do—probably better. Any soldier could be taught its use quickly. The effectiveness would be superb, don’t you think?”

  The one called Salvadore nodded. “But
what about other types of weapons, eh? Flamethrowers, grenades, gas . . .”

  Modok spoke into a microphone and almost at once another door slid open. A three-man squad ran in. Two carried machine guns as protection for the third, who had a flamethrower. The muzzle of the awkward weapon dripped tongues of fire as the soldier swung the terrible weapon toward Iron Man.

  With utter disregard for the lives or safety of the other AIM troops, the operator triggered the terrible weapon and a blast of liquid flame shot across the room. The screams of half the troops deafened Happy as he dived for cover. Human torches staggered away to fall writhing to the ground as the flamethrower sprayed hell over the tight group of struggling men.

  Within the armor, Tony Stark felt the heat and once again thanked his foresight. His heat sensors had triggered the protective eye shields, which clicked into place and sealed, activating his interior cooling system. It was hot as he waded through a wall of flame, but he survived.

  Although the flames blinded him, he knew where the torcher was. But before he could reach him, the flamethrower operator dropped the weapon, shrugged out of the harness of the tank, and ran away. The two guards machine-gunned Iron Man to no effect; then one of them swung around to stitch a row of bloody holes across the back of the fleeing operator. Iron Man’s fists sent them crashing to the floor next to the sputtering flamer.

  “You see, my friends, this is indeed a unique weapon. Not even the direct blast of a Mark IV could stop him.” Modok spoke with pride, as if it had been he and not Stark who had developed the armor. The blackened bodies of a dozen troopers did not bother him at all. He pressed a button and another squad of yellow-clad henchmen charged in.

  Dodd, the Englishman, spoke in his clipped accent. “And the effect of high explosives?”

  “Observe . . .”

  The squad charged straight at Iron Man, although Happy Hogan rose up to smash one of the rear echelon in the mouth with a heavy fist. The squad bore fistfuls of AIM explosive grenades and two were thrown straight at the Golden Avenger. Happy saw the gray ovoids arcing through the air and dived for cover behind the battered computer.

  Iron Man activated his boot-jets and shot into the air as the first of the grenades exploded. The compression within the confined space sent the AIM troops sprawling and several cried out in pain. The second exploded, but Iron Man had risen high above the blast and his repulsors crashed down at the AIM agents, sending any that were left crumpling against the concrete floor.

  Iron Man whirled in the air on the twin beams of energy shooting from his boots and brought his hands up to send a beam splashing against the plastic shield protecting Modok. But the acrylic was unexpectedly hard and the beam of force fanned out, dissipating in the heated air of the control room.

  The foreign weapons buyers cowered in their room, well away from the combat zone, but Modok remained impassive. The thick acrylic showed tiny fracture lines where Iron Man’s blast had struck.

  Iron Man was positioning himself for a second blast, aiming right at the impact point of the first blast, when the gas began to hiss in from hidden nozzles, spurting in under pressure to flood the room with a nerve-paralyzing ingredient.

  Happy!

  Iron Man twisted again, knowing his sensor circuits would handle the gas, but Happy was unprotected.

  Iron Man saw Happy, surrounded by a semicircle of unconscious AIM bodies, fall to the floor limply. The score or more of remaining AIM troops had toppled due to the effect of the gas. Seeing that there was nothing he could do for Happy—the gas was either deadly or not and it was too late in any case—Iron Man turned to send a twin repulsor blast against Modok’s thick plastic protection.

  The fracture lines increased, radiating out from the impact point. “The gas did not work,” Solomon said, a tremble of fear in his voice.

  “Exactly,” Modok said. “As you have seen, nothing sent against this armor has been effective. The suit is nearly impregnable. You could use it in fires—oil fires, for example. No troops could stand against it. A company of trained, loyal troops equipped like this—” He paused as Iron Man blasted the plastic shield again, splashing raw energy across the shiny face, creating still more, still deeper fractures, “—could conquer, control and monitor any area against any enemy.”

  Iron Man made a sudden move, dropping from his midair position to once again send blasts against the locking mechanisms at the base of the massive shield. Modok saw a thin tongue of fire edge under the acrylic slab. It was only a matter of time before Iron Man, now unopposed in the control room, blasted his way through. He knew the four buyers sensed that.

  “Do you have other defenses?” the Oriental asked in his thin, reedy voice.

  “Naturally,” Modok said flatly. “The one thing that will stop armor such as this is . . . Modok!” A complicated metal-and-fabric harness kept Modok’s trunk-sized head in place within his power chair, and from the center of a plate in the middle of his forehead came a searing blast of mental energy.

  In an instant, the beam had sizzled through the air, passing through the plastic protection, through Iron Man’s helmet, bypassing every sensor circuit since it was a totally different sort of energy, and brought Iron Man to a sudden halt.

  It was as if his plug had been pulled. Iron Man, the Golden-Avenger, the superhero, had been made instantly immobile!

  The silence was complete. The gassed victims, friend and foe alike, were motionless on the floor of the control room. Only Iron Man stood, in his flame-blackened armor, with two score yellow-clad warriors at his feet, and Happy Hogan sprawled nearby.

  Solomon’s sigh was voluptuous over the speaker. Dodd said, “My lord!” Salvadore made a gesture to ward off evil, then grinned wickedly. The Oriental watched impassively, but there was a glimmer in his eye.

  “You see, gentlemen, there is one force that can stop Iron Man—or anyone else in that armor.” There was a smugness in his voice, but all the buyers breathed a sigh of relief. With a rampaging monster like that on the loose, there was no telling who or what he might destroy next. Such people were not the kind that had regard for the delicate balances, for the political realities, for the necessities of certain arrangements. They had all heard of Iron Man, and of his freakish companions—creatures with no regard for political affairs, for the proper applications of power. No, they were all political infants, caring only for their own standards of right and wrong, never seeing another side.

  Modok’s finger stabbed at another button. Hidden ventilators sucked away the nerve gas. Within moments, those that had been felled by the poisonous atmosphere were staggering to their feet. Others, victims of Iron Man’s steel fists or his deadly repulsors, lay still. Happy Hogan was one of the first to recover. He saw the motionless gold-and-scarlet figure and got shakily to his feet.

  “What the blue blazes have ya done?” he shouted at Modok as he staggered toward Iron Man, stepping over bodies and roughly pushing aside weary troopers. Happy felt Iron Man’s armor, but it was as if the Avenger had been turned into a metal statue.

  “Yes, gentlemen, one force and one force only—the power of my own unmatchable brain. Iron Man’s armor is truly invincible . . . against any ordinary forces or combinations of forces.”

  Happy shot a glare up at Modok, no longer repulsed by his hideous appearance, only angered by his actions.

  He tried to revive Iron Man, to quickly bring him back into action, if only to save his life. With the suit deactivated, there was no telling how long Tony Stark’s heart might stay functional, not after such a neural blast as he had just suffered.

  The plastic protection hissed back into its ceiling slot and Modok smiled thinly. “I promised you Iron Man’s armor,” he said to the men in the distant room, “and I always keep my word. Are you ready to accept delivery?”

  “We . . . we have to discuss it for a minute,” Dodd said. Modok smiled and turned up the amplification. He listened to their whispered conversation with only half a mind. They were already thinking of b
etrayal—he read it into their every guarded word—but that did not bother him. He could protect himself from their maneuvers.

  What Modok thought with the other half of his mind was far more important. AIM was on the way out, he thought. Its structure and function had become too exposed. Captain America—that patriotic fool—had done damage beyond repair. Iron Man had also contributed to the weakening of AIM’s forces and resources. A smart man would move on—and up.

  AIM could continue and Modok could continue to hold the power. There were still resources, agents, operations, laboratories, secret plans, and experiments untouched or relatively undamaged by the crude violence of the Avenger. But a smart man would move on . . . and definitely up.

  Modok had certain ideas about what constituted “up.” He smiled to himself as he overheard the buyers coming to the only conclusion they could come to.

  “Mister Modok . . . ?” Dodd said. “We are ready to accept delivery.”

  “At the agreed-upon price, of course,” Solomon said, and the Oriental nodded.

  “Very well, gentlemen, but there is one change, dictated by your slowness and disbelief.”

  “But we didn’t—” Salvadore began.

  Modok ignored him. “That change is simple and I think you will agree it is to our mutual advantage.”

  “And that change is—?” the Oriental murmured suspiciously.

  “If you want the armor, you must take Modok as well.”

  Surprise showed on the televised features of the buyers. They looked at each other, trying to read the reaction.

  “You are planning to mass-manufacture the armor in your private factories in certain well-separated nations,” Modok said.

  “How did you—” began Solomon, but Dodd hushed him.