by Marie Jevins
“There was a bang, Tony,” said Maya once she could talk over her tears. “I rushed into Al’s office to see what happened. Al was...part of his head was missing. I called the paramedics, but...”
“Ouch. Too late?” Oops, thought Tony. Easy on the humor here. Or would it help take her mind off the situation?
“And he’d left a note on the printer. His, I don’t know, confession. Al—Dr. Killian, my project director—stole the Extremis dose. Gave it away to someone. We don’t know who.”
“What’s Extremis?”
“My project.” Maya pulled back.
She had a desperate look about her. Something was seriously wrong—even more wrong than a dead project director.
“Calm down. Let’s go in and take a look at Killian’s office. What were you wearing when you found him?”
“My lab coat. Why?”
“I just like to know what you were wearing.” That should do it, he thought.
She smiled slightly. “Still a hit with the ladies, I see. You haven’t changed, Tony. Though you did grow some facial hair.”
“Plus, I’m a super hero now, and…actually, I’ve stopped chasing women.”
“What?” Maya quickly glanced at his ring finger. “Impossible. No way has Tony Stark settled down.”
“Not exactly,” Tony admitted. “I’ve stopped chasing women, mostly. Except this one who…uh, she knows I’m alive, but not like that. I’m still working on her seeing me as more than a pest who sends her on classified missions and pays for her new passport every few years.”
“I see.” Tony thought he detected a hint of iciness in Maya’s reaction. Was she jealous? “Is that the Mrs. Rennie I spoke to?”
“What? Good lord, no. Mrs. Rennie is my secretary and trainer. She trains me to get out of bed and attend meetings. Plus, she’s, like, a hundred.”
“I read in the World-Star that Tony Stark likes older women.”
“I don’t like any women! No, I mean, I do, I like women just fine. Some of my best friends are women…just not like that. Not like in the World-Star. I’m a one-woman man now, Maya. Or I will be, if I can just convince the one woman that I’m not the playboy she’s known for more than a decade.”
He stopped now, noticing that Maya had raised one eyebrow slightly and was viewing him with skepticism. “People don’t change,” she said. “The Tony Stark I knew would pick up the waitress while his date pretended not to notice by scribbling formulas on napkins.”
“Oh. You caught that. Well, hey, all in the past now. What I was trying to tell you is I don’t drink anymore, and I don’t make guns anymore. See, people do change. Stark is going to make phones and heaters and battery-powered toenail clippers…and maybe even some robot vacuum cleaners. The same stuff I was making fun of back when we first met at Techwest.”
She pulled back, surprised. “But you said…”
“I know what I said. I can’t claim I was young and stupid, because I’ve never been stupid. But I’ve learned a lot about taking the moral way forward, and I accept responsibility for my actions now. Come on, take me inside. I want to help you.”
Tony led her into the building by the hand, then pushed open the heavy door to Killian’s office.
“The computer’s still here?” Tony was surprised. He studied the hardware in front of him for a moment.
“The police have been and gone. They said they’re sending another team to pick it up. We can’t break its security.”
Tony pulled his phone out of his pocket and glanced at it. He pecked away at on-screen icons while Maya waited.
“Hm. The Extremis project—was it your field?” Tony spoke absentmindedly.
“Bioelectrics. Robotic microsurgery,” said Maya.
Tony pushed a button on the phone, pressed a few keys, then held the Stark Beam 01 up to his ear.
“Markko? Tony Stark. I need a favor, much more your area of expertise than consumer appliances. You’re about to receive an entire encrypted hard drive via Zipsat. It’s uploading now. I need it cracked, then upload the raw data to my secure private server. Okay? Stand by. And Markko? Nice touch adding the screaming to the Stark space heater.”
Tony clicked off the call, but continued holding the phone out so that he could watch the progress bar.
“Zipsat?” Now it was Maya’s turn to ask questions.
“My own constellation of satellites providing wireless broadband, independent of telecom networks. And of course, much faster.”
“You’re streaming an entire hard drive?” She shifted uncomfortably. “What else can that phone do?”
“Every episode of Billionaire Boys and Their Toys is on here. Wanna watch?”
“Sounds dreadful.”
“Fascinating show if plasma-fired shape-shifting touchscreens are your cup of tea.”
“You know, the World-Star calls you a ladies’ man, but I can’t imagine this sort of chitchat does more than make women’s eyes glaze over.”
“Being one of the wealthiest men on earth usually does the trick. But why are you reading that rag? You’re not exactly its target audience. Have I mentioned I’m suing them?” Tony’s phone emitted a beep. “There, done.”
“I just see the headlines at the supermarket check-out,” said Maya sheepishly.
“I know it’s late, Maya, but let’s go out for lunch. You’ve had a rough couple of days. What’s around here? We’re pretty far from town.”
“There’s a breakfast taco place that’s open all day.”
“I have a better idea. There’s a winery that serves meals. It’s in Sonoma. We could drop in on Sal.”
“You think?” Maya had her arms crossed and was glaring at Tony now. Either she thought he was being totally unrealistic, or she really wanted breakfast tacos.
“He’s still in the Bay Area, right? Sal’s your friend. My friend. And he knows a lot about your field and my field. And let’s face it, this office is a downer right now.”
“I don’t know. I don’t feel like packing at the moment, and the police might have more questions. Plus, that sounds ridiculous.”
“Packing, hell,” said Tony. “My plane’s on standby, and my car comes with it. I have a very fast plane. You’ll be back here for dinner. Let’s get out of here for a while.”
“How fast is this plane?”
“Similar to the Quinjet design I gave to the Avengers. Only—you know—faster. Better robots. And a giant Stark logo on the side.”
Maya smiled that familiar old quirky smile. “You are so weird.” She poked Tony in the chest.
“Hey, easy on the heart,” he said, play-slapping her hand away.
Tony Zipsat-beamed Happy to bring the car back around.
“We should’ve borrowed my cousin’s license plates this morning.” Beck slumped back in the passenger seat of the gray Econoline.
“I got a screwdriver. Maybe we can swipe a couple when we stop for gas,” said Nilsen, glancing at the dashboard gauges. “There’s enough in the tank to make it to highway 10, but I’ll have to stop before Houston.”
“So long as we don’t have to pull over in one of these podunk small towns where everyone knows each other and the sheriff sees exactly who drives in and out every day. Should’ve filled up before we left Bastrop. We know exactly where the cops hang out there.” Beck glanced accusingly back at Mallen.
“Where we get gas doesn’t matter anymore,” growled Mallen from the back seat. “The law’s got no right to control what we do with this van. It’s Nilsen’s. Where he drives is none of their business.”
“I know that, and you know that, but I don’t think they know that.” Beck chuckled. “And I’m not supposed to leave the county. I’m still on probation for that phone call to my ex.”
“You idiot,” said Mallen. “She was only out of jail ten minutes before she was back on the meth. You could’ve just avoided her. They locked her up again fast enough.”
“Her stupidity is why the kids got taken away. I never would’ve gone
after her if she wasn’t a worthless addict, making up all that crap about me fighting dogs and shoplifting ladders at the hardware store. Why the hell would I fight dogs? Dogs are good for hunting and guarding the house. If I want a fight, I’ll go find one myself.”
“Where’d they put the kids?”
“Her sister has them in Austin. Won’t let me see them. They’re in public school, probably eating tofu and learning Spanish, and getting taught all kinds of crap. I heard they let you burn flags now.”
“We’ll go get your kids after this, Beck. Kids oughta be with their father. The law can’t tell you not to see your kids.”
“You seem awful sure of yourself, Mallen.” Nilsen’s eyes met Mallen’s through the rearview mirror. Nilsen was normally the leader of this dysfunctional trio, but he’d been demoted to second-in-command when Mallen had lurched out of the slaughterhouse yesterday.
Mallen didn’t care whether Nilsen was questioning his authority. He was thinking about what came after Houston.
“Nobody’s gonna bother us anymore. No one’s going to bother any real Americans anymore.”
“Don’t mess with Mallen.” Nilsen snickered.
“Did you feel that?” Mallen was suddenly on alert.
Beck and Nilsen glanced at each other. They’d obviously felt nothing. Mallen realized they thought he was cracking up, but a minute later they heard the thumping, too.
“Just a flat,” said Nilsen, steering the van to the side of the road.
Nilsen and Beck got out of the van and went around to the rear to look for the spare. Mallen slid open the side door and took a look at the flat tire.
“You ran over glass. Man, look where you’re going next time.”
Nilsen rolled the spare out of the van. He pushed it over next to the flat tire, pried off the hubcap, and got to work loosening the lug nuts.
“Where’s your jack?” Beck climbed into the van to dig around. “Whoa!” Mallen heard Beck tumble, hitting the back of the passenger seat as the van suddenly jolted.
Mallen had reached down and lifted up the rear of the van with two hands. He stood holding it, bored. He wasn’t straining his arms at all.
“Y’all don’t need a jack,” he said.
“Don’t let go, man.” Nilsen hurriedly pulled off the flat tire and replaced it with the spare. He finished quickly, and Mallen lowered the Econoline back to the pavement.
Beck climbed out of the van and slid down the bumper on to the gravel along the shoulder of the highway. Nilsen let the old tire spiral down to the ground with a thud. Then they both stood and stared at Mallen.
“Daaaang, Mallen. You might actually be useful now,” said Nilsen. He let out a low whistle.
“So yeah, I guess it doesn’t matter where we get gas,” said Beck. “Hell, let’s not even pay sales tax.”
“Let’s get a move on to Houston,” said Mallen. “There’s some people I wanna see at the FBI.”
E I G H T
“He’s off on his wild-man-in-the-woods kick again, isn’t he?” said Maya, standing next to Tony at the end of a two-mile dirt road near Occidental in California’s Sonoma County.
“I like it better than his minimalist raw-foodist phase.”
Tony pushed ahead through some tall grass to get to Sal’s front door. The house looked spacious, new, and mostly conventional aside from a particleboard addition covered only in Tyvek.
“Sitting in a room with no furniture getting your lungs seared out by his farts? No, thanks,” said Maya. She motioned at a bathtub sitting outside to the right of the front door. “Look, at least he’s got plumbing.”
“Of a sort,” said Tony, pointing up to a rainwater-collection tank on the roof. “Running water supplied by rain and gravity.”
She shuddered. “I need a drink, but not here. I don’t want to be forced to inspect the toilet facilities.”
Tony stepped up on to the porch and pushed the doorbell. He heard a distant melody, then tilted his head.
“What music is that doorbell playing?”
“Something by the Grateful Dead, I think.” Maya crossed her arms over her pink silk blouse and pursed her lips.
“Who?”
“Come on, Tony. Don’t pretend you don’t know what I’m talking about.”
Tony smirked.
Sal opened the door. “My children,” he said, spreading his arms wide. “Come in, come in. Welcome to utopia! You want I should twist up a bomber?”
Tony eyed Sal with his garish flower-print short-sleeve shirt, tinted glasses, shaggy white hair and beard, and old iPod slung around his neck on a string. “Not me,” Tony said. “I swore off that stuff. And I might have to fly later.”
“I don’t touch it anymore, either,” claimed Maya. Sal skeptically raised his eyebrows. “Makes me…uh…sleepy.”
Sal feigned shock as he led his visitors in past a hallway of carved West African masks and his own impressionistic landscape paintings. “My children have become weenie straight people! The horror. Well, come on through. I just pressed some apple juice.”
They reached the living room. The walls were almost all glass and faced west to catch the afternoon sun. Sal motioned them to two wooden chairs around a table. “Sit, sit,” he said. “I know it doesn’t look like much to you military/industrial-funded types, but it suits me now.”
“I’m solo, Sal,” said Tony. “And Maya’s salaried by an independent—”
“Yes, yes,” said Sal impatiently. “Military. Corporations. Government. S.H.I.E.L.D. Hair-splitting. You fail to see they are all the same thing. These are inescapable truths. You cannot do the science without stepping into their filthy pool.” He poured three glasses of juice from a carafe and passed them out. Maya sipped hers cautiously.
“I do a whole rap about this at a learning colony at Big Sur in the summertime, you know. Under the teaching tree.”
“The teaching tree.” Maya raised her eyebrows while Tony rolled his eyes.
“Yeah, I know.” Sal laughed and sat down in his easy chair. He raised his glass. “Tech people go out there, too. There’s one guy who believes all technological innovation should be done from the heart. He takes his code monkeys out there and makes them do yoga ’til they puke.” He chortled gleefully. “It gets the heart center working.”
Tony just stared. Sal was brilliant, but he took some patience.
“This is the problem with thinking at this level. The basic truths—that America is now being run as a post-political corporate conglomerate—are too bitter to swallow. It is easier for half-smart people to think the path to freedom requires you to stand on one leg for an hour.”
Maya frowned. “I do yoga, Sal. It calms me down when I’m angry.”
“You used to use Jack Daniels for that.”
“Still do, sometimes, but it makes it hard to get my job done.”
“We’re facing up to the future,” continued Sal. “But we can’t see it. I always thought it’d be you two who’d be road-testing the future for us. But you, Maya, you’re stuck essentially punching biological structure until it gives up and does what you want.” He pointed at her accusingly.
“And Tony, you’ve fiddled with some medical patents and built weapons, and now you’ve made a super-hero suit.”
Tony tried the juice and spat it back out. Gross.
“She’s the Edward Teller of biology, and you’re the Dean Kamen of technology.”
Tony firmly placed his glass down on the table. “That’s not fair,” he said. “Dean Kamen’s done good, useful work.”
“Yeah, but what’s he known for? The Segway. And Clive Sinclair? He made Britain a center of excellence for consumer microcomputing, but all he’s remembered for is the C5, which was a Segway with pedals. Tony Stark will be remembered for working out how to sneeze inside a mask.
“You two are going to your graves with the epitaphs ‘Almost Useful.’”
Sal glared at his two juniors, then cracked a smile. “But then, so am I.” He leaned his he
ad back and laughed, his belly rocking.
Tony shook his head, hoping Sal was wrong about him. He’d done a lot more than invent gadgets. He wished he didn’t have to wonder whether he might be more a combination of Kamen and Teller, the father of the hydrogen bomb. His earlier conversation with Bellingham still haunted him.
Mallen, now dressed in a hip-length leather coat and brown T-shirt over jeans, kicked open the van’s rear doors from the inside and leapt to the pavement.
“Wait here,” he growled at Nilsen.
“Right here? In front of FBI headquarters?”
In response, Mallen just bared his teeth and grinned before heading past the gate to the green building’s main entrance. Nilsen shrugged and looked quizzically at Beck, but he stayed parked. Mallen was about to prove himself to his friends.
And to everyone else, too.
Back in Occidental, Tony decided to change the subject. “What are you working on right now?”
“Mostly,” said Sal, raising his eyebrows, “I’m taking drugs. I spend my days cooking down Illinois bundleweed into DMT and raising mushrooms.”
Tony sighed with exasperation. “You and your damn psychedelics.” He picked up one of the books on the coffee table and read the back-cover copy about Aldous Huxley’s adventures taking mescaline.
“You never would drop LSD, would you?”
“I left that to the computer geniuses. Anyway, I liked whisky better. I’m in recovery now—from lots of things, actually. Now I drink water.”
“Good for you,” said Sal. “I’ve come to consider LSD as abrasively psychiatric. It really just reruns all your memory stores at random. DMT and mushrooms are much more interesting and alive.”
Tony exchanged a glance with Maya. Sometimes Sal could be visionary. Other times, he seemed in need of intervention. DMT was a natural hallucinogen that, some people believed, could access hidden parts of the brain. Historically, it had been used by shamans in South America and hadn’t been studied much. Except, apparently, by Sal.
