Extremis

by Marie Jevins

  “There’s no difference between us. You’re no better than me, Tony Stark.”

  Iron Man looked down, quiet and reflective in the lab’s shadows. Tony thought about his mission in the world. He raised his head then, and stepped forward into the light.

  “But I’m trying to be,” he said. “And I’m going to be able to look myself in the mirror tomorrow morning.”

  “Want a scotch?” Sal Kennedy turned to Tony with a half-smile. He still wore a flower-print shirt and those tinted round glasses, but he looked more tired, less relaxed than he had a few days ago.

  “Sal, I told you before. I don’t drink anymore.”

  “Then what are you doing in the local saloon?”

  “Looking for you, obviously. Do you think I just stumbled through a bar in Occidental, California, on my way from Texas to Coney Island?”

  “Fine, fine, you never just stop by on a social call. You avoid me for years, then you show up twice in one week when you need the kind of unusual thinking only your wise old pal can give.” Sal affected a pouting look, then motioned Tony on to the stool next to him. “Again, you need me. Get in line. So does this waitress. She needs my order. You want anything? I get that you don’t want a drink, but they have pot pies here. And by pot pies, I mean…”

  “I ate on the plane, Sal. You could have saved me the drive to your place and then back to town if you’d buy a phone. You don’t even need to buy it. I could get you a real nice one, just like mine. Won’t matter if signals don’t reach you, works off a satellite I set up myself. I went up into space and everything.”

  Sal waved him off. “You want to do me a favor, Tony? Work faster. Give me a phone when it’s a nanobot I can swallow in a pill. Or make it injectable. Or reverse it: Load me into the phone as part of the coming singularity. No more of this holding things up to my ear. Bad for the shoulder. Anyway, why did you drive? You deliberately don’t fly to my door just so you’ll have something to complain about.”

  “I don’t fly myself to your door so you don’t have to explain to the world that you’re personal friends with Iron Man. It’s okay, though. The drive gave me more time to feel like crap for turning an old friend over to the authorities.”

  Sal motioned to the newspaper on the bar. “Yeah, I read about that. I wonder if they have yoga class in jail.”

  Tony looked down and wouldn’t meet Sal’s eyes.

  “Maya doesn’t feel any guilt, Sal,” he said. “She believes her particular genius is exempt from guilt, and that her funding is worth the lives of several ordinary people. She can’t see that Mallen running around passing judgment on who gets to live or die was a problem.”

  They sat quietly for a moment, side by side. Tony picked up the paper Sal had been reading. SCIENTIST CHARGED IN HOUSTON FBI INCIDENT.

  “Did you see yesterday’s headlines?” Tony asked.

  “No, I got in a new shipment of psychedelic Peruvian tea, so I was home yesterday.”

  “Good,” said Tony abruptly.

  “Bad behavior is almost impossible to change,” said Sal softly. “This isn’t your fault. We’ve been conditioned for thousands of years. The way out—your way out, conscious change—it’s almost impossible for most people. Without the use of pharmaceuticals, I mean.”

  “She’ll go to jail, Sal. After she saved my life and upgraded Iron Man.”

  “She’s responsible for the deaths of a lot of people, Tony, and the potential for destruction that she put out into the world…” Sal shook his head.

  Tony frowned. Sal was right, but Tony had been given a second chance, third chance, many chances. He’d been irresponsible in his younger days, but Pepper had covered for him until he’d straightened up. He’d been an alcoholic, but managed to quit. He’d lost his company to Stane, then gotten it back. His weapons had killed people, but now that experience was being used to help others.

  “Where would I be without second chances?” Tony drummed his fingers on the bar.

  “I agree, it’s a shame to waste Maya’s brilliance on making license plates,” said Sal. “What about if we plea-bargain for community service? She can be under my care. I’m teaching in Silicon Valley next spring, a school solely dedicated to futurism. We have a biotech-innovation program she’d be perfect for.”

  “They won’t let her near biotech after this—probably not even near medicine. Maya won’t even be able to take a dog’s temperature. But I appreciate your offer.”

  “How about you, then? We have a robotics program, Tony. You could use a change. Why don’t you come out and help us teach artificial intelligence?”

  “I’ll send Jarvis. He mimics how the brain absorbs and learns from information pretty well. He doesn’t need me to teach AI. And he’ll learn the names of the students faster than I would.”

  Sal threw back his head and laughed. “AI teaching AI! I’ll pitch it. You know, you could have one of your old suits teach the class. People need somewhere to look when they’re taught. It’ll be like you’re there, but you don’t even have to leave your boardroom.” Tony laughed, too.

  Then he leaned forward and frowned. “What do you call it when you produce a weapon that kills people, but you yourself didn’t do the killing?”

  “Tony…”

  “I’m aware of the irony, Sal. Maybe I should be in jail, too. I made weapons. I didn’t fire them myself, but they killed a lot of people. I manufactured a weapon—so did Maya. Mine were used to kill people, but I didn’t do it myself. Same with Maya. But what I did is legal, even though my weapons killed way more people than Maya’s.”

  “Tony, when you were a little kid, do you remember your mom reading The Three Little Pigs to you? Or Hansel and Gretel?”

  Tony called the waitress over and ordered a seltzer.

  “Sal, my mom…I wasn’t like that. She read two books to me. One was Mike Mulligan and His Steam Shovel, and the other was The Little Engine that Could. After that, we switched to Popular Mechanics until I was old enough to sit around drawing illustrations to go with Aristotle’s The Physics. I just wasn’t interested in fairy tales.”

  “You’re not helping. You were a weird kid. Look, my point is that when we were younger, good and evil were clear concepts. Three little pigs, good. Big bad wolf, evil. But then you start crossing lines, and things get more complicated from there—‘I’ll just tell my mother I went straight to bed instead of admitting I was up all night with a flashlight and that new issue of Popular Mechanics.’”

  “What, so reading under the covers at night leads to manufacturing land mines found decades later in Cambodia?”

  “Moral ambiguity is the basis for all life’s hiccups, Tony. Thing is, you and Maya both crossed lines for all the wrong reasons. You’ve made munitions that endangered some and protected others. Just being Iron Man puts your staff at risk. How would you feel if your Mrs. Rennie were kidnapped by your enemies?”

  “You mean besides worried for the kidnappers?”

  Sal smiled. “Seriously, Tony. My point is that there is a difference between you and Maya. She thought her way was the only way. She couldn’t change. You have emergent tech in your body, but maybe that’s to be expected, because you were already evolving as a human. Now you aren’t just working with emergent tech. You are emergent tech.”

  They sat in silence for a moment. The server walked out of the swinging kitchen half-doors, holding a steaming chicken pot pie. She smiled as she placed it on the bar in front of Sal.

  Tony started laughing.

  “What?” Sal opened his eyes wide with mock exaggeration. “Wait, did you think I meant…?”

  “You know what I thought you meant, Sal,” said Tony. “Hey, I’m gonna take off. I want to go back to Coney Island. Catch up on some work. Fly around a bit for my fans. Check in with Pepper. She’s going to be pissed that I nearly died again. Give me a call next time you’re near a pay phone, okay?”

  Tony headed out of the bar and stopped next to the entrance. He could see himself in a mirr
or beneath a coat rack.

  “You again,” he said, staring at himself for a minute.

  He looked back at Sal, who gave him a thumbs up from over his pot pie. Sal waved. Tony grinned. He looked back at the mirror.

  “Nice to see you.”

  T W E N T Y

  “MISTER STARK.”

  How does Mrs. Rennie do that? Tony wondered again. He’d had a busy week and had neglected to look into how she’d patched the intercom into the surround-sound in his Coney Island garage.

  “What now?”

  “Do you know who this is, Mister Stark?”

  He grinned. He was standing in front of his workbench, working with a life-size holographic schematic of his collapsible armor and a tablet covered with digital data.

  “Of course I know. It’s Iron Man’s biggest fan. The woman who loves Iron Man so much that when she was in college, she went to the World’s Fair just to meet his father, even though Iron Man and Tony Stark didn’t even exist yet.”

  Mrs. Rennie whistled. “How did you figure that out, Mister Stark?”

  “Owen did. Our new intern, the kid you brought on board after his stunt on the Wonder Wheel. I asked him to research a photo I found at the Smithsonian, one showing a college girl batting her eyelashes at Howard Stark, and he decided the girl looked like you. So he showed it to Happy, who—once he stopped snickering—told him to run it past Jarvis for analysis.”

  “I’ll be sure to assign Owen lots of extra photocopying later,” said Mrs. Rennie.

  “You’ll have to wait. He’s out right now trying to find a photo lab that can handle 127-format negatives. We located the original and are getting it blown up as a Christmas gift for Mister Rennie. You won’t believe the look you were giving my dad. At least, I couldn’t believe it. Were you easy, Mrs. Rennie?”

  “Oh, that’s rich, coming from you, Mister Stark. Though I do seem to recall Howard Stark asking for my phone number.”

  “He did not.” Tony was horrified. His parents probably hadn’t met yet when Mrs. Rennie was in college, but the idea of his crusty old secretary flirting with his father before he was even born was too much for Tony. Suddenly he regretted starting this.

  “Whatever you need to imagine to keep yourself happy, Mister Stark. Do you know why I’m calling you?”

  “Because Ms. Potts has arrived in the lobby and wants to declare her undying devotion to me?”

  “Not likely, Mr. Stark,” said Mrs. Rennie. “Try not living in a filthy man cave first. Or not flirting with other women. I hear that helps. No, I’m calling because your company has arrived. Stark’s board of directors has assembled in the conference room and is ready for your address. I’ve tabulated your data, explained the meaning of your statistics, and prepared handouts clarifying my mathematical calculations. I’ll have Owen pass them around to the board members.”

  “Thank you, Mrs. Rennie.” There were benefits to hiring a retired algebra teacher. “Can you make sure they have everything they need? Coffee, water…”

  “They are all well-supplied with Mango Mermaid products, Mr. Stark. They’ve been briefed on next-quarter strategy by Ms. Potts and received an update from Markko in Engineering. They’ve also had lunch, and they are waiting for your address.”

  “Systems off,” said Tony. The holographic display he’d been working with faded and disappeared. He headed out the door, stopping to check out his new business suit in the mirror. Mrs. Rennie really did have good taste in choosing his suits. He stepped outside and headed across the back courtyard to the rear service entrance of Stark Enterprises’ Coney Island headquarters.

  “I’ve just uploaded a field-test report of the Stark Beam 01 to each of your tablet computers. I think you’ll find it fared exceptionally well on the battlefield, but we’ll have to do consumer testing as well, given that most consumers don’t have the same needs as Iron Man.”

  He paused for a laugh. Hearing none and seeing only stony faces from the Stark Enterprises board members assembled around the conference-room table, Tony continued.

  “Right. Soooo, Geoff, has any progress been made on assessing potential telecommunications takeover targets?”

  Geoff cleared his throat. “Yes, Tony. Acquisitions has found a small, undervalued company that runs on an unpopular band. We have some ideas about how to increase the appeal of this band without giving away our plans until the Stark Beam is out in the marketplace. We’ll need to have a strategy discussion with PR. And Markko, who’s implementing the upgrade, wants to meet with you on the engineering, since none of us were able to understand his explanation.”

  “Great. Let’s give Markko a bonus. Any objections?” Tony glanced around the room. The board members shook their heads.

  “Markko’s shrieking space heaters are flying off the shelves,” Geoff continued, “and the last-minute upgrade where they can scream in Latin or German was a nice touch. It increased media coverage and, thus, sales.”

  “Wait,” said Tony. “Whose idea was that?”

  “Mine,” said Geoff, reddening a bit.

  “Geoff! Nice touch.” Tony chuckled. Didn’t know he had it in him.

  “Thanks. This phone will solve our short-term money problems, but we’re still concerned about future contracts, Tony. All your work with alternative energy hasn’t generated results yet.”

  “Geoff, give it a rest. We weren’t even planning to make phones six month ago, and now we’re about to corner that market. And if Markko comes up with just a few more smaller ideas as good as his space heater, we’ll be just fine while R&D keeps plugging away at alternative energy. Trust me. Where has the stock price gone in the last two weeks?”

  “Straight up, Tony,” Geoff admitted. “We do trust you. It’s just that, sometimes, you get a little caught up in your latest ideas. Then you disappear into your garage or your Iron Man armor, and it’s our job to keep the business running smoothly when that happens. So we need to be aware of what you’re working on.

  “And there’s just one more thing.”

  Ah. Tony had been expecting this. He restrained himself from arguing that the board didn’t keep Stark Enterprises running—Pepper did. He needed to stay on topic, since he was about to drop several surprises on the board at once.

  So he feigned ignorance and looked at Geoff innocently. “What might that be?”

  “We were wondering if you’d given any more thought to stepping down from being CEO, to taking more of a Chief Technologist role. You know, let someone else handle the business end of Stark Enterprises.”

  “I have. And I’ve decided to take your advice…”

  Tony paused.

  “…that I should look to Bill Gates as an example.”

  The board held its collective breath. Tony slowly looked around the table, catching each member’s eyes individually.

  “And that is why I’ve decided to…”

  He savored the moment.

  “…establish a foundation.”

  He saw the stares of disbelief. For a minute, he thought Geoff was going to get up and walk out.

  “A foundation,” said Geoff. He was silent a moment. “To do what?”

  “The Stark Acceleration Foundation will support a series of tech incubators, providing mentors, funding, and resources to engineers and startup entrepreneurs in disadvantaged parts of the world. Geoff, what do Afghanistan, Bolivia, and Congo have in common?”

  Geoff and the rest of the board looked blankly at Tony. He knew what they were thinking: What the hell is he talking about?

  “Come on, you guys know this one. Where do we source supplies from?”

  Owen, who had brought in the handouts from Mrs. Rennie, piped up from the corner.

  “Lithium comes from Bolivia.”

  “Thank you, Owen. Why does this high-school student know more than my board?”

  “Because I read your handout, Mister Stark,” Owen admitted, shyly.

  “Smart kid,” said Tony. “Maybe the rest of you can follow his lead.�
�

  The board members scrambled to grab the paper handouts, which Owen had left neatly piled at one end of the table.

  “Lithium is used in lightweight batteries for most of our electronic devices,” explained Tony. “For now, the world’s biggest supplies are located in the salt plains of Bolivia, but huge reserves have also been found in Afghanistan. Most of our high-tech minerals are mined in places that don’t have the economic structure for local entrepreneurs or scientists to build their own businesses. Another resource we buy a lot of is coltan. Why? Because it’s used in computers and mobile phones, like the Stark Beam 01. Democratic Republic of the Congo has more than half the world’s coltan. And what else does DRC have? No, besides Rumble in the Jungle. That’s right. DRC has a significantly high percentage of the world’s war.”

  Tony paused for a moment. “Can you guys think of anyone who has benefited from war? Someone who maybe owes the victims of war a second chance?

  “It’s hard to catch a break if you’re a kid who loves science and you live in Congo,” he continued. “Does anyone else in this room find it ironic that people in countries full of minerals the rest of the world must have for its tech can’t even start a tech business in their own home countries? When the minerals they need are in their own backyards?” He paused and waited, though he didn’t really expect anyone to speak.

  “Because I do. I met a man in Dubai whose brother was an Afghani scientist. That scientist had gone to war because there weren’t any science jobs for him. And guess what? Now he’s dead.

  “When I announced we were abandoning weapons contracts, that was a start. When I put on the Iron Man armor to fight for peace, I started seeing my plan more clearly. But I need—we need—to do more. This is an opportunity to help people help themselves, to create something sustainable. We need to get opportunity out there to innovators who have a clear understanding of basic human needs. Why? Because we can help them, sure…but also, they can help us.

  “There is profit in helping people. Maybe not today, maybe not in a year. But if we can help people develop their own resources, we will ultimately find a way to benefit from these alliances.”