by Marie Jevins
“Nice trick,” said Maya, icily. “But you’re scaring the children.”
“Nah, kids love me. You should have seen them back at the mud bog when I pulled the truck out. I had to stop them from climbing on top of me while I was working.”
“Hey, Iron Man.” The truck driver—who was jolly, bald, and round in his tank top with his belly hanging out—walked up and fist-bumped Tony. “Nice job you did back there. I didn’t really want to spend another night in a bog. At least not until tomorrow. Can I buy you a beer?”
“No, thanks,” said Tony. But he waved the shopkeeper over and asked for a sugary soft drink. Now that he’d taken off his climate-controlled suit, his skin was starting to shine with sweat like everyone else’s.
“So, Maya. I’m here for a progress report on the Congo program. How are our entrepreneurs coming along?”
“Why didn’t you just use Zipsat to radio the ship like Mrs. Rennie does?”
Tony muttered something that Maya couldn’t hear.
“What?”
“I said, it’s a condition of your parole that I see you in person once a month.”
Maya sat down to pull out her bread, utility knife, and chunky peanut butter. As she spread peanut butter on the first slice of bread, two scrawny children ran to her elbows.
“S’il vous plais, madam.” They looked at her with big, sad eyes.
Maya cracked a smile now. These urchins knew a softie when they saw one. And that’s what she was now. Humbly helping others with no potential for self-aggrandizement or personal reward. The only person getting credit for the Stark tech incubator was the man who had paid for it: Tony Stark.
She handed over the bread slices. The kids tried to be polite and formal—children were so well-mannered here—but they were too excited to maintain that charade. They nearly shrieked with excitement.
“Where’d you get the peanut butter?” Tony asked. “There’s no supermarket on the ship.”
“One of our entrepreneurs is creating mini 3D helicopters—they’re not much bigger than your arm. They transport lightweight items by flying above roads—you might’ve noticed the roads here aren’t the best. But these copters can detect the road and follow it, so long as you don’t give them too many choices to make. They run on peanut oil—peanuts are local—so we have loads of peanuts hanging around. I had one of the interns look up how to make peanut butter. Why not? Another use for something the entrepreneur was already growing. We added a vitamin mixture to the peanut butter. Supercharges their nutrition, and the kids don’t know the difference.”
“Sounds useful,” said Tony. “Like FedEx for remote villages. Plus bonus peanut butter. Has he worked out a plausible price point for mini-helicopter deliveries?”
Maya shook her head. “Our sales mentor is trying to help him sort it out. That’s where we always run into problems. We end up having to use phone time as currency. But no one has enough money to buy phone time, so we charge almost nothing, and then the entrepreneurs can’t sustain their businesses. Give it time. The economy here is in its infancy.”
“How are the other entrepreneurs doing? And the staff?”
Maya was glowing with pride. She nearly forgot that she was speaking to her jailer.
“Brilliant. We’ve got people working with power inverters and solar energy, gorilla-conservation games for mobile-phone platforms, and a fantastic bartering app that works by text message. We don’t even need money for that, if we can sell it to be bundled by the telecom companies.”
Maya suddenly recognized she was being too enthusiastic—that was no way to keep Tony Stark feeling bad for what he’d done to her. She scowled and tried to look angry, but one of the kids squeaked with fear, and she burst out laughing instead.
“Maya,” Tony said slowly. “I appreciate the work you’re doing.”
“Well, it is an improvement over sitting in a tiny cell with three other women while reading the Bible all day. But I’m still pissed at you, Tony. If I hadn’t rebuilt your body, you would have died.”
“And the thanks you get is you’re outside, out in the world, learning empathy and helping people who need your help, in sustainable ways that can make a genuine difference. And you don’t have to beat anyone up to do it. I envy you, Maya. This is a dream job.”
She nodded her agreement now.
“But there’s one thing,” said Tony. “When you said you’re formulating the peanut butter to supercharge the nutrition of local children…look, I’m not saying that’s a bad thing. It isn’t. But you’re treading dangerously close to fields you’re forbidden from working in. That’s violating the terms of your parole.”
“Roger that, boss,” said Maya. “I don’t touch it myself. The intern did the research. The kitchen puts it together. I just carry it around in my bag in case I get hungry.”
Tony nodded and decided to let it go.
“All right, Maya, I’m taking off. Nice work you’re doing here. You have six more months, then we move to the next incubator in Bolivia. The ship can’t go there, though. We might try building a facility out of salt. Look it up. Oh, wait, I forgot—you’re not allowed Internet access.” Tony winced. “You’ll see it when you get there.”
“I’d like to send two of our students to Sal’s weird tech school in Silicon Valley, if he’ll give them free tuition. Can you ask someone to look into visa issues?”
“Sure. Tell Mrs. Rennie on her next radio call. I’ll mention to her I approved it.”
Tony stood up and held his arms out while his armor snapped back on. He walked back out to the dirt road next to the Mercedes, and fired up his boot jets. A group of kids ran out to the truck to watch Iron Man streak away into the sky.
Maya stayed where she was for a minute, feeding peanut butter to kids.
“Are you ready, madam?” She turned around to see the shopkeeper waiting for her. He was also the local medic. “We’ve assembled the medications you sent out by mini-helicopter, and your patients are waiting. We have a teenager showing acute respiratory inflammation from malaria, a pregnant woman with HIV, and a grandmother displaying symptoms of a bacterial intestinal infection. We waited until you were alone, as you requested.”
Maya took the medical supplies and followed the shopkeeper into the back of the shop, where her patients lay waiting. Her ankle bracelet would reflect a change of only forty feet. She’d walked farther when she used the bathhouse.
She was violating her parole, but helping these people overcome illnesses was her second chance. It was worth the risk. They had no doctor, and the nearest clinic was days away on these terrible roads.
Perhaps, by caring for these rural Congolese, she could, in some small way, make up for the deaths of the people Mallen had killed.
To not be allowed to help them, to watch them die, would be a fate worse than any punishment Tony Stark or the justice system could dish out.
Besides, she thought, if I let them die, I’d never be able to look at myself in the mirror again.
THE END
A C K N O W L E D G M E N T S
Writing a book is challenging—and occasionally relentless—under any circumstances, but me writing an entire novel was made possible by the encouragement of three old friends.
One was editor Stuart Moore, who nudged me along, constantly reminding me that life would eventually return to what passes for normal in my odd world. Another was author Warren Ellis, who wrote the comic book series this book is based on. He offered me complete certainty that I could pull this off when I wasn’t so sure. Last, the artist-turned-writer-turned-artist Steve Pugh never stopped offering support. He’d taken Alice Hotwire, a character originally created by Warren, and made her his own.
Could it be done? With a little help, yes. I am lucky enough to know the sorts of people who can answer the question, “How does Iron Man go into space” without a moment of hesitation. “Space armor, duh. Where have you been?”
Other ideas and encouragement came from Marc Siry, Steve Buc
cellato, David Wohl, Shannon Wheeler, Howard Mackie, Michael Kraiger, Carl Potts, Roberta Melzl, Ed Ward, Denise Rodgers, Monica Kubina, and my mom. The hive mind of social networking was always helpful (and often hilarious), such as when Jack Tavares helped name the space plane.
Thank you to Warren and Adi Granov for reimagining Iron Man for the modern world, and giving me complex material and the occasional surprise to work from. Even on the third or fourth reading, I put together things I’d missed before. And thanks to Spring Hoteling for her ever prompt, clean designs, Axel Alonso and Stuart for letting me do this, and Jeff Youngquist for being one of the most remarkably efficient editors I’ve ever come across.
And last, thanks to those people who unexpectedly seeped in here: My sister, childhood neighbors and people I worked with in fast food in Alexandria, Virginia, Frankie taking me to the camel races in Kuwait, and the random stranger I met in Congo. “We don’t need aid or roads,” he said. “We are educated people, just like you. What we need is jobs.”
That’s where I got the idea for Tony Stark’s tech incubator.
I just wish it were real.
