A shrieking blast washed over Iron Man, disrupting his very ability to think. His vision blurred, and even though the armor he wore was state of the art, it could do nothing to protect him.
Abe rolled his eyes back open and saw Blacklash standing over him. He must have fallen to the rooftop under him. His ears were still ringing, so he couldn’t make out what the villain was saying. Knowing Blacklash, it was probably something asinine.
Hovering behind Blacklash was the red and black armored form of Hardshell. Abe knew her better as Leila Davis, a woman that was determined to see him dead. She didn’t know that he was the one posing as Iron Man at the moment, but he doubted that it mattered. She was nearly insane.
And in the air behind her was another armored figure. Mainframe. Daedelus. Whatever he wanted to be called, it was still the same engrams of Tony Stark inside that armor, pilfered by Justin Hammer, shoved into the ‘rebel armor,’ and turned against him.
The sonic disrupter in the gauntlet of Daedelus was still vibrating. He had heard Hammer say that it was powerful enough to destroy an entire city block. Having worked on ways to draw power straight from a cosmic cube to power the armor, Abe knew that Hammer wasn’t bluffing. The sonic waves that the disrupter had hit him with had nearly killed him.
So…why was he alive?
He was losing power. His systems were barely able to register the internal damage. He saw a piece of his chestplate sitting on the roof in front of him. His armor was seriously damaged, possibly enough to leave him vulnerable.
“—can’t say,” he started to hear Blacklash say. The ringing was still blotting out most of his speech.
“Hammer said to pull the helmet off,” Hardshell said. “He wants to know who this guy is before we kill him.”
Blacklash’s thick whip snapped in the air and wrangled itself around Iron Man’s neck. With a tug, the villain forced Iron Man up onto his knees. A section of the armor covering his shoulder snapped away from the movement, showing just how damaged he was.
“No time like the present,” Blacklash replied.
Hardshell landed in front of the positioned Iron Man, her hands reaching out to his helmet. He couldn’t tell because of the facemask, but he was sure that she was smiling.
His power levels were still diving. His targeting computer couldn’t even get a fix on her as she stepped just inches from his face.
And in the background, hovering silently, was the imprisoned electronic mind of his compatriot, who was possibly his only hope for survival.
MARVEL REBORN PRESENTS
Shell Game - Part Two of Three
Written by D.
Golightly
“Touch me again and I’ll break your hand off.”
Rumiko Fujikawa met the icy stare of the bodyguard without flinching. The muscles that the bodyguard had worked hard at acquiring didn’t mean much when a person wasn’t intimidated by them. He rubbed his hand where she had pinched the nerves after he had made the mistake of grabbing her shoulder.
“This is my father’s boat,” she said. “If I wish to enter his chambers, I will do so. I don’t care if he said he wasn’t to be disturbed. Now, remove yourself.”
The guard hesitated, but gently bowed to her and stepped aside. She ignored his courtesy and pushed by him, entering the cabin and slamming the door shut behind her. Inside, the cabin was decorated with some of the finest Asian antiquities that collectors would only dream of seeing. Samurai swords, statues, art…it was worth millions. Possibly more.
At the center of the room was a large table, behind which sat her father. Already elderly, the cancer eating away at his insides did little to support any semblance of youth. The anger in his face, however, betrayed the old body and burned with a fire of a dozen young men.
“Daughter,” he said harshly. “I have had enough outbursts for one day.”
“Father. You will listen to me. I am more than your daughter here. Here, I am an executive, a person of power. I might remind you that you placed me in that position.”
“Yes, an obvious mistake.”
The comment struck her like any slap in the face would. She bit back the disappointment and continued to say what she had intended to say. “I have implemented strategies that have proven successful. I have saved our interests in the United States several times. I have—”
“Forgotten where you came from!”
Rumiko stopped talking, but her mouth remained open.
“This venture was never meant to last, daughter. Your clouded judgment, especially where it concerns James Rhodes, has brought dishonor to this house. You have forgotten our plans in Japan, ignored my directives, and deliberately pursued other interests outside of what I assigned you.”
“Father, using the company built by Tony Stark to simply save our own pride is foolish! That is why I have developed other projects, branched out from your original instruction, and made our family name honorable again!”
“It has already been decided. There is nothing more—”
Kenjiro began hacking and coughing profusely. Rumiko rushed to his side, helping to steady him in his chair. At first he raised his arm to keep her back, but the coughing forced him to lower it. He was too weak.
A few specks of blood splattered out onto the table. A tear formed in Rumiko’s eye, but she held it back from falling. Pity was the last thing her father needed.
Someone knocked at the door. “We are fine,” she called out. “Return to your post.”
A metal boot kicked in the door, smashing the wood around the deadbolt. A figure draped in silver body armor and a black mask stepped into the room, wielding an assault rifle. Two more men wearing the exact same outfit were behind him with their weapons pointed over the first’s shoulders.
“Who—” Rumiko began to say.
“This vessel is now under the control of Justin Hammer,” the intruder stated. “We have orders to kill you if you resist. Please…just try and resist.”
Iron Man had to admit, they had him dead to rights. The ugly sneer on Blacklash’s face was something that Abe remembered hating when he was still the Beetle. Working with the psychopath had been part of the reason for his eventual reform. Unlike some of the villains he had known, Blacklash liked the pain and suffering he dished out.
“Pry the damn thing off his face,” Blacklash said. “I want to see the look in his eyes when I choke him.”
The coils of the villain’s whip tightened around Iron Man’s throat. The metallic skin that buffered his own body and the armor plating resisted, but it was beginning to buckle. Hardshell gripped the sides of his helmet and yanked back hard in the opposite direction that Blacklash was pulling. The strain nearly made Abe pass out.
Iron Man quickly thumbed the controls inside his gauntlet, accessing the options on his HUD. He flew through several menus before selecting the correct one. His power was nearly drained, but he still had enough to do one more thing.
“Quit pulling his head like that,” Hardshell said as she pulled on his helmet. “You’ll snap his neck, and Hammer specifically said he wanted him—”
FWAM!
The uni-beam in the center of Iron Man’s armor fizzled as the fully charged energy blast struck Hardshell at close range. She was catapulted back, flying head over heels off the roof. She fell below the edge and went out of sight.
Iron Man spun around on one knee, driving his fist into Blacklash’s stomach. The caped villain doubled over and the whip around Iron Man’s neck finally loosened. Iron Man followed his blow up with another, an uppercut into Blacklash’s chin. The villain stumbled backward, possibly more from shock than anything else, and promptly passed out from the fast beating he had received.
Abe breathed heavily beneath his still sealed helmet. All of his power was almost gone and he was operating off of solar paneling. The strain of moving the armor without the full assistance of the servos was draining. He doubted that he could fly to safety.
“Target is resisting.”
Something struck the back of Iron Man and bowled him over. He sprawled out on the roof and looked up to see Hammer’s hollow armor fly by, turn, and return for another approach. The sonic disrupter was charging again, almost ready to fire. Another strike from that device would surely kill him.
“Mainframe!” Iron Man called out. “Stop!”
“This unit is designated Daedelus,” the armor replied. “Primary function: capture Iron Man.”
That explained why the first sonic attack hadn’t killed him. Hammer wanted him alive. Abe had seen what Hammer did to his prisoners. Friend or not, there was no way he was going to let Mainframe…Daedelus…take him in. It was a death sentence, but only after a period of long and agonizing torture.
Straining against armor that didn’t want to cooperate, Iron Man grasped Blacklash’s fallen whip and snapped it at the approaching Daedelus. He pressed the button to electrify the coils as it wrapped around the enemy armor’s gauntlet, sending thousands of volts directly into the armor and its systems.
Daedelus paused, hovering in air. It didn’t react as if it were in pain, but rather as if it were contemplating what to do. With the amount of voltage that Abe was pumping into the thing, there was no way it wasn’t taking damage. Finally, it raised its other hand and sliced through the whip, cutting off the stream of power.
Iron Man tossed the whip away and charged forward. Daedelus dropped to the roof and planted its feet to accept the charge. The pair of armors collided with a resounding noise, metal grinding on metal. Since the servos in Iron Man’s armor were nearly dead, his strength was nowhere what it should be. He didn’t stand a chance.
Daedelus easily pushed him to his knees. The corrupted artificial intelligence nearly broke his hands as it forced his wrists to bend backward. Between the flashes of pain, Iron Man heard boot jets approach from behind him.
“I’ll never understand why Hammer is so obsessed with you,” Hardshell said. It hadn’t taken her long to recover from the uni-beam strike. “You’re not even the real Iron Man.”
The deadly female stepped behind Daedelus where Abe could see her. Her armor was scorched and most of the red plating had burned away. The black padding layer was still intact, but Abe doubted that she would survive another hit like the one he had given her.
“Of course, I’m pretty curious about who you are, too,” she continued. “But in the long run it won’t matter. Nothing you’ve done has mattered.” She tapped Daedelus on the shoulder. “Restrain him and bring him to Hammer.”
“This unit does not acknowledge orders from you.”
“Listen, you ignorant computer program! You obey Hammer and I’m acting on his authority! Now, fulfill your purpose!”
“Secondary function,” the ghost in the machine said, “eliminate unnecessary subordinates.”
“Subordinates?”
Daedelus released one hand and backfisted Hardshell across the roof. She skidded to a halt by slamming against the stairwell entrance. Her arm twitched for a moment, but then hung limp.
“You’re out of control,” Iron Man said. “Hammer is insane. He doesn’t even treat his own people with any decency.”
“This unit has served it’s functions. Do not resist.”
“I’m sorry to have to do this, Mainframe. I really didn’t want to.”
“I am Daedelus.”
“Yeah, and that’s why this has to be done. Initiate correctional protocol.”
For a brief moment, nothing happened. Then Daedelus’ eyes flashed. It emitted a piercing screech and released Iron Man, grasping its head. The hollow armor stumbled back, nearly falling over several times, all the while never ceasing the ear-splitting screeching.
“I’m sorry, Mainframe,” Iron Man said as he stood back up. “This was a last resort. A voice recognition backdoor program designed by Tony Stark himself. Just in case.”
The screeching stopped. Daedelus froze in place and fell over on its side, motionless. Abe Jenkins had admired Tony Stark more and more since becoming Iron Man. He had learned just how smart the genius millionaire was before he died. Mainframe had been programmed to take over his role in life in the scenario of his death. It had taken careful planning and months of programming to ensure that the engrams of Tony Stark were perfect.
But the more that Abe learned about Stark, the more he realized just how paranoid the hero had been. There were contingency plans for virtually everything. Just in case. And since Stark knew that leaving a computer program in his stead also made it victim to his enemies’ machinations, there had to be a way to destroy it in case someone like Hammer ever took it over.
At Abe’s command, Mainframe, the virtual representation of Tony Stark, and the last semblance of his soul on this world, had just been completely erased.
Iron Man kicked the hollow armor, making sure that it was now truly immobile. He had hated initializing the protocol. Mainframe had saved his life several times, and even though it was just an artificial intelligence, there was nothing artificial about their budding friendship. He had effectively killed his ally.
Pulling on his chestplate, Abe ripped away several pieces of his armor. It was useless now. It had taken too much damage to do him any good. He dropped the helmet on the rooftop and leaned down over the inanimate ‘rebel’ armor. If it was similar enough to Tony Stark’s designs…
He pushed a button located just below the helmet on the neckline. With a soft hiss, the helmet popped off and the pressure localized inside the suit. He pawed at the armor, dismantling it piece by piece.
He slipped the gauntlet with the sonic disrupter on to his hand. The secondary metallic skin inside conformed almost instantly to his body, surprising him. He could feel the silver skin move up his arm inside the gauntlet, and after a second, he saw it crawl up his forearm, too.
“Nanotechnology?” he wondered aloud. “And a cosmic cube supplying the power. Amazing.”
Rhodes was still in danger, not to mention anyone else associated in this business. Maybe he could still salvage something from this horrible day if he played his cards right.
James Rhodes burst through the side door to the secret warehouse aside the Hudson. The microchip in his wristwatch allowed him security access without having to take the time to disarm all of their measures.
Abe had been out of contact since Mainframe had alerted Rhodes to what was going on. He had cleared up a few work projects at Stark Tower before leaving for the warehouse in order to not look suspicious. He looked around, but saw that the warehouse was empty and that the monitors that usually displayed Mainframe’s floating head were now turned off.
“What the hell is going on?” he said.
He rushed to one of the consoles and tapped in the boot-up commands for Mainframe’s systems, but nothing happened. The database was dead. He kicked one of the towers and swore, plopping down in one of the chairs in a sign of defeat.
“This day could not get any worse,” he said.
“Are you sure about that?”
Rhodes spun in the chair to see Pepper Potts and Happy Hogan enter the warehouse through the same side door that he had used. He was shocked, wondering why the alarms had alerted him to their presence. He glanced at the monitor, seeing it powered down, and realized that the security measures, without Mainframe to operate them, were turned off.
“Pepper,” Rhodes said. “Happy. What are you doing here?”
“Following you, chief,” Happy said. “Pepper says you have a lot of explaining to do. She also says you know who Iron Man is. We’ve been through a lot, Rhodey. I think it’s about time you start talking to us like friends again.”
“Listen, Jim,” Pepper added. “We know you’ve been involved from the beginning. I met this new Iron Man. He saved my life and I’m betting that he helped prove Happy’s innocence. We owe him, just like you owe it to us to finally trust us.”
“It’s…more complicated than that,” Rhodes responded. “This guy…well, in a way you could say that Tony picked him as his replacement. But I don’t think you guys are going to like his choice.”
“Tony picked his own replacement?” Happy said. Scratching his chin, he added, “Actually, that does sound a lot like Tony.”
“Here’s the thing: Tony didn’t really pick him. A computer program with all of Tony’s memories did. So, in a roundabout way, it’s what Tony would want.”
Pepper raised an eyebrow. “You want to maybe explain that a little more?”
KRA-KOOM!
The foundation of the warehouse shook. Pepper stumbled into Happy, who held her up. They all looked around, as if the source of the disturbance would show itself like magic. A low rumble, different in frequency from the first boom, started at one side of the warehouse and slowly crawled across to the other.
This constant noise grew in pitch until it was a shrill scream. One side of the warehouse buckled inward and finally crumbled, revealing the source of their discontent.
“Well, well,” Screaming Mimi said. “Looks like a party.”
The villainess, dressed in a black and gold costume, smiled deviously. She floated in the air in the center of the hole her psionic powers had created, absentmindedly stroking her long, flowing hair. Beneath her were dozens of arms soldiers, wearing silver body armor, and wielding assault rifles.
“My invitation must have gotten lost in the mail. That’s okay, though.” She snapped her fingers and the soldiers quickly filtered into the warehouse, surrounding Rhodes, Pepper, and Happy. “Just mark me down as a guest of Justin Hammer.”
NEXT ISSUE: The stunning conclusion to this arc will surprise you! Everything that’s happened so far has led to this point. Just how much does Justin Hammer know? And what is Abe going to do about that? Plus, don’t forget that Rumiko and her daddy are in a bit of a pinch, too! Everything comes to a climax in the first IRON MAN ANNUAL, so don’t miss it!