“Happy Hogan is not a murderer.”
The voice of Jim Rhodes, while filtered through the electronic earpiece in Abe’s helmet, still held a sense of pride and authority. Abner knew that there was no way for Rhodes to see the expression on his face, but he still couldn’t help but try and maintain a perfect poker face as he held back a sigh. He knew from working with Rhodes over the last few months that arguing was nearly pointless.
“I’m just saying,” Abe replied, “he might not be as innocent as you think. In a world where the Mandarin can hold a respectable position in the business world, a guy like Happy killing his ex-wife might not be such a crazy notion.”
Abe, guised behind the Iron Man defensive armor, soared over the Hudson and on into a patch of white clouds. He had just sprung forth from the water, masking his initial exit from the warehouse where he, Rhodes, and the computer program known as Mainframe ran their operations. No sooner had he left than the argument he had tried to end inside the warehouse began anew.
“Happy and Pepper were reconciling,” Rhodes explained over the comlink. “They were getting along better than ever and had started forming more serious plans for their relationship. Plus, I know them. I can vouch for them, which should be all you need to hear.”
“Since my last girlfriend was a crazed psychopath, I expect I understand jealous rages a little more than you do. Happy’s innocent until proven guilty, but that doesn’t mean he gets a free pass right out of the gate.”
“It should be noted,” the slightly tinted voice of Mainframe said over the comlink, “that Happy turned himself in, cannot give a definite timeline, or provide motive. That is why, Abner, you are being dispatched to the supposed location of Pepper’s death.” *
* (All this came out last ish – D)
“Still doesn’t mean anything,” Abe grumbled as he adjusted his gyroscopes to avoid a gaggle of geese.
“What it means,” Rhodes iterated, “is that you learn what you can and report back.”
“Yeah, I’m in the suit, aren’t I?” Abe suppressed another sigh and shook his head. “I’m in deep enough as it is with Hammer, okay? I don’t need grief from you, too.”
“I admit I am surprised that you were able to sneak away,” Mainframe commented. “After you successfully gained his trust by thwarting the Red Ghost, I would have thought he would keep you locked in his laboratory.” *
* (Check out Iron Man #7 & #8 for that whole fiasco – D, again)
“Once we’re done here I need to shoot back over to Hammer Industries. I told him I’m taking care of some loose ends so I can commit to the research more. This thing with the cosmic cube is creepy as all hell.”
“Any updates on that?” Rhodes inquired.
“No, I’m still catching up on Kragoff’s notes. Plus it’s hard to snoop with Blacklash watching me like a perverted hawk. All I’ve found out so far is that whatever info he had the Frightful Four steal from Stark/Fujikawa is involved with the cosmic cube research. * Kragoff had notations about the sonic disrupter schematics that Mainframe pulled from their systems.”
* (The Frightful Four took over Stark Tower in Iron Man #3-6 – D, for the hat trick!)
“Alright, one thing at a time then. I’m headed over to the office to keep up appearances. Rumiko will be all over me if I don’t get caught up on this proposal to potential investors. Mainframe will run things on this end. Keep your eyes open, Iron Man. You’re coming up on the crime scene now.”
As Iron Man approached the city he began to descend. The armor’s antigravity engine, a miracle of the Stark/Fujikawa Research and Development department, responded to his commands perfectly. The jets in the soles of his boots, which were easily the match of most much larger turbines, gave him precise control over his velocity. The suit still didn’t have quite the cornering capability of his old Beetle armor, but he had quickly adjusted to the unique designs of the late Tony Stark. Once he had figured out what Justin Hammer was up to and he had some free time, he planned to start incorporating his own equipment into the armor.
Soon enough, Iron Man touched down onto the top of an empty roof in New York’s strip district. He glanced around and made sure he was where Happy had told Rhodes where he remembered being awoken, caked in the blood of Pepper Potts.
To his dismay, there was still dried blood on the roof, meaning that no matter what Rhodes told him, Abner was sure something had happened here that someone didn’t want uncovered.
MARVEL REBORN PRESENTS
Backdoor Bloodshed
Written by D. Golightly
Fifteen minutes later, Abe was no closer to discovering anything about what had really happened on that roof than when he had left the warehouse. There were spots of dried blood all across the flat pavement, a few scuff marks that showed signs of a struggle, and that was it.
“Let’s go over this again,” Iron Man said. “What did Happy say happened?”
“He remembers waking up here with his hands drenched in blood,” Mainframe answered. “He can also recall stabbing Pepper with a knife repeatedly, although he cannot recall his frame of mind at the time. Her body has not been found, nor has the murder weapon. After briefly panicking, he went to the nightclub across the street to clean himself up, and then went directly to Stark Tower where he went to Rhodes’ office and turned himself in.”
“No body and no murder weapon means all we have is his side of the story,” Iron Man said as he thought out loud. “Hard to prove anything without those little key pieces of evidence.”
“The prosecution had Happy submit to a polygraph test. He truly believes he killed her.”
“I’m switching to the spectral analyzer in the visor,” Iron Man stated after pausing to collect his thought. “Make sure you’re recording the video feed.”
Abe swapped through the options on his heads-up display, selecting the proper channels to change the filaments in his visor lenses. The scene instantly changed from a clear view to a darkened one, with several energy signatures showing up in his field of vision as if they had been painted into the air. He saw his own green exhaust energy trail behind him rise off into the sky. Most of the trails were probably from the radio and investigative equipment that the police had hauled onto the roof to discern what had happened. However, there was one clear, bright blue trail that led off in an opposite direction from his own that didn’t seem to make sense.
“Someone else has been here,” Iron Man said. “Someone who wasn’t supposed to be.”
In the corner of the only entrance and exit into the building on the roof, a stairwell door, Iron Man spotted a red blotch that looked to still be glowing brightly, meaning it was still active. He charged his repulsors and cautiously stepped toward it, steadily walking to its side just in case it turned out to be an explosive or something else equally problematic.
Upon seeing what the red blotch was, he lowered his gauntlet and switched off his repuslors. “Just a security camera. The police must have already gotten a copy of its recording. Looks like it’s still online. Mainframe, think you can patch in and see what it saw happen on the roof?”
“Plug yourself in and we will see.”
Iron Man slid back a compartment on his left forearm and outstretched a thin black wire. He reached the cable up to the back of the security camera and plugged it into the s-video knob. Instantly a window opened up on his HUD and displayed access to the video logs housed within the building’s computers. He saw his own image from a different perspective, that of the security camera. He waved a hand in front of it and watched his double to the same, albeit a split second delayed.
“You getting this?”
“Affirmative,” Mainframe replied directly into his earpiece. “I can access the logs from here and pipe the feed into your visor.”
“Good. Let’s take a look at the night Happy got crazy.”
The window on his display began to rewind, showing Iron Man cautiously walking in reverse from the security camera, looking around, and then flying off from when he had landed twenty minutes ago. The image started to blur as Mainframe accelerated the playback, zooming through hours in mere seconds.
The scrambling video feed stopped abruptly as Mainframe brought it to the exact frame they were searching for. Pepper stood alone on the roof, squared up almost perfectly with the camera. She rubbed the sides of her arms vigorously to keep the cold away, and she looked around nervously.
A few moments later she swiveled on one foot and stared off camera to a specific point. Her mouth moved but no sound came out.
“No audio?” Iron Man asked.
“The system is several generations behind the latest standard,” Mainframe replied as the scene continued to play out in his visor. “This office building is largely used by start-up companies and therefore the landlord sees little reason to provide high-tech protection.”
Abe frowned beneath his red and gold helmet but watched the scene unfold curiously. Pepper looked striking in a long gray coat that could have been any color, seeing as how the image was only black and white. If the lighting in the background was any indication it appeared to be just after dusk on the rooftop.
Her mouth continued to move and her face became more and more agitated. Someone from under the camera took a few steps toward her, but not enough to yet reveal his face. Pepper jumped back as he came closer, apparently scared of his presence.
Suddenly, the man beneath the camera lunged at her and Abe saw that he was swirling a knife in his hand. He plunged the blade into her chest several times, stabbing almost rhythmically. Blood poured out of the wounds and coated the man’s arms as Pepper fell to the roof, motionless.
The attacker stooped over her body for a few moments, breathing heavily. His broad shoulders lightly bounced in time with his breathing and he stumbled back from the corpse resting at his feet. Slowly, he turned to face the camera and Iron Man saw for the first time the face of the man that had killed Pepper Potts. He paused momentarily before dropping to the roof himself, seemingly passing out. Still, there was no mistaking the face of the murderer.
Harold “Happy” Hogan.
“Have the police seen this?”
“Nothing has been released,” Mainframe answered, “but I assume that they have acquired this footage and have already turned it over to the D.A. It would be standard procedure and they would have no need to publicize evidence until the trial.”
“When this comes out the press will crucify him. A trial will just be a formality.”
“Abner, I believe this footage has been doctored.”
Iron Man jerked his head in surprise. “Seriously? It looks pretty real to me. How can you tell?”
“I have been looking over the individual frames as you watched them at regular speed,” the computer program explained. “It appears that in the real footage the man standing in Happy’s place is not him. This video recording, while superficially accurate, has been altered digitally. Happy’s image has been overlapped onto the real killer’s.”
“That’s great news! This will prove his innocence and Rhodes will get off my back. Can you…uh, un-doctor it?”
“I cannot. All I can do is prove that the recording has been tampered with. The original image of the killer has been erased.”
Iron Man pondered over the information and remembered the bright blue energy trail his scan had shown. “But I bet we can track whoever it was back to where they came from.”
After quickly disconnecting the cable from the back of the security camera, Iron Man launched himself abruptly into the air with the aid of his antigravity engine. The suit responded remarkably to his subtle gestures and manipulations, and even though he hadn’t been beneath the iron mask for as long as his predecessor, he still felt near perfect control over the exoskeleton.
He kept the energy trail in his sights and blazed through the air, twisting between buildings just as the trail did. He traveled several city blocks in mere seconds but it wasn’t long until he recognized where he was headed.
“I’ve got a bad feeling about this.”
The energy signature he was following wound higher into the air, reaching the highest elevation of the skyscraper it fed into. He knew the building more than any casual observer, as he had recently been hired there as part of a sting operation: Hammer Industries.
“It would seem that Mr. Hammer has been busier than we expected,” Mainframe chirped into Abe’s ear.
Iron Man hovered a block and a half away from the building that Justin Hammer owned and operated most of his illegal activities out of. “If I crash the place now I’ll get no where. Hammer will call in his goons before we can figure out what happened on that rooftop. If I’m going to find out what Hammer has to do with this I’ll need to ditch the armor.”
“Is that wise?”
“No…but neither is most of the stuff I do.”
The door to Rumiko Fujikawa’s office was typically closed with her secretary on guard. Jim Rhodes, upon approaching the office, was surprised to see it opened several inches and her secretary no where to be seen. He gently placed his hand on the doorknob and pushed it open further. He stuck his head inside and asked, “You wanted to see me?”
His eyes located Rumiko before anything else registered in his brain. He saw her sitting in a plush chair in the corner of the room, where he guessed she would now and again relax throughout the evening when working late nights. Her feet were propped up on the coffee table in front of the chair and her head was rolled back onto the top of the chair. The way her chest slowly moved up and down suggested to him that she was sleeping.
He took a step into the room and noticed for the first time what a mess everything was. There were piles of papers on her work desk, some of which had spilled onto the floor. Several cardboard boxes were stacked haphazardly about the room with their lids thrown carelessly on the floor. He wasn’t quite sure, but the fichus in the opposing corner looked like it hadn’t been watered in weeks.
“Whose that?” he heard Rumiko say lazily as she struggled to sit up and shake the sleep from her eyes.
“It’s me. Are you okay?”
“Fine.” She ran both her hands through her hair as she leaned forward on the chair and yawned. “What did you need?”
“You asked to see me,” Rhodes replied. “You had some questions for me?”
“Oh, right.” She placed her hand on the arm of the chair and tried to push herself up, but halfway through the motion decided she was better off remaining seated. Rhodes regarded her and couldn’t help but feel a small amount of pity for her. “We need to go over Happy’s case before we meet with the attorneys tomorrow. And I want an update on the SHIELD inquiries and this Daedalus problem.”
Rhodes walked over to her by way of her work desk, snatching up a pitcher full of water on the way. “Here,” he said as he filled the glass on the coffee table and handed it to her. “We can do all that later. You look wiped. When’s the last time you got any sleep?”
After she slurped down half the glass in one gulp she replied, “Is it bad if I can’t remember?”
Rhodes couldn’t help but let out a scoff. “I’d say so. Listen, I can handle this stuff. Why don’t you head home and—”
“Can’t go home. I’d rather be here anyway.”
Rhodes blinked. “Is everything okay?”
Rumiko fixed him with one of her glares but it broke after only a few seconds. She sunk back into the plush chair and pulled in a deep breath. After a moment she waved her hand and said, “My father is visiting.”
“Oh,” Rhodes responded as if that simple sentence explained everything.
“He was supposed to arrive shortly after this Iron Man imposter showed up, but I assured him things were well under control and that he needn’t come. But when the Frightful Four infiltrated Stark Tower he saw it as too large a security risk to not be here personally.”
“I haven’t seen him here in the building.”
“No, and I doubt you will. My father much prefers the comforts of his yacht while in America. He’s operating the company from there while I provide him with endless research and information from here. It’s…beginning to take its toll on me. Going home would show too much weakness.”
Rhodes sat down on the other arm of the chair. He remembered how difficult it had been when first working with Rumiko and her father just after Tony Stark’s death. He had to fight them in a bitter struggle to retain certain aspects of the company. When they first bought out the company Rhodes he thought they would dismantle it and take the technology. Instead, Rumiko had surprised him by keeping the majority of Stark’s holdings in place. In fact, now that he thought about it he realized that it had been Rumiko’s father that had tried to liquidize parts of the company and if it hadn’t been for her he wouldn’t have been able to stop it.
She looked so different now than when they had first met. Despite her overbearing personality she sometimes let through the real her. He looked at her sitting nearly exhausted beside him and before he could stop himself, before he could think, before he could think twice about it, he bent down, cupper her chin in his hand, and kissed her.
She didn’t pull back right away, but instead let her lips linger on his. After a few seconds that might as well have been a full year, she broke the kiss and placed her hand on his shoulder. She didn’t push him away but the semblance was clear.
“I think you should go,” she whispered as she bit her lower lip and looked into his eyes.
“Yeah.” He bent down toward her again and before their lips met he said, “Yeah, I should.”
“Good evening, Mr. Jenkins.”
Abe waved casually at the secretary as he passed through the lobby. He had stashed the armor somewhere safe, opting to wear civilian clothes, and returned to Hammer’s headquarters, hoping to sneak to the upper levels and find more clues. So far everything was going fine, which meant his luck was going to run out soon enough.
He stepped into the elevator after crossing the huge lobby and pressed the button for the twentieth floor. As soon as the doors slid shut he palmed a device out of his pocket and slid a section of it open. A red lens popped out that he held over his eye, showing him relatively the same view as his visor had when switched to the spectral analysis setting.
“Are you sure this will work as good as the helmet?” he asked aloud.
The earpiece, which was barely visible to the naked eye, vibrated Mainframe’s answer directly into his ear. “It will not provide a detailed analysis for anything over twenty-five feet, but yes, it will work. The trail seemed to lead into a window on the twentieth floor. Once you are there cover as much square footage as you can and you will undoubtedly find something.”
Abe nodded even though he knew that Mainframe had no way of knowing that he did. He wanted to speak directly to the program as little as possible while walking around inside the lion’s den. The last thing he needed was to call attention to himself unnecessarily.
The elevator pinged as it reached the twentieth floor and the doors slid open. Abe took half a step forward but paused when he saw who was staring at him: Blacklash.
“What are you doing up here, Beetle?” the caped villain asked.
Abe’s neck twitched in a phantom pain, recalling the recent choking he had received on the other end of Blacklash’s patented whip. The two had worked together on various jobs over the years but there was no love between them. Blacklash was a hired thug and he would kill someone without batting an eye, even family.
“Still getting acquainted with the building,” Abe said quickly, before his hesitation showed. “Hammer said I need to check this floor out for some reason.”
Blacklash stepped into the elevator as Abe stepped out. He stared Abe down as they traded spots. “You more of a lab rat these days, Beetle. I liked you better in the armor.”
“Times change.”
“Not always for the better.” Blacklash reached out and pressed a button on the side panel of the elevator. “Don’t tell Abbot that. I hear enough of his shit as it is, going on like the Cold War still exists. He’s in the back room, which is probably what Hammer wants you to see. If you hurry you can catch him before he heads out.”
The elevator doors closed and Abe was left staring at the blank wall. He knew the name Blacklash had used so casually from being within the same circles as the villain. Sinclair Abbot, otherwise known as Spymaster.
Things were already starting to fall into place. Abbot was a master of espionage and if there was only one person who would be able to set up Happy Hogan it was him. He needed to get into that back room immediately. He checked the hallway he had stepped into to see if there would be anyone to see him use the analyzer and then slid the device out of his pocket once more.
After placing the lens over one eye, Abe saw faint traces of the energy signature lingering in the hallway. Whoever the trail belonged to, they hadn’t flown straight through the corridor, but the trace amounts of the energy had apparently lingered on them. The confirmation was the same regardless of the explanation: the person Abe was looking for had been here.
He returned the lens to his pocket and walked to the far end of the hallway, passing several doors along the way. Each had a palm print scanner beside the entrance in place of doorknobs, meaning that if he wanted access (assuming he was granted it) his passage into whatever room he chose would be logged. Hammer would know he was here.
Deciding that simply standing outside the door wouldn’t help anything, Abe took in a deep breath and placed his hand, palm open, on the panel. A light behind the plastic cover slid over his palm like a copy machine, reading his hand print. A few seconds later there was an affirmative chirp and the door slid open for him.
Looks like Hammer trusts me more than I thought, Abe thought as he stepped into the large room.
The room, which seemed to occupy at least half of the floor, was mostly dark. There were large tables with some type of machinery stacked on them and piles of wires lying on the floor. As he stepped over he saw what looked to be a gauntlet very similar to his own resting on one of the larger tables. It was supported by a few thin, steel bars, holding it a few inches off the surface of the table.
Before he could examine the gauntlet, he heard a noise from somewhere to the side. He jumped in surprise, assuming that Abbot had snuck up on him as the Spymaster was prone to do. He heard the noise again and picked out where it was coming from in the darkness. It was muffled, as if behind a blanket or wall.
The noise sounded a third time and Abe locked in on it. It was coming from behind a door across the room. He looked around and saw that no one else was there, then moved to the door and wrenched it open quickly.
Inside, tied to a chair like a scene lifted from a bad movie, was Pepper Potts.
She mumbled something but the gag over her mouth kept it from being audible. Abe pulled the gag down around her neck and she exhaled, saying, “Don’t hurt me! Please, I don’t even know why I’m here!”
“Relax,” Abe replied. “I’m here to get you out of here.”
He started to pull at her bonds and then stopped, realizing that if he freed the captive Pepper that it would be obvious that he had been the one to do it. There was a log of his entry into the room and Blacklash had seen him. He couldn’t let Pepper go without some kind of story in place.
“Who are you?” she asked quickly, the excitement of being set free making her talk faster. “How did you find me? Where am I? …why did you stop untying me?”
“Sorry, I’m…uh, just a little shocked to see you alive is all.”
Abe briefly recounted Happy’s arrest and his pending trial. With each sentence her face grew longer and paler. “Oh my God,” she finally said after he finished explaining. “The last thing I remember before waking up here was walking to my car one night after work. Someone grabbed me and I’m not even sure how long ago it was! I’ve got to get out of here. C’mon! What are you waiting for? You came here to rescue me, right? Start rescuing!”
“I can’t just let you walk out of here. We need a plan. Or else both of us will be caught.”
“Who the hell are you?”
“That doesn’t matter right now.” Abe growled a bit and finished untying Pepper. He had an idea of what to do but it would still look bad for him in Hammer’s eyes. He would need to think of a good explanation later. “Look, I need to know where Spymaster went.”
“The freak in the red and black costume? I’m not sure, but I thought I overheard him telling the guy with the whip that he was heading out to finish the job.”
Abe helped Pepper out of the chair and she started rubbing her wrists. They stepped back out into the main room and Abe slipped the lens from his pocket over his eye again, finding that the energy trail he had been following was all over the room. Waves and waves of the signature coated the large room, but one trail was distinctly brighter than the rest, marking it as freshly created. That particular signature disappeared through the wall and presumably rose off into the air outside the building. Spymaster must have left just before he had entered.
Abe tapped the earpiece wedged inside his ear and said, “I need you to take control of the suit.”
“Huh?”
“Not you,” Abe said to Pepper. “Back-up.”
Abe relayed his instructions via the earpiece to Mainframe, who, after arguing momentarily, complied. Within a few moments there was a harsh pounding coming from the same wall that Spymaster had disappeared through. Pepper squealed in surprise, but Abe remained motionless as he watched the hollow Iron Man suit bash its way inside. Mainframe was operating the armor by remote after taking control of it where Abe had stashed it in a safehouse a few blocks away.
The red and gold armor floated over to them and touched down on the floor. It turned away from them and the back of the suit began to open up, ushering Abe to step inside its skintight confines.
“What’s going on?” Pepper inquired. As she watched Abe slip into the upright waiting armor, she gasped and added, “You’re the imposter!”
“I’m also rescuing you,” Abe said, his voice now filtered through the Iron Man helmet. “I’d appreciate it if you kept seeing me a secret. We don’t have time to discuss this now. Security will be here soon. We have to leave.”
“But how—”
Iron Man scooped Pepper up in her arms and rose into the air, his antigravity engine supporting them both. He flew out of the hole that Mainframe had created and ignited his boot jets, propelling them through the air at a high speed. Before he was out of range, Iron Man aimed one of his repulsors at a dumpster in the alley below and squeezed off a single shot. The dumpster was overturned easily enough by the powerful blast and left in cinders. Within moments they were blocks away from the building, assuming safety on a street corner. Iron Man lowered Pepper down and ignored the onlookers. She carefully placed her feet on the pavement and blinked as she looked up into Iron Man’s covered face.
“Call the police,” he told her. “Tell them what happened.”
“Where are you going?”
“Leave out the part where I wasn’t in the armor, okay?”
Iron Man shot back up into the air and left the confused, but thankful, Pepper behind. He switched his visor back over to the spectral analysis again and homed in on the exiting trail that the Spymaster had left behind. He adjusted his course accordingly and accelerated the throttle as high as it would go.
“That was stupid,” Mainframe said into his ear.
“The lens didn’t pick up any recording equipment on that floor. If I can stop Spymaster before he does whatever it is he’s doing, I can get back to Hammer Industries and provide a cover story. Maybe.”
“Maybe is the operative word.”
“Can the negativity and let me work, okay?”
The energy trail blazed as clear as a beacon in the sky, which Abe followed closely. Presumably, Spymaster didn’t have that much of a lead over him. If he could catch up quickly he had a shot at catching him before something bad happened.
The trail led Iron Man in a clear path over the city, barely turning at all. He flew passed the strip district and into the business district, apparently leading somewhere specific. Before long Iron Man’s long range scanners picked up an object not far ahead of him, but he couldn’t see anything that looked out of place, such as a flying supervillain.
The trail dove toward the ground and went into the side of a building. It was the first deviation from the flight path since leaving Hammer Industries. Wherever Spymaster was headed, it was somewhere with a purpose. He had followed the signature to a building marked as a business called Quantum Dynamics, LLC.
“Run down everything you can on this place,” Abe told Mainframe through their connection.
Without waiting for a reply, Iron Man rocketed down through the sky, following the trail straight into the side of the building. Strangely, the trail went through the brick wall without a mark just as it had coming out of Hammer Industries. He figured that wasting more time by finding an appropriate entrance would mean that Spymaster would have more time to accomplish whatever goal he had. So, Iron Man placed his fists over his head as he dove and smashed through the brick at the exact spot Spymaster had entered.
Bricks, mortar, dust, insulation, and other debris exploded inside the building as Iron Man burst through the wall. His armor not even scratched, Iron Man charged his repulsor rays and scanned the interior. It looked like a normal office building, complete with cubicles, ceiling fans, and even a water cooler. The area was completely vacant of human life except for two people: Spymaster spun to look at Iron Man even as the man kneeling before him execution style spat out a mouthful of blood.
“What the—” Spymaster exclaimed as he turned the futuristic handgun he wielding from the back of the kneeling man’s head to point at Iron Man.
Iron Man activated his personal force field and a translucent, rippling second skin covered his armor. Spymaster ducked and pulled the trigger of his weapon, discharging several blue blasts of energy. The attack was harmlessly absorbed by Iron Man’s shielding but he couldn’t return fire without risking hitting the unknown man that Spymaster had been about to execute.
“Abner,” Mainframe said, catching Iron Man off guard.
“Not now!” Iron Man scolded as he tried to angle around the cubicles that Spymaster had ducked behind.
“Quantum Dynamics is owned by a man named Felix Judd.”
“I’m a little busy for useless information right now!”
“Abner…after looking into the research that this company does, I think that Felix Judd is the alter ego of the Ghost!”
“The Ghost?” Iron Man looked at the man who had been bloodied almost beyond recognition and tried to remember if he had ever encountered the other villain before. “Is that…is that him?”
“Tony Stark was never able to unmask the Ghost before,” Mainframe explained quickly. “It very well could be.”
The water cooler exploded from one of Spymaster’s stray blasts, showering Iron Man with streams of cold water. His force field shook off the liquid easily enough, but in the tight confines of the office he was finding it difficult to maneuver.
“Screw this cat and mouse shit,” he muttered as he charged down the row of cubicles.
He charged his repulsors and unleashed a torrent of built energy at the thin, gray, faux walls. He made sure to keep his aim angled to the right and away from the barely conscious kneeling man, and completely blanketed the entire side of the office space. The repulsor beams tore the cubicle walls to shreds easily and knocked Spymaster up against the nearby back wall. His head was protected from the red and black body armor he wore, but the force of being thrown without warning had jilted him.
Iron Man made a beeline for the unnerved Spymaster, gripping him around the throat and lifting him off the ground. He slapped the strange discharging weapon out of his hand and fixed him with a cold stare. “What are you doing here?” Iron Man demanded.
“Like…like I would ever tell you…” Spymaster managed to choke out.
“I’ll tell you what the hell he’s doing here.” The man that had been about to be killed when Abe busted in feebly stood up and spat out another mouthful of blood. “Hammer sent him to kill me. Cover up. We framed that Hogan guy and now Hammer wants me out of the picture.”
“Why did you frame Hogan?”
“Hammer hired both of us,” the man said. “He wants to flush you out. Guess he figured if he made the people in Stark’s old company targets that you would show up sooner or later. I lent my tech to Abbott here and he’s been using it to fly around and phase through walls, making it simple to frame someone without being seen.”
“And now that the trap is set Hammer is tying off his loose ends,” Abe added, piecing the parts together. “You’re Felix Judd? You’re the Ghost?”
The man rubbed one of the bruises that Spymaster had inflicted on him and replied, “Not anymore. I was ready to sell the company I used to fund my technology and get out of this game. Another reason Hammer wants me dead. He doesn’t trust me to keep quiet. Things changed since the Heroes were killed. It’s a different world…I’m a different man.”
Abe nodded in understanding. He knew what it was like trying to fit in to a world that fought against your acceptance. “Grab whatever you need from here and leave. Don’t come back.”
“What are you doing?” Mainframe proclaimed.
“If you testify in Hogan’s defense,” Iron Man continued, ignoring the program, “you won’t ever get away from Hammer. He’ll hold the grudge for incriminating him. I already have evidence that Hogan was framed. Plus…I have him.” He shook Spymaster gently but kept his grip firm and in place.
Felix nodded. “Thank you,” he said before stumbling around the corner and disappearing, possibly for the last time.
“Now,” Iron Man said, returning to look at the squirming Spymaster. “Let’s talk about how you’re going to turn yourself in…”
Not even an hour later Abe had returned to Hammer Industries. The police were swarming the building, which made it difficult for him to get into the side alley without being noticed. He had shed the armor once more, instructing Mainframe to guide it back to the warehouse base. It had taken some convincing, especially since they were in disagreement about how he had let the Ghost go. Spymaster had been turned over to Code: Blue, the city’s special department for apprehending superhumans. It had also taken some convincing for Abbott to go quietly, but once Abe’s gauntlet had formed a dent in it, things went much smoother.
Abe couldn’t help but think about how things were getting complicated at an exponential rate. Hammer was getting his dirty hands into just about everything he could. First he had raided Stark/Fujikawa, and now he was setting up friends of Tony Stark in order to flush the new Iron Man out. And what was the gauntlet doing on the twentieth floor? Had Hammer been able to extract schematics for the armor from the information the Wizard had sent to him?
At least Happy would be freed. With the video from the rooftop revealed as doctored, coupled with Spymaster’s cooperation and the fact that Pepper hadn’t been murdered, Happy stood a good chance of being released soon. Spymaster had explained how Happy had been manipulated, using some of the Ghost’s technology, into truly believing that he had killed Pepper. Apparently Felix Judd had been developing mind control technology alongside his intangibility devices. Once Happy was set up as the perfect patsy, who believed that he had even committed the crime he was bring framed for, it didn’t take much for Spymaster to kidnap Pepper and then falsify the security camera’s feed.
Abe shook his head and wiped away the thoughts. He had to stay focused on keeping himself out of the spotlight. They would be looking for him soon and hopefully the story he would give them when Hammer’s forces found him would be believable.
He slid under the overturned dumpster that he had upended upon leaving the building when in pursuit of Spymaster. He had been in the room when Mainframe had guided the armor in to rescue Pepper and there was nothing he could do to change that fact. Blacklash would be suspicious, but maybe his cover story would work well enough to give him time.
The part that had sucked the most was getting Mainframe to use the armor to break his arm. After he was found lying under the overturned dumpster, he would tell them that Iron Man had busted through the wall, grabbed Pepper, and flown back out to escape. He would say that he had courageously jumped onto Iron Man’s back to try and stop him, but that the shellhead had shaken him free and he had landed in the dumpster, smashing his arm to pieces. He would also try to convince them that Iron Man had overturned the dumpster to trap him there and keep him from getting help.
His arm hurt like hell, but he would live. As he squeezed under the dumpster he winced in pain, but was able to get into a position that made it look like he had nearly been crushed.
Once Hammer’s goons found him, which would be very soon, he had to keep his story straight. It would probably be the only thing that would keep Hammer from having Blacklash choke the life from him.
As he settled in to wait to be found, he mumbled quietly to himself, “I’m asking Rhodes for a raise…”
NEXT ISSUE: Another fantastic one-shot co-written by the amazing CW Russette! Hercules has been reborn and is shocked to learn that someone has taken the late Iron Man’s place. Two titans will collide when ol’ Herc calls out Abe to test his mettle! Plus, a villain from the past makes his presence known…