by Marie Jevins
But now he had brain-linked access to security systems, police records, and public-transportation schedules. He had real-time updates on the surrounding blocks and knew exactly where the bystanders were. This time, Iron Man was ready.
He zoomed in on Mallen with his targeting crosshairs. The Texan was heading up Independence Avenue in the same leather jacket he’d worn when they’d fought on the interstate outside Houston. It was deteriorating, full of rips and tears from Iron Man’s bomblet explosions. Mallen swaggered with obvious arrogance, not bothering to conceal himself. As if nothing on Earth could be a threat to him.
“That’s a lock, Jarvis,” said Tony. “Thrust at 70 percent.”
Iron Man flew in lower, just close enough for his repulsor beams to be effective. He stretched out his right arm and pointed his palm at Mallen. A brilliant white circle flashed on Iron Man’s gauntlet for a microsecond.
“Fire.”
A single candescent repulsor streaked through the morning sky, blasting Mallen directly on the back with the force of a bazooka.
The beam flattened Mallen. He landed face down—the impact cracking and cratering the pavement, the shockwaves upending and crushing two parked cars.
Text flashed across Tony’s HUD, identifying the owners of the cars. Ignore, thought Tony. Extraneous information.
Iron Man closed his fist and aimed directly at Mallen again.
“Seedpods.”
Ten spherical bomblets zoomed out of Iron Man’s gauntlet. They exploded directly on top of Mallen—on his legs, feet, and back—peppering and battering him with direct hits and shrapnel.
Mallen rolled over and glared at Iron Man. He wasn’t hurt, but he’d lost his shredded leather jacket now. He was furious.
Iron Man hovered, his glowing right palm aimed at Mallen like a loaded gun. Smoke and debris blocked out the sun—the only light shone from Iron Man’s eyes, armed gauntlet, and jet boots.
“Mister Mallen,” Iron Man said. “Lay on the ground. Hands behind your head, ankles crossed.”
Mallen leapt to his feet, baring his teeth like a rabid dog. “I’ve been given a tool to save people like me from criminals in the White House. And I’m going to use it!”
Tony’s arc reactor pulsed. He lowered himself to the ground next to one of the wrecked cars.
“You know why you frighten me?” Tony said. “Why I had to deal with you myself?”
Iron Man lifted the wrecked car with one hand. He raised it above his head, his chest reactor burning white. “Flame,” said Tony as he took aim at the tires with directional flames. “Repulse,” he added. He opened the fuel tank with a repulsive force beam, letting the fuel escape in a cloud of fine droplets. “Laser,” he said, finally, igniting the vapor cloud as he hurled the car through the air.
The car struck Mallen and exploded. Mallen stumbled and vanished in a fiery mass of flame and black smoke.
He burned and twisted in the blaze. The stench of fuel and tires was enough to asphyxiate a normal human, or even a super-human.
“I made the first version of this suit to save myself and a friend from criminals with guns. I must’ve killed fifty people trying to free us. Do you think that was fun for me, killing fifty people?” Iron Man landed on the ground and clenched his fist. “And my friend still died.”
He advanced on the ball of fire and aimed his fist straight at Mallen’s head.
“A stray bullet went through the side of the hut, killed him instantly. And I didn’t even know, not for hours. He saved my life, and I fought to protect him, but he was already dead.”
Iron Man swung at Mallen with all his might. Mallen shot backward out of the flames and sailed through the air for half a block, crashing through a concrete wall into the Air and Space Museum gift shop.
Mallen leapt to his feet as Iron Man landed in front of him near a glass counter and a bank of cash registers. He stood in front of miniature airplanes and hot air balloons, among T-shirts and inflatable space shuttles.
“My folks died the same way,” said Mallen, still steaming from the flames, his clothes shredded and burning. The smell of tires mixed with the stench of astronaut ice cream.
“And you killed fifty people you never met, twenty years later,” yelled Tony. He delivered a roundhouse kick to Mallen’s face and, at exactly the same moment, let loose a repulsor thrust from his right boot jet. “You’re my nightmare: the version of me that couldn’t see the future.”
Iron Man stood over Mallen now and blasted him with a point-blank repulsor beam.
“You’re some murder-happy hillbilly who never in his life had a thought about what these tools are for! It’s about responsibility, not killing, the very future in your veins. You don’t deserve Extremis,” said Tony. “It’s not meant for revenge!”
Mallen fell back again, crashing through a wall and outside on to the National Mall.
“Shut up!” screamed Mallen, from a pile of rubble and dirt. He stretched his hand out toward Iron Man. His fingertips started to crackle with electrical pulses. Something that looked like a lightning bolt shot out of them.
“I’m not there anymore,” said Tony from behind Mallen. Even he was surprised at how fast he was, now that he’d undergone the Extremis process. “I upgraded.”
Mallen stared over his shoulder in shock. Tony thought: Time to end this. He struck Mallen ferociously across the back, tearing the last of Mallen’s shredded shirt from his frame. Mallen fell, lying bare-chested on the grass below Tony.
“I’m as fast as you now, and I can operate this suit by thought,” said Iron Man. “I have experience, technology, and a superior dose of Extremis I compiled myself. You don’t even know what that means. You’ve lost the arms race.”
Mallen stared up at Iron Man from the ground, his eyes those of a fierce predator.
“I’ve spent years trying to get out of the arms business, and you forced me back into it,” said Tony. “Years trying to turn this suit into something that doesn’t just kill.
“Back off and be reasonable. You can still live through this, Mallen. I believe in second chances. Hell, third and fourth chances. Stop looking for revenge and use your gifts to help the world.”
“I am helping people,” said Mallen, glaring.
Mallen opened his mouth and spewed a fireball. The flames engulfed Iron Man’s left gauntlet briefly, then sputtered out from the armor’s fireproofing. Tony smiled inside the helmet.
“You’re slow, Mallen. And clueless.”
Roaring, Mallen leapt forward.
“Grid,” said Tony. His HUD instantly displayed a digital map of the municipal electric system, with his current location pinpointed by Stark Zipsat GPS and marked in red.
As Mallen crashed down on to Iron Man, Tony pointed his palm at the street below him, blasting a hole in the asphalt with his repulsor beam. He reached into the hole, grabbed a thick insulated electricity cable, and yanked.
Iron Man thrust the live electric main straight into Mallen’s chest, copper end first.
Glowing lightning crackled and sparked, electrocuting Mallen. The shock sent him flying backward through the air, crashing through windows and reddish-brown bricks, straight into a museum housing an exhibit on the 1964 World’s Fair.
“Oh, God,” Mallen whimpered. He lay between an exhibit of electric toothbrushes and a life-size plastic stegosaurus from a display about petroleum products.
And then Iron Man was on top of him, punching again. Tony lifted Mallen by the throat, held him for a second, then threw him through the wall again, back outside.
Tony stood up in the Howard Stark Car of the Future section of the World’s Fair exhibit, under a photo of his father meeting some admirers. He hesitated a minute, realizing that the woman shaking his father’s hand looked familiar. Whatever, thought Tony. I’ll look at that later. He used his ocular zoom to snap a quick shot of the image, then turned back to using the museum’s security system to see where Mallen had gone.
Mallen smacked into the
hydraulic boom of a backhoe on a worksite, over on the mall side of the museum. Extremis had again evolved its tech to the situation at hand, and Mallen appeared to be faster and stronger than he’d been in Houston. Back there, he’d been all fists and fire; now he had developed speed and agility.
Mallen grabbed on to the chain hoist that hung from the boom of the backhoe. He leapt up, swinging through the air with ease, then landed upright next to the backhoe. He yanked at the chain, tearing it from the boom, and began swinging the chain’s sling hook in steady, menacing circles.
Iron Man flew over, landing in front of the heavy equipment to assess the situation.
Mallen looked ruthless and savage. He clenched his teeth and crouched, awaiting an attack. The chain swung closer to Tony, faster and faster, as Mallen moved slowly toward Iron Man.
“You really want to do it like this?” Iron Man turned to the backhoe and, in a single motion, ripped the bucket off the tractor. He remembered riding in these when he was little, back when the new Stark Industries office had been under construction. Municipal building records from the original Stark office flashed past Tony’s HUD. I can multitask again, he thought, grateful for the new speed Extremis had given him.
“I am trying very hard not to kill you,” Tony said.
“I only left you alive in Texas because I was busy,” Mallen snarled. He swung the chain at Iron Man, who parried with the backhoe bucket. The chain’s sling hook caught in the bucket teeth, sparking and breaking.
Iron Man moved to crush Mallen with the bucket. But Mallen dodged easily, then kicked aside the bucket, surprising Tony. Mallen punched Tony with an incredibly powerful left cross. Iron Man felt the impact, and his HUD informed him that a punch had landed, but all he saw was a blur.
Mallen then connected with a backward kick across Iron Man’s thigh. Tony aimed a front jab at Mallen’s chin, but Mallen caught his fist and started to crush it.
“Ha! Did it again—”
Klang! Tony head-butted Mallen in the teeth so hard that blood sprayed from his nose and mouth.
Mallen fired two massive bolts of electricity at Iron Man, knocking him back.
“RRRRAAAA!” Mallen roared and leapt forward.
Iron Man fell to the ground under Mallen’s tackle, cracking the pavement as he touched down.
Tony reeled momentarily, blind rage flashing through his mind. He was suddenly filled with hate, with the desire to kill. He saw himself lying on the pavement, then looked up at the national carousel on the mall. He wanted to smash it, to crush this place where politicians took their children for fun. He wanted to fly to the FBI, to burn it to the ground. And he had some really useless information in his head about skinning rabbits.
What was going on?
Emergent tech, he realized. Extremis hadn’t fully taken yet, wasn’t entirely bound to him on a molecular level. He’d had it in his system for less than a day, and it was designed to learn from available sources. Iron Man was a work in progress—still evolving, sometimes surprising even himself. And now he had connected to Mallen’s internal framework.
Like seeing through satellites, Tony was seeing through Mallen’s eyes.
Mallen didn’t seem to notice. His veins bulged as he placed his hands around Iron Man’s neck and squeezed.
Tony heard the hydraulics in his helmet start to hiss as Mallen cracked open the seal connecting his helmet to his neck guard. I’m in trouble, he thought. He felt the pressure of the maniac’s fingers pressing in.
And Mallen truly was unhinged. Now that he’d been inside Mallen’s head, Tony could see there was no turning back for this lethal killer. This had to end, now.
“Mallen…for God’s sake…we both have Extremis in us. Stop this. The future…” said Tony. “Don’t make me…”
Mallen screamed at Tony. “If you’re the future, I’m going to kill it! I’m murdering the future!”
Tony Stark was choking, his air completely cut off. One hundred percent, he thought, glancing at a meter on his HUD and watching his unibeam power level build. Another tweak he’d made to Maya’s program. Stark Ocular, his own patent—the one he used in all his Iron Man suits.
Iron Man blasted Mallen with the most powerful unibeam he’d ever shot, blowing a hole directly through Mallen’s chest.
Mallen’s eyes rolled back in his head, but still he kept his grip on Tony’s neck. Tony felt lightheaded and dizzy. Why isn’t he dead yet? How can he still be standing?
“Gkk!” Tony tried to choke out words. “Mallen, you stupid…”
Mallen lurched left, then right, but somehow he remained standing.
And still tightening his grip on Tony’s neck. Mallen was all instinct. Even with blood streaming down his chest, he was still a killer.
There was a way to stop Extremis. One way, the only way.
Tony glanced at his HUD one last time, moving the targeting crosshairs. And fired.
Mallen’s head evaporated in a ball of white flame.
His headless body collapsed on to Tony, a hole through the chest. Iron Man gasped for air. Then he struggled to sit up, throwing Mallen’s lifeless body to the side with a dull thump.
“Damn you,” said Iron Man. “Damn you for making me do that.”
He stood up, noticing that his armor was already repairing itself. Extremis was still busy improving him.
“You can’t stop the future, Mallen,” he said quietly, standing over the dead man. “The future always kills the past.”
N I N E T E E N
Six military police officers in full uniform stood in front of Futurepharm’s Austin headquarters. The beige, bland boxiness of the office park looked improved in the darkness, slightly mysterious against the dark-blue night sky. Above, thick swirling clouds gave the evening a deserved air of suspense and drama.
Iron Man’s white-and-orange-fired boot jets illuminated his path down as he dropped in front of the building. His internal GPS and night-vision sensors automated his landing. He greeted the MPs as he touched down.
“Let’s get this over with,” he said.
The men followed him into the lobby. As they approached the front desk, the night security guard stood up.
“Stand down,” Iron Man commanded, pointing imperiously at the guard. “We’re here on business.”
The security guard meekly backed away and sat back down.
Tony led the men up the elevator to Maya’s office near Lab 4. It was late, but she was still there. Maya was always at Futurepharm. She’d probably been expecting Tony’s arrival. He felt guilty that the visit wasn’t social, or a medical follow-up to check on the Extremis process in his body.
She was walking down the hall, carrying some files. She hadn’t heard them come in. “Maya,” said Iron Man.
She stopped and turned around. When she saw the MPs behind Iron Man, she dropped the files. Her eyes opened wide, and she froze.
“It takes two keys to open the Extremis vault. You told me that,” said Iron Man. “Your boss had one. You had one. He couldn’t get into the vault to steal the Extremis dose on his own.”
She began to shake and back away. She stopped when her back touched the wall. There was nowhere to go.
“I’ve had time to do some thinking. My team decrypted Killian’s records. And my new suit—the one you gave me—wires me into all kinds of networks.
“I know, Maya.”
She looked down.
“The Army pulled the Extremis funding,” he continued. “No field test, no more money, even though you had a working process. So you and your boss decided to arrange a live demonstration yourselves.”
She raised her eyes now, but still looked away.
“Dose a terrorist with Extremis. Then call your old friend Tony Stark, whom you haven’t seen in years, but who just happens to also be Iron Man. Show the world a test of your process. The perfect demonstration. An Extremis enhancile pitted against a man wearing the most advanced personal-combat system on earth.”
“You know
what they said about the atomic bomb,” said Maya. She stared straight ahead now, expressionless. “They said it had to be used once in anger, in order that it never be used in anger again.”
Two MPs moved to either side of Maya. One of them put a hand firmly on her shoulder. She’d as good as confessed.
“I would have used the renewed funding to get out of the arms race,” she continued. “Set up shop on my own. Medical technology. More than fifty people die in car accidents every day. The sacrifice of the Houston FBI was necessary to save lives in the future. Extremis could stop wars. I could cure cancer. I could help all mankind, and only those fifty people had to die. The math made sense.”
“Maya, you loosed a super-powered lunatic on the world. Did you think he’d stop after he slaughtered the Houston FBI?”
“You failed, Tony. Iron Man was supposed to beat him the first time.”
“Your field test was too good. He wouldn’t have stopped with me, Maya. He was going to kill the president, everyone in government. Do you think the military could have stopped him?”
“Someone would have stopped him. Captain America. The Hulk.”
“You don’t know that. Your behavior was reckless, put thousands of lives at risk. Dr. Killian realized that, and he couldn’t live with the knowledge. You still haven’t admitted it.”
She turned to look at Iron Man now, her eyes furious.
“The only mistake I made was giving a damn about the man inside the Iron Man suit,” she said almost in a whisper. “You’d be dead now if Extremis hadn’t saved your life, Tony. And it’s still evolving. Extremis is unstable—it’s too big a responsibility for one man. You’re a walking time bomb.”
“I can live with that, Maya. You know what I can’t live with? Knowing that children lost arms and legs to Stark Enterprises land mines. They wouldn’t be impressed that their sacrifices helped me fund heart-medicine research. Those people at the FBI…I don’t think their families understand your math. The ends don’t justify the means. I know that now. You obviously don’t.”