PREVIOUSLY IN "BUBBLEGUM CRISIS: THE IRON AGE"

        "My heart," Stark said.  "Damaged.  Doesn't... work on its own.
The armor... regulates it.  Why I wear... chestplate... all the time."
        "Why isn't it working, then?"
        "I used up... too much power.  Belt pods... got me through the
fight," he added, "but... lifting the K-suit... I burned my reserve."
        Nene remembered him adjusting the controls on his belt before
the final effort.  "... on PURPOSE?" she squeaked.
        He nodded.  "Thought I'd... still have enough capacity... to
get to safety.  But... must be a... short somewhere.  Chestplate
batteries... discharging too fast.  I didn't notice... haven't worn
the full suit in... five years."  Stark shook his head.  "Stupid.
Should have realized... sooner."
        "What... what can I do?" Nene asked.
        "I don't... know."
        "You don't KNOW?!  But you built this suit, didn't you?
You're Ben Stark!  The great inventor!"
        He shook his head.  "-Tony- Stark was... the great inventor.
I'm just... the guy who... carries his ghost."
        "Carries his ghost, what does -that- mean?" she asked - but
he'd closed his eyes and wasn't answering any more.
        "Mr. Stark?" she asked, her voice tiny and frightened.
        No answer.
        "... Ben?"
        Silence.
        Nene Romanova suddenly realized that she had never, ever felt
so alone before.

                     Eyrie Productions, Unlimited
                               presents

                    BUBBLEGUM CRISIS: THE IRON AGE
                           Mega Tokyo 2032

			   Issue #2: Weapon

                       by Benjamin D. Hutchins

                          Series devised by
                         Benjamin D. Hutchins
                               MegaZone

                (c) 2006 Eyrie Productions, Unlimited


# The Animals
# "We Gotta Get Out of This Place"
# Animal Tracks (1965)

THURSDAY, APRIL 15, 2027
DIEM LA, VIETNAM

	Ben Hutchins dismounted from the Army UD-5 Penobscot aerodyne
that had carried him and Squad A-37 back from their field patrol,
thanked the pilot for the ride, and started walking across the dusty
dynopad complex toward the firebase proper.  In his mind, the young
reporter was already considering the story he would write about the
day's action.  It would be more or less like several others he'd
already filed - he'd been in Vietnam for three months - but he thought
he was finally getting a handle on the war.
	Comparisons between this conflict and the one the United
States had fought - and lost - in this same part of the world 60 years
before were pretty much inevitable, but he tried to keep them to a
minimum in his stories.  Let the historians debate the parallels and
divergences; Ben was here to cover the war and the people taking part
in it, not the politics.  As in most wars, the troops in the field
didn't concern themselves much with the politics anyway.
	"Ben!  Hey!" a familiar voice called.  Ben turned to see Tony
Stark running across the complex toward him.
	"Hey, Tony," the reporter said, shaking his friend's hand.  "I
thought you were in Hanoi."
	"I was," Tony replied.  "I hitched a ride back down here with
a platoon of JTs.  Listen, the Chinese have mounted a major attack on
Liu Chai.  They've sent in a whole company of 717s.  General Rosario's
sending the 43rd."
	Ben raised an eyebrow.  "With their Mark IVs?"
	Tony nodded, grinning.  "Want to come see?"

	As they hurtled northward in the belly of another UD-5, Ben
could feel the eagerness almost radiating from Tony Stark.  He smiled
to himself and looked out the open side door at the jungle speeding
past.  Tony wasn't blind to the dangers and horrors of war, and he
wasn't a hawk; his excitement was because he was about to witness the
first real field employment of a weapon he had designed in the hope of
shortening the war - and future wars - and thus saving lives.  If it
worked as Tony expected, Stark Industries' Mark IV pulse rifle would
be more effective at disabling the Chinese army's Type 717
battlemovers than any previous infantry weapon.
	The industrialist and the reporter watched the battle for Liu
Chai from a ridge overlooking the Liu Chai valley, not far from
General Concita Rosario's field headquarters.  Ben spent half his time
observing and making notes on the battle, and the other half observing
and making notes on Tony's reactions.  Tony only had eyes for the
fight itself.
	"The Mark IVs are working," the dark-haired young inventor
said, peering intently through a pair of miniature binoculars.  "Look!
The Chinese are breaking off!  They're withdrawing the 717s!"
	"What's left of them," Ben agreed, looking through his own
mini-binoculars.  "We'll get some pretty good technical intel from the
salvage sweep on this operation, I bet."
	Tony grinned, still focused on the battlefield.  "And who'll
get first crack at doping out the 717's targeting system?" he asked
rhetorically.
	"Probably the team from Baintronics," Ben replied, just to get
his friend's goat.
	Tony snorted.  "They wouldn't know a target tracking system
from a hole in - "
	With a sudden, sharp CRACK, Tony recoiled, dropping his
binoculars and sprawling on his back behind the berm the two had been
looking over.  Ben dropped his own optics to hang on their neck strap
and scrambled to the inventor's side.
	"Jeez!  Tony!  You OK?"
	"Wuh... I think so," Tony replied, half-sitting.  He reached
up, undid the chin strap of the Army-issue helmet he was wearing, and
removed the helmet.  There was a tear in the helmet's camouflage-
patterned cloth cover and a bright, gleaming furrow in the ferroceramic 
armor beneath.  A stray round from the battlefield below had damn near
taken the top off what one technical journal had called "the most
brilliant head in American industry today."
	"Gonna need a new helmet, though," Tony remarked.  He pulled
himself the rest of the way to a sitting position, looked his friend
in the eye, and said seriously, "I need a drink."

	Truth be told, Ben hated it when Tony said he needed a drink,
because the singular was very seldom accurate in such cases.  Tony
Stark didn't drink often, but when he did, he seemed to approach it as
a kind of search-and-destroy mission.  Dashing, gregarious, and
handsome, with thick black hair and a Howard Hughes mustache, the
28-year-old billionaire industrialist was the center of attention in
any social setting, and with him setting the pace, a night on the town
had the potential to turn into a full-fledged bender.  Any hapless
reporter who might be trying to keep up with him could look forward to
a blinding headache and an evening's worth of increasingly
indecipherable notes the next day.
	The following morning was no exception.  Noon found
WorldWatch's most intrepid young newshound on the balcony of the
memorably named Pha Qing Palace Hotel with a cup of the planet's
second vilest coffee, puzzling over a page of scrawled notes that
ended with the surprisingly legible but still impenetrable "H.S.
ATTACKED BY MONKEYS IN GENTS' LOO, ALICE SPRINGS 2013 - **GREAT!!**"
	What the hell did that even mean?  "H.S." was presumably the
late Howard Stark, Tony's father, but what the elder Stark had been
doing in Alice Springs (the one in Australia?  Was there another?) in
2013, and where the monkeys came into it, he couldn't remember.
Everything was a blur after the seventh - or was it the ninth? - Ba
Ba Ba ("Only Beer In Vietnam!").
	It was times like this when Ben perversely wished that he
smoked.  There was just something about the image of the reporter on
the balcony, feeling wretched and sorting out his notes after a
bender, that seemed to demand that he have a cigarette smoldering in
the corner of his mouth.
	"Oh, there you are," said Tony from the balcony doorway.
	Ben Hutchins and Tony Stark were good friends.  Theirs was a
friendship forged in the fire of war, reinforced by close calls,
narrow escapes, long periods of tedium and split-seconds of
blood-freezing terror endured together.  Each would gladly have taken
a bullet for the other.  But there was one thing about Tony that Ben
hated with a fury that could have shaken the seas...
	... and that was that the Great Inventor never, ever seemed
to end up with a hangover.
	Now, clad in bermuda shorts and a loud shirt, the billionaire
stood on the balcony, took a deep breath of the sultry jungle air, and
said cheerfully,
	"Nice day!"
	"How the fuck do -you- know what kind of day it is?" Ben
grumbled.
	Tony eyed him warily, then grinned.  "I'll get you some more
coffee," he said.
	After fetching same, Tony sat down across the balcony table
and waited until Ben had put down another cup of the Pha Qing's
horrifying coffee and asked his first question of the day.
	"Hey, Tony - what happened to your father in Australia?"
	Tony looked puzzled.  "Huh?" he said.  "I don't think Dad ever
-went- to Australia.  Why?"
	Ben sighed and flipped his notebook shut.  "Never mind."
	"So listen, I was thinking last night," Tony said.
	"A -highly- dubious claim," Ben replied.
	"No, I mean before we opened the Lagavulin."
	"... Go on."
	"Well, listen, we've both had our share of close calls since
we came here... but what happened to me yesterday really made me
realize that what I'm doing here might get me killed."
	Ben nodded.  "So you're going home?"
	Tony looked faintly offended.  "No!" he said.  "I'm not
-afraid-, and anyway, the work I'm doing here is important.  I can't
refine the equipment I'm providing for the Army as effectively from
back in New York.  All I'm trying to say is, yesterday's got me
thinking about the future."  He paused.
	"... Yes?" Ben prompted.
	"If anything happens to me over here, I want you to have Stark
Industries," Tony said.
	Ben raised an eyebrow.  "Tony, I'm a -reporter-."
	"I didn't say I want you to -run- it.  There are people for
that.  But - well, look, I've told you about my cousin Morgan, right?
I realized yesterday that if I die over here, he'll inherit the
company.  He's my only living relative."
	"And?"
	Tony looked exasperated.  "AND, I've TOLD you about my cousin
Morgan," he repeated.  "He'd strip the place and walk away.  Stark
Industries wouldn't last six months, and he'd be sure to drag its name
through the mud before he killed it.  I can't let that happen.  My
father worked too hard to build that company."
	"Then don't get killed," Ben said dryly.
	"I don't plan on it," Tony replied with equal dryness.
"Listen, I know you're in a bad mood, but think about it a second.
Why are you even pushing back on this?   So you're a reporter.  Stay a
reporter."  Tony grinned, his eyes twinkling.  "You know how much news
you could report with a couple billion dollars?"
	Ben raised his other eyebrow.  "Well, when you put it THAT way."
	Tony nodded.  "So you'll do it?"
	Ben made a gesture of reluctant acquiescence.  "Do what thou
wilt, Mr. Stark, but if you ever meet the right girl and settle down,
I expect you to cut me out of the will faster than you can say 'I do'."
	Tony grinned.  "Bet on it."
	"Done, then," said Ben, and the two solemnly shook on it.
	"I'm off to write my will, then," Tony said.  "Are you going
back into the field today?"
	"After last night?  Pff.  I thought I'd go over to HQ for the
5 o'clock funnies and then maybe catch the movie over at the 101st."
	"What're they showing?"
	"No idea."

MONDAY, FEBRUARY 23, 2032
11:01 PM
MEGA TOKYO, JAPAN

	Nene Romanova knelt on the floor of a warehouse in some
nowhere industrial district and wondered what to do.
	Sprawled before her was the still and silent form of a man who
until very recently had been a total stranger to her, and was still a
bit of an enigma: Benjamin Stark, the American reporter-industrialist.
He was wearing a suit of powered armor, which would probably have
surprised his readers if they could have seen him.  Moments before, he
had revealed to Nene that the armor was, in fact, keeping him alive -
or, rather, had just started failing to do so.
	She felt herself hover on the verge of panic, but shook her
head and clamped down on it with a fierce resolve that might have
surprised her under other conditions.  This was no time for childish
things like -panic-.  The man was in this position because he'd saved,
if not her life, at least her freedom, and Nene would never forgive
herself if she just sat here and let him die.
	Think, Nene, THINK.  This is a simple hardware problem.  He
needs electrical power; if he doesn't get it he'll die.  The armor
must have inputs for that very purpose.  What looks like a power input
here?  ... Those two things.  They look just like wall sockets.
	Wouldn't that mean that power's supposed to come -out- of
them, though?  Priss said he had his gauntlets connected with cables
when she first saw him.
	Dammit!  Stop wasting time!  You have to try -something-.
	She started fumbling at the little compartments on the belt of
Stark's armor, looking for anything that might give her a clue.  One
of them had contained the special wrench she'd needed to take his
helmet off.  Surely there must be something in one of the others -
	For an instant, she was dumbfounded.  The compartment opposite
the one with the wrench contained a datatab, but it was one unlike any
other she'd ever seen.  It glowed from within with a soft, slightly
eerie blue light.  Nene held it between the thumb and forefinger of
her left hand - with her hardsuit on, the right was a power gauntlet,
and she didn't want to run the risk of damaging the chip - and
examined it through the clear facebowl of her helmet.
	Then her eyes went wide as she realized what it was.
	"Oh my God," she murmured.  "You're a ROM construct."
	Stark's words ran through her mind: "Tony Stark was the great
inventor.  I'm just the guy who carries his ghost."
	Nene looked down at Stark, then flipped open the panel on her
right forearm that covered the manual controls for her hardsuit's
onboard computer.  There was a chipslot there.  She shut her helmet
visor again so that she could use her in-helmet displays, then plugged
the ROM tab in.  Immediately a dialogue box popped up demanding a
password.  She ran her icebreaker instead.  Cursing under her breath,
she waited, every second an agony, until it reported SECURITY
DEFEATED - RUN SIMULATION PROGRAM?
	When she hit 'Y', nothing happened for a moment.  Then what
looked like a comm window opened in her virtual viewfield.  In it was
the face of a handsome young man with slicked-back black hair and a
thin mustache - a man with a passing similarity to Ben Stark, in fact,
though more in terms of style than facial structure itself.
	"Hello," he said, sounding faintly surprised.  "I don't
recognize you.  I'm Tony."
	A thrill of some sensation too complex to analyze ran through
Nene.  She had never spoken to a ROM construct before - especially not
one whose model was a dead man.
	Swallowing hard, she said, "Uh... I'm Nene.  Nene Romanova.
Look, I don't have time to explain much - I'm a friend of Ben Stark's
and he needs help."
	"What's the matter?"
	"His armor has a short in it somewhere that's flatlining his
chestplate batteries.  If we can't help him he'll die!  He... "  She
fought down another wave of panic and forced herself to add, "He might
be dead already."
	Tony frowned thoughtfully.  "Can you see his belt controls?"
	"Yes."
	"Do you see a red light?"
	"Yes."
	"Is it blinking or solid?"
	"Blinking."
	"Then he's not dead, but you're right, he soon will be without
help.  Do you see the two ports on the lower chestplate that looks
like wall sockets?"
	"Uh-huh.  I thought they were outputs."
	Tony shook his head.  "They're bidirectional.  You need to
connect a source of electricity to one or both of those ports."
	"What kind of source?"
	"It doesn't matter.  Transformers in the chestplate will
convert anything you give them.  Hurry."
	"Right."  Nene looked around and saw nothing but darkness
beyond the small pool of light cast by her hardsuit's handlamp.  She
shut it off and turned on image enhancement.  The run-down warehouse's
interior sprang to life in shades of green.  There was a small office
in one corner.  If there was going to be any source of electricity in
the building, it'd be in there.
	The office door was locked.  Nene could have burned the lock
like she had with the outer door, but she was in no mood now; she just
smashed the door down and walked over its mangled wreckage.  There was
an ancient computer, so old it had a CRT monitor, on a desk in the
corner of the room.  She went to it, reached out, and switched the
monitor on.
	For a moment nothing happened; then it hummed to life, filling
the office with a dull glow.  Daring to hope, Nene turned it around,
intending to unplug its power cable, only to discover that the cable
was hardwired.  With a frustrated snarl, she grabbed it and yanked it
out.  It came free with a blast of sparks.  Then she went back out,
got hold of Stark under the arms, and dragged him into the office.
	"I have bare leads," she said.  "Do I just... plug them into
the slots on the port?"
	"Yes," Tony replied.
	Nene carefully separated the two leads with her gloved
fingers, lined them up, and shoved them into one of the ports.  Stark
twitched - or rather his armor did - and then lay still again.
	"What's happening?" Tony asked after a few seconds.
	"Nothing.  He's just lying there... wait.  The red light just
stopped blinking and turned blue."
	"Good.  That means the chestplate is taking a charge.  Keep
him connected until the light at least turns amber.  Green would be
better."
	Nene felt weak with relief.  She nearly slipped and let the
wire come out of its place; then she fumbled around with her free hand
on the desk and came up with a roll of tape, which she used to fix it
in place.
	"Will he... will he be all right?" she asked.
	"It depends on how long the chestplate was powered down," Tony
said.  "He didn't die, but he may have done more damage to his heart."
	Nene watched Stark lie there for a few seconds, then got up
and looked around the office.  There was a phone on the desk.  She
took off her helmet, picked it up, and dialed a telephone number Sylia
had made her memorize when she first became a Knight Saber.
	The phone at the other end rang twice before it was answered
with a crisp click and a filtered voice saying, "Operator."
	"Mackie!" Nene said.  "I need an exit."
	"Where are you?"
	Nene checked her GPS receiver, thanking her stars that it
didn't use the same antenna as her comm array, and reported her
position numerically.  Mackie could use the mobile bay's own
navigation system to figure out what that meant in city terms, since
Nene had no real idea where the hell she actually was.
	"How did you get way over there?" Mackie wondered.  "Never
mind.  We're on our way.  ETA 30 minutes.  Is Stark with you?"
	"Yes, and he's hurt.  He needs help."
	"Well, then it's lucky for him we have his doctor with us,"
Mackie replied wryly.  "Sit tight, Nene.  We'll be there as fast as
we can."
	"Thanks, Mackie."  Nene hung up, then put her helmet back on,
walked slowly around the desk, and sat down on the floor.  She watched
the inert shape of the armored figure before her for a few minutes.
Then, tentatively, she said,
	"Tony?"
	"Yes?"
	"How did he get this way?"  And how did -you-? she didn't add.
	"Well," said Tony, but then her helmet displays went dark.
Her own suit, like Stark's, had run out of power.  Fortunately,
unlike the iron shell surrounding Stark, the hardsuit was designed so
that its operator could still move, if not fight, without power.  Nene
pulled off her helmet before the air inside could get stale.  Without
power, she and Stark were left in the dark but for the tiny point of
his armor's one status light.
	Hoping the sudden shutdown hadn't damaged the construct, she
removed the chip from her arm computer's socket and put it back where
she found it.  As she did so, the status light on Stark's belt changed
from blue to amber.  A few moments later he began to stir and mumble.
	"Ben?" Nene said, leaning closer.  "Are you - are you OK?"
	"nngh," he replied; then, in a somewhat more coherent voice,
"Nene?"
	"Right here."
	"I can't see."
	"It's dark.  I can't see either.  How do you feel?"
	"Weak.  Dizzy.  I don't think... how did you... "
	"I jury-rigged a wall hookup with an old computer I found in
here.  Tony told me what to do."
	There was a pause; then Stark said with quiet resignation,
"Ah, you found Tony.  And beat his security, too."
	"Well, if I hadn't, you'd be dead," Nene replied, a trifle
defensively.
	There was a dull clonk as Stark took his best guess at where
her arm was and tried to pat it reassuringly with one of his ironclad
hands.
	"It's OK," he said.  "You did good.  Saved my life.  Thanks."
	Nene had nothing to say to that.  They sat in silence and
darkness until the others arrived to collect them - by which point
Stark had lapsed into unconsciousness again.

TUESDAY, MAY 4, 2027
SON LA PROVINCE, VIETNAM

	Ben Hutchins awoke to intense pain and confusion, two
sensations he wasn't very fond of.  He tried to sit up and alleviate
the latter, at least, but moving made the former worse.
	"Rest, my young friend," a calm voice told him.  "I'd bid you
welcome, but not here.  Not like this."
	"I can't see."
	"It's dark," the voice - an old man's voice, Ben thought, with
an accent that might be Chinese - replied, sounding faintly amused.
"Not that there is much to see here anyway."
	"Who are you?  Your voice sounds familiar."
	"Ah, you remember me.  An old man's vanity is flattered.  We
met at the Pan-Asian Scientific Conference in Japan last year.  You
had some surprisingly trenchant questions about my work in
biodynamics."
	"Professor Yinsen?  Ho Yinsen?  I thought you were dead.  What
are you doing here?  ... For that matter, where -is- here?"
	"I admit to being Yinsen," the old man said.  "As to the rest,
we are, er... 'guests' of a man named Wong-Chu.  He calls himself a
warlord - claims to govern Son La Province for the Chinese occupiers -
but really he is a thug.  A bandit, taking advantage of the confusion
of war to prey on both sides.  Eventually one side or the other will
crush him like the insect he is... but not, I fear, in time to do us
any good."
	Ben's brain was sluggish, his thoughts coming only with
effort.  "I remember an explosion."
	"Your patrol stumbled upon one of Wong-Chu's booby traps.
Unfortunately, only you and Mr. Stark survived."
	"Tony!"  Ben tried to sit up again, then fell back onto his
hard cot with a gasp.  His chest felt like someone had stabbed him
with a red-hot pitchfork.
	"Easy, young man.  You're in poor condition.  You caught quite
a bit of shrapnel.  I was able to pick most of it out of your arms and
chest, but a few pieces have gone very deep."
	"Where's Tony?  Is he all right?"
	"Mr. Stark is to your right.  I'm afraid his condition is
worse than yours," Yinsen said, his voice low and sad.  "All I could
do for him was make him as comfortable as possible."
	Ben slumped back and tried to buck himself up.  He and Tony
had been in tough scrapes before, and they'd always found a way out.
Tony's wonderfully inventive mind and his own talent for improvisation
had always served them in the past.  But he'd never felt this way
before - battered down, wounded, every breath a new spike of flame in
his chest - and the sadness in Yinsen's voice when he talked about
Tony filled the reporter with dread.
	"What... what happens now?" he asked.  "Will this Wong-Chu try
to ransom us back to the Americans?"
	"I doubt it," Yinsen said.  "He recognized Mr. Stark from news
reports.  I expect he will try to force him to build weapons to help
Wong-Chu to terrorize the countryside more effectively."
	"And me?"
	"He thinks you're Mr. Stark's assistant.  I would not disabuse
him of this notion, if I were you.  It is probably the only reason I
was allowed to preserve your life."  The old man hesitated, his
breathing the only sound in the pitch-black, stifling room.  "I should
tell you that your condition is most serious, Mr. Hutchins.  Without
proper medical attention, I doubt either one of you will live long.
The shrapnel I was unable to remove from your chest is working its way
toward your heart.  Eventually, it will be... stilled."
	Ben tried not to think about that for the moment.  "And Tony?"
	"I... regret to say that he is probably beyond saving in any
case," said Yinsen sadly.
	"... I see."
	Silence.
	"You should try to rest," Yinsen said.  "Wong-Chu will be here
at first light to issue his demands."

TUESDAY, FEBRUARY 24, 2032
6:17 AM
MEGA TOKYO, JAPAN

	The Stingray Building stood on the corner of two streets in a
fairly-well-heeled neighborhood a bit west of downtown proper.  It was
an unremarkable commercial structure, five stories tall.  The ground
floor was a store, Silky Doll, which specialized in ladies' wear and
lingerie.  The middle three floors contained the offices, studios, and
production facilities for the store.  The top floor was the residence
of the proprietor, heiress and fashion designer Sylia Stingray.
	Sylia was a bit of an enigma to the Mega Tokyo society scene.
Though she was well-heeled and a minor celebrity of sorts - her late
father was the scientist who ushered in the Boomer Revolution, after
all - she stayed out of the spotlight.  She had a hand in the day-to-
day operations of her shop and was known in the local community as a
shrewd and civic-minded businesswoman, but she wasn't flamboyant or
flashy like the stereotypical fashion designer.  In fact she was a bit
of a recluse, rarely attending parties or making public appearances.
	There was, of course, a very good reason for that, though her
neighbors didn't know it.  Actually, there were two.  One was that she
avoided the limelight because it would have made her other activities
more difficult to conceal.  The other was that equipping and operating
a band of high-tech armored mercenaries was a lot of work, and she
just didn't have time for a lot of high-society nonsense.
	A good many people would have been very surprised to discover
what was in the basement of the Stingray Building.  Well, the fourth
through seventh subbasements, actually.
	Sylia emerged from the elevator on sub-level 7, feeling almost
human again after a long, hot soak and a change of clothes, and
entered the medical bay.
	There she found not one but two expected but unaccustomed
sights.  One was Ben Stark, laid out on one of the diagnostic tables,
still clad up to the neck in his curious iron armor.  The other was
the tall, burly figure of MegaZone, Stark's so-called "personal
physician", who was standing at the main monitor station scowling at
the readings.
	Sylia wasn't a physician, but she had a broad-ranging
intellect and had done most of the Knight Sabers' doctoring since
operations began two years before, so she had a reasonable familiarity
with the diagnostic monitor's output.  What she saw there didn't look
reassuring.  She wasn't surprised that Zoner was scowling at it.
	He heard the power door's quiet hiss and turned.  The scowl
vanished from his face at the sight of her, replaced with a faintly
pleased look that took Sylia slightly aback.  She wasn't used to
people, especially relative strangers, looking glad to see her.
	"Thanks for letting us use your infirmary," he said.  "I
realize it must have been a hard decision, letting us down here."
	Sylia smiled slightly.  "Well, you could hardly walk into
Stanhope Memorial with him, under the circumstances," she said.
	Zoner nodded.  "Difficult to explain the tin suit," he said.
Then, frowning at the diagnostic monitor again, he added, "It may come
to that in the end, though.  I don't like the looks of these readings."
	Sylia stepped up next to him and looked at the screen.  "His
cardiac function is -terrible-," she said.
	"Yeah.  Worse than it's ever been.  His chestplate was starved
for power too long - he probably infarcted quite a bit of whatever
working muscle mass was left."  He blew out a breath.  "Even with the
plate, I don't think he'll ever be strong enough to walk again.  He's
going to -have- to accept a replacement now."
	Sylia gave him a puzzled look.  "You mean he had an existing
heart condition?  I thought the stress of combat caused him to have a
heart attack.  It's been known to happen to powersuit operators."
	Zoner shook his head.  "It's not that simple," he said.  "Did
you see how Nene had him hooked up to a wall socket when we got to the
warehouse?"
	Sylia nodded.  "I thought that was a bit strange, but it
didn't seem like the time to bring it up."
	"There's a device built into the chestplate of that armor that
regulates and supplements his heart action," Zoner said.  "He was
injured a few years ago and has had to wear the plate ever since.
Without power, he'll die."  He let that sink in for a second, then
added, "She saved his life."
	Sylia looked puzzled.  "Stark Industries makes the world's
leading bionic replacement heart.  In fact, I believe -you- had a hand
in designing it.  Why didn't he... ?"
	"That's... complicated," Zoner said.  "It has to do with how
he was injured in the first place, and that's not my story to tell.
I'm sorry.  Under the circumstances, I think he'd be willing to tell
you, but... I can't."
	To his slight surprise, she didn't press him.  Instead she
nodded and said, "I understand.  Please make use of anything you need
here.  If there's anything else I can provide, tell me at once."
	Zoner was so engrossed in the medical problem, and so
concerned for his friend, that he didn't even think of the half-dozen
or so impolitic replies that would otherwise have popped to mind when
a woman like Sylia said something like that to him.  He just thanked
her and turned back to pondering the diagnostic readings.
	Sylia stood looking at him for a moment, saw that his
attention was entirely elsewhere, and walked slowly across the medical
bay to Stark's side.  His color was a little better now than when
they'd picked him up, but he showed no signs of awakening.
	She picked up one of his metal-clad hands, but it wasn't a
gesture of comfort; rather, she was checking out the workmanship of
the gauntlet.  She turned it over, examined the beam emitter in the
middle of the palm, then placed his hand gently back down on the table
and ran her fingertips slowly up his arm, feeling the unpolished
roughness of the metal.  From its texture and weight, she thought it
had to be iron or steel - surprisingly unsophisticated materials for
what was obviously a well-engineered battlesuit.
	On the surface, it was a very crude piece of work, but when
she looked more closely, her practiced eyes caught a multitude of
little details that told her the truth.  This armor, this... iron
man... was a work of art to Sylia's eyes.  It was unpolished, like a
pencil sketch or the rough draft of a poem, but it had in it all the
elements that would make the finished product a thing of great beauty.
The man who designed and built this suit might not have had the best
tools or materials to work with, but he -had- had a first-class brain.
	She wondered if Benjamin Stark was that man, and if so, why he
had left his masterpiece unfinished.

WEDNESDAY, MAY 5, 2027
SON LA PROVINCE, VIETNAM

	It might've been the best client snowjob of Tony Stark's life.
It was certainly the one with the highest stakes.
	Wong-Chu, who turned out to be a fat and unpleasant specimen
indeed, had arrived at first light as Dr. Yinsen had predicted.  In
fractured English, the self-proclaimed warlord made his demands known.
	"You build Wong-Chu a weapon he conquer whole province with!"
Wong-Chu declared, standing over the pale, drawn figure of the
American industrialist, who lay unable to rise.  "After, Wong-Chu have
city doctor save your life.  Otherwise you die slow!"
	With an effort that cost him some obvious pain, Tony hitched
himself up on his elbows so he could better make eye contact with the
strutting warlord.  From his cot at the other side of the room,
Ben Hutchins expected to see Tony spit in the man's face and tell him
to go to hell.
	Instead, he was shocked to see an urbane grin spread onto
Tony's face despite his pallor.
	"This I promise you, Wong-Chu," he said positively, his voice
strong despite his injuries.  "My associate and I will build a weapon
unlike anything you have ever imagined!"
	Wong-Chu had apparently expected to have to negotiate with, or
at least browbeat, his prisoner a little more than that.  He blinked
his piggy eyes in confusion for a second, then recovered his aplomb
with a belly laugh.
	"Ha!  So it's true!" he declared.  "American do anything to
stay alive a little longer."  He pointed a meaty finger at Tony,
trying to look stern.  "You come through on your promise, Wong-Chu
come through with his!  Wong-Chu get his province, you live to go back,
have soft life in America!"
	After another bark of laughter, the warlord became gruff
again.  "Old man will help you," he said, gesturing to Yinsen, who
stood next to Ben's cot with his arms folded and his wizened face
unreadable.  "He too old to work in field like other prisoners.  He
know some science, too.  He help you."  Wong-Chu looked ostentatiously
at his watch, a Rolex that until the day before had been Tony's, then
said, "It Wednesday.  Wong-Chu want see weapon by next Monday."  Then,
grinning, he added, "You not have much longer than that anyway."
	Then he turned and left.  As soon as the door was closed and
bolted behind him, Ben turned to his friend.
	"What the hell was that?" he asked.  "We're not actually going
to build a weapon for that maniac, are we?"
	"Did I say anything about building it for HIM?" Tony replied,
his grin turning a trifle cruel.
	Ben couldn't help the dark laugh that welled up out of him at
that, even though it hurt like hell to let it through.
	"You had me going for a second," he admitted when he'd
recovered.
	"Hopefully I have Wong-Chu going too.  I'm pretty sure he
bought it.  I know his type: greedy, stupid, too impressed with
himself to see what's really going on.  He reminds me of Morgan."
Tony coughed, his face screwing up with pain, then let himself back
down onto his bed.
	"Besides," he went on, "he lied too.  He can't have any doctor
save my life.  A, he hasn't got one, and B, I'm hurt too badly.  He
just hopes to wring a new marvel of the age out of me before I die."
The cruel smile came onto his face again.  "Well, he's going to get
his wish... but I'm going to need your help.  Both of you.  Nice to
see you again, Professor Yinsen, by the way.  I wish it was under
different circumstances."
	The aged Taiwanese scientist nodded gravely.  "That is my most
fervent wish as well," he said sadly.
	"Ben, can you stand up?"
	"I don't know."
	"You should be able to," Yinsen said.  "Take it slowly at
first.  I think you will be able to function for a few days before the
shrapnel begins to take its toll."
	"OK.  I'll try."  Slowly, painfully, very conscious of the
fact that he'd rather have done almost anything else, the young
reporter hauled himself to his feet.
	"Ohhh yeah," he said wryly, trying to follow his friend's
example and hang onto some humor, even if it was gallows humor, in the
face of all this.  "I knew I was gonna feel that in the morning."
	"Well, then, gentlemen, shall we get started?" Tony said.
"We've got a lot of work to do, and you heard the man - this project
has a very strict deadline."

TUESDAY, FEBRUARY 24, 2032
7:29 AM
MEGA TOKYO, JAPAN

	Curiosity, more than any sense that she could be of any real
help, prodded Linna Yamazaki to return to Knight Sabers HQ that
morning.  She was mildly groggy, having had only a few hours of sleep,
but she was young and athletic, and it took more than the occasional
all-nighter to keep her down.  She'd had worse trying to maintain
surveillance on Stark the previous week.
	Somehow, she reflected in the elevator on her way down to the
hidden complex, it seemed longer ago than that.
	She stuck her head into the wardroom on sub-level 5 and found
two of her fellow Sabers asleep there, one by choice, the other
probably not.  Priss Asagiri had obviously meant to sack out on the
table at the back of the room; she'd rolled up her jacket to use as a
pillow and everything.  Nene Romanova, on the other hand, was slumped
in a seat at the other table with her head on her folded arms in the
classic "I'll just rest my eyes for a sec - zzzzzz" position.
	Sitting on the table in front of Nene was the helmet from the
strange hardsuit-like battle gear Stark had been wearing the night
before.  Linna suppressed a snicker as she pictured Nene having a
conversation with it, or possibly holding forth about its owner's
virtues a la that one Shakespeare play a college ex had dragged Linna
to in an effort to culture her up.  Alas, poor Shellhead!  I knew him,
Priss; a man of infinite jest...
	It occurred belatedly to Linna that Stark hadn't been looking
too good when they rushed him to Medbay the night before and that, in
fact, he might be dead by now.  That made her feel like kind of a jerk
about the Shakespeare thing.  She sat down next to Nene and said
quietly, in an effort not to wake Priss too,
	"Hey Nene?  Nene?"
	The little blonde didn't reply.  Linna tried again, a little
louder, but got no better response.  Reaching out, she prodded Nene in
the shoulder.
	Nene came bolt upright with a piercing squeak.
	"What!" Priss barked, sitting up and whipping her pistol from
under her rolled-up jacket.
	Linna held up her hands in the international "I didn't touch
it" gesture.  "Sorry!" she said.  "Jeez!  Could you guys be WOUND any
TIGHTER."
	Priss thumbed her SIG's decocker and put the gun away again,
grumbling, "Oh, it's just you."
	"Who were you expecting, the AD Police?" Linna grumped back.
"How many times do I have to tell you not to point guns at me?"
	"Whatever," Priss said, climbing down from the table and
uncricking her back.  "I'm makin' coffee.  Who wants some?"
	"No thanks," Nene said, looking faintly miserable.  "If I have
any more caffeine I'll puke.  Or write a new web browser."
	Linna raised an eyebrow.  "Which would be worse?"
	Nene shook her head.  "Unanswerable."  She got up, moving as
if made of lead, and picked up the helmet almost as an afterthought.
"I'm going down to see how he is."
	 "Nene's got a boyfriend," Linna observed with a grin.
	Flushing bright red, Nene whirled on her.  "Shut up!  He's,
like, 30."
	Linna looked contrite.  "You're right.  That was clearly a
ridiculous thing to say.  I'm sorry."
	"And well you should be," Priss dropped in dryly over her
shoulder as she primed Mr. Coffee.
	"Nene's got a -sugar daddy-," Linna corrected herself.
	Nene gave her a filthy look.  "When you get drowned in your
sleep by your apartment's fire suppression system someday, Linna, I
hope your last thought is of me," she said.
	Linna snorted and stuck out her tongue.  Nene tried to
maintain her righteous fury, failed, burst out laughing, and had to
hurry and put the helmet down on the counter before she dropped it.
Linna went right along with her, thumping the table, convulsed with
laughter even though it really wasn't all -that- funny.  Even Priss
chuckled a bit as she hunted around for the plastic scoop that went
with the coffee, didn't find it, shrugged, and dumped about a quarter
of the canister into the filter basket.
	Finally Nene recovered herself; she picked up the helmet
again, tossed Linna a mildly rude gesture, and left the room.
	Priss finished wrangling Mr. Coffee, got a couple of mugs out
of the cupboard, and sat down opposite Linna to wait.  As she slid a
mug and a couple of little plastic tubs of faux cream across to her
teammate, she said,
	"Probably shouldn't ride the kid so hard right now.  She
really -is- worried."
	Linna sighed.  "I didn't realize it was that bad.  I mean,
he obviously hasn't died."
	"No, but he still may," Priss said.  "And Nene... well, you
know how she is.  She tries to act all mature when it suits her
purposes, but she's still just a kid.  She likes him."
	Linna shrugged.  "I can see that," she said.  "I mean, he
seemed like an OK kind of guy.  He was right, what he said to Sylia,
you know.  He could've hung us out to dry and he didn't."
	Priss nodded.  "I know."
	"So what do you think?"
	"What do -I- think?"
	"Of our mysterious guests.  You think they're for real?  I
think Sylia was about to turn them down last night, but now I dunno...
I think they could help us.  I mean, they're handy in a fight and... "
Linna shrugged.  "I dunno," she repeated.  "I just feel like they're
on the level."
	"Hnn," Priss replied.  Mr. Coffee dinged.  She turned around
in her chair, pulled the carafe from the machine, and filled the two
mugs, then put the carafe back in its place.
	"That's it?  That's the great Priss S. Asagiri's wisdom on the
subject?  'Hnn'?" Linna remarked.
	"I haven't decided yet," Priss said, sipping her coffee.
"They could be.  Something weird about them, though."
	"You mean besides the fact that the big one's a surgeon who
fights like a commando and the other one just happens to have a
hardsuit that looks like he built it in his high school metal shop?"
	"Yeah," Priss replied without apparent irony.  "Besides that."
	Linna rolled her eyes.  "You're the weird one, Priss."  She
took a sip of her coffee, screwed up her face, and said explosively,
"Guh!  O God.  And you make the worst coffee on Earth."
	Priss snorted.  "I love you too," she replied without
inflection.

	Nene entered the medbay to find the lights low and the room
empty but for the patient.  She looked around, unsure whether she
should enter, then tiptoed to the side of the exam table.  She put the
helmet down the stand next to the table, then stood and looked at
Stark for a minute.
	He still didn't look -good-, but he looked better than he had
when she'd pried the helmet off him in the warehouse.  Her glance
automatically went to the belt panel on his suit.  The light was
green, thanks to the heavy-gauge cables running from both chestplate
power ports to a pair of floor sockets nearby.  He seemed to be
resting as comfortably as a man could in an iron suit.
	Nene felt a little foolish and turned to go, but as she did,
his hand moved and caught her wrist.
	"Ah!" she said, startled by the coolness of the metal against
her skin.  It surprised her slightly how gentle his touch was, given
that he was wearing a power gauntlet.  She turned to see him looking
at her, an expression of medication-muted alarm on his face.
	"What?" she said.  "That's the matter?"
	"What time is it?" he asked, his voice low.
	"Um... "  Nene looked at her watch.  "Quarter of eight.  Why?"
	Stark looked relieved.  "Oh, thank God," he said.  "It's not
too late.  I need a terminal, quick.  I have to log into StarkWire."
	Nene gave him a look.  "I think you have bigger things to
worry about than your website right now," she said with playful scorn,
but he shook his head.
	"No, you don't understand.  If I don't log on by nine... "  He
paused, searching for words, then said, "I set a timed post before
going to the restaurant last night.  In 75 minutes, unless I stop it,
it'll dump my dossiers on the four of you to the InfoWeb."
	Nene stared at him in mute disbelief for a second.  Then, her
face darkening, she snatched her wrist out of his grasp.
	"You bastard!" she snapped.  There was nothing playful about
her scorn now.  Stark reached for her again, but she stepped back out
of his range.
	"I trusted you!" Nene said, tears of anger standing in her
eyes.  "I even liked you!  And now you tell me you were all set to
sell us out the whole time?  You son of a bitch!"
	"It's not like that," Stark protested.  "Listen to me, Nene,
just -listen- for a second."  
	The pleading quality in his voice stopped her before she could
storm from the room and inform Sylia and the others of what he'd done.
She paused halfway to the door, then turned and walked slowly back.
Her face was still angry, but the anger was contained - for now.
	"OK," she said, her voice tight.  "I'm listening."
	"I didn't set up the post because I intended to sell you out.
I expected - I hoped - that I would cancel it as soon as I got back to
the hotel.  The only reason I set it up was so that if I was -wrong-
about you four... if you turned not to be what I thought, and you
decided to silence me... you wouldn't get away with it."  He stopped,
shook his head, and then said, "Do you understand?  Please, Nene... "
	The little blonde stood looking down at his face for a few
moments.  Her indignation was already fading as she made herself think
it through.  It made sense.  What was more, she would have done
something similar before such a meeting herself.
	"So you're saying... " she said, and let it hang.
	"I'm saying the only way that post was ever supposed to go out
was if you -deserved- to be exposed," he said.  He reached out his
hand again.  "I never meant you harm as long as you didn't mean me
any.  Believe me.  Please."
	Nene gazed at him for a few seconds, then decided to trust her
instincts once more.  She reached out, her tiny hand all but vanishing
in his iron gauntlet.
	"What do we need to do?" she asked.
	"I... hm.  I can't seem to sit up."
	"I'll go get my laptop.  You can talk me through it."  She
gave him a little grin, recovering a little bit of her playfulness,
and said, "Or I could just hack your site."
	He chuckled.  "I'll talk you through it."

SATURDAY, MAY 8, 2027
SON LA PROVINCE, VIETNAM

	They were still 40 hours from their deadline, but the three
men locked in the stockade-cum-workshop in the corner of Wong-Chu's
bandit compound in the hills had run out of time.
	"There's nothing more I can do," Yinsen said, his long face
even longer than usual.  "It's only a matter of hours now."
	Tony Stark's face was gaunt and bathed in sweat, a far cry
from the handsome, sophisticated playboy inventor's face that had
looked out from the previous June's Time Magazine Man of the Year
cover.  He gritted his teeth and shook his head.
	"I have to keep going," he said.  "I have to finish.  If I
don't we're -all- dead.  There must be something you can do."
	Yinsen shook his head.  "I am sorry, Tony.  I know a fair
amount of anatomy, but I'm no surgeon.  All I can do now is make you
comfortable."
	"No," Tony said.  "In my condition, comfortable equals
unconscious.  I have to be awake.  Have to guide you for as long as I
can."
	They worked on for another hour or so, but it quickly became
obvious that Tony was fading fast.
	"It's no use," he said, his voice a mere whisper now.  "I'm
not going to make it.  I'm sorry."
	Ben Hutchins sat down on the wooden stool next to Tony's cot,
his own face pinched with fatigue and pain, and gave a despairing
sigh.
	"Well... we gave it a hell of a shot," he said.  "Think we've
got enough stuff here to make Wong-Chu a nice big -bomb- before we
check out?"
	Tony cracked a slight smile at that.  Then he blinked, his
eyes going briefly unfocused, as an idea sprang upon him the way his
best ideas so often did, fully-formed in a flash of intuition.
	"Wait," he whispered.  "There -is- a way."  He turned his head
to look at Yinsen.  "We have all the parts we need.  I can finish this
project after all... after a fashion."

	Even as he battled against waves of his own grief and misery
to stay focused and keep working, Ben had to admire his friend's
indomitable spirit.  Tony Stark was wringing every last remaining
second out of what little remained of his life, forcing himself to
carry on - not only that, to perform fine precision electronics work
with crude tools and under terrible conditions - with what seemed like
nothing more than raw willpower.
	He hung grimly on for two hours, and when he was done, what he
had made was no weapon... but possibly the key to the greatest one
imaginable.
	"What is it?" Ben asked, considering the device.  To him it
looked like nothing more than a bunch of circuit elements and
components on a board with a a lot of wires.  He had been doing
meticulous work under Tony's direction for the last several days, and
it had been quite an education - the ultimate crash course in
mechanical and electronic engineering - but what Tony and Yinsen had
just built was completely alien to him.
	"It's a ROM encoder," Tony said.  He took one of the cables
leading from the device and carefully plugged it into the interface
jack of his neuroprocessor - a rare and expensive piece of equipment
indeed, but one no self-respecting American technology baron would be
without nowadays.
	"Which means?"
	"If it works, it'll make a copy of my neural structure as a
stable interactive program.  Kind of a limited expert system with my
memories as its knowledge base."
	Ben blinked.  "And if it doesn't?"
	"Who knows?  It'll probably electrocute me.  What the hell
have I got to lose?"
	"We don't have any storage medium big enough to contain a full
personality ROM," Yinsen said.  "I have checked everything in the
stores.  Wong-Chu and his bandits have never stolen anything
sophisticated enough to have that kind of space."
	Tony smiled.  He was very calm about the whole thing now - a
hell of a lot calmer than Ben felt.
	"Ben has it," he said.
	"What?"
	"Your wetdrive.  The one your liveshades dump their photo data
into.  It should be big enough."
	Ben blinked.  "Are you sure?"
	"No.  But what the hell have -you- got to lose?"
	Despite himself, Ben chuckled.  "You have a point there,
Mr. Stark," he said.  He reached for the other cable.  Stark caught
his wrist.  The dying man's grip was surprisingly strong, his hand
warm, almost feverish.
	"Remember what we talked about back at the Pha Qing?" he
asked.
	"Hard to forget," Ben replied.
	"When you get back to the States, it'll all be yours.  I filed
my will that day, and last night while you were getting some sleep I
wrote out my final declaration.  Give it to my exec VP in New York and
she'll take care of everything."
	"Tony, I... "
	"I know.  You didn't think it would ever actually happen when
you agreed.  Well, I didn't either, but here we are."  Tony let go of
Ben's wrist and grabbed his hand in an armwrestler's clasp instead.
"Leave everything to my exec VP.  Hell, she practically runs the
company for me anyway.  She's sharp.  Tough.  She'll keep the wolves
off your back.  Her name's Potts.  Virginia Potts.  Pepper to her
friends.  Redhead.  About so high."  Tony shook his head and whispered
ruefully, "God damn, I should've married her."
	A tear ran down one of the dying inventor's pallid cheeks;
then he pulled himself together and said, "You ready?"
	"No," Ben answered honestly, "but let's go."
	Tony grinned, looking almost like his old self for a moment.
	"That's the spirit," he said.
	Ben took the second wire and plugged it gingerly into the
input jack for his wetdrive, where the lead from his liveshades
usually went.  Tony caught his eye, still grinning.
	"Relax," he said.  "What's the worst that could happen?  We're
already dead."
	Then he hit the switch.
	The next thing Ben knew, he was on the floor.  His heart was
pounding, every beat a wrenching lance of pain that reached clear to
his hands, which were bent into claws against the rough wood of the
floor.  Yinsen was at his side, helping him up with gentle hands and
soothing words.  He came partway upright, reeled, and fell again.  He
wasn't dizzy; he just had no sense whatsoever of up, down, left, or
right.  Even what was inside and what was outside his body seemed kind
of abstract.
	Slowly, the chaos receded.  He picked up one landmark at a
time - a foot, an arm, Yinsen's face, the shape of the room - until
eventually it all fell together with a sort of psychic "click!" and he
was himself again.
	"Jesus Christ," he said, easing back down onto the stool next
to Tony's cot.  "Was it supposed to be like that, Tony?  ... Tony?"
	But there was no answer from Anthony Stark, nor would there
ever be again.
	"I am sorry," Yinsen said gently.  "You were out of your
senses for perhaps half an hour.  If it's any consolation, he went
peacefully."
	"Goddammit," Ben murmured.  He sat and looked at his friend's
face - he did look peaceful, now that the pain was erased - and felt
the tears tracking his own.  "God -damn- it.  It wasn't supposed to be
like this, Tony."
	"My young friend, I feel as you do," Yinsen said, putting a
hand on his shoulder.  "But if we do not act quickly, I will lose
-two- friends, and Tony's sacrifice will have been for nothing."
	Ben wiped his face with a grimy sleeve.  "You're right," he
said.  A sudden flash of anger boiled up within him.  Wong-Chu would
be coming for his weapon.
	If Ben Hutchins lived just long enough to deliver it, at this
point he thought that would be enough.
	"Here," Yinsen said, and handed Ben a small device built from
a Chinese portable music player.  "You have no neuroprocessor," he
explained.  "You will have to use this to run the ROM construct you
just imprinted."
	"Oh.  ... All right."  He followed the old professor's
instructions, plugging the wire leading from what had been the
player's headphone jack into his wetdrive jack.  The device had a
single button, which lit up when the connection was made.  He pressed
it.
	For a moment nothing happened; then the tiny display went to
static and cleared to show a horizontal line which twitched into a
spectrum analyzer as a familiar voice spoke with a metallic timbre
from the player's tiny speaker:
	"Hello, Ben."
	"Tony!" Ben blurted.  "Are you... in there?"
	"... I'm sorry, I don't understand the question."
	Ben looked quizzically at Yinsen.
	"A ROM construct is not an AI," the old man explained.  "The
construct has Tony's memories, but it is not a true intelligence.  It
can't have ideas or think abstractly.  It's... not really him.  Just
his... knowledge.  But that will be enough.  With the construct to
guide us, we can finish the weapon.  We have the ideas - our own and
Tony's notes.  What we need is the engineering knowledge to make it
real.  The construct will provide that."  He shook his head.  "He was
truly brilliant.  I would never have thought of doing this, let alone
been able to build the encoder so quickly."
	Ben regarded the cheap plastic interface device in his palm.
	"And this is all that's left."  He closed his eyes for a
moment; then he tucked the interface module into the pocket of his
grubby shirt and said with a hint of Tony Stark's determination, "All
right, Professor Yinsen.  Let's get to work."

TUESDAY, FEBRUARY 24, 2032
7:58 AM
MEGA TOKYO, JAPAN

	Fortunately, preventing the exposure of the Knight Sabers was
a quick fix.  One login and a couple of security codes, and the
threatening post was flushed away, never to see the light of day.
Stark and Nene were just finishing up when the door opened and Zoner
came in, engrossed in a chart, then paused and tilted his head in
puzzlement at the sight of her using Stark's chestplate as a laptop
table.
	"... All the seats in the gweepery taken?" he asked after a
few seconds' consideration.
	"Oh, uh, no," she said, hurriedly removing the computer and
folding it up.  "We were just, um... "
	"Nene was kind enough to relay a message back to StarkWire HQ
for me," Stark said.  "I didn't want Friday to worry too much."
	Zoner nodded.  "I see," he said, though he didn't think he
did, entirely.  "Well, if you're done being an IKEA laptop stand,
Lars, I have some bad news for you."
	"Does it have something to do with my not being able to move?"
Stark asked wryly.
	"Indeed it does," Zoner replied with a point and a smarmy
game-show-host grin.  Then, sobering once more, he crossed the room
and held out the chart he'd been looking at.  "You hosed what's left
of your heart.  Even with the chestplate at full boost you're barely
hanging on."
	"'Hosed'?" Stark asked archly.  "Is that a medical term?"
	Zoner turned to Nene.  "Would you please excuse us for a few
minutes, Miss Romanova?  When I get upset I say fuck a lot, and you
being underage and all... "
	"(What, does -everyone- know?)" Nene muttered darkly.  Zoner
tacked on a cheesy "please?" grin.  "Fine, fine, I'm going," Nene
said.  "I'll be in my office," she added, then disappeared out the
door.
	Zoner watched the door shut behind her, then turned back to
Stark and said sagely, "You better watch yourself with that one.
These Japanese females are treacherous."
	"I think she's Russian," Stark replied.  "Anyway, as -if-."
	Zoner nodded.  "Right.  Where were we?  Oh, yeah.  What the
fuck was that about?" he demanded.  "Going into fucking -urban combat-
in that clunky old fucking suit?"
	Stark sighed, rolling his eyes.  "Yeah, I knew -this- was
coming.  Could you keep it down?  I'm not a well man."
	"I'll fucking say!" Zoner replied, slapping the open chart
down on his friend's armored chest.  "Listen, no screwing around, OK?
You have to have a replacement.  That's all there is to it.  I just
ran all the simulations.  We can't get anywhere trying to push this
chestplate tech any further.  You'll never have the strength to even
get out of bed.  Worse, the plate can't halt the degradation any
longer.  Even with it, you don't have more than a few days."
	Stark closed his eyes and lay silent for a full minute.  Zoner
was honestly not sure if his friend was thinking it over or just
ignoring him.  It was hard to tell with Ben sometimes.  He'd get
stubborn about things.  Hell, how many times had they had The Heart
Argument in the last four years?
	This time was different, though.
	Stark opened his eyes.
	"OK," he said.
	"That's it?  After all this time?  'OK'?"
	"That's it.  You said it yourself, I don't have a choice.
Besides... "  He searched for words, then sighed and made a vague
gesture with one hand.  "It seems like a good time to make a change."
	"Right, then," Zoner said.  "I'll call Flushing and have them
express the nearest Model 74, then start looking for a private
hospital in town with the facilities we'll need.  The fewer people
involved in the operation the better.  I'm assuming you don't want
anyone to know?"
	"Actually... I've been hiding this long enough," Stark
replied.  "Oh, I won't spill the whole story, don't worry," he added
when Zoner raised an eyebrow.  "But I think the best course here is to
be as aboveboard about it as possible.  Just in case it comes up
later."
	"It's your call," Zoner said.
	"Trust me.  I -am- a journalist... "


>>> INFOFEED
    FROM printecircuits:starkwire.com
    POSTED: 20320224.0007 (UTC)

SPECIAL RELEASE FOR ALL STARKWIRE SUBSCRIBERS
by Benjamin Stark

I have a date tonight - probably in no more than ten hours - with an
operating table.  I'm having a heart transplant.

No, I'm serious.  That isn't some kind of metaphor for having a change
of heart about some subject or another.  I'm really having a heart
transplant.  This afternoon at 5 o'clock Tokyo time, my old pal
MegaZone is going to crack me open and drop one of my company's very
own Model 74 bionic hearts in there.

Why?

Well, that's a little bit of a story.

In 2027, as many of you know, a young WorldWatch reporter named
Benjamin Hutchins was in Vietnam, covering the U.S. military's
assistance to the Vietnamese government in repelling the Chinese
incursion.  One of the subjects of my coverage was a man named Anthony
Stark, who was there as a technical advisor to the U.S. forces on
behalf of his company, a little defense contractor called Stark
Industries.

Tony was a take-charge, hands-on kind of guy.  He liked to get right
out in the field with the troops who were using his inventions, to see
how the things he made performed under real battlefield conditions.  I
followed him for months; we got into some pretty tough scrapes
together.  By April, we were like brothers.  One day, a half-hour or
so north of a little place called Diem La, he took a stray round to
the helmet.  The next morning he said he was rewriting his will to
make me his sole heir.  I thought he was -joking-.  Well, wouldn't
you?

The rest is a matter of public record.  On May 4, 2027, Tony and I
were with a patrol from the 43rd Infantry that ran afoul of a booby
trap laid by one of the local Communist bandit chiefs.  The two of us
were the only survivors.  We were held captive by the Communists for
several days; Tony's wounds proved fatal, but before he died he
planned the escape attempt that got me out of there a couple of days
later.

I touched on my experiences in "The Colour and the Surge", my book
about the rise and fall of WorldWatch, and in articles I wrote upon my
return to the States.  What I didn't mention in any of them was that I
was wounded in the same incident.  I suffered shrapnel wounds that
weakened my heart.

I never talked about the injury in public.  Compared to what had
happened to Tony, it seemed so trivial.  Lots of people live with
heart problems; there's nothing special about having a bad ticker.
Anyway, the bottom line was that I got out of Vietnam alive and my
friend didn't (as an angry relative of Tony's pointed out about a
thousand times in the court battle over his will that took up the rest
of 2027 and most of 2028).  Viewed in that light, what right did I
have to complain about a few scratches?

Well, yesterday I was having dinner at a fancy restaurant here in
Tokyo when the place was attacked by "mercenaries in the employ of
organized crime," to use the phrase currently in vogue in the local
press.  (I found out later that they were after some movie star who
hadn't even shown up for his reservation.  Kidnapping for profit is
apparently a growth industry in Japan these days.)  I got the hell out
of there...

... and then I had a heart attack.  It turns out the damage to my
heart has gotten worse over the years, and after all the excitement
last night the damn thing just gave up on me.  I'm on support now.  A
company jet is on the way from Stark Industries HQ in Flushing with my
new Model 74, and Zoner's lining up everything else he needs to
install it.

Before you ask, yeah, I'm kind of scared.  Who wouldn't be, under the
circumstances?  Still, I'm in good hands.  MegaZone is one of the
foremost cybersurgeons on the planet.  The facilities available here
in Tokyo are first-rate.  There are thousands of operational Model 74s
all over the world, and their owners say they're as good as or better
than new.  Hell, the thing's banned by the International Olympic
Committee as a performance enhancement, it must work pretty well.

I'll be out of action for three to five weeks, Zoner says, if I follow
his instructions and handle my recuperation correctly, which I will
make every effort to do.  Looks like I'll get a chance to try my hand
at a little of that remote-access journalism I was talking about a
couple weeks ago after all.

Someone will post a notification here when I'm out of surgery.
Chances are that someone won't be me, but these are the days of
miracle and wonder, so anything is possible.

Until the next time you hear from me, keep your knees loose.  Mahalo.
Good night & good luck.

--BHS

>>> END INFOFEED


MONDAY, MAY 10, 2027
SON LA PROVINCE, VIETNAM

	The pain had been growing steadily worse over the last two
days - slowly, almost imperceptibly, but undeniably worse.  Today it
was nearly blinding, setting Ben's hands to trembling.  He couldn't
focus, couldn't possibly do any more precision work... but luckily, he
no longer had to.
	"The apparatus is ready," Professor Yinsen said.  "Here.
Clamp it around your body.  It will stabilize your heart - enable it
to go on beating despite the harm the shrapnel has done."
	"Will it do anything about the pain?" Ben asked with strained
wryness.
	"It should," Yinsen replied, his age-lined but strong hands
working deftly to put components together, tighten connectors, and
adjust the fit of the larger pieces to each other.  Piece by piece, he
assembled around the body of Ben Hutchins the metal shell that Tony
Stark had spent his last days designing - the shell that the dying
inventor planned to keep his friend alive in more ways than one.
	"Are you ready?" Yinsen asked before he fitted the final
piece.
	"Do I have a choice?" Ben replied with a wan grin.
	"Not really," Yinsen replied.
	"Go for it."
	Yinsen smiled and placed the iron mask over the journalist's
face, then fastened it securely.
	"There.  It is complete.  How do you feel?"
	"Odd.  I don't feel as confined as I expected."  He winced as
a fresh lance of pain stabbed into his chest and down his arms.  "NNGH!
When does the not-hurting-as-much part start?"
	"Soon."  Yinsen went to the portable generator in the corner
of the room and started it up, then uncoiled a pair of extension cords
and plugged them into the power sockets on the armor's chestplate.
	Almost immediately, the crushing pain in Ben's chest began to
ease.  Yinsen saw his eyes widen through the helmet's trapezoidal
viewports and smiled.
	"Better?"
	"Getting there," Ben said.
	Yinsen stepped back and took in the entire scene - the rude
workbench strewn with tools and cast-off components, the slanting
table with the ironclad shape of his friend.
	"Tony Stark did not lie," he said with a nod.  "Our iron man
will be unlike anything a mindless butcher like Wong-Chu can ever have
imagined.  What wonders he will perform!"
	Ben smiled inside the helmet.  "I'm looking forward to
demonstrating it for him.  How long before we have a full charge?"
	"I think about five minutes," Yinsen said.  "I wish we had had
time to charge the belt pods when we finished building them."
	"Mm."  Ben tried to nod, but the armor wouldn't move.  Running
the generator was a risk they had agreed to put off until the last
possible moment.  There was always the risk that Wong-Chu would think
it meant his weapon was ready and come to - 
	A red light on the wall by the door flashed.
	"Oh, no!" Yinsen moaned.  "The signal!  Someone approaches!"
	"Damn.  Can you get this thing to charge any faster?"
	"I dare not.  If we push it harder, we may burn out the power
cells altogether.  Then the suit will not work and you will die."
	"If Wong-Chu comes in here and finds me like this I'm dead
anyway," Ben pointed out.
	The old professor seemed to weigh this in his mind for a
moment.  Then his face took on a flatly decisive expression.
	"Then he will not," Yinsen said.  He started for the door.
	"Wait!" Ben said.  He raised a hand, nearly unable to move his
arm against the weight and inactive motors of his armor, but Yinsen
only paused at the door, looking back at the iron form while he set
the lock on the doorknob.
	"Live, my young friend," he said.  "Live for all of us."
	Then he was gone, slamming the door locked behind him.
	Through the thin walls of the hut, as he half-stood, half-lay
imprisoned in the inert iron shell of his armor, Ben heard the
commotion as Yinsen began overturning carts and shouting like a
madman.
	"DEATH TO WONG-CHU!" the professor's voice cried with a shrill
edge of madness.  "DEATH TO THE EVIL TYRANT!"
	More yelling - guards asking each other what the hell was
going on in Vietnamese, Yinsen bellowing in Cantonese - followed.  Ben
gritted his teeth and tried to -will- the electrons into the armor's
power cells faster.  If he could only -move-!  If he could get out
there and intervene - get the guards' attention before - 
	A sharp rattle of gunfire, the distinctive cry of an AK-74,
cut short one of Yinsen's ranting denoncements of Wong-Chu.
	<There,> said the voice of a guard in Vietnamese.  <The old
madman will trouble us no more.  Take him to the hill and bury him
next to his friend the American.  You!  Go and report this incident to
Wong-Chu.>
	Ben felt his eyes fill with tears and shook his head within
his helmet, blinking to clear them.
	Wong-Chu, you butcher, he thought furiously.  You'll pay for
that too.  Just like you'll pay for Tony and everyone else whose life
you've destroyed.  I swear it.
	He looked down at his metal-sheathed body, his gauntlets
slowly and unwillingly closing into fists as the hands within them
clenched tightly.
	THE IRON MAN SWEARS IT!
	In the upper left corner of his field of view, a tiny red LED
went out and a green one took its place.  A faint whir and the smell
of fresh - or at least fresher - air filled the helmet as the suit's
powered systems, including the helmet ventilator, came online.  The
weight of the armor seemed to disappear as its actuators stiffened,
taking most of the load off the frame of the operator.
	Ben lurched away from the angled table on which he lay, stood
upright - and fell flat on his face with a dreadful crash, snapping
the connectors from both power cables and sending the cables
themselves whipping around like severed guywires.  Snarling with
frustration, he got a hand under him and pushed himself upright, then
slowly got to his feet.  He had to get used to moving in the armor.
It responded to his own movements, but there was a tiny delay in each
one, and his reflexive tendency when he tried to move and nothing
happened was to push harder.  When the suit caught up with him, that
had the tendency to exaggerate his movements to the point where he
unbalanced himself.
	He was like a baby learning to walk, but he didn't have that
kind of time.  It sounded like Wong-Chu's thugs were busy putting out
a fire out there, but it was only a matter of time before they
realized Yinsen must have charged out of the workshop for a reason and
came to investigate.  It wouldn't do to be lurching around like the
Frankenstein monster when they arrived.  It wouldn't do -at all-.
	Within a few minutes, as he expected, the door to the workshop
rattled as someone tried the knob.  By then, he had just about
mastered the basics of moving around in his metal shell.
	<What the - ?!> came the voice of Wong-Chu's guard captain.
<The old fool locked the door!  Break it down at once!>
	No, thought Ben Hutchins with a cruel smile under his mask.
	Allow me.

# Black Sabbath
# "Iron Man"
# Paranoid (1970)

	Wong-Chu was on the other side of the compound, amusing
himself at his favorite sport, and didn't hear the crash.
	Wong-Chu's favorite sport was beating helpless people
senseless, and being a warlord with at least nominal control over an
entire province, he had plenty of victims to choose from.
	"Hah!" he cried, hurling another of his prisoners - a man from
a nearby village who had spoken out against his treatment of the
villagers - to the ground.  <Is there no one who can challenge the
great Wong-Chu?>
	He looked around and realized that his usually-captive
audience wasn't paying attention to his latest triumph.  Rather, they
were reacting with alarm to something outside his impromptu arena.
The prisoners and villagers were cowering in terror - even more so
than usual - while the guards were looking at each other and nervously
fingering their weapons.  They were all looking toward the other side
of the compound, where the madman Yinsen had just been put down - and
where, Wong-Chu was confident, the last of his "special" prisoners
toiled fearfully on the great weapon Wong-Chu had demanded in exchange
for his life.  There was a cloud of smoke rising from the fire Yinsen
had started - hadn't those idiots put that OUT yet?  Left alone long
enough it might reach the ammunition dump - but things seemed
otherwise quiet over that way.
	... Perhaps a bit too quiet.
	<What's going on?> Wong-Chu demanded.  <What are you all
staring at?>
	A moment later the crowd parted... and a creature Wong-Chu
might have seen in a nightmare walked into the "arena".
	As an ally of the Chinese Communist invaders, Wong-Chu had
seen their robotic combat suits, the Type 717 battlemovers.  They were
copies of a Western walking-tank design with a few improvements
devised by ingenious Chinese engineers, and they were quite large;
they stood about 10 feet tall when fully upright.  Most of the time
they didn't walk, but rather skated around on large wheels built into
their feet, using their jump thrusters for propulsion.
	This was very different.  This... thing... was no bigger than
a man (albeit a -large- man), but it walked with a heavy metallic
tread.  It was dull grey all over, with heavy-looking armor plate and
cunningly articulated joints.  Its face was a blank iron mask with a
trio of slots - one long straight one and two short ones with a slight
down angle - for a mouth and two trapezoidal black voids for eyes.
	Wong-Chu had never seen a boomer, the mechanoid servants that
had originated in Japan a few years before and were even then
achieving ubiquity in the civilized world.  If he had, he might have
taken this creature for one of them, though even with its iron bulk it
was more compact than the smallest combat-oriented boomer then
produced.
	"-I- challenge Wong-Chu," the freakish newcomer announced in a
booming amplified voice.
	Wong-Chu stared at it in mute horror.
	"Why do you stare, Wong-Chu?" it asked, its voice sardonic and
cold.  "What is wrong?  Have you never seen an iron man before?"
	Wong-Chu's first impulse was to flee, but everyone was
watching.  His authority might be compromised if he showed fear in
front of so many of his troops, to say nothing of the villagers.  The
thought gave him the bravado he needed to charge the ungainly metal
figure, perhaps hoping to knock him over.
	It was like bullrushing a brick wall.  Wong-Chu hit the
armored form and bounced, reeling.  An iron hand grabbed him by the
front of his tunic.  Electric muscles effortlessly hoisted the
warlord, 270 pounds of heavy muscle covered in fat, overhead.
	"You're not facing a wounded, dying man now," the booming
voice intoned, "or an aged, gentle professor!  This is Iron Man who
opposes you!"
	And, having dubbed himself, Iron Man hurled Wong-Chu like a
shotput into a crowd of his soldiers, sending them scattering in all
directions.
	Wong-Chu pulled himself to his feet and abandoned all pretense
of bravado.
	<KILL HIM!  I don't care what he is, KILL HIM NOW!> he roared
to his soldiers.
	Most of them broke and ran as Iron Man started toward them.
The villagers, sensing their chance, ran for it as well, scattering
and disappearing into the jungle surrounding the compound.  None of
the gunmen paid them the slightest attention.  Those who weren't
running themselves were swinging their weapons toward the armored
figure stalking toward them.
	They opened fire, the chatter of their rifles echoing
throughout the compound, but small arms were useless against Iron
Man's armor.  The bullets pinged and whined in all directions, a few
of them plunging back into the enemy ranks to inflict wounds on
Wong-Chu's own men.
	<You fools!> Wong-Chu cursed.  <Bring up the RPG!>
	Iron Man's eyes narrowed within his helmet.  -That- could be a
problem.
	A man rushed up from the back of the formation with a
shoulder-fired rocket grenade, knelt while his fellows kept showering
Iron Man with covering fire, and drew a bead.
	I hope these magnetic things work like Tony expected them to,
Ben thought as he raised a hand.
	The RPG man fired his weapon.  The warhead shot forward from
the end of the tube, wobbled - and then curved up and away from its
target along a neat parabolic arc, tumbled, and blew a truck halfway
across the compound all to hell.
	<He is a demon!> one of Wong-Chu's men shouted.  <He cannot be
killed!  Run!>
	<Come back, you fools!> Wong-Chu bellowed.  <He's just one
man!  Sheer numbers can defeat him!>
	His shouting was as futile as his pistol-waving.  His men's
nerve was broken; they were fleeing.
	Swearing and sweating all the way, Wong-Chu ran to his
pavilion in the middle of the compound and mounted the stairs to the
reviewing stand at the top.  From here he liked to overlook his "army"
as they went through their paces and shout exhortations to them over a
PA system rigged for the purpose.  He snatched up the microphone,
switched on the amplifier, and said,
	<This is Wong-Chu!  I will give one hundred thousand American
dollars to the one who kills the Iron Man!>
	All that came out of the speaker up on top of the reviewing
stand was an ear-curling shriek of static.
	Tony's inventions: 2, Wong-Chu: 0, Iron Man thought grimly as
he strode toward the pavilion.  With the parts available - mostly
electronic junk, Chinese cast-offs and the odd piece of half-stripped
American or Japanese consumer stuff - Tony had been unable to devise a
proper radio transmitter for the Iron Man suit, but he had been able
to rig a device that interfered with -other- electronic equipment in
the area.  Jamming the circuits of Wong-Chu's crappy PA system with
electromagnetic noise was simplicity itself.
	He considered using his heavier weapons to cut the legs from
under the pavilion, but decided that wouldn't be satisfying enough.
Instead, he yanked open the door and started to climb the stairs.
	"You never get me!" Wong-Chu yelled from the top of the
stairs.  Then, to Iron Man's considerable surprise, he shoved a file
cabinet down the stairs.
	"Crap!" Iron Man said before the cabinet plowed into him and
knocked him to the floor.
	Good God! he thought as he lay pinned under the cabinet.
What's IN this thing?  It weighs a ton!
	"No use for you to try get up," Wong-Chu taunted as he made
his way down the stairs.  "Cabinet full of rocks!  Wong-Chu plan for
be chased up here long time ago!"  He jacked the slide on his Tokarev
auto pistol.  "You very clever American, but not clever enough for
Wong-Chu!"
	Ben gritted his teeth and shunted power to his armor's
magnetic muscles.  Motors whined and hummed as they strained against
the weight of the cabinet.
	Wong-Chu, halfway down the stairs and already relishing the
thought of putting a bullet through one of Iron Man's eyeholes,
paused, the smirk draining from his face, as the file cabinet started
to rise.  Slowly it levered away from the floor, tilting upright, and
then rose even further as Iron Man lifted it clean off the floor and
held it over his head.
	Forgetting his plan and his observations of Iron Man's
vulnerabilities, Wong-Chu screamed in terror and emptied his pistol
uselessly against Iron Man's chestplate.
	"Stay away!  You stay away!!" he yelled, throwing the pistol
after its ineffective bullets.
	"I think you dropped this, Wong-Chu," Iron Man replied,
hefting the file cabinet.  "Here.  Catch."
	With a final mighty heave, he threw the cabinet back up the
stairs.  Wong-Chu's final shriek was cut wetly short by the heavy
CRASH of the weighted metal box's impact.  It wedged between several
broken stairs and stayed there, canted at an ominous angle, blood
dripping from its lowest corner.
	So much for THAT, Ben thought.  A twinge of pain raced across
his chest.  He took a small mirror from one of the compartments on his
belt and used it to check his power-level indicator; it was amber and
blinking slowly.  He'd launched almost as soon as he had a useful
charge, nowhere near full capacity, and he'd pulled down most of his
incomplete belt-pod charge lifting and throwing the cabinet.  Any more
heavy activity and he'd start eating into the chestplate's reserve
capacity.
	Well, fine.  There was a generator under the pavilion;
Wong-Chu had used it to charge the batteries that operated the PA
system, and to run the floodlights at night.  Iron Man climbed partway
up the stairs to what remained of Wong-Chu, retrieved Tony's watch,
went back outside, cabled up to the generator, and started it up.
	While he stood there recharging, he looked around.  The
compound appeared completely deserted.  Wong-Chu's men and the
civilians had all fled into the jungle.  The fire was still burning at
the other end.  After a few moments there was a shuddering BOOM and
that half of the compound vanished as the fire reached the ammo dump.
	Won't be much left of this place in an hour or so, Ben thought
as he watched the fire spread.
	Works for me.
	I do wish those dumb bastards hadn't blown up the truck I was
going to use to get out of here, though.  It's a long goddamn walk to
Hanoi.
	He finished charging up, shut down the generator, turned, and
walked away into the jungle, heading east.

TUESDAY, FEBRUARY 24, 2032
1:51 PM
MEGA TOKYO, JAPAN

	MegaZone switched off the videophone in the office he and Ben
had commandeered in Akihabara and ground his teeth.  What the hell was
the world coming to when one of the leading cybersurgeons had a hard
time booking a private operating room for an important procedure in a
foreign country with next to no notice?  Wasn't this the 21st god damn
century?
	There was a knock at the door.
	"What!" Zoner barked.
	The door opened and a timid-looking pool secretary put her
head in.
	"Er... please forgive me for disturbing you, Doctor, but...
the police are here."
	"What?" Zoner said; then he remembered what it must be about.
"Oh.  Right, uh... show them in.  Sorry I yelled at you."
	"It's all right," she said, then turned, bowed, and told the
people waiting behind her to enter.
	"Sorry to bother you, Doctor," said the one in the lead, a
lean, casually dressed man in dark glasses.  "Leon McNichol, AD
Police.  We met last night."
	"Of course," Zoner said, shaking his hand.  "Have a seat."
	"This is my partner, Detective Daley Wong," Leon said,
indicating the smartly dressed, sandy-haired young man who had
followed him in.  Zoner shook his hand as well and gestured both of
them to seats.
	"I understand Mr. Stark isn't feeling well," Leon said.
	Zoner nodded.  "He's in very serious condition, actually.  He
suffered a major heart attack last night."
	"I'm sorry to hear that.  Are you his physician of record?"
	"Yes, I am."
	"What's his prognosis?"
	"Well, presumably you got the word from his post to StarkWire
this morning?"  Leon nodded.  "There's not much I can add to that,"
Zoner said.  "The article itself reveals more than I could on my own.
Doctor-patient privilege, you know."
	"Mm.  Well, I'm not here to badger you, Doctor; we just
happened to be in the neighborhood and I thought we should stop by.  I
did say you'd be hearing from me to day, but under the circumstances
it can wait."
	"Indeed," Daley added with a concurring nod.  "You've got
enough to worry about.  I don't suppose there's any chance we might
speak to Stark himself before he goes under the knife, though... "
	"No, I'm sorry, that's out of the question," Zoner said.  "He
needs complete rest.  He should be able to talk to you within a few
days, though.  Every patient recovers a little differently, but I'd
guess he'll be conscious and able to answer questions by Friday."
	Leon raised an eyebrow.  "That fast?" he said, sounding
impressed.
	"The heart he's receiving is a very efficient replacement,"
Zoner said.  "Maybe a little -too- efficient.  The hard part of the
recovery period after Model 74 implantation is keeping the patient
from trying to resume activity too -soon-."
	"Wonder of the age," Daley agreed.  "My uncle has one.  He ran
in the Tokyo Marathon last year.  79 years old."
	"Hmm.  Well, then, pencil us in for Friday," Leon said.  "It's
just routine at this point - the case was pretty straightforward,
apart from the involvement of the Knight Sabers.  We still haven't
figured out what the hell they were doing there."
	"Well, I doubt Mr. Stark will be able to illuminate you on
that point," Zoner said with a perfectly straight face.
	"I don't suppose," Leon said, "but we have to talk to him
anyway before we can close the file."  He got up from his chair.
"Thanks for your time, Doctor.  Good luck with the operation."
	"Thanks," Zoner said.  He showed them to the office door and
watched them go down the hall to the elevator; then he sighed and
turned to go back in and get back on the phone.

	"Do you believe him?" Leon asked his partner as they rode down
in the elevator.
	"About Stark's heart condition?  You read the post.  Why would
he make something like that up?"
	"I don't know.  It makes sense, I guess - if he had an old
injury, a shakeup like last night's firefight might set it off.  But
it's kind of weird, don't you think?  The guy's covered -wars-.  He's
been shot at before."
	Daley shrugged.  "Maybe it's like the doctor told you last
night.  It wasn't so much the firefight as the surprise."
	"Ah, you're probably right."  The elevator stopped and
opened.  As Leon and Daley crossed the lobby, they met another pair of
people coming in: a redheaded woman in a smart business suit and a
rugged-looking black man in a rumpled flight coverall.  The man was
carrying a metal case with BIONIC REPLACEMENT ORGAN - URGENT stenciled
on the side.
	"Interesting pair of couriers," Leon observed as they emerged
from the building.  "Good-looking lady, though."
	"Don't you know who that was?" Daley asked as he slipped
behind the wheel of their ADP pursuit car.
	"No, who was she?" Leon replied as he climbed aboard.
	"That was Virginia Potts," Daley informed him.
	Leon turned his head to look back at the building as Daley
eased the car into traffic.
	"No kidding?  President and CEO of Stark Industries?  Huh.
She looks older on TV.  I wonder what she's doing here."
	"Delivering a replacement heart for the company's owner -is- a
pretty important errand," Daley pointed out.
	"Well, I suppose.  He doesn't have any official standing in
the company hierarchy, but Stark's her boss, after a fashion."  He
chuckled cynically.  "Probably worried about her stock options."
	"Stark Industries is a privately held company," Daley said
didactically.  "There aren't any stock options."
	"Oh.  Well, then maybe she's in love with the guy.  How the
hell do I know?"

	The first thing Virginia Potts did was take over the logistics
from Zoner, ordering him to concentrate on the medical aspects of the
day's program.  With her working the phone, they had a fully equipped
operating theater and a recovery suite arranged at one of Japan's
highest-rated private hospitals in 27 minutes.  Stark was comfortably
ensconced in his room there by 3 PM, his armor removed (except for the
all-important chestplate, of course), and no one the wiser.
	He was reading a comic book when the door to his room opened.
	"Hey!" he said, smiling.  "Pepper Potts, as I (so far) live and 
breathe.  Shouldn't you be at work?"
	The redheaded woman in the charcoal-grey suit crossed the room
and bent to kiss his cheek before remarking, "You don't want to know
what time it is to me right now."
	Stark chuckled, then held out a hand for the rangy,
dark-skinned man who followed her into the room.  "Hey, Jim.  Pep got
you away from Flight Test for this little junket?"
	Jim Rhodes grinned and shook his hand.  "She thought there
might be some cleanup to do, but Zoner tells us you've got everything
under control."
	"Yeah, things are... odd here."
	"I'll say," Pepper said.  "Who's the kid out in the hall?  And
shouldn't -she- be in -school-?"
	"It's, uh... complicated.  That kid is, in fact, a police
officer.  She's here to make sure I don't wander off."  Stark
grinned.  "I'm a material witness in a terrorist incident."
	"Really?" Rhodes asked, looking skeptical.
	"Really."
	"Huh."  Rhodes scratched the back of his head.  "I saw the
uniform, but I thought she was a crossing guard or something."
	Stark sighed, shaking his head with a rueful smile.  "No
respect," he said.
	"Seriously, she can't be more than 16," Rhodes persisted.
	Stark shrugged a little.  "Her driver's license says she'll be
19 in August."
	"She has a DRIVER'S LICENSE?"
	"She also has a gun, so keep your voice down," Stark said with
a wink.
	Rhodes laughed.  "OK, I give.  This is a strange country."
	"You have no idea."  Stark turned to Pepper.  "Pep, did you
bring the stuff I asked for?"
	"Yes, but I don't see what you want with it," she replied.
"You're going to be flat on your back for the next three weeks at
least.  What are you going to do with 500 SP7010s?"
	Stark smiled mischievously.  "It's a surprise."
	Pepper folded her arms.  "I hate your surprises.  The -last-
one was finding out you'd taken the suit into combat and blown out
what's left of your heart."
	"I didn't -blow it out-, I ran out of power."
	"Either way."
	"So what are you complaining about?" Stark asked.  "You've
wanted me to get it replaced since the 74 got FDA approval."  He
gestured airily.  "Well, here I am."
	Pepper threw up her hands in exasperation.  "You are an
impossibly difficult man," she said, but she wasn't quite able to
suppress her smile.
	Stark nodded in sad acknowledgement of the fact, then
suggested, "You should marry me."
	Pepper folded her arms again.  "Ha.  I'd sooner marry Rhodey.
At least if he got killed I'd expect it."
	Rhodes grinned broadly.  "Yeah!"  Then his grin faded into a
look of mock annoyance.  "Wait, what?"
	Pepper laughed, then patted Stark on the arm.  "We should let
you rest.  We're staying in Tokyo until you're out of danger, though,
so you'll see us again after the operation."
	"I'm looking forward to it," Stark said.  He shook Rhodes's
hand again, accepted another lying-down hug and kiss from Pepper, and
waved them both out of the room.

TUESDAY, MAY 11, 2027
VINH PHU PROVINCE, VIETNAM

	Hiking through the night was surprisingly untiring; the suit
did most of the work, and if he restricted himself to basic mobility,
Iron Man could go several days on a full battery charge.  By
mid-morning the next day, he figured he was probably two hours out of
the nearest American outpost, the firebase at Diem La.
	That left him with the interesting problem of how to present
himself.  He could, he supposed, just walk up and say "Hiya, fellas -
give a guy a lift to Hanoi?"  That could get kind of inconvenient, but
what else could he do?  He had a lot of questions to answer when he
got back to civilization, however he did it.
	As he ruminated on this, he heard a resounding CRASH, then saw
a column of black smoke boiling up out of the jungle a few hundred
yards ahead.  He slowed his pace - it was pretty much impossible to be
stealthy in the armor, but he could at least not crash through the
underbrush like a startled rhino - and moved cautiously toward the
smoke.  Five minutes or so of careful walking brought him to a small
clearing where a downed UD-5 was still smoldering.
	Hmm.
	Iron Man moved carefully toward the aerodyne, trying to see
into its star-cracked windows.  He didn't really want to get involved,
but if there were American soldiers here, they might need his help,
and he couldn't very well just walk away.
	"HOLD IT!" a voice barked from behind him.  The voice sounded
very Western.  Iron Man froze.
	"I'm an American," he said, putting his hands up.
	"Turn around.  Real slow," the voice commanded.
	Iron Man complied - then almost laughed when he saw that the
man who was giving him orders held nothing but a standard-issue 9mm
autopistol.  He'd been half-expecting a LAAW or something.
	More reassuringly still, the guy was definitely an American,
or at least definitely not Chinese; he was over six feet tall and
black, with close-cropped hair and the jumpsuit of a U.S. Army aviator.
	"Look, Warrant Officer... Rhodes," Iron Man said after peering
at the name tape on the man's jumpsuit, "I'm on your side.  Really.
Do I sound even vaguely Chinese?"
	"Take off your helmet," Rhodes said, emphasizing his point
with a pistol gesture.
	"I can't."
	"What?"
	"I can't take off my helmet.  It's bolted on.  You'll have to
take it off me if you want it off.  The wrench is in one of my belt
compartments."
	Rhodes gave him a skeptical look.  "... uh-HUH," he said.
	"It's a prototype," Iron Man said, a bit lamely.
	"I bet," Rhodes replied.  He eyed the unusual figure before him
for a moment, then sighed and holstered his sidearm.  "I don't suppose
my nine would do much to stop you anyway."
	"Not unless you've got kinetic penetrators for it," Iron Man
replied.  He gestured with a thumb to the jagged holes in the side of
the Penobscot.  "Looks like you got shot down.  Any idea what got you?"
	Rhodes shook his head.  "Didn't see anything.  Flying along
minding my own business and wham!  I didn't think there were hostiles
this far south.  Lines are too fucking fluid in this sector.  It's
those goddamn - "
	He stopped talking and held up a hand.  Off in the distance,
both men could hear a rhythmic metallic sound, approaching fast - 
	- with a crash of broken vegetation, a machine plunged out of
the jungle into the clearing at the far end, then stopped.
	" - 717s, holy shit!" Rhodes finished.
	The machine that had just entered the clearing was indeed a
Chinese Type 717 battlemover.  Vaguely man-shaped, it stood about ten
feet high and had an odd forward-hunched posture, like a bird.  The
operator sat in an armored cab with his legs partly extended into the
upper legs and his arms partway into the machine's underslung arms.
Halfway between powered armor and a tank, the battlemover sported
considerable firepower for its size - it had an antipersonnel
machinegun, a light anti-armor cannon, and a couple of hardpoints for
missile racks - and had exceptional mobility, with wheels on its feet
and powerful short-duration thrusters with which it could make
impressive jumps.
	The 717's sensor array, mounted where intuition said its
"head" should be, tracked this way and that as its pilot scanned the
area.  It didn't take much perspicacity on his part to notice the two
figures standing near the wreckage of the aerodyne.  He pivoted his
machine slightly and brought his machinegun to bear.

# Powerman 5000
# "Transform"
# Transform (2003)

	Ben Hutchins didn't think about it; he just moved.  Rhodes was
amazed by the speed with which the bulky metallic figure got between
him and the machinegun.  Bullets yowled off into the jungle and
thunked into the side of the wrecked UD-5 as they bounced off Iron
Man's barrel chest.
	Inside the suit, Ben gritted his teeth and grunted.  The
battlemover's gun was considerably more powerful than the small arms
Wong-Chu's men had used; though the rounds couldn't penetrate his
armor, being pelted with them sent painful shocks through the suit's
chassis, banging him around inside it.  Enough of that treatment and
he'd be knocked out, or the cardiac unit would stop working.
	Either way, he had to take out that gun.  Planting his feet,
he charged his main weapons array, something he hadn't even had to do
against Wong-Chu and his thugs.
	The targeting resources at his disposal were, like the rest of
the suit, pretty primitive.  Powering up the weapons array dropped a
deflection sight salvaged from a Chinese helicopter gunner's helmet in
front of his left eye.  It had a glowing pipper that gave him a
rudimentary aim point for one of his three principal weapons, but
given that the other two were on his gloves, they had wider tracking
options than the sight could help much with.
	Still, it was better than nothing, and it gave him a frame of
reference.  He raised his hands, said a silent prayer to the ghost of
Tony Stark, and fired.
	With a crackle of ionized air, the circular ports built into
the palms of his gauntlets emitted focused low-intensity plasma beams.
Their aim wasn't to burn their target, as high-energy plasma weapons
did, but rather to create a concussion wave effect, striking their
target like a physical blow.  Tony had called them "repulsor beams"
and said they could one day have a wide range of peaceful uses, since
they could easily be set to non-lethal intensities.
	Right now, though, they were jacked up as high as they would
go, and they hit the battlemover like a wrecking ball.  Ben's aim was
a little off, though.  The beams didn't converge and strike the same
point; one hit the battlemover high in the right arm, the other on its
armored carapace.  It was knocked momentarily off-balance, the
arm-mounted machinegun spraying into the air for a second, but quickly
recovered.
	Seeing that his machinegun wasn't doing any good, the 717's
pilot switched to his main gun, the 50mm light anti-armor cannon slung
under his cockpit.  This weapon was mounted on a "chin turret" and
could track across an arc of about 90 degrees.  Aided by his radar
sight, it easily drew a bead on his curious ironclad foe.
	Steady, Ben, the man inside the suit told himself.  Some part
of his mind was quite surprised at his complete lack of panic.  He'd
been under fire before, of course - he was, at least at the moment, a
war correspondent - but he'd never actually been a full-fledged
-combatant- before, and he was startled to discover that he wasn't too
daunted by the prospect.
	This next move would take split-second timing, anyway, so he
didn't have time to be scared.  He was reasonably sure his armor
wouldn't stand up to that cannon, and its projectiles would be moving
too fast for his magnetic deflector to turn them aside.  He would have
to get out of the way, something that the Chinese pilot clearly didn't
think his bulky, ponderous suit could do fast enough.
	He waited until the absolute last moment, and then he moved.
	The cloud of smoke momentarily made the 717's pilot think he'd
scored a hit with his first round - then he caught the flicker of
movement and realized it wasn't so.  The smoke was from his burst
hitting the ground and detonating, and from the jump jets he hadn't
realized his opponent had.
	Iron Man landed on the slightly canted upper deck of the
wrecked Penobscot, throwing up some sparks as his boots' iron treads
bit into the metal.
	His heart was pounding, but the chestplate was still doing its
job, and there was neither pain nor weakness in him.  In fact, he felt
exhilarated.  Every nerve was lit up, every sense extended beyond its
normal limits.  Despite the confinement of his iron skin, he felt more
free than he had since this whole ordeal began.  The suit felt like
home - felt like part of him.
	He felt like he did when he broke a big story, only amplified
through the incredible immediacy of this life-or-death moment.  He was
on top, in control, not victim but victor, not target but aggressor.
Though battered and wounded, kept balanced on the brink of death by
the iron suit he wore, he had never felt more alive.
	The sensation, and his unquestioning acceptance of it, would
have worried him a bit if he hadn't been so busy.
	Successful test of the jump booster system, he remarked to
himself.  Let's try the repulsors again.
	His aim was better this time; the beams converged on the 717's
miniturret, smashing the rotator.  It didn't put the cannon out of
commission, but it did make it so the pilot had to aim the whole 717
to draw a bead, which put a bit of a crimp in his style.
	He went to the missiles instead.  Iron Man tried to use his
magnetic deflector to screw up their guidance systems, but it was
powered off - it drew too much energy to be online at the same time as
the booster array.  Cursing, he jumped again.  The missiles plowed
into the UD-5's carcass, blowing it to pieces.  The shockwave slapped
Iron Man out of the air and sent him tumbling painfully across the
turf of the clearing.  He came to a halt face-down and sprawling,
trying to get his wits back together.
	The 717 ran across the clearing as he pulled himself to hands
and knees.  Its left arm reached out and grabbed him, its manipulator
claw pinning his arms to his sides, and picked him up so that he was
even with the sensor head.
	Well, that was a mistake, he thought.
	The circular fitting on his chest glowed, then flared, firing
a beam of yellow-white light a palm's-breadth in diameter.  It slashed
across the battlemover's upper surface and melted the armor-glass lens
of the sensor housing, then burned away most of the sensors inside.
The 717 recoiled as its pilot instinctively reacted to the sudden
blackout of almost all his sensor systems.  Iron Man shifted power to
his exostructure and pushed the claw open, dropping to the ground.
	The movements of the suit were starting to get a little
sluggish, power levels beginning to drop.  Iron Man knew he had to
finish the fight now, if he was going to finish it at all.
	The 717 swung toward him, its pilot working by eyeball through
his narrow viewport.  Iron Man gathered himself for one last boost and
jumped, landing on the machine's upper deck just as his thrusters
sputtered and went offline.
	No power left for a main-force assault on the hatch, but that
was no big deal.  A fingertip laser torch was all he needed.  He
burned the lock, grabbed the edge of the hatch in one iron hand, and
yanked upward.  The whole assembly sheared away at the hinges and
flipped away.
	"Power down or die!" Iron Man yelled at the pilot, who was
staring wide-eyed up through his tinted visor.  When the man didn't
respond, Iron Man leveled a repulsor at him and repeated the demand in
Vietnamese.  He didn't know Chinese, but most of the Chinese officers
assigned to this theater spoke Vietnamese at least well enough to
understand a threat like that.
	Instead of complying, the pilot wrenched at his controls and
tipped his machine, purposely dropping the 717 onto its back.  Iron
Man went flying, hit the ground, tumbled over once, and came up in a
fighting crouch, hands held wide and low at his sides, palms forward.
Diverting whatever power he had left to his repulsors, he prepared for
a counterattack.
	None came.  The 717 pilot had had enough.  Instead of righting
his machine, he unbuckled, scrambled out, and ran for it.  Iron Man
considered bringing him down, but decided against it.  He didn't have
enough power for a killing blow with the repulsors at that range, and
he didn't have the stomach to finish the man off up close after
knocking him down.  What the hell, he was just a soldier, trying to do
his job.
	Iron Man tried to get up, then fell back to one knee as a jolt
of serious pain shot through his chest.
	Damn, he thought.
	"Hey!  You OK?" came the voice of the Army pilot.  "What's the
matter?"
	"I need power.  Help me... get to the 717, will you?  There's
got to be... some kind of maintenance port... "

	In the end, they tore the power leads out of the tracking
motor for the cannon turret and patched them into the charge ports on
Iron Man's chestplate.
	"Ahh," said the armored man as he sat on one of the
battlemover's legs and soaked up the charge.  "That's better."
	"Well, stranger, I owe you an apology," Rhodes said, taking up
a perch on the opposite leg.  "You just saved my hide.  I'm Jim
Rhodes.  Friends call me Rhodey."
	Ben considered being evasive, but it just wasn't in him.  He
had to tell someone what had happened to him, and this guy seemed like
a straight enough arrow.
	"Nice to meet you, Rhodey.  I'm Ben Hutchins."
	"The reporter?"  Rhodes raised an eyebrow.  "What're you doing
in... that?"
	"Well... it's kind of a long story.  Have you got any water?
I haven't had anything to drink since yesterday."
	Rhodes nodded and held out his canteen.
	"First I'm gonna need your help getting this helmet off," Iron
Man added wryly.

TUESDAY, FEBRUARY 24, 2032
4:51 PM
MEGA TOKYO, JAPAN

	Sylia Stingray wasn't entirely sure why she'd come to the
hospital.  Her part in the matter was concluded when she and MegaZone
got Stark out of most of his armor and back to his suite at the
Imperial Palace Hotel, so that there would be no awkward questions to
answer when an ambulance from the Great Kanto Medical Center arrived
to collect their new transplant patient.  There was no real reason why
she should know Benjamin Stark or care that he was hospitalized.
	Then again, there was no real reason why she shouldn't either.
She had connections to the Stark family that a diligent researcher
could turn up.  Her father had worked with Howard Stark back in the
teens and she herself had corresponded with Anthony Stark in college.
That being the case, she'd determined that there was no significant
security risk in showing up.
	So she'd come, and now she sat in a private surgeons' lounge
at the hospital, listening to MegaZone tell a story about one of the
many adventures he and Stark had had over the last few years.
	"... so Ben flashes his press card and says to the guy, 'You
can explain it to me or you can explain it to an ICC judge, pal.  I
get paid the same either way.'"
	Sylia smiled.  "That can't have gone over well," she observed
mildly.
	MegaZone snorted.  "I'll say.  I thought the senator was going
to rupture something - especially since he -sponsored- the bill that
recognized the International Communications Court in the first place!"
	This time Sylia actually laughed - a reserved sort of laugh,
to be sure, but a laugh all the same.  She was pleased that the
American doctor was -able- to joke and tell amusing stories of past
times.  Earlier, he'd seemed very tense, but the arrival of the two
Stark Industries people from the States, and the fact that they had
taken over most of the logistical concerns involved in the upcoming
operation, had done much to relieve his stress.  He seemed pretty
loose now - relaxed, ready to go.  He even had enough mental bandwidth
available to throw a little mild flirting her way.
	All that ended, though, when a nurse - a humanoid boomer,
Sylia was mildly surprised to see - appeared in the doorway to the
lounge.
	"The surgical theater is ready, Dr. MegaZone," the nurse
reported.  "Mr. Stark can be moved in for prep whenever you wish."
	Zoner's jovial manner vanished as if a switch had been
thrown.  His formerly-relaxed face stiffened into planes of
concentration again.  He clenched his jaw, took a deep breath, and
released it slowly before replying.
	"Thank you," he said.  "I'll take it from here."
	"I am fully qualified to assist in all bionic organ
replacement procedures," the nurse pointed out.
	Zoner shook his head.  "That won't be necessary.  I'll be
handling this myself."
	The nurse boomer nodded, overhead lights glinting from her
silver earcaps.  "As you wish," she said, then turned and left the
room.
	MegaZone got up from his chair, tossed down the last of his
coffee, and dropped the cup into the corner wastebasket.
	"It has been a pleasure, but, if you'll excuse me," he said
with a slightly forced attempt at wryness, "it's time I got to work."
	Sylia got up and surprised herself slightly by putting a hand
on his arm.  He paused, turning to give her a faintly curious look.
	"Are you all right?" she asked him, her dark eyes looking
directly into his own.
	"I'm about to go in there, split open my best friend's
rib cage, rip out his heart, and replace it with a mechanical one I
designed," Zoner replied.  "I'm responsible for his life.  No, I'm not
really OK."
	"You'll do fine," Sylia said.
	"I know," Zoner replied.  "I have to."
	So saying, he gave her a wan smile, laid his hand on her
shoulder for a moment, and said quietly, "Thanks."  Then he went past
her and disappeared into the corridor beyond.
	Sylia turned to watch as the door closed behind him, and found
herself worrying - for both men.

	Ben Stark finished typing the last thing he felt it necessary
for him to write before the operation, shut down and folded up his
portable, and glanced at the wall clock.  It confirmed what the
laptop's system clock had just told him: The time was nearly at hand.
	He closed his eyes and tried to compose his thoughts.  He felt
tired, but there was a kind of tranquility that went with that, a
certain resignation to the fact that whatever happened next was, to a
certain extent, in the hands of fate.
	There was a knock at the door, and a moment later it opened.
Stark looked up, expecting to see Zoner entering, but instead he saw
Nene Romanova.
	Damn, he thought abstractly, Rhodey's right - she does look a
bit like a crossing guard.
	"Hey, kid," he said.
	"Hi," she replied, her voice hushed the way people do in
hospitals, even when there's really no reason for it.  "How are you
feeling?"
	"Tired," he replied.  "I've fought against this for years, but
now that I have to go through with it, I'm looking forward to having
it over with."
	Nene approached his bedside a little hesitantly.  "Can I...
can I ask you something?"
	"Sure."
	"Why the suit?"
	"I'm not sure I follow the question."
	"What I mean is... why didn't you have this done when you got
home?  Why keep wearing the chestplate all those years?  Why did you
have the rest of the suit with you if you never wore it before last
night?"
	He sighed.  "Ask me an -easy- one the next time I'm about to
go into surgery," he grumped.  She looked downcast, so he reached and
took one of her hands, smiling.  "It's complicated, Nene.  And not
very rational.  From my StarkWire post this morning and what you've
seen of the tin suit, I'm sure you've pieced together more or less
what happened?"
	Nene nodded.  "I think so."
	"Well... for a long time I just... couldn't quite come to
terms with the fact that I made it out and Tony didn't.  I kept the
plate as a sort of... reminder of what I owe him.  Which is more or
less everything."  He chuckled.  "Also, I'm a big coward and just
didn't want to have a major operation."
	"You're no coward," Nene said positively.  "A coward wouldn't
have done what you did last night."
	"It's easy to be brave from inside a metal shell."  He smiled
ironically.  "I'm sure you've noticed that yourself."
	Nene put her free hand behind her head and laughed awkwardly.
"Well, yeah, there is that."  Then, becoming serious, she said, "But
what about what you did for Priss?"
	"Heh.  That wasn't so much brave as just stupid."
	"It's a fine line sometimes," Nene observed wistfully.
	"That it is.  That it is.  Listen, will you do me a favor?"
	"Sure.  What is it?"
	He reached to his belt compartments, popped one open, and
placed the glowing blue ROM tab in the palm of her hand.
	"Look after Tony for me while I'm out of commission," he
said.
	Nene stared at the glowing blue chip resting on her palm, then
turned her eyes to its owner.
	"I - I can't," she said, but he just smiled and closed her
hand over the chip.
	"I'm sure you'll think of plenty of things to ask him.  He's
only a ROM construct, so he's not very creative, but he answers
questions well."
	"I... OK," she said.  Carefully, she put the chip in the top
pocket of her uniform shirt, making a mental note to go out and buy a
proper personal tab vault as soon as she left the hospital.  "I'll
keep it safe."
	"I know you will."
	The door opened again and in came Zoner, looking serious.  He
nodded to Nene, then turned to Stark.
	"It's time," he said.
	"Let's go, then.  No sense hanging around," Stark replied,
trying to be jaunty.
	"Good luck," Nene told him as Zoner unhooked the chestplate
power cables from the wall, coiled them up, and set the autogurney
rolling toward the operating theater.
	"Thanks," Stark said as he was conveyed from the room.  He
turned at the door and raised a hand in a wave.  "You're a good kid,
Nene.  I'll see you soon."
	"... I'm not a kid," she said half-heartedly, but by the time
she did she was alone in the room.

	One of the criteria Pepper Potts had had in mind when she went
shopping for a hospital was this: To be considered, a facility had to
possess a fully equipped cybernetic surgical theater, preferably one
fitted out by Stark Medical.  There were, as it turned out, nine
hospitals so equipped in greater Tokyo, four of which had Stark
equipment.
	That this particular hospital had a StarkMed 2027-C surgical
bay was a considerable comfort to MegaZone as he passed through the
pathogen scanner in the airlock, which confirmed that he'd scrubbed up
properly and wasn't carrying anything liable to cause complications
into the operating theater beyond.  He could do the job with another
manufacturer's equipment - international standards were international
standards - but he knew all the idiosyncrasies of the Stark bay
intimately.  He had, after all, headed the design team.
	He went to the center of the gleaming silver room and lowered
himself into the command seat.  With unhurried, well-practiced
movements he fitted a cybernetic barrier collar around his neck and
connected it to his neuroprocessor's interface ports at the base of
his skull, then cabled the collar in turn to the surgical bay's
interface computer.
	This was the weird part, the part that took some medical
students months to get used to, the part that some students -never-
got used to: hitting the green button and suddenly being beset by the
sensation of having two dozen arms and a score of eyes.  It made a lot
of people queasy, challenged some subjects' very sense of reality, and
simply failed to make sense to about ten percent of the brains on the
planet.
	To Zoner it was like putting on a comfortable shirt.
	He smiled as the suite came online, checked to make sure all
the manipulators, probes, and instruments were functioning, and ran
through a basic re-familiarization routine, operating the various
mechanisms with a combination of neural commands and slight movements
of his hands on armrest controls.  He was gloved and fully expected to
use his flesh-and-blood hands at a few key points in the procedure,
but the bulk of the work would be done with the surgical bay's
specialized tools instead, and it was important to be sure that each
was working and that he remembered where they all were before bringing
in the patient.
	Which was the next thing he did.
	"How you feeling?" he asked as the automatic gurney deposited
Ben Stark before him.
	Stark looked dubiously up at the forest of metallic arms,
saws, retractors, and what have you sprouting from around the light
fixture above him, to say nothing of the other manipulators and
instruments mounted on pedestals flanking the gurney.
	"Like I've just been ejected from the Matrix," he replied.
	Zoner chuckled.  "It's built for efficiency, not looks," he
said.  "Ready to bypass your barriers?"
	"Go for it," Stark said.  A moment later he stiffened slightly
as the gurney lined up a pair of probes and plugged them into his own
cybernetic interface jacks.
	"It's lucky you have a neuroprocessor," Zoner observed.
"Makes my job a lot simpler, anyway.  Without it I'd have to use
chemical anesthesia, and that can be dodgy, even in this day and age."
	"I'm sure," Stark replied dryly.  "Just make sure you don't
delete my porn collection," he added.  "I'll never find some of that
stuff again."
	"I told you to make backups," Zoner said with an air of
put-upon resignation.  "OK, barrier elements bypassed.  Medical
command protocol is uploaded.  I'm going to lock you into a delta
state for 48 hours."
	Stark chuckled.  "That's what my last girlfriend in college
told me," he said.
	Zoner raised an eyebrow, not taking his eyes off the surgical
unit's main display.  "Wasn't that, what was her name, Sherry?  Jesus,
you didn't give -her- your neurocom passcodes, did you?"
	Stark turned his head enough to give his friend a look.
"Dude, I didn't even have a neuroprocessor then?"
	Zoner looked up.  "Oh, right."  He made a couple more
adjustments, then said, "Well... you ready?"
	Stark closed his eyes and seemed to be communing with some
inner force for a few moments.  Then he opened them again, looked at
his friend as best he could in his position, and said simply,
	"Let's go."
	Zoner took a breath, let it out, rolled a last bit of tension
out of his shoulders, and said, "OK, then.  See you Thursday!"
	Then he pressed the key to activate the medical command
system, and Benjamin Stark knew no more.

TUESDAY, MAY 11, 2027
VINH PHU PROVINCE, VIETNAM

	"... and, well, here we are," Ben Hutchins finished.
	Jim Rhodes raised an eyebrow.  "That's a pretty wild story,
man," he said.
	"You're telling me?" Ben replied wryly.  "Anyway, I figure I
can hotwire this thing's radio to call Diem La or Hanoi and get
somebody out here to pick us up," he went on, clambering into the
awkwardly-tilted cockpit of the downed 717.
	"Whoa, hey, that's not a good idea," Rhodes said, climbing up
after him and putting a hand on his shoulder.
	Ben turned to him, puzzled.  "Why not?" he asked.
	"You don't want to just go back looking like that and tell the
whole story," Rhodes said.  "The spooks in Hanoi have thought Stark
was holding out on them for months.  You show up with something like
that tin suit and they'll take it -and- you apart for months.  When I
fly ass-and-trash for the headquarters company, I hear things."  He
snorted.  "Shit, those CIA jackoffs must think the dynos fly
themselves the way they talk on the intercom."
	Ben looked taken aback.  This was an angle he hadn't
considered, but now that Rhodes brought it up, it made perfect sense.
Limited endurance aside, the Iron Man suit was a major leap forward in
personal weapons technology.  Certainly the Army brass and the CIA
would want it, and they wouldn't be any too inclined to let some
-reporter- stand between them and getting hold of it.
	"... OK... plan B," he agreed.  "I hope this thing can do
satcom.  Here, help me get my helmet back on, will you?  Just in case
we get any more visitors while we're waiting... "

	One quick jury-rig (it would only occur to Ben later that he'd
never hotwired a Chinese military radio before, and, as such, it was
kind of strange that it had been so -easy-) and a short conversation
with a very puzzled Stark Industries executive in the States later,
the two men had pickup on the way.  It took a Stark aerodyne an hour
to reach their location from the company's field office in Hanoi and
another half-hour to secure their prize (the 717) and get them all on
their way back to the city.
	By the time they arrived at the Stark Industries compound in
the capital, the executive Ben had spoken to was halfway to Vietnam on
a high-speed suborbital.  The reporter and Rhodes were in separate
offices trying to get some sleep when she arrived a couple of hours
later.
	At 27, Virginia "Pepper" Potts was one of the youngest
high-level executives in the United States.  She had been elevated to
her present lofty post as Executive Vice President for Operations of
Stark Industries by the boss himself, Tony Stark, a year earlier.
Before that she'd worked as his private executive assistant for two
years, but her drive and talent for administration, coupled with her
uncanny ability to see the business world in the same terms as her
boss, had made her promotion all but inevitable.  It had produced some
grumbling here and there when it happened, but not for long - her
competence was too evident for mutterings about nepotism to last.
	She was no knockout, but Pepper Potts wasn't hard to look at
by any means.  She had bright red hair she wore in a businesslike
style and she did nice things to power suits; her face was cute and
often mischievous, with green eyes and a scattershot of freckles over
the bridge of her nose.  She looked younger than she was, an effect
she constantly had to battle against (with the aid of a small army of
makeup artists) when she went before Congressional subcommittees or
the Federal Trade Commission.
	Now she was tired and worried, which kept her from looking her
best.  Tony Stark had been missing for almost a week, and the garbled
message that had come in over satcom had given her some reason to hope
that he might be alive.  Now, seeing the metal-clad form slumped in a
chair in one of the spare offices in Hanoi, she was sure of it.  Who
else could have the ingenuity to build something like that for an
escape from bandits?  Such a thing could only have come from the mind
of her boss.
	"Tony!" she said.  "Oh, thank God.  I thought you were dead!"
	The armored figure jumped slightly - the man inside the suit
had apparently been asleep - and looked up.  Then he tilted his head
slightly, as if taken aback by what he saw.  He got slowly to his feet
and was about to speak when she rounded the desk and hugged him
despite the rough edges of his armored suit.
	"I was so worried," she said.
	O Christ, thought Ben Hutchins with a flash of sinking
insight.  She's in love with him.  This is going to be ugly.
	"Uh... I'm... I'm sorry, Ms. Potts," he said.  "I'm... not
Tony Stark."
	Pepper let him go and backed up, shock on her face.  "You're
not?  But then... who are you?"
	Ben fumbled at his belt and got out the wrench, then handed it
to her.  "You'll have to help me with the helmet," he said.
	Slowly, with a look of numb disbelief and fingers made clumsy
by shock, Pepper unscrewed the fasteners that held Iron Man's
faceplate on, then lifted it away.  When she saw the face beneath, she
dropped the iron mask to the floor and stumbled back against the edge
of the desk.
	"You're -not- Tony," she said.
	"I'm sorry," Ben repeated.  "My name's Ben Hutchins.  I'm a
reporter for WorldWatch."
	"Yes... I've heard of you... Tony's mentioned you quite a few
times... but - where is he?"
	"He... "  Ben swallowed, feeling his eyes go stinging-hot
again.  "He didn't make it out."
	Pepper stared at him in utter horror.
	"No.  That can't be true."
	"I wish to hell it wasn't," he replied.  He opened another of
the compartments and gingerly fished out what was inside it - a
tightly folded packet of paper.  He unfolded it and held it, two rough
sheets torn from the flyleaf of an old physics textbook that had been
lying around the prison/workshop in Wong-Chu's compound, out to her.
Slowly, as if her body were moving without her consent, she reached
out, then snatched it away from him and retreated to the far side of
the desk to read it.
	It was a letter - the last declaration of Anthony Edward
Stark, written in an increasingly-unsteady hand with a ballpoint pen
in the dying inventor's last hours.  It took Pepper Potts several
tries to read it; she had a hard time getting past the salutation.

Vietnam
May 7, 2027

My darling Pepper,
	I'm so sorry I never said that to you in person except in
jest.  It's only now, at the end, that I realize how very important
you've been to me these last few years.  I couldn't have kept Stark
Industries afloat without your help after Mom and Dad died.  I might
have been the Great Inventor, but you have more of a head for business
than I could ever have had.
	I was badly wounded a few days ago in a mine explosion while
on patrol with a group of soldiers who were testing the Mark IV.  My
friend Ben Hutchins and I were the only survivors, and I, at least, am
not going to make it.  I've made my peace with that.  It's not the way
I'd have wanted to go, but at least I was somewhere making a difference
when my ticket came up.
	I'm leaving Ben the company.  I know that may seem like a poor
way of thanking you for everything I talked about up above, but if you
think about it for a minute, you'll see that I couldn't have left it
to you.  It'd be too easy for my cousin Morgan to contest that will,
citing undue influence or whatever else he cared to name.  It would be
different if I'd had the brains to make you Mrs. Virginia Stark, but
it's too late for that now.
	Anyway, he's a good man - one of the best men I know - and
he'll take care of you.  I've asked him to make you president and CEO
of Stark Industries.  He'll leave everything to you and go on doing
what he does.  It's in his blood, he wouldn't be able to stop if he
wanted to.  Just like me and inventing.  It's one of the things that
drew us together, I think.
	I have to try and get some rest now; my strength is failing
faster than I expected, and I still have a lot of work to do if Ben is
going to get out of here alive.  I know his appearance and the news he
brings will come as a shock to you, but please try not to blame him.
Like I said, he's a good man.  He's going to need your help, just like
I did.  Stand by him.  You won't regret it.
	Don't do anything stupid like wall yourself off from the world
over this, Pep.  You're a young woman and you have a bright future.  I
want you to be happy.

Love always,
TONY

	She read it twice, the second time unable to focus properly on
the words because of the tears coursing down her face.  Then she
carefully folded it up and tucked it away in an inside pocket of her
suitjacket before wiping at her eyes with a handkerchief.  The gesture
didn't do much good, but at least she was -partly- able to see the
haggard, wretched face of the man who'd brought her the news.
	Despite Tony's explicit request in the letter that she not
blame the messenger, Pepper couldn't suppress the surge of anger that
welled up inside her and broke through the grief.
	"So that's it, then?" she demanded, rounding the desk to
confront him.  "You figure you can just walk in and take over where
Tony left off?  For all I know you killed him!"
	Ben looked first horrified, then furious.
	"You think I -wanted- this?" he snarled, gesturing to himself.
"Tony Stark was like my brother, and thanks to the way this went down
I didn't even get to say a proper goodbye.  All I have now is this
iron shell and his ghost in my head."
	She knew it was cruel and spiteful - he was obviously
suffering too - but Pepper's rage wasn't spent yet, and she couldn't
stop herself from adding nastily, "And one of the world's leading
technology companies.  Oh, and a few billion dollars."
	"Fuck the company!  Fuck the money!" Ben Hutchins snapped with
a vehemence that shook her out of her wrathful reverie.  "Give me a
pen, I'll sign the whole fucking thing over to you right now.  God
dammit!"  Tears were tracking the grime on his face now; he sat down
heavily in the office chair (which protested and nearly collapsed
under his armored weight), dropping his forehead onto one gauntleted
hand.  "What the hell do I know about being rich anyway?" he added
miserably.
	Pepper gazed at him, her own tears still flowing freely, and
then said in a quieter voice, "... You know... I think I believe you.
Look... "  She wiped at her eyes again, trying to pull herself
together.  "I'm... I'm sorry I snapped at you.  I just... "
	She couldn't seem to go on.  Ben looked up at her, then got to
his feet, looking awkward.
	"Yeah... I'm... I'm sorry I yelled at you too.  I've... been
under a lot of pressure lately," he finished lamely.
	Pepper paused for a second to consider the ordeal this man
must have just been through.  The thought made her ashamed of herself
for her outburst, which brought on a wave of fresh tears.  Impulsively
she hugged him again, ignoring the cold, unyielding roughness of his
armor.  He didn't seem to know what to do for a moment, then gingerly
put his ironclad arms around her.
	"... it just hurts so much... " she whispered.
	"Yeah," he agreed.  "I know."

	The next morning, Stark Industries announced that a security
team had rescued a reporter last seen with Tony Stark's missing patrol
the week before - and a downed Army aviator to boot.  The company
presented the captured 717 to the Army (which promptly handed it back
so that SI's engineers could tear it down and study it for them).  A
team of SI Security officers retrieved the bodies of Tony Stark and Ho
Yinsen from the burned-out remains of Wong-Chu's compound in Son La
Province.  An Army board of inquiry determined that Mr. Stark had met
his untimely end in a manner consistent with the statement of the only
living witness, WorldWatch reporter Benjamin Hutchins.  Jim Rhodes
went back to his unit.
	And that, as far as the Army was concerned, was that.
	That afternoon, Ben Hutchins, Pepper Potts, and the earthly
remains of Tony Stark flew back to the United States.
	The first two hours of the suborbital hop, aboard the company's
well-appointed but not opulent Boeing Globehopper, passed in silence.
Ben, dressed in ill-fitting civvies over his vital (and by now rather
itchy, but Pepper had promised to have a nanocleaner treatment waiting
for him in New York) chestplate, dozed in his seat, still exhausted
from the whole experience.  Pepper stared out the window at the
curvature of the planet below, lost in thought.  It wasn't until they
had passed apogee and started to descend that she spoke.
	"You'll have a fight on your hands, you know," she said.
	"Huh?  Wha?" Ben replied, jerking awake.
	Pepper turned her seat to face him across the aisle.  "The
will.  Morgan will contest it."
	He nodded.  "I expect so."
	"Aren't you concerned about it?"
	"After what I just lived through?  Not really," he replied
bluntly.  "Let him come.  If there's one thing I learned from Tony,
it's that you never... -ever-... give up."
	Pepper smiled sadly.  "That's one of the things I like...
liked... best about him.  His determination.  People think of him as a
typical no-substance playboy, but he has... had... a real core of...
well, of -iron-," she said, then sniffled and muttered, "Oh, -damn-."
	"Sorry," he said.  "Listen... when we get back to the States,
once we get all the paperwork and stuff taken care of, I'll stay out
of your way.  I know it must be hard... being reminded all the time."
	"No, no, it's... it's good," Pepper said.  "I mean... it
hurts, but... I'd rather hurt than try to forget... "
	He nodded.  They sat in silence for a few more minutes while
she got herself together again.  Then, with a note of curiosity in her
voice, she asked,
	"What did you mean earlier?  When we were yelling at each
other, you said something about having his ghost in your head."
	"Oh, uh... right.  Toward the end... he realized he wasn't
going to make it long enough to help Professor Yinsen and I finish the
suit... so he cobbled together a personality-ROM encoder.  But we
didn't have a datatab big enough for it, so we ended up dumping it to
my wetdrive."  He tapped the side of his head.  "Everything he knew... 
it's all in here."
	Pepper regarded him steadily for a few moments, her eyes moist
but clear.
	"That must be... remarkable," she said after some thought.
	"It's a strange feeling.  It's not -supposed- to feel like
anything, but I think the construct might have overrun the storage
space a bit.  Sometimes I think of things... that I would never have
thought of.  When we get back, I'd like to have an expert take a look
at it.  See if we can pull the construct down to a P-ROM tab."
	She nodded.  "We've got specialists who can handle that kind
of thing at Headquarters."
	They lapsed into silence again, each alone with private
thoughts, until suddenly Ben spoke again as if thinking aloud.
	"I think I'll change my name," he said.
	"What?"
	"Well, it just occurred to me... that it might be a good way
of... "  He made a "what's the word" gesture.  "... of acknowledging
what I owe Tony.  Of... publicly shouldering his legacy, if you want
to put it that way.  Letting people know that I'm not about to go
renaming the company or abandoning its spirit.  And... "  He sighed.
"I know.  It's not very coherent.  And I'm supposed to be a
professional communicator too.  I just... "  He raised his red-rimmed,
tired eyes to hers.  "He was my brother, Pep... "
	She sniffed back fresh tears and smiled again, battered by two
extremes at once.  Tony was right; this -was- a good man, and one
worth getting to know.  In a perverse way, she was looking forward to
the fight that was coming - looking forward to going into it on his
side.
	"I think he'd like that," she said, and then, experimentally,
"Mr. Benjamin Stark."

WEDNESDAY, FEBRUARY 25, 2032
1:12 AM
MEGA TOKYO, JAPAN

	MegaZone shuffled into the scrub room, exhausted, stripping
off his garb.  Even with modern systems, major surgery would never be
bloodless.  He'd disposed of his gloves in the OR; now he shed his
scrubs and stuffed them into the recycling bin.  His body was moving
on automatic pilot as he climbed back into his street clothes; running
a surgical suite for hours required incredible concentration and
focus, and the second his patient had been wheeled off to recovery
Zoner had felt all the tension and energy drain from him.
	Zoner went through the connecting door into the surgeons'
lounge without taking note of his surroundings and sank into a chair,
eyes open but unseeing, running through the operation in his mind.
Mentally double checking his work, he tried to remember any mistakes,
anything he might have overlooked or forgotten.  He stared blankly
into space, running his hands over his matted hair, until he was
satisfied that there was nothing amiss.
	He'd done it, he'd successfully replaced his friend's heart,
and now it was up to Ben to heal.  There was nothing more he'd be able
to do but watch and wait.
	Sylia Stingray watched all of this from across the room.  She
watched the surgeon's hands moving in the air, repeating key moments
of the procedure, like a fighter pilot running through an after-combat
debriefing.  She listened to him muttering to himself as he ran
through the memories.  And finally saw him visibly relax when he
concluded everything had gone as well as could be expected.
	Zoner got up, trudged to the counter, pressed a few buttons on
the coffee machine, and was rewarded with a steaming cup, from which
he took a small sip.
	Well, at least the coffee here is pretty good, he thought to
himself.
	"It went well?" Sylia asked quietly.
	Zoner jumped a bit and nearly fumbled his coffee.  He'd been
so lost in thought that he'd completely failed to notice she was in
the room.  Sylia stifled a laugh and politely covered her smile.  He
was, she thought, funny when startled.
	"Oh, sorry, I didn't mean to ignore you," he replied, grinning
sheepishly and rubbing the back of his head.  "Yes, the procedure was
a success.  He should be resting comfortably."
	"That's... good.  I'm glad to hear it," Sylia was a bit
surprised to realize that she truly was glad, for both men, that the
surgery was a success.
	"I, uh, didn't expect you to be here when I finished," Zoner
observed.  "Have you been here the whole - "  He looked at the clock on
the lounge wall.  " - eight hours?  Er, not that I mind or anything!"
	Sylia smiled a bit at his flustered manner.  "Yes, I was going
to leave but I was... concerned for your well-being, and Mr. Stark's,
of course.  And Nene's, come to that.  When I last saw her, she was
asleep in a chair outside Mr. Stark's room."  Her smile became
slightly wry as she added, "I believe he's made something of an
impression on her."
	Zoner's wits were starting to return, stimulated by both the
coffee and Sylia's presence.  He suddenly realized that she looked
just as crisp and pressed as she had before he went into surgery.
	I wonder how she does that, some detached part of his brain
thought.
	He regarded her for a long moment, and she fixed his gaze in
return.  Finally, he broke the silence.  "Thank you, I appreciate it."
	"You're welcome," she replied with a small nod.
	"Well...  I suppose I should let the Stark folks know that he
made it through OK, and let Friday know so she can post something to
StarkWire."
	Sylia rose.  "I should inform Nene as well."
	"Yeah...  I could use a shower, and some clothes that haven't
been stuffed in a locker for the last eight hours... "  He was
interrupted by grumbling from his stomach.  "And, apparently, food.  I
was too nervous to eat much before the operation."  He paused, cocking
his head to the side, seeming to consider something.  "Would you,
uh...  Would you be willing to accompany me to dinner once I change?
I'd like the company."
	Sylia thought about it for a moment, looking MegaZone in the
eye.  Just as he was convinced she was going to turn him down, she
surprised him.
	"Yes," she said, sounding as though he wasn't the only one
surprised.  "Yes, I'd like that as well."


>>> INFOFEED
    FROM system:starkwire.com
    POSTED: 20320224.1620 (UTC)

SYSTEM MESSAGE

Mr. Stark's heart replacement surgery was completed a few minutes ago
and Dr. MegaZone reports that the operation appears to have been a
complete success.  Mr. Stark is now resting comfortably under
post-operative cyber-sedation.

Dr. MegaZone says Mr. Stark will be kept unconscious for the next 36
hours, but if everything goes according to plan, he should be alert by
Thursday evening.  If I know him, and I'd like to think I do, one of
the first things he'll do when they let him have access to his
portable again is make a post announcing his return.

Thank you for all your cards, emails, and file uploads of support.  We
here at StarkWire appreciate them all - except for that not-so-clever
attempt to corrupt our user contribution database, SupaHax59838.  The
police will want a word with you in the morning, Mr. Cheong, to say
nothing of your parents.

Have a pleasant day.

 - Fri

>>> END INFOFEED


THURSDAY, FEBRUARY 26, 2032
5:00 PM
MEGA TOKYO, JAPAN

	One of the odd things about having major surgery in a
top-flight cybernetic hospital like this one, Ben Stark reflected upon
regaining consciousness, was that waking up wasn't anything like the
ordeal you read about in old books.  There was no slow climb to a
groggy semblance of consciousness, no loopy hours of weirdness and
twilight pain; he just... woke up.  The medical program running on his
neuroprocessor that had kept him disconnected from his body for the
last 48 hours got to the end of its programmed run time, reactivated
his higher functions, and pop!  Here he was back in the physical world.
	He felt vaguely cheated as he looked around to find himself
in his private recovery suite, a cheery, well-appointed room that
looked more like an expensive hotel bedroom than a hospital room.
	The first thing he noticed was that, while his chest did hurt
a bit, it was a different kind of pain than the dull low-battery ache
he'd gotten used to over the last few years.  The second thing was
that the familiar enclosing weight of the chestplate and back piece
was gone.  After that came all the ancillary details, like the IV in
his arm, the faint ticking of the medical monitor unit next to the
bed, and so forth.
	The door opened and Zoner poked his head in.
	"Hey," he said.
	"Hey," Stark replied.  "I take it I survived."
	Zoner grinned.  "Yeah, I wasn't sure -I- was going to by about
the seventh hour, but we both made it through."  He held up a chart.
"Your bionic integration scores are great, the heart's bonding
perfectly at all the connection points.  You'll be up and about in no
time."
	"That's good news.  Why don't I feel worse than I do?"
	"Software," Zoner replied.  When that drew a raised eyebrow,
he said, "I've loaded a pain editor onto your neuroprocessor.  It's
interdicting all but the low-level signals from the surgery area.
It's important that you feel -some- pain as an indicator of potential
trouble, but there's no need for you to lie around all doped to the
gills until the sutures start healing."
	Stark looked disappointed.  "Oh.  Hum.  I was kind of looking
forward to the doped-to-the-gills part.  I had my heart replaced and I
don't even get a lousy Demerol drip?"
	"I could arrange one if you really want it," said Zoner
sardonically.
	"I think it's an important part of the recovery experience,"
Stark said piously.  "See to it."
	"I'll have to shut off the editor for the duration.  You can't
have it both ways."
	"12 hours.  For the literary experience?"
	Zoner chuckled.   "Fine, fine.  You might want to wait until
after you see your visitor first, though."
	"Aw, that's half the fun.  Like the time my dad had his gall
bladder out."  Stark shrugged very slightly.  "Oh well, you're
probably right.  Who's here?"
	"Guess," Zoner said.  "I'll be in the coffee shop, have me
paged if you need anything."
	So Stark guessed, but he guessed wrong.  The person who
entered the room as Zoner was leaving was, to the patient's moderate
surprise, Sylia Stingray.
	"Good afternoon, Mr. Stark," she said with a cordial nod.  "I
won't keep you from your... literary experiment... long.  I just
wanted to thank you for the, ah... care package you had brought over
from the States.  Very thoughtful of you, especially with so much on
your mind."
	Stark smiled.  "Well, I did promise them."
	"So you did.  I hadn't decided whether to accept them, though,
if you'll recall."
	"Ah.  Well, I never let that kind of detail bother me when
I'm getting lined up for an organ replacement."  He shrugged as much
as his position and the heavy dressing on his chest would allow.  "If
you decide you don't want them, I can always send them back."
	Sylia smiled slightly.  "No... I don't think that'll be
necessary," she said.  "I'll be frank with you, Mr. Stark: I was
probably going to turn down your proposal Monday night.  There seemed
to be more risk than reward involved.  But after your actions later
that evening, and having seen the kind of resources you have available
to you, I'm reconsidering.  I'm interested in the possibilities of
working with you and your company... but I need to work into the idea
slowly."  Her smile became a little wry and self-deprecating.  "I've
been going it more or less alone for a long time.  It's going to take
me a while to get used to the idea of having... partners apart from
my, ah, regular associates."
	Stark grinned.  "I have no problem with that," he said.  "I'm
going to be doing -everything- slowly for the next few weeks."
	Besides which, he thought as Sylia got up, smoothed her skirt,
and exchanged farewells with him, I've got a lot of thinking to do if
the old tin suit is going to stand up to action like Monday's...
	... but that can wait until next week.


>>> INFOFEED
    FROM blog:starkwire.com
    POSTED: 2032026.0910 (UTC)

WHAT'S ON MY MIND: BENJAMIN STARK'S PERSONAL LOG

SUBJECT: whoo boy.

Hi, everybody.  This is just going to be a short post - I'm still
pretty out of it - but I wanted to let you all know I'm alive.  I know
Friday already told you so in a system message, but just in case any
of you are as skeptical as me... 

I feel surprisingly good for a man who's had his ribcage pried open so
that one of his most vital organs can be replaced.  My chest hurts
like hell, but to tell you the truth, I've gotten used to that over
the last few years.  Otherwise I feel better than I have since I was
wounded.  Maybe better than I ever have.

I feel a change coming on, StarkWire Nation.  I'm still mulling over
the details - and that's tough when you're on the kinds of drugs I'm
on right now, believe me - but I think I may have some exciting things
to report in the next few weeks.

Now, if you'll excuse me, some friends have stopped by with a couple
of new videos, and we're going to watch them until I fall asleep,
which shouldn't take long.

I have an InfoWeb feed and a Demerol drip.

Dr. Thompson, I have never felt closer to you in my life.  Mahalo.

>>> END INFOFEED


# Big Brother & the Holding Company
# "Combination of the Two"
# Cheap Thrills (1968)


                     Eyrie Productions, Unlimited
                              presented
                    BUBBLEGUM CRISIS: THE IRON AGE
			   Issue #2: Weapon

                               The Cast
                       (in order of appearance)
			  Benjamin H. Stark
			    Nene Romanova
			    Anthony Stark
			   Mackie Stingray
			      Ho Yinsen
			    Sylia Stingray
			       MegaZone
			       Wong-Chu
			    Linna Yamazaki
			 Priscilla S. Asagiri
			    Leon McNichol
			      Daley Wong
			    Virginia Potts
			   James R. Rhodes
				Friday


                              written by
                         Benjamin D. Hutchins
				 with
			       MegaZone

			   some dialogue by
		       Stan Lee & Larry Lieber

                          series devised by
                         Benjamin D. Hutchins
                               MegaZone

                       series logo designed by
                            Janice Barlow

			     indomitable
                        The EPU Usual Suspects


               Based on BUBBLEGUM CRISIS (Toshiba-EMI)
                BUBBLEGUM CRISIS: TOKYO 2040 (JVC/AIC)
                        HOPELESSLY LOST (EPU)
                  TALES OF SUSPENSE (Marvel Comics)
                      (and, rather more loosely)
                     NEUROMANCER (William Gibson)
                   TRANSMETROPOLITAN (Warren Ellis)

           Sylia Stingray, Mackie Stingray, Linna Yamazaki,
           Leon McNichol, and the Knight Sabers' hardsuits
                      designed by KENICHI SONODA

                Priscilla S. Asagiri and Nene Romanova
                      designed by MASAKI YAMADA

                       Tony Stark and Iron Man
                         created by STAN LEE

		       Original Iron Man armor
			designed by JACK KIRBY


                         E P U (colour) 2006