Chapter 5
Chapter 5
The walnut handle felt slippery against her grip.
She prayed that the glint of the damascus wouldn’t give her away.
Funny how she’d just signed over a 5-figure donation to Women Against Violence but presently had no qualms about jabbing an 8-inch knife into someone’s chest.
She crouched behind the chesterfield, one cheek pressed against the cool leather. Mark 47, remotely operated by FRIDAY, held up both gauntleted hands in threatening gesture.
The adversary was bound to arrive in 3 minutes and 42 seconds by the AI’s calculations.
Pepper eyed the steel-reinforced double doors.
The only way in or out.
If that got creamed in the looming showdown she had a ticket out of here. Given that the zealous contestant could keep FRIDAY at bay long enough for her to nick it past the suit and steal away from this backfire plan.
“Please consider the required safety distance,” FRIDAY urged.
“I’m good,” Pepper said. “Disregard recommendation.” She had no intent on backing off.
Three days in the prison-shelter had her teetering on the edge of sanity. FRIDAY found perverse satisfaction in renouncing her authorization every which way. For all she knew the apocalypse came down around her and she was oblivious to it.
The timer counted down its last minute. They would have the benefit of surprise if their opponent didn’t anticipate prepared resistance. Pepper steeled herself to do what had to be done.
Pressure valves turned, bolts withdrew. The hatch-door unsealed. Nausea swamped her. Good God, she might have to murder someone. She was overtaken by hesitation. Could she really?
Pepper’s breath hitched in her throat.
War Machine’s bulky frame barely fit through the opening. It heaved out its cargo like a cat regurgitating a fur ball.
Pepper shot up from her hiding spot.
Iron Man revved up its repulsors.
James Rhodes stared at his brewing doom.
“What the—”
“Hostile incentive—”
“Stop!”
“Pepper!”
“You don’t have—”
“EMERGENCY OVERRIDE!” she roared, frenzied.
Iron Man didn't back down.
Rhodey tried frantically to clamber back into his own suit.
Pepper leapt then, escape plan consigned to oblivion, and Tony’s two-grand chef knife cleanly embedded in the crease between Mark 47’s plating.
FRIDAY turned the suit towards her. It remained passive despite the clear display of aggression on her part. The AI couldn't actively harm her — a frustrated crowbar assault earlier had unveiled that extra line of programming.
“You stupid tin can!” she yelled.
Rhodey dared to peek from behind the War Machine armor. He’d conjured a handgun from somewhere, but thought better than to openly point it at Iron Man.
“Jesus Christ. What's going on?”
“I have no idea,” Pepper said. She turned to Tony's suit. “Stand down for gods sake.”
“Voice authentication: Colonel James Rhodes,” Rhodey offered.
“Accepted,” FRIDAY confirmed. Iron Man’s thrusters shut down. Pepper allowed herself a breath. She had just stabbed Tony’s suit. That had yet to sink in.
“Are you okay?” she asked. “What are you doing here? Is Tony with you?”
Rhodey frowned. “He’s not here?”
She could feel her eyes go moist but did her best to suppress the bubbling frustration.
“Nobody's here,” she told him. “FRIDAY won't let me leave! The whole place was on lockdown before you came.” A thought occurred to her. “How did you find me?” She didn't even know where she was herself.
Rhodey looked back and forth between the two armors, clearly let down in his expectations. “I thought Tony was behind this.”
Pepper drew a deep sigh. She pointed behind her, to the maw of the bunker. To the unknowing eye it looked just like another of Tony’s luxury apartments; redirected tax money, and lots of it.
“In a way he is,” she told Rhodey. “Only I think there’s a bug in the system.”
She poured him a glass of Evian while they continued to watch the suits.
Shortly after Rhodey’s arrival Iron Man and War Machine had performed some form of sync, data transmission through a port in their palms. FRIDAY then announced per intercom that all safety measures were met. They were in the green again, apparently, despite the ornate kitchen knife still sticking out between Mark 47’s shoulder blades.
“He cut no corners on this,” Rhodey said. The bunker prison was Apocalypse Now on a luxury trip. Pepper gave Rhodey the tour. Kluft mattresses, jaccuzzi bathtubs, a selection of Nappa’s finest, predestined to survive the end of the world. Leave it to Tony to turn Armageddon into a 5-star affair.
They inspected the hatch door under FRIDAY’s vigilance. Pepper had been at it with unrelenting perseverance. Had there been a way to open it, she would have found it by now. Rhodey suggested they try with the suit, but War Machine jumped ship and refused to open for its pilot.
“You lack authorization to do that,” FRIDAY said.
Pepper was overcome by a deep desire to fry some circuits.
“That’s all I’ve been getting from her,” she grumbled. “For three days straight. I’m stunned she let me use the microwave.” She looked at Rhodey with big, wishing eyes. “Tell me you know how to get out of here.”
Rhodey put on an apologetic face. “Pep, I’m not even sure I understand how I got in. War Machine popped up on my doorstep with a one-liner I could have sworn was Tony’s brainchild and a cakewalk later I got Iron Man’s guns in my face.”
“You didn’t hear anything from him?”
“No. I thought…” He trailed off, since it was evident this trace had led to a dead end. He tried to cobble up reassurance in his next words. “We’ll find him. Don’t you worry.”
“Yeah,” Pepper said and sipped from her glass. “I want to show you something.”
She flicked on the 100-inch Samsung and told FRIDAY to launch the video.
Tony’s face came on-screen, sleep deprived on one of his working binges. One of the bots wheeled past in the background. The recording took place in the Tower’s workshop; a bitter pill to swallow when she had watched for the first time. Tony had disassembled it months ago, during the relocation to Avengers Compound.
“Pep, if you see this chances are you’re quite mad at me by now-” Which she was, for the record. “— and that things have gone belly-up real bad, like, I wasn’t able to protect you.”
He stopped at that, pondering whether to particularize possible reasons of said inability. Pepper twitched at the memory of the blasts. Three, four, five, and Tony lying there like a puppet off its strings. Did he have such a scenario in mind when he recorded this?
“The RESCUE protocol will enable JARVIS to take you to a disclosed safehouse, where you can sit out whatever fuss the bad guys knocked up. I’ll get you as soon as the ass-kicking’s over. JARVIS will run a sub-program to ensure your safety at all costs, so put your feet up and take a break.”
He put on a lop-sided grin. “If I don’t drop by for victory margaritas 72 hours in there’s contingencies in place. JARVIS has the particulars. I know you will, but try not to worry too much about me.” He stopped briefly, then said, “Love you, babe.”
“JARVIS?” Rhodey asked.
“An old recording,” Pepper said. She would have known without the giveaway hint too. Less worry lines, no graying temples. She assumed the chronology to be sometime post-Killian. Tony had never seen her as an exploitable soft spot before being brusquely confronted with the ‘comply-or-your-girlfriend-gets-mainlined-with-supernatural-virus’ schism.
Rhodey looked at War Machine. “Am I supposed to be the contingency plan?”
“I hope so,” she said. At this point she would be fine with Justin Hammer walking up and offering a hand. “Is he, FRIDAY?”
“Colonel Rhodes is on the boss’ list of viable surrogates.”
“I’m honored,” Rhodey said, sans euphoria.
“Why won’t you let us leave then?” Pepper asked.
There it was again, that predictable pause. Pepper had pried about often enough to tell when FRIDAY buttoned up simply because she wanted to be Daddy’s girl. This new form of hardihood was different. Bothersome.
FRIDAY slipped into familiar patterns.
“You don’t have the authorization for that.”
“She’s stuck,” Pepper conceded, disheartened. She stood to pace. “A glitch. We’re trapped here because of some faulty command line.”
Rhodey picked up on the idea, but cast it in a different light.
“And if it's not Tony's fault?”
“What do you—” She caught on to the insinuation before she was done. “Oh.” And then again, grim-faced, because that proposition was threaded with so much more weight than her initial assumption of sleep-deprived coding on Tony’s side. “Oh.”
“Jim,” she started, sandpaper-throat. She rarely called him by his first name, could count the occurrences on one hand. The cocaine relapse. Afghanistan. Extremis. War Machine’s crash. “Tell me we’ll get out of this one alright.”
She glanced at War Machine and Iron Man. If FRIDAY was rigged, what did that mean for Tony? Hadn’t FRIDAY said he’d summoned Mark 46 before she lost contact? Had he been abducted by his own creation? And who was the real malefactor behind it all?