ALTERED
ALTERED
The garage was still and empty. Pepper usually avoided the cavernous space when Tony wasn't around. But today, she needed a file she'd left with him in a stack of others on the seat of his chair. She quickly crossed to the desk and began leafing through the papers piled on top. In doing so, she nudged the mouse only slightly but it was enough to wake the computer out of hibernation. The screens flickered to life and what appeared to be a humanoid robot appeared on the holotable, displaying schematics of the last project Tony had been working on before she'd hustled him off to Afghanistan two months ago.
"Jarvis, what's this?" she asked. Normally, she would have only given the project a cursory glance but something about this caught her eye.
"Mr. Stark has labeled the file Project: Iron Man. You are currently viewing the schematics for the first iteration of the Mark II."
"Is this another robot? What are its applications and capabilities?" Pepper's eyes flew over the pages of diagrams and computations. It might be time for her to retire if she hadn't noticed Tony working on something as big as this.
"Iron Man is an armored exoskeleton powered by a miniaturized arc reactor. It has applications in but not limited to military, defense and construction. In its current configuration, the suit is equipped with repulsor ray technology, allowing it to break the sound barrier when used for flight. Its sensor array can be customized to the situation in which it will be deployed."
"Has this version been tested?" Something like this could be incredibly useful right about now, when people were giving up on ever finding Tony.
"Colonel Rhodes completed a test flight for the Mark II suit the day prior to Mr. Stark's departure. Data from that test has been added to the file but not processed."
Definitely slipping and in more ways than one.
"How long will it take to process the data and construct an improved suit?"
"Approximately seventeen hours. Would you like me to process the data?"
Her Blackberry had somehow found its way into her hand, call queued up and her finger hovering over the "Talk" button. "Jarvis?"
"Yes, Miss Potts?"
"Do it."
