Armor Wars Prologue: An Unexpected Guest
[7/10/18] Hello again. Progress on my other MCU story, "Fallen Kingdom," slowed a bit due to a variety of factors, not the least of which was my own ambition. As time went on, my ideas for the story-bringing in the Watchers, Sam Alexander as Nova, Adam Warlock-seemed to become increasingly cluttered, and increasingly drew focus away from the main subject: Shuri as the new Black Panther. Although I do believe many of the ideas I had can work within the context of that story, others would have become far too distracting, the ideas found here being the chief culprit. Thus, I've decided to take those ideas and turn them into a companion story. The focus? Colonel James Rhodes-specifically, the hardships he faces in the wake of his best friend Tony Stark's disappearance from Earth.
But, before we can touch on that, we have to set the scene, as it were. So, in order to accomplish that(and also buy time, since the 1st chapter isn't actually finished yet, lol), we must take a slight detour to a rather run down neighborhood not too far away, and not too long before the main events of the story.
I know I say this a lot, but please, let me know what you think. Writing cannot improve in a vacuum-it requires constructive criticism in order to nurture itself and grow into something better than it was before. So, if you didn't like it, then I know what to fix for next time. And if you did like it, then hearing your thoughts on the subject just brightens up my day a bit more. And believe me, in a project such as this, motivation is important.
So, by all means, be sure to leave reviews letting me know what you liked about this story and what I could improve before releasing the first chapter. And, in the end, I hope you all enjoy.
Tuesday. 3 Days Before.
Those who live in a big city like New York City's Queens borough settle into patterns naturally. Get your kid ready for the earliest bus to school so that they leave home just ahead of the morning traffic jam. Don't forget the afternoon ticket for the trip back, either. Walk or bike to work if you can; only drive if your work is far enough away to warrant it. When you leave, head to the grocer's a couple blocks out from home and get whatever you need for dinner that night. Drive home, have dinner ready by 8. Day in, day out. Simple, predictable patterns.
But, as can be expected, some find the patterns harder to manage than others. And few examples are more potent than that of one particular man, currently on Step 3 of the plan above.
After braving the afternoon traffic jam, he walked into the grocer's in his usual unobtrusive fashion-head bowed down, shoulders slumped, hands in his pockets. Unnoticed in plain sight.
Fifteen minutes later, he exited the store and checks his list to make sure that everything he and his brother's family needed for the week and his sister-in-law's birthday was accounted for.
Bread? Check. Milk? Yep. Eggs? Got it. Bananas? Uh-huh. Waffles? Yep. Reese's Puffs and Cheerios? Check.
He looked down at the bags he was holding slung over his arms.
Wait...was I supposed to get ice cream?
He looked down again as the memory came back.
...I was. ...Son of a bitch.
Slightly dejected, he continued on towards his car and proceeded with his daily struggle against New York traffic, finally arriving at his apartment after five minutes spent finding a spot and another five circumventing the broken elevator via eight flights of stairs.
Upon opening the door, the man spent a few minutes putting his groceries away, leaving a sticky note on the fridge which read, "Get ice cream by Thursday!" His reminder complete, the man walked into the common area of the apartment, inadvertently missing an unexpected visitor.
"Aaron Davis," the figure replied, their face obscured by shadow.
Upon realizing the intruder's presence, Davis pulled out the switchblade he keeps hidden in the back of his pants and took a step back, ready to lunge at them if needed. The figure, completely unperturbed by this, merely chuckled and held out their palms in a conciliatory gesture, to indicate that they were unarmed.
"Now, now," they chided, "Let's not lose our heads here."
"Who are you?!" Davis asked, both panicked and furious.
"I have a feeling you watch the news enough to know the answer to that question," the figure replied.
The figure slowly stepped into the light, and it becomes apparent just who they were: Justine Hammer. Daughter of disgraced and incarcerated industrialist Justin Hammer and, as of her twenty-first birthday two weeks prior, CEO of the only slightly rejuvenated Hammer Industries.
Davis didn't lower the blade. "How did you get in here?" He asked suspiciously.
"Oh, come now," Hammer replied. "Do you honestly expect me to answer that?"
"Why are you here?" He asked, changing tack.
"It's really quite simple," she replied.
He chuckled slightly, stepping forward a pace in a threatening manner. "Lady, you're going to have to do better than that if you want to keep that suit clean."
She chuckled in return. "You're not going to kill me, Mr. Davis."
"Nah," he acknowledged. "But I am gonna rough you up pretty bad if you don't start talking."
She laughed as she walked around the apartment for a moment, examining various things-the state of the furniture, the sticky notes all over the walls, before finally resting her gaze on a photo of Davis with three other individuals; his brother, his sister-in-law, and his nephew. Throughout it all, Davis kept himself at the same distance from her, ready to strike if necessary.
"I'm assuming this is your brother's family?" Hammer asked.
"What about 'em?" he replied. "I swear to God, if you laid so much as a finger on any of 'em-!"
She laughed again. "Rest assured, Mr. Davis, they are all safe and sound, and shall remain so for the foreseeable future."
She then paused, taking a deep breath as if she knew something terrible was about to happen. "You, on the other hand, don't seem to be doing so well."
Davis didn't budge. "I get by."
She chuckled. "So you tell yourself. But in reality, I know that your prospects as of late are..less than desirable."
"What the hell do you know about my prospects?"
"Oh, I've been learning a lot of things about you, Mr. Davis," Hammer answered immediately. "For instance, I know that $1500 in rent is due to your landlord, George Sutton, on Friday, and you only have $500 with which to pay it at this time. I know that your brother, Jefferson Davis, lives with his wife, Rio Morales, and their son, Miles, in an apartment approximately four blocks away. I also know that Miles recently signed up for a charter school lottery. Brooklyn Visions Academy, right?"
Davis nodded silently, dumbfounded. After fiddling around with a holographic tablet, she continued, "But I think the most interesting thing that my search has uncovered has got...to be...this." Upon hitting the right button, the screen flared to life, depicting security camera footage from a nearby vault operated by the Department of Damage Control. In it, an unknown figure in a black suit and a grey mask similar to Spider Man's accessed a small panel by the side of the hangar doors. Within a few moments, he had bypassed the vault's security system, opening the hangar door and disabling the source camera only a second later. When the footage resumed two hours later, the figure was long gone.
"Made the news a while back," Hammer commented absentmindedly. "A handful of sub-Ultron parts left over from the Battle of Sokovia. Stolen, from a D.O.D.C. vault, by an unidentified man. Now, incident like that, it turns heads. But all I could find on the suspect was a handful of scattered clips from security cameras in banks and the like, nothing definitive. So, after talking it out with a few of my contacts-"
"Contacts?" Davis interrupted.
"I'd rather not name names. Anyway, they didn't know who the man was, but they did have a name others have referred to him as over the few months he'd been operating."
"Which was?" Davis asked, worried about the answer.
Hammer paused for a few seconds before replying, "'The Prowler.'"
He put away his knife and put his other hand to his head in frustration as she pulled up another display-Davis' own criminal record. "Now, imagine my surprise when a search of the name turned up an alias recorded in the NYPD files pertaining to one Aaron Davis, living in an apartment in Queens." She paused for a second to let him absorb this before attempting to continue.
"No," Davis said in response to the unspoken question.
"You haven't even heard-"
"I don't need to. All I know is that the guys you Hammer people make deals with tend to either blow up or end up behind bars without so much as a cent for their troubles. That Damage Control job was already way more than I asked for-I'm not about to repeat that mistake, especially not with people like you."
"There's a lot you don't know about Hammer Industries, Mr. Davis," Hammer replied tersely.
"Hm? How about you fill in the blanks for me, huh?" He asked sarcastically before going down the list. "Sleazeball CEO and all around dumbass Justin Hammer tries and fails to compete with Stark, having to resort to making a backroom deal with some Russian guy to get anywhere close to matching his tech. Then, his drones go berserk, killing dozens before Iron Man and his new buddy War Machine, decked out by none other than Hammer, save the day and fry the Russian guy. And then, after Hammer got himself locked up for that whole mess, his knucklehead of a brother in law and the rest of his goons continue to run the company into the ground, taking alien tech for themselves and selling it to the absolute worst pair of Harlem gangsters you could possibly do business with, and eventually landing themselves in jail two months ago." He took a breath for a few seconds before finishing sarcastically, "Did I miss anything?"
Instead of replying, Hammer merely sat there, taking a deep breath before finally responding, "A rather unflattering picture you paint, Mr. Davis. And one which, I'm afraid to say, is entirely accurate. The last decade or so of Hammer Industries' life has not been pleasant, believe me. But...it wasn't always this way."
Davis raised an eyebrow as she elaborated, "My father didn't act alone when he founded Hammer Industries in 1995. His recent wife, and my mother, worked with the company as the head of Research and Development. With no original ideas of his own, my father relied entirely on my mother to lead the business effectively. Under her leadership, Hammer Industries' R&D division became the go-to choice for military contracts nationwide. And Tony Stark?" She asked rhetorically, with a sardonic chuckle. "He invested millions into strippers and booze.
"Two years after they married, I was born into a world of plenty, raised by a mother every bit as caring towards her loved ones as she was fearsome towards her enemies." she continued before pausing, as if she had only just now remembered an event which she continued to regret. "She died in childbirth the day after my ninth birthday, along with the 'Justin Hammer Jr.' my father so desperately wanted."
She looked down at the thought of a thousand painful memories. "After that, life was dominated by month after month in a summer home as my father went through as much money and women as he needed to forget I existed. When my mother's will was read, my father devoted years of litigation towards ensuring that I would never inherit her stock in the company as it ordained. It was at that point, watching the company my mother devoted her life towards crumble into mediocrity while the cocksure Tony Stark became a superhero, that I gained a new perspective on life."
She paused again before continuing, "Both of my parents were the latest in two long lines of industry leaders. My mother was a woman groomed and destined for success from the moment she could crawl. Her one shortcoming; continuing to hold any affection for my disappointing college drop out of a father. The day my father landed himself in prison and handed the company over to Louis, I made a vow to take back the company and continue my mother's legacy. It took me years to secure the stocks my father had denied me, but with assistance from my closest associates in securing my father's assets, I'm now in a position to deliver upon that vow."
The entire time, Davis sat silently as Hammer told her tale, but upon its conclusion, he began to clap slowly, with a slight chuckle. "Hey, lady, that's a cool origin story and all, really, but you're going to have to give me a lot more than that if you want to convince me to go along with some kid fresh out of college."
Hammer chuckled in turn. "Never went, actually. Couldn't find the time. And I would hope that nothing about my proposal reminds you of my father and uncle's terrible ideas."
She pulled up another holographic display, this time showing a detailed schematic of an old Stark Industries research facility in New York. "My father would often remark that one had to 'know the enemy' when dealing with your competitors, but I've learned since then that 'walk among the enemy' is a much better strategy in the long run."
Davis looked at her with a raised eyebrow, causing her to elaborate. "I recently secured a rather high-level informant within Stark Industries itself-a disenchanted member of their own Board of Directors. At first glance, this ancient, inconspicuous facility would appear to hold very little of value. But, if his info is correct, as it has proven to be thus far..." she muttered as the display shifted to focus on a particularly large room on the fifth floor, "This room right here houses a secure backup server for every single Stark design produced in the last thirty years."
At this, the other eyebrow went up, which she interpreted as the signal to proceed. "Now, ordinarily, the server's top of the line security would prove too tough to crack, especially since my informant doesn't have any means of accessing it through his own credentials within the company. But, fortunately for us," she said, pausing for a second before continuing, "I happen to know a guy."
"Oh? Who's he?" Davis asked.
In response, she pulled up a separate tab with the man's photo on it and some miscellaneous details. "Miles Lydon," she said. "Used to be part of some hacktivist group-the Rising Tide."
"Am I supposed to know who they are?" Davis responded.
"Eh, not really. They made a lot of noise about freedom of information and Big Brother back in 2013, but the band broke up pretty fast after the HYDRA incident. This guy Lydon had been in and out of odd jobs for years when I found him. Turns out that a guy who relies on hacking to make a living is pretty damn useless with a bracelet that shuts down all electronics they come into contact with. Anyway, took a few days, but I got it off of him, and he's been working for me ever since."
"And you think this guy can get you into Stark's system?"
"The dude got into the Kremlin on a dare. This should be right up his alley. He'll be able to deactivate the security measures within the building itself, but problem is, the server operates on a closed circuit. The only way for Lydon to get the data remotely is through an uplink drive he designed which has to be plugged directly into the server."
"Which is where I come in."
"Precisely. With Lydon quarterbacking the operation, getting in, plugging in the drive, hacking into the server, and getting out without incident should be a cinch for a man of your talents. So...what do you say?"
Davis paced around the room in contemplation for a moment before Hammer added, "Despite what our list of public scandals may tell you, we can ensure that you are well compensated for your troubles. And there are...other benefits we can arrange."
Davis stopped and raised an eyebrow. "Such as?"
Hammer smiled. "I went to Brooklyn Viz, too, you know. Made a lot of friends there. And, more to the point, discovered that some of my 'friends' among the school staff could be...persuaded to do certain things for specific students." She paused for a second before assuming a no-nonsense, businesslike demeanor. "Two phone calls, and I'll get you one million dollars up front tomorrow, and guarantee that your nephew is accepted into Brooklyn Viz."
After another moment of Davis pacing and mumbling, Hammer got up and extended her hand expectantly. "Well?"
Davis thought for a few more seconds before nodding, and shaking her hand.
"Excellent," she said before taking one of his sticky notes and writing down a series of coordinates. "Plugging these into your phone's GPS should take you to a dead drop I've arranged a couple blocks from here, where you'll receive your payment and any equipment you'll need." She then pulled out a small clamshell phone and handed it to him. "Lydon tells me that the modifications he's made should render this untraceable by just about anyone who might try to find you. Lydon will be my proxy throughout this operation. Contact him with this if you have any questions. When we need you to move...we'll let you know."
Davis could only nod as she looked around the apartment once more, and pointed to the bathroom door at the end of the hall. "You wouldn't mind if I made use of that bathroom over there, would you?" Before Davis could reply, she finished, "Thank you. Pleasure doing business, Mr. Davis."
After she briskly walked to the bathroom and shut the door, Davis was left pondering what the hell he'd gotten himself into, and would have continued had the closed room not suddenly erupted in a flash of blue light. Panicking, he scrambled into the bathroom, only to find Hammer gone without a trace, save two sticky notes tacked onto the bathroom counter.
The first read, "I'm okay! Just cursed with my father's flair for the dramatic, is all. Teleporters are really fun. ;)" The second, however, was a tad more ominous, containing the GPS coordinates along with a simple reminder:
"When we call, don't be late."
Davis groaned as he again questioned just what he'd gotten himself into.