The Empire State University Auditorium was near the center of Manhattan, on one side was a small park, the other three sides were bounded by the Science Hall, the Psychology Building, and the Humanities Wing. Terry Vance had scheduled his lecture for a Saturday morning, so all three buildings were empty. To keep them vacant, all were "closed for pest control, WARNING POISONS BEING SPRAYED." The park was deserted, as undercover police disguised as city parks department workers were "doing yearly repairs and maintenance." It was three hours before the lecture was due to start at 2 PM.
Luke Cage was on the roof of the auditorium with Colleen Wing and Misty Knight, walking round the rooftop with Melanie and her teddy bear robot, showing her the plan he and Iron Fist had put together.
"You see over there? Those people in the park pretending to pick up litter? That's "CODE BLUE," they are like the NYPD's best of the best. If The Avengers don't get to a place first, they are trained to take down just about any criminal out there. They've helped Thor a few times, and Thor almost NEVER needs help. So you know they're good." Melanie and her bear were very impressed.
"Now over on these three sides, I have some of my friends. I've been in The Defenders, The Fantastic Four AND been a part-time Avenger a few times. Luke Cage can beat anyone in a fight solo, but the more friends you have the better, right? So I have Johnny Storm, Nighthawk, Hellcat, Valkyrie, the Falcon and a few others scattered around here hidden so if anyone takes the bait we can whomp on them faster than you can hop skip and jump. And we can do it fast, so if a second crook wants the bait we wont' scare them off. It's like a trick Fist and I did last year on a bunch of bail jumpers, just a lot bigger."
"STORY TIME! " Melanie hopped up and down. Her bear pulled a juice box from his backpack, inserted the straw and handed it to Melanie in perfect time to her reaching out one handed as she sat. The little robot did seem to know how to care for her perfectly, Coleen Wing observed with a detective's eye.
"She must not know about this one…" Coleen said quietly to Misty.
"Hush, Luke never gets to have fans up close like this. I think he is loving this job more than anything in years," Misty said covering her grin with a hand. "You know it bugs him that people think of him just as a "steel hard skinned scary black man" when he's as much a hero as anyone walking the Earth. Besides, he's good with kids, it turns out."
"He is. He should find a girl and have a few." Coleen watched as Luke got on one knee to be on Melanie's level as he told the story. "It's a shame he can only date metahumans. With his strength and tough skin, a kiss on the cheek would leave one hell of a bruise. It must make him mad sometimes."
Luke happily told the tale about the time he and Fist had caught 43 wanted criminals at once, with an average bounty of $20,000 each. It had been Luke's idea to send out letters to the last known addresses of 100 wanted criminals, telling them that they had won a contest and that they were going to the Superbowl, all expenses paid. Almost half of them fell for it.
The crooks arrived a few at a time to a hotel ballroom, were presented a giant prop pair of Superbowl tickets, a picture taken of the lucky winners, then police came in from the back and slipped on the cuffs. Luke and Danny made sure the captured crooks went peacefully into the police vans, and subdued any that put up a fight or tried to run. It made for a tidy sum of rewards, made the city safer, and it was a clever trick that did it, not just beating people up well.
Luke Cage was serious, doing his best to sound like a benevolent role model. "People forget that smarts matter as much as strength. And they underestimate me because I'm big and strong and who I am. But always remember you can be anything, little girl. Anything in the world, and don't let anyone tell you different."
"I won't Mr. Power Man. I promise," Melanie said as solemnly as a little girl can.
"Who's that?" Bluebeary pointed up at the sky.
"Wait what?" Coleen Wing lifted a pair of binoculars. "Well we have a party crasher. I see that wanna-be, Captain Ultra up there. He's hovering keeping an eye on things from up high… and he just waved at us."
"And I just spotted Crime-Buster parked in a station wagon down over there," Misty added looking down below. "I have a feeling the bait in this trap was noticed by a few other players. Things could get interesting depending who shows up. I better get Rafe and El Aguila to fill in all the party crashers on the plan so they won't screw it up. And I just hope The Punisher doesn't turn up, he's nuts."
MEANWHILE INSIDE THE AUDITORIUM…
"So wait, it turned out that the lost city of Kun Lun was being ruled by the evil wizard that everyone THOUGHT was the city's mortal enemy attacking it?" Terry was attaching electronic devices to the sound system while Iron Fist was watching and handing him tools occasionally.
"Yep, that really came out of nowhere. And the city's beloved leader Yu-Ti was in on it, and using thousands of people as human sacrifices over the years to make the evil Wizard master Khan even more powerful in exchange for power and favors. I had spent most of my like looking up to Yu-Ti as some all-knowing wise man, trained to become a living weapon JUST to impress the guy. And it turned out I was being set up as a human sacrifice the whole ten years I trained. The magic dragon I was sent to fight as a test of my bravery, worthiness and blah blah blah? Turned out the dragon was SUPPOSED to kill me like it had hundreds of OTHER perfectly trained living weapons over the years as a super elaborate magical ritual." Danny handed Terry a Philips head screwdriver and put the soldering iron back in the toolkit.
"That is officially awful. When you found out all this, you must have been furious?" Terry fitted two 9-volt batteries into place as he glanced questioningly at the older man.
The Iron Fist looked thoughtful. "No, I was okay with it. I mean, I had defeated the mystical dragon, absorbed its magical power and become the greatest martial artist ever. In the years since I left Kun Lun for Earth, I had saved lives, met wonderful friends, seen amazing things. Yes, the people I looked up to as a child were not the perfect people that I thought they were. But just because your idols turn out to be flawed, your ideals can still be worthwhile."
Terry paused, then closed the panel on the electronics cabinet he had been working on. "I can relate to that, sort of. I've been studying non-stop for five years, and learned everything this place has to offer. Now I want nothing more than to leave and see the world outside and learn about something else. I don't want to be a hero exactly." Seeing a flash of concern on Danny Rand's face he quickly said "And I don't want to be a super-villain mad scientist type either, don't worry. But I would love to travel, meet more people, see more things. I want to develop new theories, invent new technologies. To do that, I have to leave the hidden city that trained me to be the best of the best," he said, bowing slightly to Iron Fist, "just as you left your hidden city as the greatest martial artist alive to do great things."
Iron Fist returned the bow with a grin. He was amused that he and the boy had some things in common after all.
"But before I can do that, I want to do something for the place that trained me, got me ready for the world. That's part of the reason for all of this, to give one last important lecture as a professor before I quit."
"What is this thing anyways?" Danny asked, looking at the auditorium's sound system panel and the alterations he had helped to make. "I haven't learned much about electronics in my time in the world." Danny had been struggling sometimes as his education to prepare him for life in America had abruptly stopped at the age of 10. Perhaps he should find a tutor when his life slowed down.
Terry indicated for Iron Fist to follow him. They walked to the stage, where Terry began unpacking his inventions. "I am trained to think like an engineer. I hired you and Luke to provide security as the first line of defense. The allies and resources you brought in like the NYPD and other costumed heroes are the second line of defense. I've just installed my third line of defense in case the first two should have critical failures. It isn't my best work. It's clumsy, inefficient, and could very well fail when I turn it on. But I will not risk my student's safety, so I have this third line of defense and a fourth and fifth up my sleeve just in case."
"Five lines of defense? That seems excessive?" Danny Rand asked.
"No. What bothers me is that I just thought of two more and it's too late to use them," Terry admitted.
TWO PM, THE LECTURE HALL HAS FILLED, THE AUDIENCE HAS BEEN SEATED.
A barely disguised Norton Fester was seated in the front row. He had shaved off his goatee beard and dressed in business casual, expecting to be unrecognized. Danny Rand had spotted him as he entered the building, and followed him stealthily, sitting right behind the super powered criminal. A quick punch to the back of the head with the power of the Iron Fist can drop anyone up to and including the Incredible Hulk. If Fester looked to be about to attack anyone, Danny knew he could stop him.
Norton Fester was seated in the front row, ready for anything, or so he hoped. He thought the boy genius was being amazingly stupid in making such a show of his cleverness. As The Looter, Fester had made some mistakes. But at least he had never dared other criminal scientists to come steal his research by making it all so public. He thought to himself "If I'm ever going to get a chance to steal his research, I need to make sure someone doesn't steal HIM. I have heard rumors about when that lunatic Arthur Nagan and the rest of the so-called Headmen kidnapped him. If someone like Octavius or Doom grab him to make him their weapon-making slave, they won't be stupid enough to let him turn a killbot loose upon them. I've never tried bodyguarding before, I wonder if it's harder than stealing things."
The curtains parted, and Terry Vance appeared dressed in a well tailored business suit. Some applause broke out and he waved to a few familiar faces. The spotlights came on, he tapped the microphone on his lapel and began.
"Good afternoon. For those of you who've never been in class with me as a fellow student or as a professor, my name is Terry Vance. I became a student at Empire State at the age of eight, and started as an adjunct professor when I turned 11. So anyone wondering why a teenager wandered on stage at a science and technology lecture… trust me, I belong here. A measured IQ of 181 means I got to skip a lot of grades."
"I've been studying what the media calls "super-science" the technology used by super-heroes, mad scientists and alien invaders extensively for the past two years. Empire State's science department has some very famous alumni, and the most famous are probably Reed Richards and Victor Von Doom. I think it is safe to say everyone who has ever taken a class here knows we have some very big shoes to fill. When you're all buckling down in a lecture trying to learn to think about space existing in eleven dimensions, any ESU student is going to be thinking about being the next Richards or Von Doom. "
"Hands up. Who here would love to win a Nobel Prize for explaining how Magneto can lift a battleship when the average human body can only generate about twenty watts? (Most the hands in the audience rose.) And for the engineering majors, raise your hands if you daydream about finding a way to copy that ability so we can fly starships powered by a few car batteries? (The remaining hands in the audience raised.) I know I'm working on both, though I'm not even close yet. Whoever learns to turn what one fortunate gifted individual can do into a machine ANYONE can use will truly change the future of the human race. What one person can do is interesting but unimportant. What ANYONE can do actually matters."
"Let's discuss how these super-scientists on both sides of the law think about the problem solving process compared to how conventional scientists are trained to approach mysteries…"
What followed was a short discussion using the examples of Nikola Tesla and Thomas Edison. After several minutes discussing various ways to think about thinking, he concluded, "While Tesla was brilliant in first visualizing the interaction of rotating magnetic fields, and Edison raised methodical trial and error to a fine art, I want you to notice something important. Neither of them dressed in silly costumes and decided to take their competition to trial by combat. The Alternator and The Illuminator didn't fight to the death while flying over Niagara Falls."
The audience laughed and Terry paused. "But while super-scientists are amazing at thinking of new solutions to problems, they do get bogged down into treating theories and engineered miracles the way that old west gunfighters treated firearms. They tend to forget that science is about revealing mysteries of the universe to humanity, and engineering is about making people's lives better. Instead the greatest minds of the last century have been trying to kill each other in hi-tech duels."
"Now let's consider the down side to this sort of creativity, where you throw science at the wall and see what sticks. I'll stick to ESU alumni and faculty. Let's begin looking at Dr. Curt Connors, who lost his arm and spent several years studying the regeneration ability of reptiles. After some success with lab rabbits, he injected himself with a compound that he expected to rewrite his own genetic code to give him the regenerative ability of a lizard. So seriously, who here is all that shocked that he accidentally turned himself into a half human-half iguana? A brilliant biochemist, with a part time career as an alligator man in our city sewers. Important lesson. DO NOT BE PROFESSOR GUINEA PIG! If you experiment of yourself, you're no longer a scientist. You're just a lab rat."
"Dr. Michael Morbius, who happened to have a rare blood disease, decided to experiment with a species of vampire bats that were immune to that particular disease in hopes of curing himself. Injecting himself with serums of vampire bat blood and exposing himself to certain electrical frequencies, he turned himself into a half human- half vampire bat that has been haunting the world ever since. DON'T BE PROFESSOR GUINEA PIG!"
"Otto Octavius… Wait a minute. Otto Octavius. Michael Morbius, Curt Connors. Reed Richards, Sue Storm, Victor Von Doom. Bruce Banner… OK, new safety rule, if your first and last name start with the same letter, avoid any career that has you anywhere NEAR a scientific experiment. In fact, consider a career in law or something."
Terry Vance went from there to demonstrate his attempts to recreate some of the great innovations in super-science that the original creators had kept as closely held secrets. Baron Zemo's notorious Adhesive X with which the Masters of Evil had terrorized New York had been duplicated as was the solvent to remove it. Baron Zemo had used it to glue hundreds of people to sidewalks as they commuted to work. Vance had found a better use, as a cheap tool for housing construction and industrial mass production and he demonstrated how quickly by using a spray gun system.
"Because of the War Crimes trial held after World War Two, we have the Zemo laws that state that no criminal scientist may patent or profit from any technological invention used for crime. Any invention used for certain crimes are thus considered public domain and free for use to anyone able to duplicate it. I've discussed it with my patent lawyer, and my improvements of inventions by criminal super-scientists ARE patentable. So if anyone out there is considering developing a better, faster and cheaper way to design a laser torch to rob banks, forget it. You'd make a lot more money selling the design. And if you use it for a crime ANYWAY someone else in this room will duplicate it, improve it, and make a fortune off of YOUR idea. Criminal science is for losers, always has been always will be."
A duplicate of Iron Man's frequent foe Bruno "The Melter" Horgan's melting ray was shown to be able to liquefy metal, minerals, and plant matter with amazingly low power. Vance's plans for using Horgan's melting ray to revolutionize recycling received some admiring nods around the room. The melted cinder block, tree stump and steel girder were rather impressive, Norton Fester thought. He could imagine what it could mean to the steel industry easily.
Herman "Shocker" Shultz's vibro-smashers had been duplicated, and Terry used them to punch through a cinderblock wall at a range of 20 feet. The young professor explained that he had found uses for the technology that would improve the mining and natural gas drilling industry greatly. "I've discussed it with my lawyers, and they feel since Mr. Shultz isn't guilty of capital crimes, I am free to give him half of the profits I make from my improvements on his basic discovery. I hope he hears about this, because I'm sure if he and I worked together we could make quite a fortune together. My lawyers assure me that any other science criminal that isn't guilty of murder or treason could get a prison work release deal to work with me to turn their inventions to a profitable legal use."
Vance seemed to be looking right at Norton Fester as he said, "I can make a similar offer to anyone working on pure research. I've gotten very interested in cosmology, especially Daniel Ironwood's work on the interaction of dark energy and cosmic rays with asteroids and comets in deep space. It may finally give us a unified theory to explain unstable molecules, Pym particles, and open entire new areas into how we define reality. It's the sort of work that could rehabilitate anyone's reputation. And except for me, mainstream scientists have not gotten anywhere."
Danny Rand was watching Norton Fester closely. Fester seemed to be listening and watching, not preparing for action, but deep in thought
Norton Fester, The Looter watched the next 45 minutes of the lecture with some interest. The young prodigy had done some interesting work adapting classic weapons of super-science for more practical uses. The force field based large area air filter was a boring, but practical use to eliminate pathogens from a large area. The scale model anti-gravity generator re-purposed into a satellite launcher had some obvious potential as a weapon that the young scientist seemed to be ignoring completely. Could he really be that optimistic that it wouldn't be used to blow planes out of the air or launch warheads?
The artificially intelligent "white hat hacker" robot designed to resemble R2-D2 from STAR WARS, that could find weaknesses in networks and close security holes at the same time was going to be profitable. But The Looter could think of ways to make billions illegally using the same equipment. Vance would have to be careful who he let use it.
The way that The Melter's ray had been used as the basis of a combined disintegration beam, heat ray and freeze ray was clever, Fester had to admit. The unit was too large for combat use, but the boy had devised ways that would probably revolutionize manufacturing, waste disposal, food processing… Fester had met Horgan in prison once, the man had complained about how Tony Stark had out-competed him in the weapons business. Fester was realizing that the man had wasted years seeking "revenge" when he could have just made billions out of his invention much easier. But then super villains didn't ever just follow the money. They wanted fame and acclaim for their genius. Appealing to the wallets of criminal scientists wasn't going to reform any of them.
Then the little girl took the stage with the little bear walking beside her. Fester remembered that bear, though it seemed a lot less threatening without the red glowing eyes. He listened as she explained that her "wizard brother" had made her the best toy ever, that it was a playmate when she was bored, a teacher when she was curious, a nurse when she was sick and a protector when "bad people were scary." Behind her Terry clicked through a powerpoint presentation detailing the affordable child rearing tool he had cobbled together from what had been used by various criminal robot-makers such as Machinesmith and the Mad Thinker. His slides concluded with the words "Soon available manufactured by Cord Conglomerated and marketed by Disney Corporation."
"I was inspired by Reed Richards on this actually," Terry said as his sister and her toy left the stage. "I read how he had invented a robot buddy for his son Franklin, and I thought EVERY child should have one. My sister has the prototype, within a year models will be available at the price of a mid-sized car. In two years I will have versions available affordable to almost every family that wants to give their child the greatest educational toy of the decade. And Reed Richards kept HIS design just for himself. At least Dr. Doom lets Latverians benefit from HIS genius. But Reed Richards for all his genius is useless."
Fester realized that the thing was not THAT different from the "humanoids" that The Leader used to combat The Hulk, or the various Doom-bots that fought the Fantastic Four. But Vance was going to market them to children… as a toy. Hundreds of thousands of kids would be grateful, as if Terry Vance was a demented mad science Santa's elf.
And Norton Fester had a moment of clarity. The way to get people to acclaim you as a genius was to get them to LIKE WHAT YOU DO FOR THEM… He had wasted a lot of years by keeping his work secret. By stealing research equipment. If he'd worked as hard doing it the right way, his name would be in children's textbooks by now.
Just as Terry Vance's plan to get Norton Fester to become a real scientist again was about to pay off, the wall crumbled behind the stage, and Klaw the Master of Sound strode into the building.
"Ah damn," thought Danny, Norton and Terry at the same second.