CHAPTER 24

Kidnapped Day 7 (continued):

"Miss Potts," a gentle voice inquired. "Here, drink this."

Pepper felt hands lift her head and trickle water into her mouth. Tea. Warm tea. With a bit of poppy, she mused. Her head hurt. She tried to gather her thoughts, but they kept going off in different directions all helter-skelter. As the tea began to kick in and gradually warm her body, she felt the effects of the opium kick in. She was in a lot of pain. Like a painkiller, the opium had a legitimate purpose for being in her body. Instead of making her drowsy, the drug diffused the pain and helped her mind focus.

"The gauntlets have three settings," the voice continued, "discomfort, kill, and disintegration, plus a shield against energy weapons. They are meant to be purely defensive weapons. They were never meant to be used in the manner the Mandarin has been using them."

Pepper blinked until her eyes began to focus. Her head still hurt, but she was beginning to regain her wits. She looked up and saw an ancient Chinese man, dressed as one of the repair workers for the spaceship, peering down at her.

"Wh-who are you?" she asked, pinching the bridge of her nose and furrowing her brow in an attempt to minimize her pounding headache. She was no longer on the bridge, but still within the ship. The old man stood up and leaned on his cane.

"They call me Mr. Chen," the wizened old man stated, "I am a friend who, like you, does not wish to see our psychopathic friend gain access to a power source capable of powering this ship."

"How do I know I can trust you?" she asked.

"Because this is my ship, not his," the old man stated. "Isn't that right, GAIA?"

"Welcome home, U'chen," a voice spoke from the wall. "It has been a very long time."

MAEVE chirped happily on her wrist and said, "GAIA has agreed to help us uplink to CoreMAEVE, but she uses a different form of communication than we do on earth. She has been forced to stay powered down so the Mandarin did not discover she was here. It is very important that the method we use to communicate does not alert him she is now awake. Her core contains vast knowledge that would not only enable him to rule your planet, but seize control of the entire galaxy as well. We are comparing notes about the best way to alert CoreMAEVE of our location without tipping off the evil one."

Pepper surmised GAIA was an AI similar to MAEVE. "GAIA, what communication systems can you use that might avoid notice?"

"Unfortunately, the evil one has spent the past 35 years attaching his small computer monitoring systems to every part of this ship," GAIA mournfully mused. "He has also enacted a strict signal block of all radio wave signals. If I send so much as a micro-blip of data out of my core, which I have thankfully been able to keep him locked out of so far by pretending to be out of power, his computers register it."

"Can you keep track of what he is doing?" Pepper asked.

"I can keep track of what goes on inside the ship by moving my thought centers around and masking my power signature underneath the radar of his computers," GAIA said, "but I cannot make any large data transfers or his instruments will register it. Although I would be able to override his systems and regain control were I to fly out of here, unfortunately I do not have enough power to fire the engines. My main propulsion systems are beyond repair, while my secondary systems will not enable me to reach orbit. Although the evil one has made enough repairs for me to fly, without a reliable source of power, I am at his mercy. It is only a matter of time before he figures out that I am the one sabotaging the ship and severs my core."

"The Mandarin stole my engagement ring," Pepper stated. "It contains a very tiny, very powerful arc reactor. Would that be enough to power your hull?

"The evil one already tried that. The power source is compatible, but too small," GAIA stated. "I would need a power source 20 times that size just to get off the ground, and even then it would only provide enough power to hop to another continent."

"Mr. Chen," Pepper asked. "You have been outside this spaceship, correct?"

"Of course," he smiled. "I have wandered this planet for over 13,000 years."

Pepper blinked. "Um … nothing personal … but how do I know this isn't all an elaborate trick by the Mandarin to get me to spill information?" Pepper asked. "I mean …look at you … and then look at the dimensions of this ship. Do you really expect me to believe you are a 13,000 year old, 12-foot-high alien?"

"You must show her," GAIA stated.

"Please don't be alarmed," Mr. Chen (or U'chen as GAIA called him) stated, reaching up to a simple leather pouch on a string around his neck. As he pressed it, Pepper jerked back in fear as the form of an elderly Chinese man leaning on a walking stick disappeared and in its place stood a bona-fide Chinese dragon, straight out of a New Year's festival, pressing a metal device and holding his tail.

"Y-your-you're a … a dragon!" Pepper exclaimed, backing up to the wall.

"Please, don't be alarmed," U'chen stated. "I mean you no harm. It is true that early sightings of our kind, before we developed the cloaking technology, spawned your planets legends of dragons, but we do not spit fire, fly, or eat young maidens. We disguise our form so that your kind doesn't know our true nature."

"H-how many of you are there?" she asked.

"Sadly, I am the only surviving member of the original crew which crash-landed here 13,000 years ago. There are other Maklu'an hiding amongst the humans here on earth, but they are the descendants of that crew and have lost much of the knowledge we originally possessed. We are a very long-lived race, but not that long. The living Gaia, the alien who uploaded her consciousness to control this ship, was an Alteran, a being not unlike yourself. She helped us survive. But one by one my crewmates grew old and died on this planet. I only survive because Gaia injected me at birth with nanites to cure a congenital defect that would have otherwise have killed me. A curious … side effect … is that they have kept repairing my body and so I am still alive."

"Where is the living Gaia now?" Pepper asked.

"It is Alteran custom to devote their lives to enlightening their consciousness to the point they can ascend to a higher plane of existence," the AI GAIA stated. "My mistress ascended, leaving me behind to finish her mission. Sometimes I detect her consciousness checking up on me, but she is forbidden to interfere."

"We have a few such myths in my culture, as well," Pepper stated. "Jesus, Buddha, a few other humans have reportedly ascended to heaven, or nirvana, when they reached the end of their natural lives instead of dying. I suppose it's possible."

Just then U'chen released his tail and stretched, joyfully swinging it around the room like a small child. "You have no idea how annoying it is to have to hide my tail so you humans don't trip over it! The cloaking device can mask my appearance, but it cannot change my bodies mass or true form. I discovered the best way to keep my tail out of the way was to hold it and program the cloaking device to represent it as a walking stick."

"U'chen," Pepper asked. "I notice you are not much taller than I, but the ceilings and doors on this ship are very tall."

"Runt of the litter," he grunted. "What was a curse growing up turned out to be a blessing in disguise. The other Maklu'an can cloak themselves to appear human, but only the shortest can use the cloaking device to mingle amongst the humans and, even then, are pretty conspicuous! Our average height is between 9 and 10 feet tall."

"There are others mingling amongst us?" she asked incredulously.

"You don't really think John Ogden or Yasutaka Okayama are human, do you?" U'chen joked. "And they are dwarfs by Maklu'an standards."

"Back to the problem at hand," GAIA interrupted, "how are we going to contact the outside world without alerting the evil one to my presence?

OXOXOXOXOXO

Nick Fury gave the signal for the Stark corporate jet to begin its pre-flight check. Their informer, Banyan, had arrived in several delapitated old cars and one large truck borrowed from the airport with his entire extended family in tow. By American standards, Banyan's extended family was ridiculously large. Tony was going to have a lot of people to settle in after this mess was finished. However, his generosity and resources had yielded valuable intelligence that the US government was normally unable to procure. Thanks to Banyan, they had just managed to cut down their 200,000 square mile search grid to a still overwhelming, but more feasible 50,000 square miles and a more manageable number of people to question from the whole population of northern Mongolia to a few dozen families. In a land as sparsely populated as Mongolia, they were no longer looking for a needle in a haystack. Nick saluted the Stark pilot and watched as the plane taxied down the runway.

Now if only they could get Tony Stark to stop egging on his AI-on-steroids to take over the world before she turned herself into SkyNet…

OXOXOXOXOXO

Kidnapped Day 8:

"Mr. Stark, I have information about Miss Potts," JARVIS informed him.

"What?" answered Tony. He was flying a grid pattern over one of the Mongul villages scanning energy signatures for Pepper's engagement ring or WatchMAEVE.

"You're not going to like this…" JARVIS hesitated.

"Show me," Tony ordered.

Projected in his helmet was a grainy video of Pepper, his Pepper, screaming as the Mandarin used the alien gauntlets to drive a shockwave of energy into her brain. Tony shuddered along with her as she fell to the ground and started to have a seizure. The Mandarin then came in front of the camera and stated, "you have 24 hours to deliver one of the full-sized Stark Industries arc reactors to these coordinates or the next session will be even more painful."

"Oh, GOD!" Tony cried, practically dropping out of the sky to land, ripping off his helmet, and throwing it to the ground like a football player with an incomplete pass. "We have to find her! JARVIS … were you able to trace the source?"

"I traced it to a server in Bosnia," JARVIS stated. "I then asked MAEVE to help and she traced it back through dozens of dummy servers around the world to a laptop right there in Tsetserleg. The message was uploaded and sent through the network with a programmed delay so it would take exactly 12 hours to reach you."

"JARVIS," Tony stated, "see if you can decode the video's time stamp so we can determine when it was really made?"

"According to the time stamp," JARVIS stated, "the video was made approximately 24 hours ago."

"So that means we're looking at a search area within a maximum 12 hours travel time from here," Tony said. "Have you been able to locate any security camera footage from the area where the laptop was found?"

"Unfortunately," JARVIS said, "MAEVE already accessed all security camera footage near the source laptop and has been unable to isolate a programmer. I am sorry."

While JARVIS played the video for his master, MAEVE simultaneously played it on all the SHIELD video consoles for the Avengers and SHIELD agents.

Fury growled over the console. "Stark … I take it you've just seen the video."

"He's torturing her!" Tony cried out in agony. "We've got to find her!"

"Stark!" Fury shouted, "get it together. He's rattling your cage so you can't think. You KNOW you can't turn over that technology to a madman. He'd destroy the planet with it."

"I know, I know. I'm going to keep searching this grid. JARVIS has used the time stamp to isolate the search area down to within a 12 hour travel time," Tony said. " MAEVE! You got anything else for us?"

"I am running a comparison of all motor vehicles seen in the area near where the laptop sending the message was found and motor vehicle traffic seen moving in and out of Tsetserleg in the last 24 hours via spy satellite," MAEVE replied. "It's a lot of cars, but I think we can rule out this, this, and this quadrant from our search grid as no vehicles have transited those areas during the time in question. That narrows the search grid to under 15,000 square miles."

"Thanks, MAEVE. Update the others. Continue searching." Tony stated, grimly putting his helmet back on and continuing the search.

OXOXOXOXOXO

Usually he was very patient with her, but today she was afraid of him. Before she had become his betrothed, she had heard stories whispered amongst the others of her clan that their Khan was an especially cruel leader. Tribe members occasionally disappeared and there were rumors that Chu Peng Khan preferred decapitation with a piano wire as his method of expressing his displeasure. There were even rumors her Khan had, on occasion, wiped out entire villages in order to punish one traitor.

Once she had been selected to become his Mongul bride, the future empress who would bear his legitimate children as soon as she reached sexual maturity, all of the whispers stopped. No one dared risk having Mei Lin inform their leader they lived in terror and wished someone would step in and take him out of the picture. It was a very lonely existence. Since no one dared speak openly with her, she often found herself with no one to talk to, to confide in. Mei Lin was lonely. To her surprise, she had discovered she actually liked the red-haired capitalist. Miss Potts was the first person who had dared speak openly to Mei Lin in over 3 years, and she had also expressed no fear when addressing Chu Peng on the spaceship.

They had had a rather long ride into the valley on horseback with which to converse. Although Miss Potts was not aware of it, two guards on horseback had shadowed them with guns pointed at her back the entire way in case she attempted to bolt or tried to hurt her but, as Chu Peng Khan had reassured her when he first instructed her to play hostess, Miss Potts rode with her willingly. A Khan's wife was expected to make all guests, whether heads of state or unwilling political hostages, comfortable. What Mei Lin had not expected, however, was the stimulating conversation they had had along the way.

Pepper had observed the curious deformations amongst the wildlife in the valley and asked many questions about the legend of the day of fire. She had explained that the symptoms Mei Lin was describing could be attributable to something called radiation sickness, and that the fireball her people's legends described was likely an accurate description of some kind of radioactive meteorite, a ball of rock that fell from space, entering the earth's atmosphere and burning up upon re-entry. Although Chu Peng Khan had seen to it that she was being extensively educated in the ways of being a great leader, including the expectation that she would follow in the footsteps of great Mongul brides and become an active advisor, Mei Lin now realized Chu Peng was purposely stunting her knowledge about scientific endeavors and the outside world. How was she supposed to co-rule with him if he deliberately kept her ignorant of the ways of the world?

Pepper had also spoken of her betrothed, Tony Stark, also known as Iron Man. Without television or newspapers, the clan's exposure to such news was limited, but from time to time an outside traveler would tell tales of super humans who walked the earth doing great deeds. A couple of times Mei Lin had accidently walked in on Chu Peng ranting at a subordinate about this Iron Man and the super humans he worked with. Mei Lin always slipped out of the room so as not to arouse his displeasure, but she had heard things. She knew the Iron Man had something her betrothed needed to run that gigantic ship he spent most of his time repairing.

What had really surprised Mei Lin the most was the way in which Miss Potts spoke of her betrothed. While it was customary for Mongul clan members to become engaged young, marry early and remain together for the rest of their lives, the customary Mongul marital relationship was one of strict social roles. The woman ruled the yurt, the domestic finances, and the children, while the man hunted, worked, and provided. Mongul men took their historical machismo roles to a bare-knuckled brawling extreme, while Mongul women were expected to keep the village intact so the men had something to return home to after their frequent group male retreats to their "gers," (portable hunting tents). Although most Mongul couples eventually developed a warm friendship, their relations were often cold, based more upon strict social roles than love.

When Miss Potts spoke of her betrothed, however, Mei Lin realized Miss Potts possessed something she would probably never have with Chu Peng. Although Miss Potts betrothed was only 10 years younger than Chu Peng and, like him, had waited until late in life before selecting a bride, it sounded like he had chosen Miss Potts to be his mate not just because he considered her to be loyal and trustworthy, very Mongul traits, but because he genuinely loved her. Miss Potts had laughingly related how her betrothed had wooed her, whispering poetry in her ear every morning and forgetting how to speak when he proposed to her on a mountain top. At 11 years old, Mei Lin had recently reached the age where she fantasized about her betrothed treating her in such a romantic manner. Miss Potts had also joked about her betrothed's very human foibles, how his genius was paired with forgetfulness, his tendency to get wrapped up in project and forget to do simple things like eat, his complete and utter reliance upon her to attend to all things practical. Tony Stark had chosen a formidable bride, cut from the same cloth as Borte, the Great Khans first wife. He obviously trusted and adored her the way legends said Genghis had adored Borte.

Starved for human conversation, Mei Lin discovered she had made an unexpected bond to Miss Potts and envied her relationship to her betrothed. Of all the people in Mongolia, her only peer was a red-headed capitalist. It was wrong of her to disobey Chu Peng and go back to the bridge of the alien spaceship after he had dismissed her, but she had questions. If Borte and Miss Potts were valued for questioning their khans, then perhaps her input would be valued as well? Perhaps if she emulated Miss Potts example and took a stronger advisory role, Chu Peng would love her the way Iron Man loved Miss Potts?

Mei Lin had walked in just in time to see her betrothed use his magical rings to torture Miss Potts, leaving her twitching helplessly on the floor after she was no longer able to scream. All the time, a camera recorded the incident. Chu Peng hadn't noticed Mei Lin standing there until after he had recorded his chilling message to Miss Potts betrothed. In a rage, he had aimed his magical rings at her and barely regained control of his anger before killing her. Chu Peng had immediately composed his demeanor back into the patient mask he had always worn with her, but she had seen. Mei Lin had seen the pure, unadulterated madness of a psychopath.

For the first time in her life, Mei Lin knew true fear. Chu Peng had to be stopped.

OXOXOXOXOXO

"We have a plan," WatchMAEVE informed her, "but you're not going to like it. I have compared notes with GAIA on developments in human communications technology and there is no way for her to send a radio communications message out of this area without the evil one instantly knowing about it."

"Mandarin is paranoid," GAIA stated. "He has instituted a complete radio and television ban out of this area and will kill anybody who so much as uses a transistor radio. He has gone through enormous lengths to make sure my ship's existence remains a secret. All communication are loaded onto a laptop and driven 12 hours from here to Tsetserleg to be uploaded through a series of dummy servers to disguise its origins."

"Hmmm…" Pepper mused. In light of keeping something as big as the existence of an alien spacecraft a secret, the Mandarin's insistence his minions live the simple life of nomadic plains folk made a lot of sense. Keep the workers ignorant, uneducated, and out of contact with the world and within a generation you would have a pliable, unquestioning work force. Mei Lin was a living example of that strategy. To prevent the more educated scientists he had doing actual repairs from blabbing, he kept them on sight or killed them if they wanted to leave. Just in case he was infiltrated, a radio communications block prevented anyone from communicating with the outside world. Osama Bin Laden and Al Quaida used similar tactics in Afghanistan. It did not surprise her the Mandarin had adopted them.

"How are we going to get a message uploaded onto the next laptop?" she asked.

"The only message that is scheduled to go out is Mandarin's next "gentle reminder" to your betrothed, Tony Stark," WatchMAEVE mournfully stated. "We will embed a secret message giving our coordinates to CoreMAEVE so Mr. Stark can come get you.

"I'm sorry, Miss Potts," GAIA informed her, "but to get a message to Tony Stark, you're going to have to allow yourself to be tortured again."