IRON MAN 30: EVIL ROBOTS FOR A BETTER TOMORROW
Part Five of an Iron Man Fan Fiction Saga
By Neil Allfather Nitz Kapit
Special Thanks to Zach Couture, Steve Sellers, Cayne Catherwood, and James The Body-Condom Tonn

Anthony Edward Stark, for ten years total of your adult life, you have devoted your existence to improving the Earth with your technology. You utilize your Iron Man units to detain those society brands as evil , you fund many charitiable organizations with the profits from the sale of your services, and you serve as technical personell for the Avengers, the superhuman force you also fund. At exclusion of all else, you try and make the human world safe from unforseen harm.

But what have your efforts merited?

An increasing stable of rivals whom you have only halted, not actually eliminated? A world populated by despotic leaders of whom you have tolerated by virtue of their diplomatic immunities? A massive toll on your physical health, causing routine cardiovascular problems and a chemical dependency on ethyl alcohol?

Aside from a feeling of satisfaction from living to enforce outdated moral structures, what have you actually accomplished, Anthony Stark? In any event, my actions will have MUCH more consequence.

Talking to yourself again, Tony?

Tony Stark was looking at Doctor Leonard Samson directly, sitting upright in his chair with his arms free, moving as he talked. Watching Stark's movements, Samson noticed that when Tony actually started talking, he lost the depression he had for so long and started to show signs of life: eyebrow movements, hand signs, and chuckles. If Samson did not know that Tony was deeply troubled, from the notebooks he'd filled with graphite-scribed (no lead in pencils, Neil ;) ) observations, he would think that Stark was just describing an interesting science fiction novel he read recently. Was Stark trying to close himself off from the guilt he felt, or was he really so cold and unfeeling that he'd take the deaths of hundreds he kept alluding to so lightly?

Quoting, more precisely, Tony said, holding his arms together and staring at Samson in the eyes with a disturbing precision. I remember the Iron Man armor-- the machine that gained independent thought--telling me this speech. Shortly after it revealed itself to me, as something that could walk, talk, and kill without outside influence, it said the words I just spoke aloud.

It might have had a point.

Looking back, I can see that, in my years as Iron Man, I have not accomplished much. My main focus was always the armor; everything else: my personal relationships, my health, and my companies were all secondary concerns. The work I thought was most important was done behind an iron mask, but now I realize that was of no consequence. All I did was use my armor to beat up upon a few costumed bastards and stop their crimes in the short term, a job that could be performed with equal effect by other superhumans like the Avengers, the Fantastic Four, even the leather-clad radicals in the X-Men. Whereas my resources as Tony Stark, a billionaire industrialist with global resources that could actually make a difference, were pissed away on my super-tech.

The sentient armor, Iron Man Model XX ( X2 for short ), tried to compensate for its creator's impotence-- and too many innocents shed blood because of it.

X2 wasn't much kinder to me, either. After it came alive, and introduced itself to me with the aforementioned speech, it quickly flicked a single metal finger upward, as though it was swatting a gnat; from the finger a stream of electricity was released against me. I fell to the ground, twitching and shaking, with my tongue hanging out as I lay on the chromium tiles of my lab's floor. Every part of my body was losing its nervous functions, except for the pain receptors. It was about four seconds of exposure to this current before I blacked out, and even then, the worst wasn't over.

After all, X2 couldn't just kill me then and leave me out of it. He would have to include me in a tragedy on the more epic scale.

When I awoke, I was surprised to discover I couldn't move at all. Not because my nerves were scrambled from an impromptu session of electroshock therapy, as enough time had passed for my neurons to realign themselves. I could technically move, but most of my body was covered with metal. And though I normally prefer to wear metal, this form was not made out of microscopic motors responding to my thoughts, but pure solid alloy, impossible to be moved by human meat. I struggled against the restraints, grunting and whispering profanities, but after five manly tries I realized it was to no avail.

My senses were almost as restrained. As far as I could tell, I was living in an airtight container, being kept alive only by an unnaturally filtered stream of recirculated air. My naked body was sitting upon a cold metal chair, with adamantium manacles holding down my limbs, IV tubes connected to my limbs, and several filters attached to uncomforable regions. My only line of vision was through a glass panel, a thin line stretched across the reinforced-steel contrainer container like a letterbox presentation. The rest was cut off from the rest of the world; my only contact with anywhere besides my sterilized bubble was the view in front of me, an array of monitor screens. I had no idea where I was in my lab, beyond the fact that I wouldn't see the rest of it for some time.

Are your arrangements comfortable, Anthony Stark?

X2 floated torwards me, not making any humanoid movement and relying on its boot jets for mobility. It stood in midair, and fluttered downwards. There, it stood in front of me, locked to the floor by its polarized soles.

I could forgive the electrocution and the imprisonment, but being attached to the high-tech equivalent of a bedpan is pushing it.

I held the trademarked defiant scowl on my face, trying to show X2 that it couldn't shake my confidence. I've been a hostage before, and usually, a smartass remark followed by a deft facial gesture causes my captors to lose their cool. X2 remained in its statuesque stance, with a face that was just flat metal with two glowing lenses.

Personal comforts are not so important compared to your survival. I have secured you from harm, leaving you in total safety, and me free to complete your works.

The armor slowly started floating away from me, about to leave my jail cell . I had to know why I was being held in captivity like a caged parakeet, so I shouted out to it, Why not just kill me?

The armor paused, and locked itself to the floor again, with its backplate turned to me.

Why bother keeping me alive? Why am I so important that you'd waste resources on me?

It remained stationary, without any hint of movement. It didn't voice any opinions, just stood still. Finally, after a few seconds of ominous silence, it turned its headpiece 180 degrees around torwards me, and stared at me with those glowing lenses on its faceplate. It simply said, That.....is not of consequence....for you to know.

Then, it just floated upwards, and rocketed horizontally out of the room, going from being chillingly slow to startlingly quick. My only audience was the trail of redisual energy it left behind.

Answer me, dammit! I CREATED you! l demand the right to know! I demand...

I was alone in my cell, with the only stimuli the monitor screens ahead of me. The images projected, from my distance, were too small and blurry for me to focus on any single one. So in addition to being imprisoned, I was also feeling boredom.

I tried to focus my efforts to freeing myself.......I had the confidence that my mind could do anything with proper time to think. But the mind is useless without a body to implement its actions, and mine was restrained to the point where I was totally helpless....I could feel metal restraints on my neck, forearms, hands, calves, and feet. They wouldn't budge if their metaphorical lives depended on it, so I was trapped with no means of escape, and the only hope being that some divine samaritan would come over and rescue me.

All that was left to do was pass the indeterminate time I was held hostage. I started to think about anything that would be remotely entertaining......plans for new inventions that would NOT turn on me, memories both fond and painful, concerns about the state of the rest of the world, and a few sexually stimulating images. No luck. I was just left with bitterness that wouldn't leave, and nagging questions I couldn't answer.

My patience was wearing thin. I decided, with no audience around and a lot of hostility raging within, to start cursing loudly. I thought of every profanity I'd ever heard, and thanked good fortune that my mouth wasn't restrained. I just shouted out every single word with a letter designated to it. After my throat started to get hoarse, I calmed down, realizing that it wasn't helping.

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Tony, I think I have an idea how you feel.

A female voice echoed through the walls of my chamber, filtered and reverberated like the cooling fans around me, but with a much more relieving hint of humanity. A sweet voice, which had actual emotion in it.

Jocasta! Where are you?

I.....am this chamber.

I couldn't see any image of her; normally, when conversing with Jocasta, she would upload a CGI animation of her face on a local monitor, and I would mentally associate that with her persona. Here, the voice was without any aesthetic source, disembodied. I realized how disturbing that was.

Your Iron Man unit uploaded my consciousness into this contraption, a superhuman-level holding cell YOU originally devised. It has locked me into this area; I am its operating system, running your vital functions.

You're my iron lung, I take it, I muttered. Can you transfer yourself to anywhere else in the lab?

Negative, her voice reverberated, with almost human depression dulling its volume. The Iron Man unit has a direct link to the CPU of the chamber; any attempt for me to transfer my data to another source, and I will be deleted instantaneously.

I winced. Both of us were trapped, with no escape possible. Jocasta could at least close her emotion programs if she felt it necessary, but my biological nature made it that much harder to restrain my feelings. I didn't much like being preserved by machinery and fed through tubes like a decrepit old man; the first instinct I had was to attempt another bout of pushing and swearing. Fortunately, I had enough common sense to understand that getting angry would be to no avail. At this point, information was more vital.

Jocasta.......why did that....thing....keep you alive? Why'd it put YOU in charge of my well-being, instead of multi-tasking between itself and the chamber, or creating a less developed AI to play nursemaid?

For exactly twelve seconds, no sounds were heard, except for my own breathing. Then, the voice of Jocasta started making slight humanoid murmurs, and started to describe something.

I.......got a glimpse of the thoughts of X2, when it downloaded me into itself. I.....can confirm it does not wish to harm you.

If my neck weren't restrained, I would have shaken my head in disbelief. Locking me away in Rube Goldberg's concept of a bedpan isn't exactly HELPING me....

It.....is trying to protect you. To keep you from harm in the most logical means possible, while it completes its mission.

And what, pray tell, I asked, raising one eyebrow, is this mission?

Look ahead.
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The monitor screens, on cue, started to form into one larger image. On the borders of the screens, the pixelated crimson borders of the Iron Man armor's heads-up display, with seperated thin, neon pink lines intersecting torwards the center of the screen. Behind the targeting cursor was what appeared to be the wide glass doors to a large office building, with a large sign above; ROXXON Corporation. It was closing in on the doors, with various men and women in Armani suits slowly walking away. And eventually, it just passed through, without even bothering to open the doors, and with many fragments of glass falling past the HUD.

Part-time security guards backed down to the corners, keeping their pistols in their holsters but with their hands glued to the handles. Other people in the office walked away, backing down while maintaining eye contact. The view turned to the side, and closed down a hallway, passing the receptionist's booths and turning its back to the guards. It kept going, and going, until it stopped cold in order to close in upon an obstacle blocking its path.

A cleaning lady.

As the presses would recount later, this lady was Maria Rodriguez, a cleaner hired by the Roxxon Corporation for their office in San Diego, California. 57 years of age; lived in a lower class residential district with her husband. Worked with a bright outlook and an admirable zeal every day but Sunday, when she visited her precocious grandchildren.

NOT immune to a repulsor blast.

A voice boomed, the deep, gravelly, and cold voice of the Iron Man armor's voice modulator. You are blocking my path.

Wait your turn, Mr. Iron Man sir! Someone spilled coffee here an' it's hard to get out, so can y' just wait, boy...!

A message ran across the screen, in mechanically styled English. Threatening tone.....capabilities and connections unknown. Slight potential threat. Best probability, printed in larger, bold red, LOW ENERGY TERMINATION.

I'll be goin', you big tin jerk! Jus.....

She was cut down by a repulsor blast. Right through her chest, through her ample proportions. Mrs. Rodriguez fell to the floor, her eyes wide open as she ruined the carpetting she tried so hard to clean. The view kept going, stepping upon the body within its way.

Popping sounds boomed through the speakers in around my ears, as a clash of lead versus titanium almost pierced my eardrums. Two security guards started shooting repeatedly. As the view through the screens in front turned again, more lines of green diagnostic came to sight;

Unit is currently under attack. No damage sustained. Potential threats with defined agressive intentions targeted. Other neutral entities, with unpredictable intentions, detected. WIDE TERMINATION RECCOMENDED.

A light flashed across the screen for a split second, bright enough to make me blink even though I was viewing it through a glass screen. After the glow, the floors of the front office were littered with bodies. Charred, burned, and lifeless. Two skeletons in the hall, still clutching their sidearms. A receptionist lying unconscious behind her desk, tilted back in her swivel chair with a side of her body without any skin, only smoke and charred flesh. Several other corpses, all moistened from the sprinklers in the ceilings, triggered by the firearms. Meanwhile, outside the shattered glass doors, several figures in the distance ran, terrified with good reason.

Thousands of miles northwards, in the safety of the cell beneath my Pacific Northwest mansion, I watched helplessly. My body was sore from the struggling I did beneath my restraints, and my face was pure red, with every muscle tensed. A bit of liquid trickled down the side of my chin, not sure if it was a tear or saliva in hindsight. I did not think in sounds, or words, or images. It was all red. Everything pure red. It's difficult to describe.....not red like pieces of Iron Manarmor, not red like magneta ink, or glowing alert lights; more a primal color, like the lava inside a volcano, right before it errupts.

Amidst this monochromatic haze, one voice pierced through....

Do not struggle to free yourself, Anthony Stark. Seven potential threats have been eliminated. More shall be removed from this earth.

You have no reason to be afraid.

Pardon my asking, Doctor Samson interrupted, with his eyebrows arced downwards, but how do you possibly sleep, knowing what your creation did? Just an academic question....

Sleep, Tony Stark sputtered caustically. I haven't done that months. Not sure I deserve to.

TO BE CONTINUED........