Ironheart chapter 14 "My bodyguard, my assassin!"
Chapter 14
A Wednesday in April 8:17 AM
Riri Williams held what she had been told was a Ka-Bar combat knife with what she hoped looked like confidence. She had zero confidence in what she was doing but NATALIE had been telling her for days that she should learn to pretend when she didn't feel it. She took two steps towards her opponent.
"Look, ya ain't actually gonna KILL me or nothin'!" he said with a lop-sided grin. The man was middle aged, black hair graying at the temples, and an eye patch covered his left eye. He talked like he was in an old war movie, in what she thought of as a classic New York accent. He held both hands up roughly even with his shoulders, as he made "come on" moves with his fingers. "I'm just seein' how fast you are. Now stick me!"
She held the knife tightly, as if it were a screwdriver. She tried to crouch a bit the way she had seen knife fighting done in the movies. Riri took a breath and lunged, her arm fully extended. She had no idea what she was doing, which she wasn't used to and she hated it.
Her opponent grabbed her wrist smoothly with one hand, pulled her forward, twisting her arm behind her back as she dropped the knife. Her opponent released her and she spun around rubbing her sore wrist.
"Good first try. Your stance was terrible, you're flat on your feet and your arm was out way too far. Typical civilian but I've trained worse. Welcome to the Nick Fury boot camp program intern!"
"I'm confused," Riri said as she looked around the gymnasium. It looked like a typical strip mall karate school she had seen many places in Illinois and in Massachusetts. "The All-American Defense Dojo chain of martial arts schools… is really a part of a top secret spy operation?"
"It ain't THAT strange, intern. We also work outta a national used car chain, a few moving companies and a whole bunch of other places. When we started we were in the basement of a barber shop. Grab a seat," he said pointing to the desk in the back of the room.
As she walked back, Riri had a puzzled expression. "Ok. But first of all, you CAN'T be Nick Fury, the most famous super spy secret agent in the world in a Chicago suburban strip mall. For one thing I heard you died. For another thing IT'S CRAZY BANANA PANTS!"
As he sat down, he appeared to scratch his forehead with one hand and his chin with the other, and with a smooth motion he removed the rugged looking middle aged face revealing the utilitarian steel and plastic skull underneath. "You get a gold star, intern! I'm Life Model Decoy #37-A Generation Four Obsolete. Downgraded to instructor status. You can call me Terry."
Riri could not hold back an excited squeal. "You're an android! I totally didn't clock you! That's amazing! Can I study you sometime? I don't mean take you apart but I'd love to learn how you work?"
Terry chuckled. "I heard you were the curious type. Tell you what. You do well at basic agent training, and I can pull a few strings and get you trained on SHIELD android and robotic maintenance and repair. I'm also imprinted with all the information you're cleared for access on as far as the REAL history on Strategic Scientific Reserve and SHIELD operations going back to 1940. Plus everything from Avengers records and a few other useful databases I can tell you'd be itching to learn about."
Riri was thinking at top speed. She was being offered A LOT of incredibly tempting bait. There were always downsides to taking the bait.
But she wanted to really challenge herself. She had decided to aim for being the equal or better of Tony Stark, one of the top superhero genius billionaire playboy philanthropists. So far she was a beginner superhero, a genius, pretty poor and not a philanthropist at all and had no idea what the equivalent of a playboy for her would be. All that history would be a HUGE help at becoming a top superhero. (Note to self. Become rich, do charitable things, figure out what the heck the positive version of a "playboy' is.)
"Tempting. So what is the catch?" In her mind she thought of a dozen more subtle ways she could have asked once it was too late.
Terry stood and pushed several spaces on the wall and a panel slid open revealing 17 faces on the space inside and one empty space. He placed the Nick Fury face in the empty space and selected three faces placing them on the desk and sat back down. "You'll like this. Back when Tony Stark was starting out as Iron Man, before the whole world knew they were the same person, SHIELD assigned an agent to Tony as a bodyguard and consultant on things like industrial sabotage, foreign spies, a bit of everything. It worked out well. Stark would have died over a dozen times if Agent Stilwell hadn't been on the spot. Back then everyone from the Russians and Chinese to rival billionaires to HYDRA was trying to take Stark and his weapons factories off the gameboard."
Riri nodded. "Makes sense. SHIELD wanted to protect a valuable asset. And keep him from doing anything weird like being recruited by someone like AIM or HYDRA maybe? A trained assassin right next to him in case Tony Stark decided to take a shot at taking over the country or something?"
Terry the LMD clapped, snapped his fingers and pointed at her. "Now THAT is impressive! A fifteen year old grad student, and you spotted something Stark the world famous genius never figured out! And please don't tell him by the way. We've had assassins around him since he built his first super science mega weapon. We learned that after watching people like Doctor Doom and the Golden Claw pop up. If someone had strangled them in their sleep when they first went nuts a lot of lives would have been saved."
Riri tilted her head and looked to the side in thought. "I appreciate the honesty. So if I start looking like I'm about to conquer Denmark or kidnap Elon Musk, you'll break my neck? But as long as I stay on the side of the angels, you and SHIELD help me out?"
Terry picked up a face and seemed to consider it. "You're quick, I can't wait to really teach you strategy and tactics. I haven't had a real challenge since I got decommissioned from Colonel Fury body double duty. And honestly, you have no idea what dangers are out there. Mordecai Midas. Luciano Nefaria. Sunset Bain. Phillip Sterling. These are people that specialize in kidnapping and enslaving high tech geniuses. I'm kinda surprised none of them tried to grab you off the MIT campus years ago.
I can't believe I'm even considering this… but I guess having a killer android keeping me honest isn't the STUPIDEST thing I could do… plus it's an opportunity to learn… and the robot is right. I could have wound up chained to a wall in someone's engineering lab ages ago making laser rifles…
What the heck. "Ok Terry. You've got the job of bodyguard and personal consultant. And if you ever kill me for stealing the Statue of Liberty no hard feeling. So where do we start?"
Terry did a celebratory drum lick on the desk with his palms. "Great! Now what do you think? I'm leaning towards one of these three faces. Or should I do Nick Fury without the eye patch? I kind of miss that face."
