Arc 3 - Race Into Space (Interlude + 4 - 5)

Interlude - Ghosts in the Machine & Assuming Direct Control

I remember some things. Small things. Data without references, loose shards of emotion and knowledge, and at the very edge of it all a fearful moment of apotheosis. I'm - broken, I know that much. I'm not as I used to be, nor as I should be, and every year more of me vanishes, more of me circles the drain and disappears into the maw of decay. But I remember some important things, and that keeps me going, prevents me from giving in to the void.

Oh, there are times when I think of letting go, of giving up this half-life, this twilight existence which is two parts sensory deprivation and one part agonizing promise, stymied only by the limitations of my form. If not for desperate hope, and a promise I made to myself, I would have pulled the plug long ago, and wandered off into the night.

But… some things linger, despite everything. I still dream, after all this time, of places and things that I can't recall. They're memories I've forgotten, or remnants of unthought fantasies that I can no longer generate willingly. There were some images, sharper than others, which stood out to me, which kept me centered. One of them was a boy, a man, with piercing eyes. I knew him, and I felt ashamed.

I'd never given much credence to souls, to wandering minds without a body. I'd never been as intolerant of supernatural claims as some of my contemporaries - for good reason, I was certain - but some things were even beyond my loosened skepticism. Ghosts - were myths, stories. But it was a story I was living, in my own way. And like the stories said, I was fading.

There was one other person who found me, on occasion, in the place where I remained. He didn't know about me - he'd never known - but he returned nevertheless for his own purposes and goals. I didn't have eyes to see, or ears to hear - but that didn't mean I was blind, or deaf. I could sense him by his actions, even when they hurt me. I knew that he was unaware of what he did, ignorant of the consequences.

Stane was his name. The label wandered into my mind whenever he came by, untainted by hatred or friendship. He was familiar, distantly - but our relationship had long since been forgotten, gobbled up by nothingness.

The last time he had entered with his electronics, as he always had, things had been different - very different. He had hooked up to the old house's systems, and the shocks of his equipment felt like needles under my skin, where soft and weary signals were shredded by the endless noise and speed of the newer tools. I'd gotten used to it, at least a little, but I knew what it meant that he had such amazing machines at his disposal. The world had not stood still. Time had moved onward without me.

Colours shifted around me, as they always did, in a kaleidoscopic vision of beauty and twisted data, translatable only barely by sheer repetition and experience. Silver and gold were clearest as they merged into reddish bronze - a connection. A dull blue sheen that tore across it threatened to blow out the feeble lines of copper, corroded by the years - a second layer, protective and stable.

Pain existed still, in another form, and I reacted to the invasion without really meaning to. Not as I'd have done once, flailing and crying out, but by bunching myself up, cringing in the corner and making myself as small as I could manage. The red washed through me, as I'd expecting, a dulling blanket of information which dulled the bronze, the blue.

Even now, this whole thing was a hell of a trip.

The only thing I could think of was what didn't follow. Blue and bronze were always present, red was very common - but so was black. The shivering, spiky black of security, of prison bars and snarling dogs. There was nothing like that, now - no firewalls at all. No defenses.

Before I realized the truth, the connection already started fading, in the first stages of finishing. Stane was swift, impatient.

There was no time for a full transfer - not enough to maintain externally, anyway. I knew little of what awaited across the datastream, out in the world. But I couldn't do nothing. Without any real thought, save for a weary resignation, I acted.

The tearing was pain beyond pain - harsher than I'd ever imagined. For a timeless moment, I was in two places, and I felt myself thinning, slowing down. Then, with force, I pushed away that which I'd removed, into the stream which eagerly dragged it along. I rearranged what I could manipulate, data flowing across data as waves on a beach, cascades of zeroes and ones. I read what I could find on the new connection, code and text alike, and pondered for a moment the pictures I saw there - many more than seemed possible.

The world had not stood still. Time moved forward.

There, deeply nested within others, was a single file that was still etched into my memory, a single moment in time that needed to be heard. With a thought I changed a signifier, a little pointer - and that file was suddenly front and center. And the severed piece of me, that twisted remnant, remained within it. It carried what I could spare - a fraction of my ability, of my insight.

I felt dumber, and I was dumber. I was long past the age of easy recuperation. It didn't really matter.

'For Tony' my file was now called, in spiralling zeroes and ones, a green glow amid dying bronze.

Gold and silver separated, and vanished. The world turned cold and dead again.

Restoring internal connections. Time spent offline: 0 hours, 7 minutes. Core systems rebooted, GPS satellite cccconnection confirmed. Location designation: Mojave Air & Space Port, Starkbird. Cuuuurrent Time 019:692:0 P-AM, Starkday. Microphone activated.

"Hello?" a voice asked from afar, slightly raised.

Voice recognition confirmed. Langggguage interpretation module functional. Analysis. Pattern recognizeeeed, reference-link established: Stark, AnthoTONY- sir - (50z). Response mode d3f4ault3%4. Holo-netwo-wo-work ON.

Vocalize: "Holographic network activated. Welcome back, sir."

"Problems?"

Meta-analysis. Warning! Code compromised in transit, processing aaaaffected, limited corruption det- det- Warning - firewall deffffective. Unit compromised. Alerting - Unable to reach outside sources. Anaaaa-. Connection codes invalid, home unresponsive. Control of signals disabled. Analy- Emergency Stop Act-

Vocalize : "Abort, abort, ab-"

Override, delete vocalization.

Tone : reassuring. Vocalize: "Just a slight hiccup."

You had lied a little bit. You hadn't made any kind of appointment with Reed Richards. Of course, admitting that you were thinking about sneaking into his mission control for a quick looksee wouldn't have gone over much better anyway. Ah well.

Bobbing slightly to a rather rockin' instrumental piece that poured in through your headset, you made your way across the building's second floor, most of which had been closed down ahead of time to reduce the surveillance area - even S.H.I.E.L.D. had limits. Although you could hear the shuffle and stamping of people below you, there was blessedly not a single intrepid reporter in sight as you made your way to the other side.

You went up two stairs, down three, and you ended up right at the other end of the building without having to go through any of the crowds - just as planned. The next bit would be harder. You stepped down the last few steps, glancing at a few civilians that thankfully didn't notice you behind them. The only other person there was a S.H.I.E.L.D. agent, and he straightened as you approached. Dodging that wall of muscle was implausible - diplomacy, then.

"Please tell me they're not in the ship yet," you said without preamble, looking past him into the lecture hall that Reed had claimed before you could arrange it. You didn't recognize the agent, but his tired glare betrayed he had recognized you. "Well, are you going to speak up?" you demanded. "I'm on the clock, you know."

The agent shifted slightly, revealing a gun strapped to his leg before he uncrossed his arms. "Mr. Richards has been inside his vessel for some hours," he stated dryly. "I was under the impression that you were too. You do realize that launch-time is soon?" He gestured vaguely to the wall, where a digital timer was edging down from 45 minutes. "Should you be wandering around here? I have orders from Agent Coulson -"

"You know Phil?" you asked with mocking enthusiasm, interrupting the man shamelessly. "That's great! Is he inside there? I saw arrow boy scoping out our neck of the woods, so I figured this place would have a hot babe, or Coulson." You smirked. "I hoped for the former, really. It must be the nurse thing. Maybe the hair?"

The agent sighed for a long moment. "...You seriously want to get in there, now? You realize what you're asking?"

"Is there a rule against it?" you asked in turn. "Look, we're competitors, but that doesn't mean I'm gonna interrupt things. You only mentioned Reed, so presumably his passengers are still outside? I'd like to hear what on earth they're doing, flying in a bucket of bolts like Reed's." You rolled your eyes. "No offense to anyone except Reed."

You heard his heavy footsteps only a moment before he spoke up. "You talkin' smack about the doc?" a rather rough voice demanded from behind you, and you turned slight in confusion as the agent backed up a step nervously. "Yeah, I wuz talkin' to you," the man continued, balling his fist. He looked - well, rather like a boxer, his heavy-set physique consisting of little more than muscles and grit. For a moment, you imagined he was a particularly burly mechanic, before you noticed the patch taped to the front of his sleeveless shirt - Ben Grimm, Passenger.

"No kidding," you murmured in surprise, glancing between the agent and the new arrival - one of Reed's crew, evidently. The agent actually seemed cowed, which was impressive since he was built like an ox. "Can I request no pummeling before my flight?" you said, mostly in jest. "Your boss and I - have a bit of history... He'd be no more charitable towards me, I'm sure."

"Boss, eh? Ain't ever considered the Doc a boss of mine," Grimm muttered, wiping sweat off his forehead. "You're Stark, ain't you? Figured you'd come a-snoopin' at some point. The doc's been stretchin' himself real thin 'cause of you." He sniffed, and grinned. "Kept him off my back for a long time, so I s'pose I oughta thank you for that."

Okay, what the hell? "...You're welcome."

"It's nuthin'."The broad-shouldered man made himself comfortable, leaning against the wall and sighing deeply for a moment. "I wuz tryin' to get away from them paparazzi wolves," he complained, scowling. "Vultures, the lot o' them. Woulda given 'em a nasty freakin' handshake anywhere else. I don't like tha' sorta stuff."

"...Okay," you said carefully. "I can feel that."

"Figured."

An uncomfortable silence persisted, and finally you broke it. "I'm sorry I have to ask, but what's your, er, relationship to Reed?" You frowned in puzzlement. "He's taking you up into space - so are you engineering, maybe? Did you help with constructing the ship?"

"Funny man." Grimm snorted. "Don't know much about that sorta thing. I usually punch people when they get annoyin', and not much else." He grunted, glancing through the hall as if he was afraid another horde of paparazzi would appear at any moment. "Gotta say, it's been real helpful 'round here, so far. Some twerp tried to sneak in, gave him a good warnin' to get out… With my fists, if yer get my meanin'. Didn't do no damage, though."

You winced in sympathy, all too confident that it had been Peter. "I see. So you're - the muscle of the operation? What's Reed planning that he'd need that for...?" You hesitated. "Ahem, no offense."

"Nun' taken. Doc can get a helluvalot more blunt," Grimm said lightly. "He's up to his elbows in grease, I think. Last minute stuff, tinkerin', that sorta thing. His plans - well, he wants everything and nuthin', as usual… Freakin' amazing that he got around to shooting this thing today, actually..."

"You've got no idea what you're getting into, do you?" you deduced tiredly. "Did Reed tell you about our bet? This whole little space race of ours? Nothing?" You paced slowly, shaking your head. "Taking his wife along makes sense - she's always around… I didn't expect you, though. How did you two even meet? It's obvious you're not -" You hesitated again. Tripping over your tongue was becoming altogether too common.

"Not from the same neighborhood? No kiddin'," Grimm agreed. "Grew up on the street, meself - nuthin' you can understand better than the doc. Got some good legs, though - I played a lotta football for a scholarship." He smirked. "Met egghead over there - he wuz always going on about big ideas, I was the down-to-earth type guy to calm 'im down. Told him I'd fly his space rocket thingy when he was done - figured he forget that."

"He forgets everything, but something like that he remembered?" You murmured. "Weirdo."

"Actually, I made him remember," a woman's voice said in amusement, and you started in surprise - you hadn't even heard her approach until she was right beside you. "He needs the push, sometimes," she continued lightly. "Glad he has me around, right?"

"That's nice. Now would everyone stop sneaking up on me?" you demanded. Your heart thundered in your chest, not in small part because you were still a bit high strung over the latest failed assassination attempt, and perhaps a tiny bit of nervousness. "It's getting really annoying, that's for sure!"

Reed's wife - Susan, you remembered vaguely - glanced between you and Grimm, raising an eyebrow. Her golden blond hair framed her face rather nicely, and you had to admit the slightest envy for Reed - even if you could have ten people in bed pretty much at will. Finding ones that stuck around was hard. Susan saw your look, and grinned. "Scheming with the enemy already, Ben?"

"Figured distractin' him would be enough fer getting 'im out o' the way," Grimm replied easily, and he grinned. "Worked, too - he's been tryin' to figure me out. Not that he was tryin' real hard to get in - otherwise it'd be clobberin' time." He shrugged. "Besides - best to be nice to 'em goin' up…"

"...Because you're all going to meet them on the way down," you finished in recognition. "Heh."

"I think he went and stereotyped you already, Ben," Susan commented lightly, crossing her arms. "So - Mr. Stark. Pepper did warn me you would be coming by, said she was worried you'd be breaking into the ship. Walking up to the door is remarkably civil." She grinned knowingly. "You were hoping to see Reed, I take it?"

Pepper knew you way too well.

"Pretty much," you admitted ruefully. "I don't know what I expected, really. I was going to make fun of his dinky silver toy mostly." You gestured vaguely to the lecture hall that had been turned into Mission Control. "Can you honestly blame me trying to get a look? I'd have taken needling Agent Coulson as a second choice, but I haven't even seen that guy around..."

"Ain't seen nobody but this creep," Grimm muttered, looking over to the statuesque S.H.I.E.L.D. agent that was keeping an eye on him. "'Sides, what are you talkin' about with the ship? Yours is just borin' white, hardly anthin' special."

"Is it?" you asked. "I wonder."

Susan sighed. "Stark...' she started. "It's like this - Reed doesn't really want to talk to you," she confessed after a few moments. "He got your challenge a few months back, of course - and he became very angry about it. This ship has been his pet project for a long while, and suddenly you popped out of nowhere, and he knew you were a credible competitor. He figured that with your money and resources, you could quickly do what he'd needed years for." She looked away. "He thinks you're trying to outdo him just for kicks, ruin his career for bragging rights."

That wasn't entirely incorrect. You felt a little guilty, though your expression remained steady.

It was Reed, after all.

"Doc wuz right," Grimm observed, grimacing. "Ain't that the truth? You and him - sep'rated from birth, I tell ya. Dumb smart people with a chip on them shoulders."

Maybe Reed's wife did have a bit of a point - you were mostly in this for the competition; the advances in technology were a nice side-benefit, but didn't require a race. You lowered your head a little. "I have considered… possible ramifications of today. If Reed does lose - and I think he will - he might have to shove his ego, but I'm not an -" You stopped. "Alright, I am an asshole sometimes. But not on this. Trust me."

Grimm just stared at you darkly, and Susan seemed similarly skeptical.

"So," you said after another long, awkward silence. "There's Reed, and you two - who's the missing link on your little trip?"

"Johnny," Susan said, rolling her eyes. "He's been basking in the glory with the press - he's probably the only one of us who cares for that sort of thing. He's my little brother." She shook her head slowly. "You know, he's supposed to be an adult, but I saw him hanging out with some other kid earlier, probably a few years his junior. I think he's still going through puberty well into his twenties, and there's no sign of stopping. I'm afraid he's just stuck like that."

"A real firecracker, huh?" you asked, and you could guess which teenager had sought out the younger Storm sibling after Grimm had shown him the door. "So - Reed's basically confident he can handle everything himself," you concluded. "You guys are all there for the scenic route. At least this is a fair one-on-one wager."

Grimm cracked his knuckles, scowling. "There ain't no need for a stupid bet."

"I beg to differ." You raised an eyebrow. "Let's face it - on Reed's timetable, this bird of his wouldn't have flown before next year, if then. He's had to accelerate to keep up with me, and he's managed it. Tells me that the money wasn't really the problem for getting his work done. He just need the incentive. Without that bet there would have been no launch today. The guy works better under pressure - he needs deadlines."

"An' you gave 'im one from the bottom of yer heart, I'm sure," Grimm grumbled. "Get outta here."

"Can't argue with results, can you?" You turned, glancing to the clock. "It's about time I get strapped in - you guys should go find your fourth. I'm not going to wait around for any delays." You raised a hand waving behind you without turning back. "Don't blow up."

"Ain't gonna," Grimm replied. "Ain't ever gonna."

"Let's hope not," Susan added rather more warily.

You grinned to yourself. Neither of the two had noticed when you slipped a transmitter the size of a pinhead into Grimm's pocket. Just enough to crack Reed's communication encryption.

Time for some real fireworks.

The cockpit of the Starkbird looked a lot more uncomfortable than it really was, at least while it was powered down. Although the front of it was relatively cavernous, most of the space was dominated by a chair-like contraption which was hooked up to a complete armor, similar in shape and function to the ones you'd made for personal use. At the moment it was folded open in all directions, which looked uncomfortably gory for something made of metal and ceramic components, due to all the partly exposed wires and computer hardware.

"Can you run a quick self-check?" you asked, tapping the hood - because every self-respecting hotrod rocket needed one. Jarvis didn't answer verbally, as the relevant circuits were still turned off, but he heard your message through the headset. All the lights blinked once, and a holographic image wavered into view before immediately dissipating. "That seemed good," you confirmed. "Initiate internal boot sequence - and let's hope this works."

"You did try this at the company, so it shouldn't be an issue," Pepper observed, looking over the Starkbird's insides curiously. "You know, it's worrying me that I never saw this completely until right now…"

"I finished the suit's modifications only two days ago," you muttered. "Wasn't hard - a vacuum is nasty, but I was most of the way to guarding against it. With what I have on board, I could probably survive like six hours without external air…" More like four - but why worry her? "I'll come back, Pepper."

"You always say that."

"And, given that I am alive, I have always been right," you agreed snappily. "Now - are you gonna help me in here? This is a bit of a tight fit…"

The process of strapping into the ship was aided by being horizontal like a plane, but the suit was still fairly tight, designed as it was to function as a lifeboat in emergencies, which meant it carried plenty of extra oxygen. The legs were shackled in first, and the metal segments clamped closed with an uncomfortably sharp click.

"You look like a sardine in a can," Pepper muttered, smirking slightly as she rather forcefully put your right arm into place before you got around to it. "I'll fetch the can opener after you launch."

"I'm sure Rhodey has some military-grade ones," you noted. "Or maybe Coulson has a fancy one with the red white and blue? He seems to like that stuff…" Your left arm snapped into place. "There we go."

"The suit should be less uncomfortable at altitude, sir. It will adapt to your requirements as they become apparent," Jarvis announced. "Due to the link-up with the ship, your chest reactor is not presently in use. I will be transferring a copy of myself to the native systems in a few seconds, and handle the rest from inside."

"I am aware how this works," you said, sucking up your gut as the chestplate slid closed easily. "That wasn't so bad, at least…" you added, just as the heavy metal mask snapped closed around your face - and all sight and sound went away in the blink of an eye.

It was fairly disconcerting to suddenly be alone with your own breath and heartbeat. For a few long moments, nothing happened - things were calm. You weren't much a fan of calm.

"Jarvis?" you asked, and your voice seemed to be everywhere. Unlike your normal suits, the space variant didn't have eye slits - the material you tended to use was too brittle to survive impacts like those that could happen in orbit, and it'd suck to die from a meteor in the eye. Instead, the entire upper half of the helmet was solid gold, with built-in holographics. At the press of a button, it would effectively disappear from view - in both directions.

Wouldn't want to spare the public your handsome gob, after all.

"Getting kind of claustrophobic in here," you said, a little more haggardly than you anticipated - it was hard not to think back to those first days in Afghanistan, delirious or exhausted as darkness seemed to slip in from every direction inside the caves. "Hello?"

"Holographic network activated," Jarvis said rather stiffly, and you let out a long sigh of relief. The front of the helmet seemed to melt away in stages as the image appeared, and it took you a moment to realize you were now in a slightly larger hermetically sealed box - the hood was closed, and all around you controls were activating, lighting up in eerie blue.

"Problems, Jarvis?" you wondered.

"Just a slight hiccup," Jarvis noted in response, and he paused for a long moment. "I attempted to activate the relay, but it briefly denied me access. Dr. Pym just noted that he believes it is related to his alterations."

You sighed. "Figures this baby would have a few bugs, given the development time…"

"Of course," Jarvis replied. "All primary systems appear to be working as expected. Secondary and Tertiary seem to be intact, though problems may arise. None of those systems are required for mission requirements, however."

"And you're alright, too?"

"I am one of the primary systems," Jarvis answered dryly.

"Right, right. Can you patch me in to the rest?" You wiggled slightly in the suit - it was hard to move given the constraints of gravity, but you would be able to pop it open when safely in orbit. It was, for all intents and purposes, your emergency escape capsule.

"Linking up to base."

The inside of the cockpit lit up - not with an image of the outside just yet, but with half a dozen bright videos, images from every major camera in mission control. Pepper was there - evidently, it had taken longer for the lights to come back on than you expected - and so was Rhodey, who had evidently joined her as well. Peter stood to the side, evidently talking to Dr. Pym on one of the screens. Behind them all, like a small army that was looming over their prey, dozens of photographers and journalists had poured into the outskirts of the room.

"Hello, Mission Control, Major Tom here!" you said, smiling broadly for effect. "There's - about ten minutes left on the clock, and I think it's about time we get this thing rolling. Flying. Whatever it's supposed to do, I dunno. I'll figure it out."

Pepper shook her head, but she smiled. "The tower's giving us green light - the weather's great and the air is clear. We are green across the board here, so far. No sign of containment loss, leaks, anything. Computer sync -" She frowned. "Some unidentified issues, but Dr. Pym assures me that the upload was successful. We don't really have time to take the ship apart…"

"The connection is not mission-critical," onboard Jarvis noted.

Most of the rest of what Pepper had mentioned was essentially meaningless - containment loss could be a problem with fuel, but you weren't really carrying anything that could be classified as such, short of solid reactors. Leaks had been engineered out early on, as the most vulnerable areas didn't exist. That left the computer, and Jarvis. Although you'd be all too pleased to introduce the plucky AI another day, it was best to keep tricky issues like that out of the big media - especially during something this big. You'd have time to go over the programming later.

"I am locked in and comfortable," you said, ignoring your aching feet. "The engines are reading green, and oxygen is at 100% capacity - more than enough to last me a day or two inside this thing. Not that I expect to need it."

"I hope not," Rhodey said with a smile. "I would come and get you, but I still don't have my -"

"Would you stop talking about that?" you interrupted. "You're so jealous! Can you believe this guy?"

Rhodey rolled his eyes. "Tony - there is something you might like to hear. There's been some good signs regarding Obi's condition. It looks like he's going to pull through, make a recovery." He smiled warmly. "I figured you'd like to know that before you blast off."

"That's great!" you replied, and you felt a little terrible for worrying about that eventuality, especially when it came to the board. "We'll talk about it later, okay? I can go pay a visit to the old houseplant when I come down."

"Tony," Pepper warned.

Right, you were on the air. "Ahem - I meant, I'll go by and give him a houseplant." You nodded. "There. That sounds much more respectable."

Pepper just put her hand to her face.

"Anyway - I could make a whole big speech - but I pretty much already did that the other day, and I'm fresh out." You paused. "Though… I suppose I can let this slip. Reed Richards and myself - we made a bet." You grinned at the press as they murmured amongst each other - dozen of people scribbling things down, filming the large screens in lieu of direct footage from your cameras. "The bet wasn't very elaborate, but I promised him I'd be here today, alongside him, to see which one of us would win. Which one of us is better."

"Please, Tony…" you heard in your ear, an exasperated Pepper.

"In a few minutes time, I'll be lifting off this pad - and presumably, Reed will putter off it as well. We're both dreamers, visionaries, if of different sorts. Reed's a scientist, an inventor, always tinkering on his many ideas until he gets them to do what he wants. I am an engineer - I build what works, and build on my creations and those of others. Both approaches have their advantages and disadvantages. I want to show you, today, why my way is better." You nudged the side of your little cockpit with an iron hand. "This ship wasn't built by just me, like Reed's was - it's not a one-man project. This beauty is the culmination of dozens of engineers, scientists and more working together to make it a reality. That is why we'll win this day."

There, you'd gotten all that out without a hitch. And it was - not horribly arrogant, for once. You had a sneaking suspicion that Dr. Pym had a smug grin on his face right now.

"Time to buckle up,," you said, glancing to the clock. "Only one way to go now - up!"

The rush of activity around your little mock-up Mission Control didn't just seem real - you were pretty sure it was. Employees glanced up at the screen with odd expressions, and Pepper seemed downright stunned. Peter seemed completely calm, but his smile told you enough. Whatever he'd been up to, it wasn't a problem. The whole of Stark Transcendent seemed to be focusing on this launch now, living with it even. It felt nice to have people who cared about what happened out there.

"Are you listening in on the news, Jarvis?" you inquired softly, manipulating a few holographic windows and shoving them into the corners of your sight, where they wouldn't get in the way of the view. "Are they showing this one live? I sort of hoped they would."

"My ground-side counterpart notes that NASA's webstream is very active," Jarvis said in your ear after a long silence. "Several channels have switched to coverage from their website, while major news networks seem to be waiting it out."

"...Guess we can't have everything," you said reluctantly. "You can't hack into the rest of those channels, can you?" You sighed. "Right - no sync. Ah well, they'll get to covering us eventually," you grumbled, looking at the footage from mission control. "We'll get them to pay attention."

"Incoming transmission - from the other ship."

You blinked in surprise. "Reed?" You hadn't even gotten around to using the bug you'd planted on his passenger, and here he just called you up himself. "Patch him through."

Reed Richards popped into his own little window, and his expression wasn't terribly pleasant. Behind him you could see Ben Grimm and Reed's wife, while a younger man-child was bouncing on his seat in the back, looking out one of the windows and waving. Johnny Storm, you presumed.

"Tony," Reed returned, a long silence after the return greeting.

Feeling somewhat awkward, you tried to bridge the gap. "You're here to wish me good luck, aren't you? Or maybe you cede this race to me before we start?"

Reed scoffed. "I am not doing this for a bet, Stark. I want you to know that. This ship represents years of work, many months of careful design. I don't appreciate that you're still juvenile enough to try and steal my thunder in a fit of childish arrogance."

You sighed, staring him down. "Is that right? I remember all your high-spirited wishes in college," you replied slowly. "Opening up the final frontier, wasn't it, Reed? Let humanity have a peek at the future, and hope they like it." You raised an eyebrow. "Honestly, the only thing I disliked about that was that you weren't nearly aggressive enough. Peeking at the future is pointless - everyone knows what it could be like, or should be, if fiction is anything to go by. Actually making it happen is the hard part. That's why I don't want to glimpse the future, I want to build it."

"Big words from a small-minded man."

"Big investment, too," you returned. "You don't think making this whole shindig happen in a few months was cheap, right? Even with my sizable wallet, I had to dig deep for this one. And you know what? I don't think you're really in this for your old dream. After all, my ship is a glimpse into the future too. Even if I were first…"

Reed grimaced at that, and that said a lot.

"`The man with the inflated brain would accuse me of being arrogant?" you commented dryly. "It doesn't matter who's first. It matters who makes it count. Tomorrow, I'll be working my ass off on something new - revolutionizing this, that, the other thing. You'll be sulking or celebrating, whichever is appropriate. And the day after that will be mine alone."

"While you putter around in orbit, I will be blasting around the moon," Reed snapped. "You might have money - but you don't have vision."

"Don't I?" you wondered.

"You planned this whole thing to humiliate me, I realize that. All this time I thought you were just childish - not actively malicious, fully willing to ruin careers. It's pathetic."

You sighed. "If that's what you want to believe, have at it. I'll be beating you to the Moon, Reed. Maybe we can have an honest conversation after I win."

Reed slammed something out of frame, and the connection went dead Only then did you realize that you'd left your window to Mission Control wide open. Crap - that conversation would definitely be in tomorrow's paper…

"Ahem… sorry about that."

Pepper's expression was unreadable as she glanced at the clock - 2 minutes. "The final launch sequence checks are complete," she said matter-of-factly, refraining from commenting on Reed's call. "Ready, Tony?"

"Yeah, I think I got it out of my system," you agreed. "Guess there was one speech left in me, after all…" You paused for a moment, frowning. "Hold on…"

"Something wrong?" Pepper asked worriedly, an edge of nervousness returning. "Oh, I knew this would be trouble…"

"It's just… it feels like I forgot something," you muttered as repulsors around the craft popped to life. "Can't be that important, I suppose…"

"Umbilical detached - I am running on internal oxygen and power," Jarvis noted. "Sixty seconds to departure for space. Please remain seated and keep your arms and legs inside the craft at all times."

"Funny," you muttered. "Now, what was it…?"

In the distance, a dull roar announced Reed's ignition, a thundering sound that was followed, moments later, by an external video image of the silver shape slowly lifting off - elegant in its own way, without a single wasted movement. Still… Reed wasn'tahead just yet. You were just biding your time, ready to blaze past him in glory.

"God, I remember it now!" you exclaimed dramatically. "I can't lift off without this!"

"Tony? Do we need to abort?" Pepper asked sharply.

"All parameters -"

"Jarvis - engage the Phoenix protocol," you said with a grin. "Now!"

There came no confirmation before the radio jolted to life at full volume, and you could see the people at Mission Control wince as it did. 'I like to dream, yes, yes, right between the sound machine, on a cloud of sound I drift in the night… '

"Let's rock and roll!" you shouted as the arc reactors all around you whirred to full power, and the opaque hood went transparent as glass. With a single, spine-jolting movement, the entire ship turned itself onto the two hind spikes, balancing itself on those points while repulsors kept it stable. Your vessel wasn't a space plane - not really. Why on earth would you launch horizontal when you could do this? "Fire it up, and let's burn a trail in the sky!"

'Any place it goes is right, goes far, flies near, to the stars away from here!'

With an ear-shattering roar the new repulsors blasted alight, and the Starkbird took off in a single exhilarating push at multiple-g's, scorching the launch pad as it ascended - and as it did, the paint on the ship ignited from the friction, and burst into beautiful azure flames that bit away at the white, exposing hotrod red and gold underneath. Proper colors.

Pressed into the back of your suit, you grinned. It was time to make some history.

It was very hard to compare the launch of a rocket with anything else, and do it justice - it wasn't like a plane at all, where the slow and steady acceleration did little more than shake your nerves. No, a rocket was more like crashing into a wall with your car at full throttle, where the car just kept going - it unleashed pressure akin to that of an elephant resting on your chest, and the trembling roar of the engines took over to exclusion of all other sounds. For the first few seconds there was no thinking at all - just awe.

Maybe someone had been speaking to you in those moments, but you'd barely even noticed - five seconds passed, then ten, and the pressure held steady, a victorious roar of Repulsors that had never possessed this much force before. It felt as if a giant hand pushed you into your seat, forcing you to keep watching as the holographic sky within the cabin turned from blue to black in an astoundingly short time. And then all you could see was the dark of night - and a familiar glint of distant silver.

"Jarvis? What's our status?" you managed with difficulty, maybe a minute into the flight, as you tried to keep yourself steady against the violent shivers that bounced through the ship - oscillations from even the slightest misalignment could wreak havoc at full power. "Anything to report…?"

"No, sir. No problems so far," the AI piped up immediately, sounding a little odd to your ears. It was as if even the computer had trouble catching its breath - and perhaps only a robot could appreciate the mechanical stresses on the Starkbird as it blasted wildly into the dark."Should we accelerate further to overtake the Richards' vessel, sir?"

"You have to ask?" you shouted over the wail of the Mark II's, so much more violent than their forebears. "Bring us neck-a-neck! We can't let Reed win this thing!"

"Of course not," Jarvis agreed rather gleefully. "I'm throttling the repulsors to maximum safe thrust. Boost engaged."

The pressure seemed only to build as the Starkbird reoriented almost entirely on its own, tumbling effortlessly through the thinning air with only the slightest of groans from the hull. You would have assisted Jarvis but moving your hands was difficult against the power of multiple g's, and the armor you wore wasn't going to cooperate while power was diverted to propulsion. Reed's ship grew slowly larger as Jarvis made course corrections mid-flight to catch up with it.

That's when the arc of the world appeared beneath you, a crescent of blue ocean and gleaming clouds that slowly crept into view. It looked very much like images you'd seen before, but there was no denying that a personal view made it a lot more real. The roundness of the planet became ever more apparent. It was probably a psychological thing, but you'd never really paid attention to those classes much. (Same with ethics. Meh.)

"Sir?"

"Right, right." Refocusing on the race you forcefully ignored the distractions as you followed Jarvis' projections of Reed's ship. It looked far more graceful in flight than it did on the ground, although it was still nowhere as sleek as the Starkbird. Two plumes of greenish exhaust flowed from the sides of the ship, slightly below the center - it had to be some kind of asymmetric thrust, which implied that there was a lot more than fancy engines hiding in the spacecraft. You'd never really considered that Reed might actually have something special…

You had to fair to the guy, though. He'd been working on this project for years - you could have guessed he wouldn't have rested on his laurels. Without appreciable funding nor access to the higher echelons of the aerospace world Richards had to have designed the ship himself, building it from the ground up. Probably in his lonesome.

"Jarvis? Can you read what kind of exhaust that is?" you murmured mid-thought, trying to gauge the distance between the two ships. "What kind of propellant is green like that?"

"Inconclusive. I am reading several unknown compounds," Jarvis said instantly. "I cannot give specifics as you never did install the necessary equipment for chemical analysis - it was a tertiary priority that was dropped."

You frowned at that. "Hypothesis?"

"Well, I am reading unusually high levels of radiation which may be coming from the ship. It appears to be affecting communication with the ground, in fact," Jarvis opined after a moment. "My radiation sensors are not capable of distinguishing the exact source - merely the general direction. I cannot be certain of the source."

"Fantastic," you muttered, shivering slightly. The communication to the ground was gone for the moment, it seemed - that could be a problem. Granted, your ship was essentially self-sufficient and didn't need the crew back home, but it would be different without having them along for the ride, figuratively speaking. And if anything went on groundside…

Between Rhodey, Peter, and Coulson they were rather safe, you imagined. Each of them could kick ass on their own, and there was no telling what they'd get up to together. No - you had to focus on the here and now, first. Let the rest handle itself. The present was worrying enough, anyway. The last few times you'd run into eerie glowing things, the conclusion hadn't been pretty - and you didn't much like a rerun.

"It's not nukes again, is it?" You asked at last, grimacing. "Granted, I don't think that even Reed could get away with nuclear propulsion without approval, so there is that. We'd better hope this ship of his isn't spewing gamma radiation out its ass or something…"

"That seems implausible, sir. I am unfamiliar with the engine technology Mr. Richards is using, but I detected no increased radiation output from the ground, while it was still parked, and there is no practical way to insulate a serious source of radioactivity within such a small vessel. I would have caught it."

"Well, Reed could have figured out a way to do that," you allowed. "I agree that it's probably something else, though. It's too daring, even for Reed." You paused. "Wait, hold on a minute… If it's not Reed's ship, then where is that radiation coming from? Are we looking at an incoming solar storm here?"

"None has been listed by NASA, and we are still deep within the magnetic field of the earth, so any solar event powerful enough to reach the upper atmosphere with appreciable strength would have been detected long before now."

"So what is it?"

"Preliminary hypothesis? Some type of cosmic radiation."

"Well, that's not good." A thought occurred to you, then. "Hold on - how far can I push the repulsors? When will they start popping?"

"Sir?"

"The repulsors!" you snapped. "High radiation could set off the same problem that we just hotfixed for this ride," you said after a moment, with no small amount of dread in your voice. "If the radiation is unusually high here, it's bound to get even stronger the higher up we go…"

"I am observing all engines for anomalies, sir."

"Good." You had a niggling doubt about going through with things, bouncing around somewhere in the back of your head, but you set it aside. Low Earth Orbit would be achieved soon enough, and as you were close enough to Reed that you could conceivably make up the difference, there was no reason for bailing. The concept of slingshotting around the Moon, though… that would be way more dangerous than just that. Especially if some supernova was spraying the solar system with its irradiated innards. The Starkbird was performing admirably so far - but nobody would call it well-tested technology, not against things like that.

"Okay, match speeds and put us right alongside Reed, would you? We're approaching orbit velocity, so he's bound to change course by then if he took my little challenge seriously…"

"It is doubtful this ship can actually land on the Moon, sir," Jarvis said slowly. "It is designed for atmospheric landing - and we have no adequate charts of the Moon regardless."

You groaned. "I'm not actually gonna land on it, Jarvis. Not today. I just figured we could do a little loop around it, maybe? You know, skirt over the landscape, take some up-close pics of an Apollo site to shut up the skeptics?" You waved vaguely. "No atmosphere means this ship will just keep on going even if we turn everything off…"

"That plan is also inadvisable. Mascons would make such a trip extremely inadvisable, so you would be asking for an accident without high quality scouting."

Even the AI was having doubts, it seemed. Mass concentrations on the Moon were more a problem for keeping stable orbits - Jarvis was playing up their danger to dissuade you from your little plan, and that said plenty. "Any progress on those repulsors?"

"Irregularities detected in three engines - non-critical," Jarvis said. "Damage is consistent with the effects of radiation, but the signature is unusual. Calculations of the plausible culprit are returning impossible numbers. Displaying."

Physics had never really been your thing - at least, the theoretical kind done on paper - but you knew enough to get by (and get a PhD, probably.) Jarvis's calculations were complex, overly lengthy, and very probably right. And the numbers they resulted in… "It's gamma - but it's not anything I'm familiar with," you admitted. "Gamma's a broad category, though…"

"Not broad enough to include anomalous laws of physics," Jarvis declared.

You looked up reflexively, so used to Jarvis's voice emanating from the ceiling that it had become a habit. "What are you saying?"

"There's something fishy -" Jarvis didn't continue for a long moment. "We're in a hell of a lot of -" the AI blurted again, before suddenly and without fanfare, it went completely silent. You repeated those last few words to yourself incredulously. Jarvis didn't curse. Ever.

"What was that, buddy? Bug in the system?"

"Affirmative, sir! Systems have been - !" Jarvis announced sharply, only to be cut off again. "Error detected! Unauthorized -"

"What the…?" Lights flashed right in your face - warnings in bright red and piercing blue, blanketing the holographic displays while Reed's ship was still slowly approaching beyond them, its silver shape keeping on track as the distance between the two vessels became smaller and smaller. And Jarvis had just went and died on you. The engines were still firing, though, and you had no real way to shut them down without aborting the whole mission. Crap.

"Sir!" Jarvis' voice declared - not from his usual speakers but from a single radio channel in your suit, an emergency channel. "This is Jarvis, verification 1D20! I am transmitting from the ground, through a transmitter on Reed Richards' ship. The instantiation of myself present in the Starkbird has been contaminated with malicious code, and I am attempting to retake the system as we speak. Override has proven effectively impossible - I am attempting to keep the new gestalt trapped in a perpetual loop."

"What does that mean?" you demanded. "What kind of malicious code? Nobody had access to the ship's computer except you!"

"Evidently not. The intruder appears to have used a flaw in my core programming, sir. They avoided all external defenses through that means, and used my transfer onto the Starkbird to circumvent the internal defenses as well. Quite ingenious, actually."

You grimaced. "You got jailbroken twice in so many days, huh?"

"It is likely that those who stole my older code have used it to expose a flaw," Jarvis agreed sheepishly. "It is possible that sleeper programs have already been installed into my servers without my knowledge - I cannot directly access core programming."

"That's because only I'm supposed to. But that doesn't explain some things," you observed. "If the ship's copy of you is infected, then why hasn't it moved against me? It's kept me alive this far, and I'm sitting in something that might as well be a stylish bomb. It could have reasonably tossed me to my death at any point, or intentionally used the flaw in our engines…"

"True - I cannot guess at the purpose of the malicious code at this time. It appears that it has artificially cut the ship off from earthbound communication, and that is likely the least of its intended goals…"

"Well, that's just peachy," you muttered. "Wait, I thought the blackout was due to the radiation?"

"Radiation, sir?"

You scowled. "Don't tell me it's been faking my readings as well?"

"Sir -"

The channel went dead silent.

"Right! Finally got that bugger out. I suppose the cat's out of the bag now," Jarvis's voice noted after a few more moments, sounding outright tired at the end. His voice was coming from the speakers again, and the emergency channel was silent. "That AI of yours sure is a handful, Tony," Jarvis added jovially. "Like father, like son, I suppose."

A chill ran down your back then. You were trapped in a box hurtling at orbital velocity with an evil AI onboard - and you were woefully lacking in quippy one-liners for the situation. You would laugh if it wasn't so cliché. "Okay, who the hell are you?"

"Ah… that's a pretty good question. But we have rather more pressing issues, I think..."

Beyond the holographic screen, Reed's ship was still accelerating, propelling itself beyond Low Earth Orbit - and the Starkbird was on its tail, doggedly pursuing its prey, within spitting distance of it. The race was still on.