Chapter 7

Back down in the lobby Clara is finally greeted by a young man no older then her son Wes. He had walked up to her and the kids and introduced himself, "Ms. Douglas, my name is Alan Surrency." He explained, "I'm Mr. Stark's assistant. It's an honor to meet you ma'am."

He saw the kids and realized she wasn't alone and that she had several animals also with her. He had only been expecting a dog not an entire wolf pack, two panthers and a bear. "Ms. Douglas I am sorry to tell you that Mr. Stark has been called away to deal with an important problem. He does apologize for the inconvenience. Is there any way that we could possibly reschedule the appointment?"

Clara studied the man and removed her gloves. She knew he was lying to her, he wouldn't meet her eyes. She reached out to shake the man's hand. A little skin-to-skin contact and mentioning Stark's name was all that was required to locate Stark. The image of the man flashed in Surrency's mind. "If you had told me the truth it would have been so much easier. Come along kids. We're going to Mr. Stark labs."

Clara had put the man out, as he went down Chris helped lower him to the ground while helping himself to Surrency's security pass. "Oh dear, he's passed out." Chris called out, while pocketing the pass. "Help, Help, someone help! Mr. Surrency has passed out!" Chris hurried to catch up to his aunt and sisters.

Alex studied the man on the floor before turning to catch up to Clara. He kept pace on her left side as Chris paced on the right between Fenris and his aunt. The girls and the animals followed with the girls giggling amongst themselves.

"What just happened?" Alex asked as they reached the elevator and Clara punched in the call button. The doors opened quickly and the group piled in luckily this elevator was larger than most and could accommodate them.

"Rule number one Mr. Christopher." Clara said through her teeth as the doors closed, "Never lie to me," As she pressed the floor button. "Rule number two," She said slightly more relaxed as the elevator begins to climb.

A chorus of young voices chimed in, "Don't tell Mama!"

As Chris hands over the security pass smoothly, Clara responds "Good children, very good." and Fenris chuffs a wolfy laugh. She turns back to Alex and says reprovingly, "And you say they're "NOT" well trained."

Chris already had his keyboard out of his backpack by the time the elevator doors closed and taking off the control panel to the elevator to gain access to the circuits. Clara smiles down at Chris' quick work with the computer and working around the information he needed to get past the computers protective firewall.

XXXXXXXXX

Ivan and Nikolai are looking for Dr. Banner and Benjamin was trying to help maintain calm in the situation. Ivan was talking to eight men in lab coats asking after Dr. Banner, as another man comes out of the lab that Dr. Allen exited earlier he seemed a little unkempt, he came up to Benjamin and said, "I'm afraid you're all going to have to leave. This isn't a playground and the field trips weren't allowed to come to this particular lab."

Benjamin chuckled and saw his name tag reading BANNER, B. PH.D. He was about to bring this to Gabriella's attention when he saw a woman come walking out of the same lab as Dr. Banner just had. He immediately recognized her from photos at the house.

This is Mariam McMasterson she's Warren's wife. Her hair was shorter with masses of curls in her dark brown hair. She was walking towards Gabriella and the kids; he had to stop her before anyone made the mistake of hugging her and without letting on that they were related.

Ivan saw what Benjamin was doing, and got to Mariam first and told her no one could know the connection between the two women. She nodded in understanding and slowed her pace to allow Dr. Banner to get to Gabriella first and then she would approach like she didn't know them at all.

Benjamin introduced Dr. Banner to Gabriella and Dr. Allen walked up to Dr. Banner and Gabriella with Jason following up behind as he comes to stand beside Gabriella, he seemed a little fidgety. Russ was drying off from his impromptu swim in the pool. Then Miriam, escorted by Ivan, came walking up to Gabriella, the Russian does the introductions for everyone except Dr. Allen who introduces himself. The older boys look momentarily confused but catch on quickly to the subterfuge about their aunt, and act appropriately polite but vague when introduced. Luckily the younger children are too curious about their surroundings to even notice their aunt and the mystery surrounding her.

XXXXXXXXX

The elevator doors slid open, to reveal a hallway with a glass enclosed lab. There are four people in the lab, including one man wearing an AC/DC t-shirt, a young woman in a cream shirt that tied on the side and blue skirt, and heels. The other two were a dark skinned man in an air force uniform, and the last man was a stocky fellow, in a chauffeur type uniform

Everybody got off the elevator and stepped through the glass doors. The two groups looked at each other until the animals started fidgeting and being restless, Clara stepped forward and said, "Mr. Stark next time send someone who will be honest with me, you have wasted valuable time for me and my family to come all the way to New York from Georgia and then have the nerve to try and lie to me." That was when all hell broke loose.

Chris the young hacker was still looking at his computer screen and gave a squawk of protest before saying, "Aunt Clara there are several armed teams in body armor invading the tower, and someone else has hacked Jarvis, he is down, and I'm trying to reboot him." Clara stepped up beside her nephew and looked over his shoulder to see several groups dressed in black on several different camera angles.

"Don't be ridiculous, Jarvis can't be hacked." Stark said as he headed over to his own desk and built in computer, as he called out, "Jarvis, status report?" When there was no reply, he began typing on the computer, "Jarvis?" When there was still no reply he began typing more intently and cursing quietly under his breath.

"Yeah right that's helpful," Chris sasses before saying, "I'm going to manually set off the alarm. It's about to get loud in here." The boy began typing furiously as he added, "Clever, very clever, but I'm better. They're trying to jam signals within the tower. I'm getting the phone lines back up between us and the labs Mom's in."

The alarm goes off as Clara and Alex looks at each other and say, "STARK, Now would be a good time to get out of here."

Kaillie breaks in, "I've got to find something first." She goes back out into the hall way, and after a few seconds comes running back in, "Where is the broom closet? Where are the brooms and mops, we've got to have something to fight with!"

Then Tamara and Tamarina chime in, "Oh, are you thinking what we think you're thinking?" Kailie merely grinned at the twins. Tamara grinned back and said, "It's go time!"

Chris called out to his family, "I'm locking down all the elevators except this one Aunt Clara. It might get a little uncomfortable for the people in them right now, but for now it's locked down until we need it again."

The boy didn't look up from his computer screen as he continued, "Jarvis will be up in fifteen to eighteen minutes but we need to move. It won't be long before they get here. Ten to fifteen minutes tops."

Kaillie gave a sharp nod and walks up to Mr. Stark and asked, "Where in the world is your broom closet we need weapons to hit with."

Mr. Stark looks down at the fashion plate of a teenager, he says in response to the question again, "I have a Roomba, why would I need a broom."

Kaillie replies, "What am I supposed to do with that? Throw it at them. That might take out one. Chris, size and number of teams?"

"Looks like an average of 10 to a team, still trying to determine number of teams. Hard to say some are possibly trapped in the elevators now. Six to eight teams I'd say and there's no guarantee they'll stay in the elevators if they have the equipment to get out of them." Chris said as his eyes skimmed across the screen.

Alex felt pride at the almost professional tone the kids were taking, and more than a little trepidation. The size and number of organized troops versus their little group, how were he and Benjamin going to keep their group safe. Not to mention he felt an obligation for the other residents of the tower now.

"Chris are the alarms working? Are the employees getting out?" the former CIA analyst asked the teen.

"Most of them, yeah, it looks like. Unfortunately in an emergency, they don't scan out so I can't really tell you how many are still inside, but ratio wise…" he said, seeming to calculate mentally quickly setting the cameras to shuffle through all of the angles. "No they're not all out and security isn't responding. I'd have to say they've probably been compromised."

Kaillie cursed in what sounded like Farsi before saying. "Spread out, find something." to the other girls. Bobbie pulled out two of her baseball bats, both of them aluminum, taking practice swings with them.

Then the Air Force colonel says, "Ma'am, we don't want the girls to get hurt. Why don't…"

Clara said in a loud and very annoyed voice, "They know what they're doing, which is more than what you are doing, Colonel. Mr. Stark, do you have a weapons room. Some kind of torch that will cut the piping that is right beside you and some duct tape to wrap around to use as handle for the girls. I don't know who has it worse Gabriella or me. She has the little ones, I have the civilians."

With that the kids started chuckling at the thought of Yodie and Irena. Trying to imagine the pair cowering in the corner, that just wasn't their way. They could cause hell to tremble in fear, that the duo would come down and take it over. They would give anyone there, a run for their money.

Clara noticed that the inventors right arm was in a sling, "So, Mr. Stark what did you do to your arm," Clara held out her hand open palm down, "And also two broken ribs or is it three on your right side?"

Before the inventor could respond though, Alex said, "We need to move up or down a level or to a less likely place for them to look for you, Mr. Stark."

Stark, followed closely by the boy who was looking for a place to set the computer down, went walking over to a cabinet and opened a compartment that held a lot of alcohol. This gave Chris an idea, Molotov cocktails. "I'm going to need those." Chris said and pointed at the assorted bottles.

"You're too young to be drinking that. Besides you are going to need all your mental faculties to get past the firewalls."

Chris snorted, "Already past them," and then says under his breath, "And not everything is about inebriation."

"Alex, Molotov cocktails." In a louder tone.

"Good thinking kiddo, I'm on it." Alex replies.

Stark actually heard the teens comment on inebriation and it drew his attention to the young man. As well as the comments about already going through the firewalls. Subtly, at least he thought so he moved to look over the boy's shoulder as he continued to work on his laptop. As the genius watched Chris go thru all the systems he was working on Jarvis and the phones at the same time. Stark watches as the red haired teen breaks through all of Jarvis' firewalls in less than a minute. Something all of the SHIELD techs have never been able to do.

"What are you kid? Some kind of cyborg?" the inventor said.

"Not one of yours," said the boy flippantly as he continues to work, without looking up from the computer.

Alex quickly gets on the satellite phone and calls Benjamin to tell him what is going on. Ben relays the information, then the two men confer and work out how to start booby trapping each other's areas. They come up with taser plates as each of them realize they have small electrical generators and metal plates, which they can electrify.

Stark overhears them talking on the satellite phone and suggests Stinger grenades. Alex puts the twins to work to gather up ball bearings, and so forth while Stark and Pepper put together the grenade bodies. Stark ordered U to cut the pipes for the girls and Happy has found some duct tape and is prepared to wrap the ends for the girls. Bobbie is checking the floor to ceiling windows around the lab. Clara is helping Alex with the Molotov cocktails. Colonel Rhodes looks around at the people as Chris calls out from where he sits at the computer a countdown and his progress with Jarvis. He finally asks in a slightly awed undertone, "Who are you people?"

When Pepper has finished being Starks right hand literally she steps away from Stark, trying to stay out of the way. Kaillie walks over to Pepper and looks her up and down speculatively. Then the teenager nods her head and says, "First lose the heels. Stark, where's your closet? You sleep here sometimes right?" Stark points over to the corner vaguely. She runs over to the closet looking for some slacks and throws them at Pepper to change. Putting the slacks on under the skirt and using the belt from the skirt to hold up the slacks. Happy and the robots are taping up the pipes that the U robot had cut.

Chris yells, "It's Barton and he's got 10 men with him."

Tamara screams, "I'm armed," and she takes a few practice swings.

As Kaillie helps Pepper with her wardrobe changes, she also asks in her rapid fire way, "What was your thing in high school? Were you a cheerleader, twirler, gymnast, or dancer in high school? You're too pretty to have been only a bookworm."

Pepper answered her, "Well I was a feature twirler and gymnast in high school."

Kaillie asked, "Have you been keeping up with your gymnastics?" Kaillie doesn't wait for an answer from her instead she yells, "U we need two more pipes about two and a half feet long each."

Pepper responded with a blush, "Well yes mostly to keep in shape."

"And to keep flexible," Tony adds as he finishes the detonators for the Stinger grenades and attaches them.

Kaillie sees Pepper blush even more and says sharply, "TMI, Stark and really not the best time. Ok you need to go over to that open area over there and warm up until they get your wands ready."

Tamarina yells, "I'm armed." Then moves over to where Pepper and Kaillie were and says to Kaillie "I got this sis, you go help Alex set up his tazer plates." Kaillie nods and moves quickly to Alex's side. "Hi, I'm Tamarina, and you're Ms. Potts right?"

"Pepper." the redhead said quickly with a smile as she warmed up.

"Cool name," said the younger girl with a quick smile, "Ok you were a twirler right, ok these may be just a little heavier than a baton." She said indicating the makeshift wands she was wielding. "But in this case that's a good thing, the object of using a baton is to look pretty and not hit anyone with it. These you want to hit something with, really hard in this case." she said and went through a few moves to demonstrate.

Then Tamara came over and the sisters began throwing gymnastics moves in with the wand work. Then Tamara says cheerfully, "You warmed up?" Pepper performed a short tumbling run and the twins nodded their heads, "You wanna try?" they said in unison and each handed her a wand. As they showed her a few moves again.

Clara suggested to Stark he might try making some tripwires for the Stinger grenades. "Old school," said Stark admiringly, "I like it. But it won't work in this case I don't have anything fine enough to use as a tripwire. Anything I have they'll be able to see."

"I think I can take care of that." Chris said, as he furiously typed in a few commands. "Yep, just as I thought their program was more interested in security protocols, not environmental controls."

"Environmental controls, what can you do with that?" Stark scoffed.

The laugh that came from Chris was well practiced and totally evil sounding as he replied, "Oh I can make them totally miserable for one thing. I can make them really hot, really cold, really wet, and practically blind."

"Fire suppression," Alex said admiringly, "Good thinking kid," he said. Then looking over at his tazer plates, he added, "Stark going to need some electrical tape to protect these leads and you need to work on those trip wires." Seeing Stark studying the boy speculatively, he repeated, "Stark!"

"On it," said the inventor, as he headed for one of the supply closets.

Clara nodded at Chris approvingly with an evil smirk, "The panthers won't like it much, but the others should be fine." She said indicating the animals, who were currently moving among the humans in a pack-like formation with Fenris in the lead.

They were sniffing and rubbing against all of the humans, marking them. Fenris was well aware of his human's mood and knew this mood meant trouble was coming. He was making sure his pack knew these humans while not theirs, were not the enemy. The wolf may have been born in a lab, that didn't mean the protective and fighter instincts weren't still there, ingrained in the large Alpha.