Initiative 2030
Chapter 40: Iron Patriot III
Iron Patriot soared over the west coast.
It's pilot, Commander Erica James had once been a US Air Force test pilot. She had been 'loaned' to a project intending to copy the Iron Man armor.
It had gone horribly wrong.
The suit, kludged together by Hammer Industries, Edwin Cord, Sunset Bain and a few others, was buggy as hell. Aptly nicknamed 'Widowmaker' it had injured several pilots before Erica even came on board. Then it exploded while a pilot was testing the flight system.
(On reflection, Erica was in awe of what Tony Stark had managed. He built an actual flight rig based off scrap tech. YES he refined it in his lab, and developed it with top line tech, but the basic design work was incredible.)
So things were already bad when Erica came on board. THEN Russia debuted the Crimson Dynamo and Titanium Man suits. The US Government had already been pushing the development of the US armor, but now knowing the Russians had working tech? All hell broke loose.
So the researchers and designers started pushing MUCH harder to get a working rig. Especially since there were rumours Stark would finally sell the US Iron-tech, which would kill the government contract and put them out of a job.
(He did, eventually, in the Guardsman suit, a deliberately limited version of his tech. And the Mandroids, which SUPPOSEDLY were good enough to fight the Avengers. No one in power actually thought that, of course.)
So they started rushing, re-designing the power system and literally stealing tech from criminal suits like the Beetle and others. They pushed up a launch date far sooner then the techs wanted, and it turned out the techs were right.
The 'improved, safer' power system exploded, taking out most of her midsection and legs. The only reason she survived was emergency systems in the suit clamping shut on the damage and severing off chunks of her body...
Then the managers had decided to cover it up... they used basic first aid, then applied the tech they were developing to cybernetic enhance her. Against her will. And presented her as a 'success' to their patrons in Congress.
That went over extremely badly. And once the plug was pulled on the whole thing, Erica was dumped in cryogenic suspension and forgotten.
Iron Patriot dropped down to the street, landing gently. She looked around, then strode towards the small house. The front door opened, and a slightly younger woman stood there.
"Erica...?" she asked.
"Nicky," Erica flipped up her visor and smiled, "good to see you, little sister."
"You asshole!" Nicole hit her breastplate with a fist, "They said you were DEAD!"
"LONG story," Erica sighed as they went inside.
0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0
"Does her sister HAVE to be in California?" Charlotte Witter aka Spider Woman III muttered as she and a few other Defenders shadowed Erica.
"Not everyone in California is a mutant, just a lot of 'em," Nighthawk noted. Tilda Johnson had been a former supervillain, Nightshade, but went straight after helping a alternate universe Nighthawk. When he died, she adopted the identity...
"Keep you head down," Miss America sighed. Barbara Monroe was there leading the team, all of them in street clothes.
"Do you think someone might jump her or something?" Charlotte bitched.
"She is a walking collection of advanced cybernetics," Tilda pointed out. "Not to mention the Iron Patriot suit."
"Yeah, yeah," Charlotte sighed.
"I'm surprised you're not a little more sympathetic," Barbara pointed out, "considering your being in a coma for years, etc etc. Just like she lost years of her life."
"Hmph," Charlotte sighed.
Tilda asked, "So, what's the plan? We hide out in the jeep until Erica leaves?"
"Pretty much," Barbara admitted.
"Oh joy," Charlotte groaned. "Can I at least read a ebook while we wait?"
"Or stream something," Tilda sighed.
"She said it'll only be an hour or so," Barbara reminded them.
"And you believed that?" Tilda snorted.
A tappung on the jeep window made all three jump. A somewhat bemused cop was peering in at the three of them.
"Shit," Barbara muttered. She rolled down the window and smiled sunnily, "Something I can do for you, officer?"
"Was wondering why you're sitting here in a jeep, chatting," he admitted.
"We're arguing over where to go to lunch," Tilda smiled charmingly.
"Ah," he blinked.
0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0
"They did WHAT?" Nicole James yelped.
They were in her living room, Erica having collapsed the armor into it's 'storage mode' and dressed in borrowed shorts and a t-shirt. Her cybernetics were designed to look like flesh and blood, thankfully.
"They told us you died in a plane crash," Nicole added. "No remains."
"Fuckers," Erica sighed.
"Mom and Dad... they died thinking you were dead," Nicole said grimly. She finished her beer, "Are any of these bastards going to pay for this?"
"Most of them went down for unrelated stuff," Erica sipped her drink. "Justin Hammer is dead, Edwin Cord is in jail, and so on."
"Huh," Nicole sighed.
"The only one still out there is Sunset Bain, she's lawyered up and is claiming no responsibility," Erica added flatly.
"I'm sorry," Nicole reached out and squeezed her still human hand.
"You haven't told me much about what's happened with you," Erica smiled faintly, "why California?"
"Well, I'm a teacher at the local high school," Nicole said, "divorced. My ex invested our savings into cryptocurrencies, we were caught up in the crash and lost alot."
Erica had had Crypto explained to her, but she still didn't get WHY someone would actually invest in it...
Nicole snorted, "I missed that perplexed look you could get."
"Ha," Erica smiled.
Nicole looked at her thoughtfully, "This might be pushy..."
"You're my sister, you automatically get to be pushy," Erica sighed.
Nicole shrugged, "You had a girlfriend back then. Does she know...?"
Erica made a face, "I haven't contacted her."
Nicole looked at her compassionately, "I thought you two were pretty serious."
"We were," Erica admitted, "but... I'm not comfortable to contact her, after being missing for years. How do I even explain?"
Nicole hugged her gently.
0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0
"How are we doing prosecuting Sunset Bain?" Foggy Nelson asked.
(Once upon a time Foggy had been a New York Lawyer and buddy of Daredevil. He had been disbarred at one point, reinstated and even went to work as a Prosecutor for the city. Now he worked for the US Government...)
"She's denying all responsibility, of course," Mallory Book said, the younger lawyer looking disgusted. "She claims not to even have been to the Nevada Testing Grounds."
Mallory was a former New York lawyer too, and notably had worked with Jennifer Walters, aka She Hulk. They had a falling out, and now she was here, angling for the eventual job of Attorney General.
"Can we prove she lied about that?" Ally Silvers, a aide, asked.
"They apparently purge video records regularly for security," Mallory scowled.
"Hopefully we can find a witness to verify she was there," Foggy said. "We have the documentation, correct?"
"We do," Sandy Okuda, another aide, replied promptly. "We can show she was in on the project and aware of what it was doing."
"But does it EXPLICITLY say she knew what had been done to Erica James?" Mallory pressed.
"No," Sandy admitted.
"We need a smoking gun," Foggy agreed, "keep digging. We also should talk to Erica James herself, see who actually made visits to the test site."
"Will do," Mallory agreed.
"The President is very interested in this," Foggy added, "we do not want to screw this up."
To be continued...
Notes: It's always bugged me that in the comics the US Govt never tried to replicate Iron Man, except relatively recently. ESPECIALLY when the Russians had similar suits. I may or may not re-work this later into a seperate Iron Man fanfic...