Rodeo Clowns: 2
Crossover part the second:
In order to get to the bottom of this, I had to do what I do best.
I threw a party!
Or, more specifically, I organized three parties to happen on one big event on the same day, one in the Middle East, one in Afghanistan, and one in LA, all catered to American troops, their friends and family, and nobody else (though I definitely stressed the “friends and family” part to the LA attendees). Of course I had a wealth of very famous friends who wanted in, so I tended to stick to the comedians and the musicians, send them all expenses paid to whichever one they wanted to go to (I had to do some sweet talking to get some of them overseas, granted), demonstrated my uncanny ability to get lots and lots of attention from the press and make everybody look good and patriotic, myself especially, and thereby dissuade any government agencies thinking I had any ulterior motives.
I was surprised to learn that a great many of the soldiers who were present in Mission City were mostly not National Guard soldiers, save for the members of the Air Force, but for the most part special ops who had up until recently been stationed in Qatar. That was another interesting little revelation in the string of revelations that were continuing to make less and less sense. But, as luck would have it, almost all of them were stationed in Nevada, so I got a hail of “Yes, definitely!”s from that end. Most of these guys were doubtless craving some indulgence, along with a bunch of other National Guardsmen stationed in the country, particularly the ones involved with the 9/11 cleanup and subsequent “War on Terror” in Afghanistan. The LA event ended up being the biggest, and we called in a few favors to get the Shrine rented out on fairly short notice, had a nice big show for the boys (and girls) in uniform, and then followed it up with lots and lots of booze and finger foods in the expo hall nearby. Here was where I planned my devious strike.
As a lot of them had brought family to the event as very pointedly requested, they weren’t going quite as wild as they might have otherwise. Most of the soldiers recognized me, and seemed very surprised that I was just running around and schmoozing with me, myself, I, and no bodyguards. Well, and Rhodey.
“We weren’t sure what to think,” said one lieutenant, a guy named Cass from Rhode Island who’d worked in New York post-9/11, Afghanistan, Iraq and was still on active duty. “I mean, you’re one of the most powerful civilians in military sphere, and we’re wondering, has he gone all anti-military or-”
“No, no, no,” I said. “Believe me, when you’ve seen what I’ve seen, it’s pretty impossible to be anti-you guys. I mean hey, that was part of the motivation for stopping weapons production, reallocating our weapons departments to more defensive products, maybe save a lot more lives in that process. That is the point, right?”
“Yessir,” he said, his buddies nodding awkwardly. Uncomfortably shy soldiers are a strange mix of endearing and annoying. I’m flattered by your star-struckedness, but please, snap out of it. Out of the corner of my eye I saw Miss Christine Everheart stomping my way, only to be stopped by security and being escorted elsewhere. I have no idea how she managed to get in. Okay, I might have lied about having absolutely no security, because I did keep very strict tabs on which press outlets were allowed in and when they could interview me. I didn’t want these clowns bothering me.
“What kind of defensive equipment?” asked his buddy.
“Biggie we’re working on right now is combat suits,” I told him. “Did you see Batman Begins? The bit where Morgan Freeman talked about the suits that company produced costing about three hundred grand, and being more than, shall we say, the government deemed cost effective? More or less true, only it wasn’t three hundred grand, it was closer to five.”
“But they’re working on it,” added Rhodey, for God forbid anyone make the government look bad.
“Yes, we’re working to get the cost down to something more biddable. We’re also working on making them a little more svelte, a little more slimming for people like my friend here.” I patted Rhodey on the back.
Rhodey forced a smirk. “God sent you… to test me.”
“Oh, don’t be like that.”
“To test my patience… and my tolerance.”
“Don’t be like that.” I then spied not ten feet away two of the soldiers that I’d seen in newspaper photos from Mission City, blissfully slugging back Heinekens. “’Scuse me,” I said, leaving Rhodey to contemplate whether or not people really thought he was fat, approaching the other two until they had the opportunity to see me covertly walking by. They did the rest.
“Mr. Stark!” blurted one, not either of the soldiers but a tall, blonde woman, I would presume to be a wife or a girlfriend, who promptly put a hand to her mouth, embarrassed. I was amused to see the other two, Epps and Lennox, seeing me and standing at attention for a second.
“Captain William Lennox,” said one of the soldiers, the white guy, “this is my wife, Sarah,” he said, holding the blonde’s hand, “and TechsSergeant Bobby Epps,” he gestured to the tall bald black guy, “a pleasure to meet you, sir. We’re… big fans!”
“Big fans,” added Epps, trying to contain himself. “Oh, man, where are the kids? They’d die!”
“Kids?” I asked.
“The over-eighteen kids,” said Lennox. “They were two of my plus three.”
“Actually had to get one of their buddies to babysit,” said Sarah.
“Pretty short notice,” added Lennox.
“But worth it!” said Epps.
“Yeah, so worth it.”
“Glad you guys are having a good time,” I said. “National Guard?”
“No, Joint Special Operations Command,” said Lennox, flipping back to military business speak mode. “I headed our team, US Army, Epps is Air Force.”
“Formerly special ops,” added Epps. “Our active duty is in Nevada right now.”
“Really?” I asked, feigning confusion.
“Yeah, after Mission City we were taken off special ops.” He chuckled. “Ain’t really any counter-terrorist efforts needed in the wilds of Arizona!”
“Oh,” I said. “Would you mind if I asked on what bases?”
“Investigations that we’re a part of,” stated Lennox calmly.
“Largely classified information,” added Epps. “Sorry, Mr. Stark.”
“Hey, story of my life, I just make the weapons, I don’t know where they go. Well, used to. But if I may, and by all means, don’t answer this if I’m out of line, I’m curious as to how the people of the city reacted to you being there, and to the… shit blowing up.”
Lennox and Epps looked at each other; they seemed a bit confused. “Well, there was a lot of running away,” said Epps.
“Screaming,” contributed Lennox.
“A lot of screaming and running away.”
“But you didn’t see them beyond that? Didn’t talk to any of them?”
The two looked at each other as if they had never even thought to do such a thing. “Not really,” said Epps. Lennox shook his head, then smiled to wave someone over. “Sam!”
I looked over, and had to repress a snicker. Before me stood one of the more dopey looking kids I’d ever seen (and I went to MIT), eyes huge with disbelief as he gazed onto the visage that was… me. I would have to assume that the astonishingly hot girl with him was his stepsister or something. No way that was his girlfriend.
“S-sam,” he said, holding out his wrong hand for me to shake, as his right was occupied with a beer.
I pointed at it. “Am I going to get in trouble for that?”
“N-no!” he said, shoving it off to Epps. “No, no, no, I was just… serving my country by getting our troops here… a Belgian import.”
“Dutch,” corrected the girl with him. My God, but she was some barely legal piece of eye candy. Her lips had this weird pucker to them like she was constantly about to kiss something.
He held out his right hand this time. “Sam Witwicky,” he managed, this time without stuttering. He gestured to the girl, who put her arm around his. “My girlfriend, Mikaela.”
He must have seen my look of slight disbelief, as his big, weird eyes then darted to the floor, a little shamefully. My apologies, man, for being conscious of the fact that she was way out of your league, but as far as I was concerned, if you found some way to bend that piece of high quality material to your will, more power to you! Even if she did seem to be giving bedroom eyes to everybody. Constantly. Including me. And Lennox’s wife. And the beer.
“So how do you know these guys?” I asked. “Mission City?”
“No, well yeah, I mean, I was there, but-” I caught the warning glares both Lennox and Epps were shooting him, but he’d already let it slip. He was there? Fucking. Bingo.
“Yeah, you were there? You’re in the military?”
“No, no, no, no!” said the kid. Kid said ‘no’ a lot. “No, I was still in high school. I mean, well, I still am in high school.”
“We’re almost done,” stated Mikaela calmly. I was genuinely impressed with her. She, out of all of them, was completely unintimidated by me.
“So, you live in Mission City?”
“No, no, no, we were just ah…” This kid was terrible at lying.
“Weekend trip,” filled in Mikaela.
“You didn’t see anything?”
“Not really, you know, too busy screaming and running away.”
“Lots of screaming and running away,” added the girl. This seemed to be a theme here. I had never heard of a military operation that had so few descriptors besides “screaming and running away”. “What were you screaming at and running away from?”
All five of them fell into an awkward silence on that note. “Ex… plosions?” volunteered Sam eventually. My God this kid was terrible at lying. I had found my little awkward golden key. I then noticed that all of their expressions had fallen into cool glares, and for a moment I thought they might be glaring at me, until I realized there was a tall man with dark eyes standing next to me, wearing that conspicuous government agent business suit attire.
“Reggie Simmons, Agent of SHIELD,” he said, holding up his badge and shooting a sideways glare at the people I was talking to. Clearly, there was some kind of history here with these people that I was missing out on.
“Yes, agent?” I said. For a moment I was nervous that they were onto what I was trying to do.
“Mr. Stark,” he said. “May I… have your autograph? It’s ah… it’s for my nephew.”
“Jarvis, see what you can find on people named Witwicky in Nevada, Arizona and California.”
“Searching, sir,” said Jarvis. A part of me kept looking over to the entrance to the basement, half-expecting Potts to be staring at me in scandalized disbelief. It wasn’t that I didn’t trust her, but I didn’t want her to get involved with this if what I was doing was illegal, and generally when you think someone might be illegal, it is. “One occurrence of Witwicki in Califonia, Judith and David in Santa Rosa.”
“Children?”
“Two, Maya and John.”
“Try again,” I said, half-listening to Jarvis and half watching some of the press coverage for my little USO event.
“Four occurrences in Arizona.”
“Any Samuels?”
“Negative.”
“Nevada?”
“No occurrences.”
I leaned back in my chair. “Check the spelling, try it with a ‘y’ instead of an ‘i’.”
“Two occurrences in Nevada,” said Jarvis. “Ronald and Judith, and a Charles Benjamin.”
“We got any Sams?”
“Son of Ronald and Judith, age eighteen years.”
I flipped a pen at one of my robots triumphantly. “Fuckin’ A, got him.” If I were one to anthropomorphize things, it almost sounded like said robot whined at me. “SHIELD got anything on him?”
“There is indeed a file on Samuel James Witwicky on the SHIELD mainframe that we were given access to, but his information is classified.”
I sighed. “What about the girlfriend, Mikaela? Anything on her?”
“Classified.”
“The parents?”
“Classified.”
“Well, poke around on some random files in there so they don’t get too suspicious if they look to see what we did. What do we got on Reggie Simmons? They acted like they knew him.”
His photo and critical information popped up on one of my screens. “Reginald Simmons is head of SHIELD special operations in Nevada.”
“And what does that entail?”
“Classified.”
Now I was wishing I hadn’t chucked that pen. I had nothing to fiddle with. “What have we got on SHIELD itself?”
“SHIELD was recently formed from subsects of the CIA, the CSS, the FBI, Homeland Security and a top secret Military Intelligence instillation into a government agency which has the primary purpose of protecting the homeland, guarding US interests abroad and obtaining and maintaining potentially harmful classified information regarding activity both in the United States, abroad, and elsewhere.”
“So, secret keepers, basically- wait, elsewhere? Where the hell is elsewhere, Narnia?”
“It should be noted that SHIELD has the most ties to NASA and various private SETI divisions than any other government agency.”
I had to chuckle at that. “And they were formed when, exactly?”
“SHIELD was formed in July of 2007, approximately two months after the events of Mission City.
An idea was entering my head. A rather far-fetched idea, but an intriguing one nonetheless, and one that was making me weirdly giddy. “SETI? So elsewhere entails…” I pointed upwards. “Out there?”
“I would imagine that to be the logical deduction to everything that doesn’t include ‘domestic’ and ‘abroad’.” Sometimes I wonder why I programmed Jarvis to be such a snarky English little bitch.
“What’s my schedule like?” I asked, slipping into mission mode. “When’s the next time I have a couple of hours to myself during business hours?”
“Not for two days.”
“Book ‘em.”
“Out searching for little green men, are we, sir?”
“No, just little awkward teenaged men.” I smiled, having come upon one of Witwicky’s online profiles. Really, who in God’s name would post a picture of themselves that looked like that online? “Probably human.”
“I’m not reading anything.” Very rare was the moment where I was alone in public. At the very least, I always had a driver chaperoning me. The knowledge that I, a well-known public figure, was in a rented Mercedes-Benz, parked across the street from the house of the teenage boy I was stalking was making feel a little… wiggly. And not in a good way.
“SHIELD’s file on this boy is at the highest level of top secret classification,” said Jarvis through my earpiece, “so it is very likely that they’re keeping tabs on him.”
“What do you think the odds are that his house is wired?”
“The odds are best that it’s just the phones and computer connections. I’m not monitoring any surveillance vehicles nearby.”
I took a deep breath. I didn’t have a whole lot of time. I’d made Happy get a helicopter’s license a few years ago, which has come in handy on several occasions. Although it had been a little awkward having him fly me to Nevada, telling him to wait at the heliport while I went on by own business and not telling him why we were there. Suspicious behavior, but hopefully I kept the man cushy enough to where he didn’t feel the need to go blabbing to anyone. For all he knew I was just visiting my bookie or something else questionably legal. “Well, here’s hoping I don’t trip any alarms.” I took out the earpiece, strode up to the front door and rang the doorbell. I was greeted by a middle-aged brunette woman with all of the simple grace and effluence of a weed eater. I’m fairly sure her eyeballs came more than fifty percent out of her skull when she saw me.
“Tony Stark!” she shrieked. I had long ago learned to take this sort of thing gracefully, but when you’re one to one with a woman screaming in your face, it’s a little difficult when you don’t want to attract attention. “The Tony Stark! Oh! I’m, what can I- are we on TV?”
I smiled, removing my glasses. “No, ma’am.”
“I… well… would you like to come in, would you like some lemonade? Just starting to get warm outside so I made some yesterday!” She hustled into the kitchen, hardly waiting for me to make a response.
“Why yes, thank you!”
“I just… never would have imagined! I mean, I just would like to say that we think what you did, stopping making weapons, absolutely noble! Wonderful thing to do, don’t let anyone tell you different. We want this war business over just as soon as anyone.” She pulled a pitcher of lemonade out of the refrigerator. “Nothing like what you’re used to, I’m sure, but we do what we can!” Admittedly, it was strange and a little sad to see how the other half lived, considering how the “other half” in this case was clearly upper middle class. “You here to see Sam?”
“Indeed I am.” This was going easier than I thought it would.
“Well he really thinks you’re something, but I imagine most boys his age do!” she said, coming back into the kitchen and handing me the lemonade. “Would this be about the…” she gestured with her eyes outside. “You know…” She giggled.
I looked out, seeing a flashy yellow Chevrolet Camaro in the driveway. I didn’t even know they were selling those things yet. “The… car?”
“The car!” she gushed. “Well, ‘the car’, if you want to call it that.”
The confusion on my face betrayed me, because then the woman looked as though she’d said something she really shouldn’t have. “Or is it something else entirely?” she all but guffawed.
“Well, now I’m curious about the car.”
“Oh! Nothing to see or hear about the car, really. We just had to pull some strings to get the thing, is all! Those Camaros? They aren’t even out yet!”
“Mom?” The boy had apparently stealthily made his way down the stairs, and was now staring at me like I was an executioner.
The woman turned to him, almost bouncing, mouthing the words, “Tony Stark!”
“I see that,” he said. Already he was more articulate than he had been a few days ago.
His mother picked up on his dread, calming down and looking concerned. “Is something wrong?”
“No, not at all!” I said diplomatically. “We just met at my little shindig a couple of days ago.”
“Sammy told me all about it,” she interjected excitedly.
“And I was just hoping to pick up where we left off on our conversation.”
“Of course, of course,” she said, cheese-eating grin on her face. An awkward silence commenced.
“Would you mind if I talked to him alone?” I finally asked.
“Oh!” she squawked, surprisingly accommodating. “Not… not at all! I’ll just…” she began to sidle upstairs. “Be upstairs, tell me if you need anything, okay?”
“Okay, mom,” said the kid. She was remarkably slow at walking up stairs.
Eventually, once she was out of sight, it was just me and the kid. I had already decided not to let on how little I knew. “Let’s go outside,” I said.
“Sure,” he echoed nervously, following me out the living room door.
“Calm down,” I offered, taking a sip of lemonade. “Your mom makes good lemonade.”
Sam chuckled nervously. “That’s about the only good thing she makes.” He paused. “Please don’t repeat that.”
I p’shawed at him, taking a good look at the car. It was remarkably… clean. “So I take it you know Reggie Simmons?”
“Unfortunately,” said Sam bitterly. “We have a history.”
“Long-standing history with SHIELD, huh?” I said, running my fingers over the hood of the car. I couldn’t help but notice how nervous this made the kid.
“Well, more the SHIELD guys than SHIELD itself, you know?” he said. “SHIELD is pretty new.”
“Yeah, they came and found me not two hours after I got back into the states,” I said, still examining the car. “They are tenacious bastards. Oh, what were they called before they were SHIELD?” I grasped for a name, hoping the kid would supply me with one.
“What, you mean Sector 7?”
Hey, it was a name. “Right, but that got dissolved, right?” I guessed. “Right after Mission City?”
“I think so,” he said, also placing his hands on the hood of the car. For a moment it almost looked like he was petting it.
“And now they just… run around keeping tabs on the weird shit,” I guessed. “They’re kind of a pain, aren’t they?” In truth, they weren’t to me at all. They seemed perfectly content to leave me alone for the most part, stalking me covertly and peacefully. But judging on how they had reacted to Reggie Simmons, the same apparently didn’t hold true for them.
“Oh, you know, bi-daily visits, that sort of thing,” said Sam.
“Why?” I asked outright, dropping all polite pretense.
The kid looked at me like I’d just pulled a gun on him. “Be… cause…”
“Listen, I’m not going to tell anyone where I got this information, I just want to know what they’re hiding, and why there are no civilian witnesses on record for Mission City.”
This made the kid even more scared. “What do you mean no civilian witnesses? I was there, there were dozens of people. Hundreds, even.”
“Well, they’re gone now. You tell me how the United States government makes hundreds of people just disappear.”
“Well, I actually don’t know, but I think-”
“Don’t speak! I know just what you’re thinking,” suddenly Gwen Stefani was blaring out of the radio of the Camaro. “So please stop explaining! Don’t tell me ‘cause it hurts.”
The kid shot his hand into the dash, but I noticed that he totally missed his target, slapping the steering wheel, yet somehow the radio shut off anyway. Now I was pretty freaked out, especially by nature of the kid looking not confused, but downright guilty. “It… does that sometimes.”
Before I could answer, my cell phone started ringing. Pulling it out to see who it was, I was surprised to see a number belonging to Percival Aidoneus. “Aidoneus?” I said in disbelief.
“Percy?” said the kid, who immediately slapped a palm to his face. I shot him a look of disbelief.
Miraculously, once again, the radio to the car started blaring, only this time it was Dennis Leary: “I’m an asshole! He’s an asshole, what an asshole! I’m an asshole, he’s the world’s biggest asshole!”
“How-?” I decided to wait, answering the phone. “Aidoneus? How did you get this number?”
“Technicalities, my friend,” answered the cool voice on the other line. “I thought you might like to know that one of your storage facilities is being broken into as we speak.”
“A-S-S-H-O-L-E! Everybody! A-S-S-” Now the kid was vehemently smacking the dash through the window.
“Turn that off!” I demanded. “My storage facility?”
“Burbank facility, the one in which Stane’s ‘Iron Monger’ creation is being held?” I looked at the kid, who was positively reeking of awkward guilt and the inability to keep a secret. “Or, was, rather.”
I hung up the phone without another word. “You know him? Percival Aidoneus?” I demanded.
“He… well… I… he’s…”
I had a feeling I wasn’t going to get anything more out of the kid right now, so I handed him a business card. “Apparently something’s up back home, here’s my card, you have anything else you want to tell me, just call-”
“Um, all my lines are tapped?”
“Right, well, I’ll find you, then,” I said, turning to get out of the yard. Out of the corner of my eye I could see the kid making weird spasmodic movements, specifically in the direction of the car. Just as I rounded the corner of the house, I heard his screechy voice calling after me.
“Wait!” he called, “I-”
“Come on,” I said, gesturing to my car and not stopping.
“Don’t leave me this way!” Once again the radio to the car had magically come on and was blaring from the backyard. “Don’t you understand? I’m at your command!”
The kid kept looking between the backyard and me nervously. I held a door to the car open for him impatiently.
“Look,” he said, getting into the car. “I’ll... I’ll tell you… what I can, alright? Which is more than I legally can but… shit.”
“Calm down,” I said, unable to hold back a smirk. Rare was the day when I didn’t get what I want.
“I am going to get in so much trouble,” he said, hands to his face. “So much trouble. They are going to lock me up for the rest of my natural existence.”
“Well,” I said, turning the car around, “that makes two of us!”
Previous
In order to get to the bottom of this, I had to do what I do best.
I threw a party!
Or, more specifically, I organized three parties to happen on one big event on the same day, one in the Middle East, one in Afghanistan, and one in LA, all catered to American troops, their friends and family, and nobody else (though I definitely stressed the “friends and family” part to the LA attendees). Of course I had a wealth of very famous friends who wanted in, so I tended to stick to the comedians and the musicians, send them all expenses paid to whichever one they wanted to go to (I had to do some sweet talking to get some of them overseas, granted), demonstrated my uncanny ability to get lots and lots of attention from the press and make everybody look good and patriotic, myself especially, and thereby dissuade any government agencies thinking I had any ulterior motives.
I was surprised to learn that a great many of the soldiers who were present in Mission City were mostly not National Guard soldiers, save for the members of the Air Force, but for the most part special ops who had up until recently been stationed in Qatar. That was another interesting little revelation in the string of revelations that were continuing to make less and less sense. But, as luck would have it, almost all of them were stationed in Nevada, so I got a hail of “Yes, definitely!”s from that end. Most of these guys were doubtless craving some indulgence, along with a bunch of other National Guardsmen stationed in the country, particularly the ones involved with the 9/11 cleanup and subsequent “War on Terror” in Afghanistan. The LA event ended up being the biggest, and we called in a few favors to get the Shrine rented out on fairly short notice, had a nice big show for the boys (and girls) in uniform, and then followed it up with lots and lots of booze and finger foods in the expo hall nearby. Here was where I planned my devious strike.
As a lot of them had brought family to the event as very pointedly requested, they weren’t going quite as wild as they might have otherwise. Most of the soldiers recognized me, and seemed very surprised that I was just running around and schmoozing with me, myself, I, and no bodyguards. Well, and Rhodey.
“We weren’t sure what to think,” said one lieutenant, a guy named Cass from Rhode Island who’d worked in New York post-9/11, Afghanistan, Iraq and was still on active duty. “I mean, you’re one of the most powerful civilians in military sphere, and we’re wondering, has he gone all anti-military or-”
“No, no, no,” I said. “Believe me, when you’ve seen what I’ve seen, it’s pretty impossible to be anti-you guys. I mean hey, that was part of the motivation for stopping weapons production, reallocating our weapons departments to more defensive products, maybe save a lot more lives in that process. That is the point, right?”
“Yessir,” he said, his buddies nodding awkwardly. Uncomfortably shy soldiers are a strange mix of endearing and annoying. I’m flattered by your star-struckedness, but please, snap out of it. Out of the corner of my eye I saw Miss Christine Everheart stomping my way, only to be stopped by security and being escorted elsewhere. I have no idea how she managed to get in. Okay, I might have lied about having absolutely no security, because I did keep very strict tabs on which press outlets were allowed in and when they could interview me. I didn’t want these clowns bothering me.
“What kind of defensive equipment?” asked his buddy.
“Biggie we’re working on right now is combat suits,” I told him. “Did you see Batman Begins? The bit where Morgan Freeman talked about the suits that company produced costing about three hundred grand, and being more than, shall we say, the government deemed cost effective? More or less true, only it wasn’t three hundred grand, it was closer to five.”
“But they’re working on it,” added Rhodey, for God forbid anyone make the government look bad.
“Yes, we’re working to get the cost down to something more biddable. We’re also working on making them a little more svelte, a little more slimming for people like my friend here.” I patted Rhodey on the back.
Rhodey forced a smirk. “God sent you… to test me.”
“Oh, don’t be like that.”
“To test my patience… and my tolerance.”
“Don’t be like that.” I then spied not ten feet away two of the soldiers that I’d seen in newspaper photos from Mission City, blissfully slugging back Heinekens. “’Scuse me,” I said, leaving Rhodey to contemplate whether or not people really thought he was fat, approaching the other two until they had the opportunity to see me covertly walking by. They did the rest.
“Mr. Stark!” blurted one, not either of the soldiers but a tall, blonde woman, I would presume to be a wife or a girlfriend, who promptly put a hand to her mouth, embarrassed. I was amused to see the other two, Epps and Lennox, seeing me and standing at attention for a second.
“Captain William Lennox,” said one of the soldiers, the white guy, “this is my wife, Sarah,” he said, holding the blonde’s hand, “and TechsSergeant Bobby Epps,” he gestured to the tall bald black guy, “a pleasure to meet you, sir. We’re… big fans!”
“Big fans,” added Epps, trying to contain himself. “Oh, man, where are the kids? They’d die!”
“Kids?” I asked.
“The over-eighteen kids,” said Lennox. “They were two of my plus three.”
“Actually had to get one of their buddies to babysit,” said Sarah.
“Pretty short notice,” added Lennox.
“But worth it!” said Epps.
“Yeah, so worth it.”
“Glad you guys are having a good time,” I said. “National Guard?”
“No, Joint Special Operations Command,” said Lennox, flipping back to military business speak mode. “I headed our team, US Army, Epps is Air Force.”
“Formerly special ops,” added Epps. “Our active duty is in Nevada right now.”
“Really?” I asked, feigning confusion.
“Yeah, after Mission City we were taken off special ops.” He chuckled. “Ain’t really any counter-terrorist efforts needed in the wilds of Arizona!”
“Oh,” I said. “Would you mind if I asked on what bases?”
“Investigations that we’re a part of,” stated Lennox calmly.
“Largely classified information,” added Epps. “Sorry, Mr. Stark.”
“Hey, story of my life, I just make the weapons, I don’t know where they go. Well, used to. But if I may, and by all means, don’t answer this if I’m out of line, I’m curious as to how the people of the city reacted to you being there, and to the… shit blowing up.”
Lennox and Epps looked at each other; they seemed a bit confused. “Well, there was a lot of running away,” said Epps.
“Screaming,” contributed Lennox.
“A lot of screaming and running away.”
“But you didn’t see them beyond that? Didn’t talk to any of them?”
The two looked at each other as if they had never even thought to do such a thing. “Not really,” said Epps. Lennox shook his head, then smiled to wave someone over. “Sam!”
I looked over, and had to repress a snicker. Before me stood one of the more dopey looking kids I’d ever seen (and I went to MIT), eyes huge with disbelief as he gazed onto the visage that was… me. I would have to assume that the astonishingly hot girl with him was his stepsister or something. No way that was his girlfriend.
“S-sam,” he said, holding out his wrong hand for me to shake, as his right was occupied with a beer.
I pointed at it. “Am I going to get in trouble for that?”
“N-no!” he said, shoving it off to Epps. “No, no, no, I was just… serving my country by getting our troops here… a Belgian import.”
“Dutch,” corrected the girl with him. My God, but she was some barely legal piece of eye candy. Her lips had this weird pucker to them like she was constantly about to kiss something.
He held out his right hand this time. “Sam Witwicky,” he managed, this time without stuttering. He gestured to the girl, who put her arm around his. “My girlfriend, Mikaela.”
He must have seen my look of slight disbelief, as his big, weird eyes then darted to the floor, a little shamefully. My apologies, man, for being conscious of the fact that she was way out of your league, but as far as I was concerned, if you found some way to bend that piece of high quality material to your will, more power to you! Even if she did seem to be giving bedroom eyes to everybody. Constantly. Including me. And Lennox’s wife. And the beer.
“So how do you know these guys?” I asked. “Mission City?”
“No, well yeah, I mean, I was there, but-” I caught the warning glares both Lennox and Epps were shooting him, but he’d already let it slip. He was there? Fucking. Bingo.
“Yeah, you were there? You’re in the military?”
“No, no, no, no!” said the kid. Kid said ‘no’ a lot. “No, I was still in high school. I mean, well, I still am in high school.”
“We’re almost done,” stated Mikaela calmly. I was genuinely impressed with her. She, out of all of them, was completely unintimidated by me.
“So, you live in Mission City?”
“No, no, no, we were just ah…” This kid was terrible at lying.
“Weekend trip,” filled in Mikaela.
“You didn’t see anything?”
“Not really, you know, too busy screaming and running away.”
“Lots of screaming and running away,” added the girl. This seemed to be a theme here. I had never heard of a military operation that had so few descriptors besides “screaming and running away”. “What were you screaming at and running away from?”
All five of them fell into an awkward silence on that note. “Ex… plosions?” volunteered Sam eventually. My God this kid was terrible at lying. I had found my little awkward golden key. I then noticed that all of their expressions had fallen into cool glares, and for a moment I thought they might be glaring at me, until I realized there was a tall man with dark eyes standing next to me, wearing that conspicuous government agent business suit attire.
“Reggie Simmons, Agent of SHIELD,” he said, holding up his badge and shooting a sideways glare at the people I was talking to. Clearly, there was some kind of history here with these people that I was missing out on.
“Yes, agent?” I said. For a moment I was nervous that they were onto what I was trying to do.
“Mr. Stark,” he said. “May I… have your autograph? It’s ah… it’s for my nephew.”
“Jarvis, see what you can find on people named Witwicky in Nevada, Arizona and California.”
“Searching, sir,” said Jarvis. A part of me kept looking over to the entrance to the basement, half-expecting Potts to be staring at me in scandalized disbelief. It wasn’t that I didn’t trust her, but I didn’t want her to get involved with this if what I was doing was illegal, and generally when you think someone might be illegal, it is. “One occurrence of Witwicki in Califonia, Judith and David in Santa Rosa.”
“Children?”
“Two, Maya and John.”
“Try again,” I said, half-listening to Jarvis and half watching some of the press coverage for my little USO event.
“Four occurrences in Arizona.”
“Any Samuels?”
“Negative.”
“Nevada?”
“No occurrences.”
I leaned back in my chair. “Check the spelling, try it with a ‘y’ instead of an ‘i’.”
“Two occurrences in Nevada,” said Jarvis. “Ronald and Judith, and a Charles Benjamin.”
“We got any Sams?”
“Son of Ronald and Judith, age eighteen years.”
I flipped a pen at one of my robots triumphantly. “Fuckin’ A, got him.” If I were one to anthropomorphize things, it almost sounded like said robot whined at me. “SHIELD got anything on him?”
“There is indeed a file on Samuel James Witwicky on the SHIELD mainframe that we were given access to, but his information is classified.”
I sighed. “What about the girlfriend, Mikaela? Anything on her?”
“Classified.”
“The parents?”
“Classified.”
“Well, poke around on some random files in there so they don’t get too suspicious if they look to see what we did. What do we got on Reggie Simmons? They acted like they knew him.”
His photo and critical information popped up on one of my screens. “Reginald Simmons is head of SHIELD special operations in Nevada.”
“And what does that entail?”
“Classified.”
Now I was wishing I hadn’t chucked that pen. I had nothing to fiddle with. “What have we got on SHIELD itself?”
“SHIELD was recently formed from subsects of the CIA, the CSS, the FBI, Homeland Security and a top secret Military Intelligence instillation into a government agency which has the primary purpose of protecting the homeland, guarding US interests abroad and obtaining and maintaining potentially harmful classified information regarding activity both in the United States, abroad, and elsewhere.”
“So, secret keepers, basically- wait, elsewhere? Where the hell is elsewhere, Narnia?”
“It should be noted that SHIELD has the most ties to NASA and various private SETI divisions than any other government agency.”
I had to chuckle at that. “And they were formed when, exactly?”
“SHIELD was formed in July of 2007, approximately two months after the events of Mission City.
An idea was entering my head. A rather far-fetched idea, but an intriguing one nonetheless, and one that was making me weirdly giddy. “SETI? So elsewhere entails…” I pointed upwards. “Out there?”
“I would imagine that to be the logical deduction to everything that doesn’t include ‘domestic’ and ‘abroad’.” Sometimes I wonder why I programmed Jarvis to be such a snarky English little bitch.
“What’s my schedule like?” I asked, slipping into mission mode. “When’s the next time I have a couple of hours to myself during business hours?”
“Not for two days.”
“Book ‘em.”
“Out searching for little green men, are we, sir?”
“No, just little awkward teenaged men.” I smiled, having come upon one of Witwicky’s online profiles. Really, who in God’s name would post a picture of themselves that looked like that online? “Probably human.”
“I’m not reading anything.” Very rare was the moment where I was alone in public. At the very least, I always had a driver chaperoning me. The knowledge that I, a well-known public figure, was in a rented Mercedes-Benz, parked across the street from the house of the teenage boy I was stalking was making feel a little… wiggly. And not in a good way.
“SHIELD’s file on this boy is at the highest level of top secret classification,” said Jarvis through my earpiece, “so it is very likely that they’re keeping tabs on him.”
“What do you think the odds are that his house is wired?”
“The odds are best that it’s just the phones and computer connections. I’m not monitoring any surveillance vehicles nearby.”
I took a deep breath. I didn’t have a whole lot of time. I’d made Happy get a helicopter’s license a few years ago, which has come in handy on several occasions. Although it had been a little awkward having him fly me to Nevada, telling him to wait at the heliport while I went on by own business and not telling him why we were there. Suspicious behavior, but hopefully I kept the man cushy enough to where he didn’t feel the need to go blabbing to anyone. For all he knew I was just visiting my bookie or something else questionably legal. “Well, here’s hoping I don’t trip any alarms.” I took out the earpiece, strode up to the front door and rang the doorbell. I was greeted by a middle-aged brunette woman with all of the simple grace and effluence of a weed eater. I’m fairly sure her eyeballs came more than fifty percent out of her skull when she saw me.
“Tony Stark!” she shrieked. I had long ago learned to take this sort of thing gracefully, but when you’re one to one with a woman screaming in your face, it’s a little difficult when you don’t want to attract attention. “The Tony Stark! Oh! I’m, what can I- are we on TV?”
I smiled, removing my glasses. “No, ma’am.”
“I… well… would you like to come in, would you like some lemonade? Just starting to get warm outside so I made some yesterday!” She hustled into the kitchen, hardly waiting for me to make a response.
“Why yes, thank you!”
“I just… never would have imagined! I mean, I just would like to say that we think what you did, stopping making weapons, absolutely noble! Wonderful thing to do, don’t let anyone tell you different. We want this war business over just as soon as anyone.” She pulled a pitcher of lemonade out of the refrigerator. “Nothing like what you’re used to, I’m sure, but we do what we can!” Admittedly, it was strange and a little sad to see how the other half lived, considering how the “other half” in this case was clearly upper middle class. “You here to see Sam?”
“Indeed I am.” This was going easier than I thought it would.
“Well he really thinks you’re something, but I imagine most boys his age do!” she said, coming back into the kitchen and handing me the lemonade. “Would this be about the…” she gestured with her eyes outside. “You know…” She giggled.
I looked out, seeing a flashy yellow Chevrolet Camaro in the driveway. I didn’t even know they were selling those things yet. “The… car?”
“The car!” she gushed. “Well, ‘the car’, if you want to call it that.”
The confusion on my face betrayed me, because then the woman looked as though she’d said something she really shouldn’t have. “Or is it something else entirely?” she all but guffawed.
“Well, now I’m curious about the car.”
“Oh! Nothing to see or hear about the car, really. We just had to pull some strings to get the thing, is all! Those Camaros? They aren’t even out yet!”
“Mom?” The boy had apparently stealthily made his way down the stairs, and was now staring at me like I was an executioner.
The woman turned to him, almost bouncing, mouthing the words, “Tony Stark!”
“I see that,” he said. Already he was more articulate than he had been a few days ago.
His mother picked up on his dread, calming down and looking concerned. “Is something wrong?”
“No, not at all!” I said diplomatically. “We just met at my little shindig a couple of days ago.”
“Sammy told me all about it,” she interjected excitedly.
“And I was just hoping to pick up where we left off on our conversation.”
“Of course, of course,” she said, cheese-eating grin on her face. An awkward silence commenced.
“Would you mind if I talked to him alone?” I finally asked.
“Oh!” she squawked, surprisingly accommodating. “Not… not at all! I’ll just…” she began to sidle upstairs. “Be upstairs, tell me if you need anything, okay?”
“Okay, mom,” said the kid. She was remarkably slow at walking up stairs.
Eventually, once she was out of sight, it was just me and the kid. I had already decided not to let on how little I knew. “Let’s go outside,” I said.
“Sure,” he echoed nervously, following me out the living room door.
“Calm down,” I offered, taking a sip of lemonade. “Your mom makes good lemonade.”
Sam chuckled nervously. “That’s about the only good thing she makes.” He paused. “Please don’t repeat that.”
I p’shawed at him, taking a good look at the car. It was remarkably… clean. “So I take it you know Reggie Simmons?”
“Unfortunately,” said Sam bitterly. “We have a history.”
“Long-standing history with SHIELD, huh?” I said, running my fingers over the hood of the car. I couldn’t help but notice how nervous this made the kid.
“Well, more the SHIELD guys than SHIELD itself, you know?” he said. “SHIELD is pretty new.”
“Yeah, they came and found me not two hours after I got back into the states,” I said, still examining the car. “They are tenacious bastards. Oh, what were they called before they were SHIELD?” I grasped for a name, hoping the kid would supply me with one.
“What, you mean Sector 7?”
Hey, it was a name. “Right, but that got dissolved, right?” I guessed. “Right after Mission City?”
“I think so,” he said, also placing his hands on the hood of the car. For a moment it almost looked like he was petting it.
“And now they just… run around keeping tabs on the weird shit,” I guessed. “They’re kind of a pain, aren’t they?” In truth, they weren’t to me at all. They seemed perfectly content to leave me alone for the most part, stalking me covertly and peacefully. But judging on how they had reacted to Reggie Simmons, the same apparently didn’t hold true for them.
“Oh, you know, bi-daily visits, that sort of thing,” said Sam.
“Why?” I asked outright, dropping all polite pretense.
The kid looked at me like I’d just pulled a gun on him. “Be… cause…”
“Listen, I’m not going to tell anyone where I got this information, I just want to know what they’re hiding, and why there are no civilian witnesses on record for Mission City.”
This made the kid even more scared. “What do you mean no civilian witnesses? I was there, there were dozens of people. Hundreds, even.”
“Well, they’re gone now. You tell me how the United States government makes hundreds of people just disappear.”
“Well, I actually don’t know, but I think-”
“Don’t speak! I know just what you’re thinking,” suddenly Gwen Stefani was blaring out of the radio of the Camaro. “So please stop explaining! Don’t tell me ‘cause it hurts.”
The kid shot his hand into the dash, but I noticed that he totally missed his target, slapping the steering wheel, yet somehow the radio shut off anyway. Now I was pretty freaked out, especially by nature of the kid looking not confused, but downright guilty. “It… does that sometimes.”
Before I could answer, my cell phone started ringing. Pulling it out to see who it was, I was surprised to see a number belonging to Percival Aidoneus. “Aidoneus?” I said in disbelief.
“Percy?” said the kid, who immediately slapped a palm to his face. I shot him a look of disbelief.
Miraculously, once again, the radio to the car started blaring, only this time it was Dennis Leary: “I’m an asshole! He’s an asshole, what an asshole! I’m an asshole, he’s the world’s biggest asshole!”
“How-?” I decided to wait, answering the phone. “Aidoneus? How did you get this number?”
“Technicalities, my friend,” answered the cool voice on the other line. “I thought you might like to know that one of your storage facilities is being broken into as we speak.”
“A-S-S-H-O-L-E! Everybody! A-S-S-” Now the kid was vehemently smacking the dash through the window.
“Turn that off!” I demanded. “My storage facility?”
“Burbank facility, the one in which Stane’s ‘Iron Monger’ creation is being held?” I looked at the kid, who was positively reeking of awkward guilt and the inability to keep a secret. “Or, was, rather.”
I hung up the phone without another word. “You know him? Percival Aidoneus?” I demanded.
“He… well… I… he’s…”
I had a feeling I wasn’t going to get anything more out of the kid right now, so I handed him a business card. “Apparently something’s up back home, here’s my card, you have anything else you want to tell me, just call-”
“Um, all my lines are tapped?”
“Right, well, I’ll find you, then,” I said, turning to get out of the yard. Out of the corner of my eye I could see the kid making weird spasmodic movements, specifically in the direction of the car. Just as I rounded the corner of the house, I heard his screechy voice calling after me.
“Wait!” he called, “I-”
“Come on,” I said, gesturing to my car and not stopping.
“Don’t leave me this way!” Once again the radio to the car had magically come on and was blaring from the backyard. “Don’t you understand? I’m at your command!”
The kid kept looking between the backyard and me nervously. I held a door to the car open for him impatiently.
“Look,” he said, getting into the car. “I’ll... I’ll tell you… what I can, alright? Which is more than I legally can but… shit.”
“Calm down,” I said, unable to hold back a smirk. Rare was the day when I didn’t get what I want.
“I am going to get in so much trouble,” he said, hands to his face. “So much trouble. They are going to lock me up for the rest of my natural existence.”
“Well,” I said, turning the car around, “that makes two of us!”
Previous