So it turned out that the Advanced Idea Mechanics organization started out as a think tank, but was now more along the lines you'd come to expect from a bizarre fusion of Hammer Industries and Tesla. This might sound like how Stark's company used to be run, but the truth was actually something else entirely.
Stark's company had mostly run off conventional technology being used, enhanced, maximized, minimized, and even at times evolved by integrating new discoveries. Missiles, firearms, even tanks, and all-terrain vehicles. But AIM reached for the stars for grand ideas, super serums to cure diseases and disabilities, and advanced concepts that cost more than they would make in six lifetimes.
If this wasn't a comic book universe, I'd say that these folks were not only a waste of money but they were morons. But since it was a comic book universe, they were simply ahead of the curve.
This is exactly what made them the perfect group to modify the War Machine Suit into the Iron Patriot scheme. Something that Stark took some issue with as that let yet another person examine his Iron Man tech. Frankly, I vaguely recall that there was a famous Armor War in the Iron Man comics that got adapted into the 90s animated series, so there's merit to Stark's concerns once it becomes easier to create armor like his.
But in spite of things, Rhodes didn't wait around. Instead flying off to tell his superiors I was not going to join them for an operation. Thinking about things a lot more, I wondered if they were trying to get me to join the operation as an endorsement of the US government overall? It wasn't something I was comfortable with.
The US was a nice place, but I didn't stay a superhero just to be put at the beck and call of whoever they voted into office. They had drones for that shit.
Stark popped out of the operation because of how obvious his armors still were, there's not much stealth regarding heavy metal armor clanking down a hallway. He did imply that a stealth suit was in the works though.
The AIM main HQ in New York wasn't the biggest skyscraper in the area. It wasn't made by them, they'd just reinvented it after purchase. None of those things meant it wasn't one of the highest security buildings in New York, matching the Avengers' Tower for the title. It meant that while I could just walk through it, it would totally make me a lawbreaker.
It also meant the layout was more set and more importantly, public information.
"As you can see, there's a very large basement area on the plans," Sterns pointed towards the section on his laptop's screen that was being used to display the map. "If I'm right, that is where they're testing or administrating a lot of their current Extremis Experiments."
Blonsky tapped his right hand along his brow.
"Now, I wasn't able to get much information on the Extremis Project. It's behind a lot of red and black tape, I couldn't tell you the results of it. But I do know a man who's got some experience with the woman behind the project, Doctor Maya Hansen. The woman is the expert in her field of Biological encoding and genetic resequencing. If AIM hadn't already tapped her, she'd probably have been involved with the same biotech enhancement project Banner had been."
"Though notably at a different stage," Sterns piped in. "Ross was pretty big on his secrecy in that little gem of his, at least that is what I understand. Doctor Hansen on the other hand is an odd duck in this."
I blinked, turning my eyes to face to glance at him from the concern of my ears;
"Why so?"
"Well, it's true that the woman's a genius… " Sterns' cringed, as if he swallowed a sour grape. "But there's always been something off with the way she holds herself. You see someone like Banner, you see someone like me or Stark. We're not all confident in our social lives, but we're all confident in our professional lives. We're excited about our accomplishments, every little bit of progress is a jolt to our systems. But Hansen… I always think she's ashamed of something."
That was a pretty deep analysis by the man. A reminder not to spend too much time around Sterns or he could find out things I don't want people to know.
I took the moment to examine Blonsky for the first time since we'd reunited. Earlier, I had been caught up in a manic panic of the situation, caught up in my rage at the deaths, at Louise's kidnapping, at Kandor being taken, that I didn't examine the soldier too keenly. When I had last met the man, he'd been a jittering mess of anger and rage.
A junky looking for his next fix.
Now, the man stood proud. His stance was steady, his features calm. I would struggle to find a hint of a drug lust in his frame, a hint of anger in his fists. All in all, this was a changed man, at least he was visually. Whether he'd recovered psychologically is a question left open to mental physicians.
"We're going to be in trouble if we're not careful. AIM's got some powerful backers in the government. People that could make our lives difficult, to say the least… like the Vice President."
I opened my mouth, then closed it. Feeling much like that meme of Nathan Fillion.
"Well, that is a rather big deal. I do hope I'm not the first person you've told about this."
"You are," Sterns nervously tittered. "It's the main reason we actually came to you. We can't prove the Vice President has been… co-opted. But there's been some meetings, we've seen his grandchild's medical condition, not broken any laws to see what she has. But they've had meetings."
I tapped my fingers together.
"Meetings aren't conspiratorial. At least not in themselves. You do say his grandchild is sick, with AIM's advanced biotechnology it's an obvious avenue for a man with a lot of reach."
Rich people were usually shameless in how they could scrape and beg for experimental treatments to diseases others deemed impossible to cure. Oh, I'd seen even the poorest of folk in the same situation, they'd be willing to do the same thing for their kids and grandkids. There's a reason why demon and devil deals are popular fables involving people of my class.
It's just that the wealthy could afford to actually make those sorts of deals with big tech companies far better than someone with pennies in their pockets rather than a few hundred notes.
"Fair enough, but AIM's been funneling money to offshore accounts. All the money the Vice President gives isn't going directly to their backers, their CEO, CFO, or anyone in the company I can find. I've been following the trail, been following what they've been buying, what they've bought. It goes nowhere. This on top of already having access to a rather large portion of the US's foreign intelligence paints a very odd picture."
I frowned, it was clear that they didn't have much but supposition to go on here. Not enough to base a piece on, at least not one that met my standards of journalistic fact-finding. Nothing that I'd let print on a page. But they seemed to genuinely believe this theory of theirs.
It was dangerous to let people go unchecked about those things. Especially people who famously go to such extreme lengths.
So far our plan was to stake out the building till someone important left, then I'd kidnap… no, I'm kidnapping them. From there we'd try to get information on their plans, on the locations, and see if they're connected to what happened to the Avenger's Compound. Get a lay of the internal security of the building, passwords, and guard posts. Stuff like that.
"And there she is," Blonsky muttered, looking through a pair of binoculars. I quickly glanced down to the street myself, watching as Doctor Hansan drove out of the building's parking space. It wasn't a super expensive model, but it would've cost more than I could currently afford to spend on a car. "How do you want to do this?"
I pondered the question, wondering briefly why I was forming this plan when he was the trained Marine and Sterns the genius. I guess it could've been some sort of test? See how I did.
"We should follow her and wait till she goes somewhere private. It's probably better if we catch her where it would disrupt her schedule. Who knows if AIM is keeping an eye on her?"
"If they were smart, they would."
And so far AIM has proven to be decently smart.
(Louise O'Reilly Same Day-????)
Louise knew she'd be kidnapped. Mostly because it didn't take a lot of brain cells to figure out what being attacked, having blackoutted, and waking up in a new location meant when it all came together.
Her head hurt like she'd spent the night binge drinking. Even the lights of whatever room she was in hurt the young woman's eyes. If this was a hangover, it was bad. Even her sense of balance was affected, it could be compared to having one leg shorter than the other. This was not an unfamiliar state for Louise to find herself in. In fact, the only thing that told Louise she didn't have a hangover was the lack of grit, of fuzzy dirt to her teeth.
Well, that and her position.
Louise was laying up on a table, vertically that was, with straps across her forehead, arms, and legs. There was a brief attempt to struggle her way out of it, but there was no give to the restraints. That didn't stop Louise from trying.
"It's not going to work," Cross chimed in from out of sight. With the restraint on her forehead, Louise couldn't even turn to look at the CEO. "I recognize the materials in these restraints. They might look and feel a bit like leather, but this stuff is rated for heavy transport. Unless you can spring claws from your forearm we're stuck here for now."
Louise growled lowly as frustration built up.
"Where is everyone else?" The world started to clear to the young woman. They were in what could only be described as a fairly average, very plain, office room. One that had been converted into this prison cell. What would've been a plain wood door was instead metal and reinforced glass, something out of an old insane asylum.
"They've probably separated us so we can't make a plan," Cross replied, oddly calm for the man's first kidnapping. It would be impressive if Louise wasn't so caught up in analyzing her surroundings for a mix of weaknesses and security features. "You don't put people as smart as us in a room and not expect a breakout in half an hour."
Louise was glad that man couldn't see her rolling her eyes. There was just something to the man's belief that made it sound less confident, less a matter of fact, and more akin to false bravado. Though the young woman was sure this sense was a matter of influence from Pat more than anything else.
It was hard not to find most people to have lesser confidence compared to him.
Pat was both rather full of himself and so far completely invincible to permanent damage. So there was a decent amount of that arrogance that the hero deserved. Though, it did make things grating at times. It helped that Pat wasn't obsessed with gratifying his own ego and loved to make fun of himself.
Cross, on the other hand, he was a big man. He carried himself like a lesser version of Tony Stark from a few years ago, with fast cars, and expensive watches. The only thing he held back on was women, there weren't a lot of women on Cross's arm during parties. Rumor was he had his eye on his former mentor's daughter.
Hope Pym.
There was this insincerity to the man that even Louise could see. Something Stark never suffered from, at least not to such an extent.
"Cross," A new voice, a new male voice spoke up. It was full of such glee that Louise was surprised the man wasn't breaking out into giggles. "You think too highly of yourself. I've just put the smart people in one room and the stupid shits here."
Lousie wondered as the man came into her sights just how many people were obsessed with being the Tony Stark of several years ago. Though this man took expensive clothes and fancy watches to another level. Stark and Cross were men confident in their looks, this guy had work done to him, it was obvious to Louise from the way his mouth closed, his eyes peered around the room.
A Lot of work was done on this man, a lot of minor work. But it added up very easily to Louise.
"Killian," Cross's dry voice spoke up with a wit the man typically lacked. It was as if the newcomer's presence had awoken a drive to mock this fellow. "I should've known from the cheap cologne."
"Your priorities are as usual skewered."
"Yes, my priorities. I suppose I should go home and rethink my life but someone has kidnapped me so that's an obstacle to self-improvement."
This 'Killian' walked out of Louise's sight, but the young woman could tell what was going on just from the noises they were making that the other man was touching the table or Cross himself.
"We don't have to fight, I'm very close to perfection. I've already got the perfect body, the perfect mind, soon I'll have the secrets of that alien ship as well. But I'm not stupid, I know things will go quicker with your help, maybe I wouldn't even need my current partner. Frankly, I'd prefer human company to alien scum. Especially given how his last partner turned out."
"Alien scum?" Louise questioned, her mind still foggy enough for the sentence to be said out loud rather than be subject to being an internal monologue.
"Oh… I actually forgot that you were there," The man chuckled, delighted at her presence "I suppose there's no harm in telling that the ship's owner wants his stuff back so-"
Before Killian could even start his villainous monologue his phone interrupted him with the song Rocket Man screaming out from the speakers. Louise only briefly saw the man as he passed her by with the phone towards his ear before he walked outside the door and locked it from the other side.
"Who the fuck was that?" Louise asked, the only thing she could tell from that exchange was that the two men knew each other.
"That was Aldrich Killian, the founder, and leader of Advanced Ideas Mechanics. The man is the latest superstar genius of the world, who worked himself up from the ground to riches. Truthfully, not only did he inherit the money he's used to start up this enterprise, he's taking credit for their achievements. He's smart, but the man is no scientist, he is a leech."
Louise didn't need a PHD or a MD to guess what the problem was here. Cross felt like he was an actual scientist, somebody that did experiments, studied the effects it had, and tried to replicate the work. Came to a conclusion. Killian on the other hand, Cross considered him someone that took the credit of the people actually doing the work. A leech.
Coming from Cross, someone that once betrayed their own mentor and stole their company, this level of hatred over morals was very damning…
… though given Aldrich Killian had just kidnapped them this was the least damning thing about the AIM Head. The most damning was the silver briefcase he came back into the room with.
"Cross," Killian sang, his body lighting up as if someone had placed a lightbulb inside his hands. "You know I have cameras and microphones all over this room. I heard everything you said. It's a shame, I thought we could work together. But if the carrot won't convince, I'll just show you the stick."
The obvious superhuman placed the briefcase down on a nearby table that had somehow gone unnoticed by Louise till now. Once the man had done that, he walked out of her sight, towards the direction Louise could hear Cross from.
"Killian… " Cross said, his tone a mix of warning and concern. "What are you doing… get back… don't you fucking-
The resulting screech was as loud as a person could be and eventually transitioned into a roaring swear. The worst bit about this moment to Louise wasn't the scream, but the smell of roasting flesh and the slight pop of an eyeball exploding. The experience was enough to get Louise's stomach churning, her heart starting to race.
Even during the Brainiac incident, the woman had never been so helpless to act.
"Cross… Cross… I had such hopes from you," The sadist practically whispered, it was merely the emptiness in the room that allowed Louise to hear what the man was saying. "But if you won't join me in paradise, then I'll just use you till you can't work anymore."
Cross's harsh breath echoed alongside Killian's footsteps as he returned to stand in front of Louise, a devilish smile was on his face as he dropped a boiling puddle of goo onto the floor. The O'Reilly girl was pretty sure where that goo came from.
"Now… what to do with you my scientifically challenged friend?" His still soaking right hand grabbed her by the chin, angling her head up till she had no choice but to meet him eye to eye. With that positioning, Killian could no doubt feel her heart race. "You're hardly going to help me break through any of the Stark Security systems… you're not even going to help me finish Brianiac's little project. So maybe you'll be capable of serving as a test subject."
Louise swallowed her fear back with a large gulp of air. She thought about her father, his stern face even as he failed to hold back tears while watching the Lion King, she thought about her mother, who couldn't help but watch the film Dirty Dancing a hundred times. Louise thought about her friend Becca, who'd helped her through a tub of ice cream after her first break-up nearly a decade ago.
Louise thought about Pat.
It would be a lie to say that Pat caused her next action wholly, though he had some blame for it. It wouldn't be a lie to say that it was more inspired by her 'former' Mobster father. Jim O'Reilly was the type of man to walk into a bar, take everyone on in a fight, but only come out with a black eye in the end. A near-suicidal level of bravery.
That was why she spat in Aldrich Killian's face.
Author's Note: Hello everyone. Hope that no one is sad that we are once more getting more than a single pov in this update. Just how things are plotted for the story. Iron Man isn't off-screen tittering his fingers, he's doing very important work. It's also important to note that things with AIM are happening much faster than before.
Hell, even Iron Patriot happen a bit earlier than before.
We're going to have wild things happen soon in the story. Even wilder things after that. I'm with this story till that arc ends. As in this is my main focus, I'll update other things. But this is my primary focus.