I rubbed my eyes, staring at the black and green glow of the terminal. The adapter with the disk inside it whirred quietly. I had been sitting here for the last few days, making my way through the trove of power armor related information.
I had learned some interesting things in the process.
The documentation was stored in raw TeX files. Latex not having achieved wider penetration yet. That was pretty neat. Ensured they'd print nicely, anyways.
Some of the procurement details were enlightening. The DoD had a cut-down version of the Mandroids called Secbots, meant to stiffen facility defense against superhumans. There was some documentation on that in the DB. Stane had grabbed the contract and cranked out an initial run of thirty units, now at NORAD.
The program documentation was an interesting read. The project lead was displeased, to put it mildly, about Stane squeezing them for time. They'd gotten the thirty units out the door by leaning on tooling and components left over from the Mandroid program, but reading between the lines of the TeX-formatted overview, he wasn't happy with what shipped. The suits had been downgraded to hit a cost target. The project lead described the resulting maintenance burden as "inconsistent with the program's stated operational requirements."
The hardware and software engineering lead's note was in the same directory. Less polished. The man had written it angry. I suspected the .tex wouldn't compile cleanly, brackets going unmatched in the heat of the moment.
The Mandroids had been built originally for SHIELD, and their radio stack was written around SHIELD's satcom standard. Fixed-schedule handshakes, predictable timing, everything fitting neatly into the cooperative scheduling loop. The military security comms net the Secbots needed to interface with worked differently. The mismatch introduced a race condition in the firmware that the team caught in a five-unit test deployment and didn't have time to fix properly before the delivery date.
They put a delay in and shipped it.
The engineering lead had attached a separate memo making clear he considered this a temporary measure. I idly wondered if that memo had ever reached anyone who cared.
The Guardsman program was a different story. Smoother, more straightforward, the kind of production run that goes the way production runs are supposed to go. The blueprints hadn't been deleted. The manufacturing details were intact. Stane International wasn't deviating from the original design or cutting corners on specifications, they were making copies. Forty of them, destined for the Vault.
The suits were more complex than the Mandroids and its derivatives, but there hadn't been nearly the same teething issues. Looking through the .tex files, the engineers at Stane had grabbed Stark's old design, tweaked a few aspects to make it easier to mass-produce, then cranked out an initial run of forty suits.
Moving on through the database, I listed the files again and moved into a directory with a random string as the title. The files in this directory had been deleted.
I ran ls -la on the directory first. Most of the files showed zero bytes, the inodes were still there but the content was gone. A few had survived the wipe with their tails truncated, irregular sizes that made no sense for complete documents. Someone had deleted the directory entries and called it a day, probably under time pressure, probably without knowing that the filesystem didn't immediately overwrite the blocks.
Looking through the files revealed garbage interspersed with readable fragments. Enough to get the shape of things.
This was what was left of the Iron Monger documentation in the main computer. Some paranoid higher-up had had them delete this copy and move the rest to a different mainframe somewhere in Stane's underground additions to the facility.
What was there gave me a general idea of what had been going on. The team hadn't been able to crack some of the Iron Man systems going off of the notebook Stane had found. So they'd improvised. They'd taken systems from the suit they understood, the Guardsman suit, and scaled them up. The only thing off the Iron Man suits that they had used from the notes was the power distribution, the solar cells and the unibeam.
They also used the notebook to crack the trouble of scaling up the known good repulsor implementation they had from the Guardsman suits, but I wasn't clear how, as that had been deleted. Shame.
I pushed myself away from the upstairs terminal and walked downstairs to the suit, which was currently in pieces on the ground.
How do I boot this up?
I grabbed the helmet, looking at it idly. The cool metal was a contrast to the heat of the warehouse and I turned it over in my hands.
The thought hit me from nowhere. James Rhodes's mental episodes.
When Rhodes wore the Iron Man suit, he'd grown irrational and short-tempered because the neural interface wasn't calibrated for him. I could run into the same problem. There had to be a proper calibration procedure somewhere in the documentation.
I went back to the documentation for the Guardsman. After about thirty minutes of searching, I ran across a guide written for Stane International's test staff. Dense, procedural, the kind of document written by engineers for technicians rather than for anyone who might actually be wearing the suit. It laid out the full neural interface calibration procedure in exhaustive detail.
I went over it twice, taking notes. The standard bench setup was straightforward enough. Impedance analyzer, oscilloscope, signal generator, bench power supply, multimeter, thermometer. All real equipment, all sourceable through electronics suppliers if you knew what you were looking for. The breakout cable for the helmet's diagnostic port was going to be annoying, the connector was proprietary.
The catch was one of the final items. Some sort of proprietary Stark neural interface calibration device. I'd probably have to wait until the west coast to source that.
The armor was going to have to wait in any case. I didn't want to haul a whole test bench setup in whatever transport I took, and I'd already be weighed down enough.
Air travel was off the table. I'd need to drive. Which meant I needed a car.
After a second's thought, I realized I wasn't quite sure how one went about acquiring a car in 1984. You could go to a dealership, but my lack of credit history would ring all types of alarm bells. Something to fix eventually. I shelved it.
I'd need to go through Vito again. I walked out of the warehouse and dialed his number.
"Evening. You got anybody who deals in vehicles?"
Vito stifled a yawn. I idly wondered how long he spent sitting by the phone. What his day to day looked like as a fixer.
"Yeah, I've got someone. I'll give you the number."
I jotted it down in my notepad.
"Thanks."
Vito hung up.
I dialed the number.
"Ey." A bored voice. "How'd you get this number?"
"Vito referred me. I'm looking for a vehicle, and he said you'd be the guy."
"I'm closing up around now. Come to the DiNapoli warehouse on Garfield in Jersey City tomorrow. Bring cash. No funny business."
The next day, after an hour at the tender mercies of NJ Transit, I arrived with a briefcase heavy with cash. Ten thousand in bills, which left me with only 2.5k on hand. I planned to negotiate however. I was carrying the gyrojet pistol in case things went sideways, but I didn't expect them to today.
The address was a warehouse in a run-down part of Jersey City. DiNapoli Waste Solutions on a sign out front, and a few garbage trucks. I knocked at the side door.
It opened to reveal an older white man. Slight pot belly, dark hair going thin on top, around 5'8. Middle age, pencil behind his ear.
"You Davis?"
"Yep."
"Good. I'm Tommy." He hurried me inside and closed the door.
The entry room was a dingy office that smelled of cigarette smoke. Two obvious mob muscle types sat on folding chairs, both with underarm holsters they weren't trying to hide. Berettas.
The man, Tommy, jerked his head at me. "You got a piece? Leave it here."
I unstrapped my holster and put it in the proffered bin.
He gestured me through a side door into the warehouse proper.
The cigarette smell gave way to oil and lubricant and a metallic undertone. The overhead lights were off, late morning light filtering through grimy windows and throwing soft shadows between the vehicles.
The bulk inventory lined the far wall. Monte Carlos, DeVilles, Delta 88s, a couple of unremarkable panel vans near the loading bay. The bread and butter. Some still had fast food bags on the back seat.
Further in, four heavy sedans sat very low on their suspensions. Late seventies Cadillac, two Town Cars, a Buick.
One of the Town Cars caught my eye. A hasty patch job where several panels didn't match the rest of the bodywork, and the frame itself looked twisted.
I gestured at it.
"What happened there?"
Tommy shrugged. "Shaped charge. The boys are working on fixing it up."
I gestured at the second Town Car. The paint had a particular blistered quality across the whole body, subtle enough to miss at a glance.
"Can I take a look at that one?"
Tommy glanced at it with the mild expression of a man who had stopped really seeing something a long time ago. "Knock yourself out."
I walked over and grabbed the door handle. The rubber gasket crumbled slightly under my fingers when I pulled, dried out and cracked all the way around, cooked from the inside out. The door swung open and the smell hit me. Burnt plastic and something underneath it, deeper and more metallic.
I leaned in. The interior looked almost normal at a superficial examination. Then you noticed the details. The instrument cluster was fried. The steering wheel's leather wrap had a faint craze pattern across it. The headliner had pulled away from the roof where the adhesive had cooked.
I popped the hood. The cylinder head had a slight warp that hadn't been there from the factory.
"Who put this much juice into it?" I asked.
Tommy picked up the pencil from behind his ear, looked at it, put it back. "Previous owners had a disagreement with the Maggia. The Maggia put the Eel on 'em."
I nodded. We moved on.
The next section was more interesting. A Jaguar XJS in British racing green. A Mercedes 500SEC beside it, immaculate except for the tires. A Porsche 911 with a handwritten note taped to the dash. Tommy's hand moved as we passed and the note disappeared into his shirt pocket without him breaking stride or acknowledging it. A Ferrari 308 in black that had started life as red, if you knew where to look at the door jambs. A Lamborghini Countach half under a tarp in the corner that seemed to be a work in progress.
"Casino money," Tommy said. "Wall Street guys come down for the weekend, get confident at the tables, need liquidity fast. They're not in a position to be particular about the price."
"Not what I need," I said.
He jerked his head. "Got one more section."
The last section was less glamorous. A box truck with delivery markings painted over badly. A municipal garbage truck from a different company. An airport ground vehicle. An armored car. And in the back corner, a grey panel van.
I pointed at it.
"I'll pay nine thousand to take that off your hands."
Tommy put on a practiced expression of shock. "Nine thousand. The original owner put a lotta love into this van. You know what it cost to customize to this level? I should kick you out of here right now."
"I have a reasonable suspicion you didn't compensate the original owner," I said. "Which is also why I'm offering nine."
Something flickered behind Tommy's eyes. Gone fast.
"Nine five," he said. "That's me giving it away."
"Eight five." I nodded back toward the European section. "I saw the Porsche. You're quick, but I saw the note. You resprayed that Ferrari and while it's competent, I can tell. You've got a Merc out there with the treads worn off the tires." I looked at him. "I don't know what this van's been through since it came to you."
Tommy put his hand flat on his chest with the expression of a man who had just been told his children were ugly. "I swear on my mother's grave." He looked at the ceiling briefly. "That van has been in my personal care since it came through that door. Started it twice a week myself. Oil is changed. Everything that was working when it arrived is still working." He dropped the hand. "Nine."
"Eight five."
He looked at the van. Looked at me. "You're killing me. Should have more respect for your elders." He touched his chest again, lower, in the vicinity of his wallet. "Eight five. Fine. Eight five."
"Eight," I said.
"Eight." A pause that was slightly too short for someone who genuinely wanted to hold out. "Eight two. And I throw in a full tank."
"Seven five."
Tommy stared at me. "Seven five." He said it the way you say something you need to hear out loud to confirm it's real. "After everything I just told you about the personal care I have given this vehicle."
"Seven five," I said.
He exhaled through his nose. "Seven eight. Final."
"Seven two."
"Swear to God you're worse than my first wife." He stuck out his hand. "Seven five. We're done."
We shook on it. I retrieved my briefcase from the front and handed it over. Tommy counted it out on the desk while his two guys loomed in the background. I had almost gotten used to the omnipresent cheap muscle that seemed to come standard with these transactions.
"Seems to be in order." He squared the bills and put them somewhere under the desk. Then he fished out the keys and held them up. "Tank's got a sip in it. Since you didn't spring for the full tank." He dropped them into my hand.
I started toward the side door.
"Hey." Tommy's voice had changed register. "You're leaving the area with that thing, yeah? Not keeping it local?"
I turned. "Cross country. Why?"
He made a noncommittal gesture that wasn't quite noncommittal. "That van's aftermarket. May require some babying."
He produced a plain manila envelope from under the desk and set it on the counter. I opened it while he watched with the mild patience of a man who had done this handoff many times. Title, bill of sale, previous owner listed as a private individual out of Hoboken. Clean chain going back two years, nothing that would raise eyebrows at a DMV window.
I pocketed everything and took the keys.
Ten minutes later, pulling out of the warehouse parking lot, I hadn't gotten a real sense for the van yet. Atlantic City traffic didn't give me much to work with. The temperature gauge sat lower than I expected, running cool even in stop and go, and the automatic shifts felt fine. My mother and I had always had cars in common, and she had given extensive advice on what to look for with used ones. Pushing down the typical pang whenever I thought of my parents, I refocused on the van. The various omens and portents seemed fine, but the van hadn't been under any real stress yet.
The Garden State Parkway on-ramp told me more. I put my foot down merging into traffic and the van accelerated smoothly. Not quick exactly, but faster than the weight suggested. The brakes had that slightly aggressive initial bite that came from upgraded calipers. The steering was tighter than any panel van had a right to be.
I settled into the middle lane and let it ride. Someone had put serious money into this thing.
I got back to Hell's Kitchen, parked at the curb outside the warehouse, and sat there for a moment. Then I remembered that I had several hundred pounds of power armor in a basement and no plan for getting it into the van.
Right.
A store run produced a handcart, a tarp, three cardboard boxes and some tape. I decided to exercise, shower and turn in early. I'd check on the money tomorrow and make an early day of it.
The next morning I woke at eight and made my way to the payphone on the corner with my notebook and a paper bag of quarters. International calls weren't cheap and payphones weren't patient.
I fed in the initial deposit, dialed the long string of numbers I'd committed to memory, and listened to the series of clicks and tones that meant the call was routing across the Atlantic.
A man answered. Vaguely Swiss-German accent.
I gave him the account number. He asked for the phrase. I gave him that too.
A brief pause, the sound of someone doing something at a desk a continent away.
"The account is in order, sir. Would you like the current balance?"
He gave it to me.
I stood there for a second, then pumped my fist, which sent approximately four quarters bouncing across the sidewalk in different directions. I looked at them, then crouched down and picked up every single one.
"Let's get the phrase changed while I'm here."
"Of course, sir."
"The new access phrase is...mint julep"
I used the first word that came to mind.
"Understood."
The line clicked dead.
I drifted up the morning street in a genuine haze of goodwill. I found myself in a corner store without quite deciding to go in, buying a Coke and a newspaper on autopilot. The Coke was cold and I was, it turned out, genuinely thirsty.
The newspaper almost made me spray Coke across the front page.
Frank Castle was back on the street.
I read the article twice. Then I put the newspaper back and started moving faster than I'd moved all day.
Castle on the loose meant NYC street crime was about to get notably more dangerous. I didn't remember the post-jail Punisher run perfectly, but the broad strokes were bad.
I thought back to the van. When I'd driven it back into the city, it had handled surprisingly well. Tommy hadn't haggled me nearly as hard as he would for a clearly custom job. He'd wanted to get rid of it. Why?
There was only one person who would soup up a panel van like that.
If this wasn't one of the Punisher's old battle vans I'd eat my hat. Everybody else had suspected what it was, or been smart enough to figure it out, and my oblivious ass had blundered right into it.
I picked up my pace to a borderline speed walk. I needed to get clear of NYC, and I needed to do it today.
Arriving back at the warehouse, I burst through the side door and grabbed the three empty cardboard boxes. Shoving them into the elevator, the shaky ride down to the bunker seemed interminable.
Finally, the doors opened, and I rushed in. Clothes into one, kitchenware into another. I looked at the armory, decided there wasn't much worth taking, then grabbed the holster and gyrojet pistol.
I was of two minds about taking one of the SHIELD energy rifles. Better to have it and not need it. I grabbed one and strapped it on.
The rest I'd leave. I grabbed the final box and threw all the books from the R&D room shelf into it, along with the disk with the C compiler from the comms room.
I wrangled the three boxes back toward the elevator, then stopped.
The power. Shit.
I set the boxes down and jogged back through the bunker. Ventilation room first. I threw the master disconnect to off and heard the bunker change around me, the hum of the fluorescent fixtures dying, the clean white light replaced by the sickly green glow of the emergency system. The halls seemed to contract in the artificial twilight.
Back to the comms room, then a quick walk to confirm everything was back to the state I'd found it. Emergency lighting, ventilation, the basic systems, all still running off the life support feed the way they'd been running since the evacuation. The main systems were dark.
I wanted to keep this as a fallback site, but right now I needed to move.
I shuffled the boxes onto the elevator and hit the button for the warehouse level.
On the way up I remembered the SHIELD plasma rifle strapped across my back and pulled it off. I'd take it out under my arm wrapped in an oilcloth. No need to explain that to anyone.
I shoved all three boxes out onto the handcart. The Iron Monger suit would have to come next.
Before I did that, I ran upstairs and pulled out the adapter and disk with the Stane International power armor information. That was imporatnt. Sprinting back down the stairs, I moved on to the Iron Monger armor.
After several minutes of levering, grunting, and swearing I got the chest piece onto the cart, then the rest of the suit. I had idly toyed with the idea of wearing the chest piece as a improptu bulletproof vest, but lifting it unassisted had put paid to that idea. It was just too heavy. I shoved it out the door and loaded it into the back of the van. Nobody approached me.
I wrapped the rifle in oilcloth, tucked it under my arm, and laid it on the passenger seat.
I pulled my keys out of my pocket and started the van.
California, here I come.