Book One - Part One: Dark Knight

Chapter Twenty Nine

Below Dynamo emerges out of the water, searching for Iron Man. He moves sweeping around the steel-maze with his infrared, but perforated steam pipes cast red plumes and confusing shadows everywhere.

"It's miraculous, Tony, it's your Ninth Symphony. Trying to rid the world of weapons, you gave it its best one ever"

"This wasn't meant for the world" Still moving, still swiveling through the murk.

"How can you be so selfish? Do you understand what you've created?" Obadiah asks. "This will put the balance of power back in our hands for decades. Your country needs this"

"What kind of world will it be when everybody's got one?"

"Your father helped give us the bomb. What kind of world would it be if he'd failed us?" Iron Man emerges from behind machinery and girders. He doesn't see Dynamo, who charges Iron Man realises too late that Dynamo is coming at him like a bullet-train. He's hit, driven backwards in Dynamo's vice grip, and they smash into the cement wall and punch clean through it onto the highway. They crash into a truck trailer, passing through it and onto the highway, tossing vehicles aside. More cars screech, collide. A hydrogen powered bus jackknives, narrowly averting disaster. People flee vehicles. In Tony's H.U.D., "INCOMING CALL" flashes with Pepper's name.

"Not now Pepper" He argues.

"Not Pepper" Batwoman responds.

"Where is she?" Tony asks her.

"Safe" Batwoman responds. "There's a bigger problem at hand"

"I know, I'm in the middle of it" Tony argues.

"No, the reactor's been hit..." she tells him, he pauses a moment.

"Get to the control room. Shut it down..." He orders of her, she hangs up on him. Dynamo rises first, grabs a Volvo station-wagon with a stunned mother and kids inside. Iron Man rises as the Dynamo lifts the car over his head. "Don't. This is our fight"

"People are always going to die, Tony -- part of the chess game" Tony tries his palm RTs. Nothing.

"Emergency power!"

"Sir, you'll drain the....."

"NOW!" Dynamo winds up to throw the car when Iron Man nails him with a huge Repulsor blast from his chest. Dynamo is knocked back, throwing the car at Iron Man, who catches it. But the weight is too much for his armour to handle and he buckles, saving the car from impact, but gets trapped underneath it. Iron Man, dragged as the Volvo speeds forward. A shower of sparks fly from his suit. A wild weaving ride. Dynamo follows, using cars as stepping stones. People flee pell-mell, jumping the highway divider.

...............

Laurie is driving like hell, honking. Tail lights flash past like tracers as she slaloms through tight traffic.

................

Iron Man finally manages to push the car off him. It speeds away, three gaping Kids staring out the back. Tony staggers up, trying to regain his footing as Dynamo pulls up. A clash of steel and grinding hydraulics. Stane knocks Tony into a mini-van and pounds him mercilessly. Tony's helmet is now being squeezed by the Dynamo.

............

In the control room Batwoman removes her helmet and flips open a panel to find a hundred buttons. All red. All flashing. She takes a breath calming herself and then lets her brain kick into gear.

"Delta rate" she tells herself moving to check the monitor. It reads 1-2-5-0. Her eyes widen. "Damn" she comments.

..................