capeandcowl2020 | Open Post 001

Tony paused, feeling a twist somewhere in there. Ghost was going. He was going fast if he were so honest. Tony may not have unlimited access to the internet through his brain, but he could remember things. Jabal Tariq was an interesting name.

It was a compliment, he supposed. He felt a sadness that he hadn't been around. Ghost had always been unstable, he'd always needed a hand. In the City, he'd pulled him in, put his brain to use, helped him focus his attentions toward what was necessary, put him toward a greater purpose.

But now he couldn't. Was Ghost too fargone? He needed to help him, no, everyone who'd been touched by this. He'd couldn't do it from here.

"Ghost. Have you ever been able to alter your suit, to pass through one thing and not the other?" He needed this, he needed Ghost.

A long silence between them, as if Ghost were trying very hard to read between the lines of that sentence, though he could just ask. He knew Tony was invisibly bound by his captors, the modern Prometheus bound and eaten day in, day out. Though the eagle was guilt, and the Zeus was the government, and the fire was something but the metaphor was breaking down and it was all Greek anyway.

"Yes."

"Can you pull something inorganic, like metal from organic?" he asked, questioning harder. He had to know.

It was like the light at the end of a tunnel. He could escape. He could finally, finally hear and see, and be in a world that he was built to be in. Hell, if he thought there wouldn't be a chance that they would find out, he would, in a heartbeat, remain in this home. Just to use it as a center of power.

No, not yet. He had to know.

Ghost was crazy, not stupid. He was silent for a second more, and then he turned his back, opening his arms with fingers splayed.

"If I ^err, An_thony, you could be a vegetable. A _parapalegic. Do you know ^what a _botched lobotomy feels like? Neither do I."

Over his shoulder, hard on the heels of the merciless caveat, "It ^can be done."

He chuckled, and followed his path, standing next to him, staring over the dark, silent room. He looked forward, a grim look on his face while he thought. "Did you know, Ghost, that when I took the Extremis antivirus, I vomited all of my organs?" He slid a look over to him. "Literally, all of them. I regrew my entire body from inside out in the course of a day," and that was accelerated. By two days.

"I think the risk is worth it, Ghost. We need something, something to help. I know the risks," he paused. "If it doesn't work, check the room. You know where. It might help you, and the resistance."

Several billion dollars worth of help. The Iron Man suit was expensive. Ridiculously expensive. It would help. It could aid the resistance in a big way.

"I need this done. It's not a mercy killing this time, Ghost. It's a chance to get out."

The beat was almost comedic as he imagined that, Tony Stark on his knees throwing up organs--a fascinated exhale at the things Stark had suffered, would still suffer, in the name of freedom. He felt shame, a distanced and disconnected shame he would always fail to articulate, that he had hounded Stark so, and had made of him the strawman--the boogeyman of all his personal terrors.

And here was a chance, an opportunity, to make up somewhat for the dogged attacking. An apology without the demand, without the words. One hand he raised, the palm glowing blue as he ran it across the back of Tony's scalp, fingers combing through his hair as he tried to create a rough mental map of the breakers, the shackles.

Better than diving in blind.

His other hand reached down to brush fingers across Tony's palm, an invitation before threading fingers in his.

"Then _{th_ere's} no need to tell ^you to be brave, ^Anthony." Through the damaged machine, his voice is personally steady, uncompromised by emotions like fear of screwing it up, suppressing utterly the possibility of Tony dying here in this room and all feelings linked to it. "Read_y?"

It was odd, this certainty. He had nearly died before, he had frozen himself and waited for a cure to his heart disease, he had built a device to keep him living long enough to escape a kidnapping, but he did it while building the suit that had also bought his ticket to freedom. Taking the chances with his life, he'd always taken big risks. What would have happened to Stark Industries if he'd died there, captured by Wong Chu's men? Would Rhodes and Pepper been able to run things if the cure to his heart had never been found? What would have happened if he had been of the 97.3% that couldn't take on the Extremis nanovirus? He hadn't known the chances were so low, of course.

He gripped Ghost's hand, oddly real, despite his namesake. He would always take chances with his life, because his life was worth sacrificing, if he could make things better. That was why he had it, wasn't it? To improve the world, to make a better future. He'd taken on registration because he'd wanted to improve the future of this world, he'd been here so long it was his home now. After they didn't allow him control, he couldn't keep going, he wouldn't allow this world to fall into a trap. Nor the imports. They had done so much good, some of them. They could have made it so much better.

They still would.

"Do it," he said, voice apprehensive, but ready. He would either die here, and put an end to his imprisonment, or he would live, and escape. Either one was what he needed right now. Desperately.

Edited 2012-05-20 20:48 (UTC)

He boosted the signal of the carrier, to mask a greater area--if there was screaming. And his fingertips faded away to the diaphanous flickering, his eyes drops of molten focus as he pressed his fingers into and through Stark's skull. Starting at the base of his brain, sweeping razor fingers up to contact and disconnect the first of many lethally programmed shackles seesawed all across the brilliant brain. A literal mindfield.

Only a machine could think fast enough to shut the devices down before they could send any kind of signals, particularly punishing shocks--and Ghost's suit was running at 3.3 milliseconds - the average amount of time between the initiation of a C4 charge and its detonation, and three hundred times faster than the average eyeblink. His technopathy put the speed of human action to shame, but he could barely maintain the output necessary to keep them from dominoing. Paramount was capturing and echoing the pulse of the destroyed piece to keep its fellows silently sleeping, despite the inevitable, punishing electrical leak.

He forgot to breathe, but he didn't forget to squeeze Tony's hand back.

It was such an odd sensation, knowing that the pieces were falling apart, unlatching, each one, but with the work came the undeniable pain. The first was ignorable, an electrical shock to the brain not unlike what would force a limb to jerk. The second was worse, the loss of a sense, his hearing gave out, temporarily, and then his vision in rapid succession, moving across the brain, the shocks targeting the areas they were attached to, each one driving a shock deep. Then came the pain, undeniable, and sharp, everything on fire, and he felt his hand slack, and then tighten. Hard. He hoped he didn't break Ghost's hand, but at this moment, his brain was trying to shut down, he needed it to be finished, he needed to end this, soon.

But he couldn't speak, even as parts of his brain came aware, more aware than they'd been in years, he couldn't speak. He could feel the rush of blood, the silent and neutered nanites flickering to awareness. Each one starting their work in his bloodstream, the nullification, the pulses slowly dying, but it still hurt, more than it had before his skin had hardened and he'd been pulled into a restless, memory-filled sleep to grow a new body.

"Gh--" was all he could manage, teeth grit, hand tightening, a harsh breath of pain, fire.

"I can_not stop." He said in a blank, emotionless burst of breath, no uncertain terms, if he stopped the last cluster could send the kill signal and destroy all this hard work, make null all Tony's suffering.

He didn't bother reassuring Tony he was almost done. He just jerked back suddenly, pulling the mechanism along with.

"_hhhhh. Tony. Speak. Are ^you intact?"

It took him a few minutes, and he collapsed to his knees at the sheer shock of the change, still running through, parts of him awake for the first time in literally years. He'd been so used to the nanovirus that he'd relied on it like a drug, the ability to do anything and everything all at once, he'd clung to that. It allowed him to be aware, to see and touch more than he should have been able to with one lifetime of experience. He planted his hands to the ground, heaving, a twitch, another heave. His body was trying to revert itself back to the original genetic coding. Bypass, bypass, he didn't have time for that.

The nanites would work later, once he was out of here. He needed to make it to saftey first, and this place was going to be the furthest thing from safe when they discovered he wasn't attached to the device that had culled his brain.

He watched from space, though, already mapping, planning. He pinpointed the signatures, already firing up an old data network that rumbled to life at the first indication of life. He hacked others, falling into old habits, the codes were more sophisticated, he was better.

"Give me a moment," he managed through this somehow, trying to shake the hoarseness of his voice, make it sound normal, and not weak. Strained. It was like going from being a couch potato to a marathon runner in a scant few moments.

He moved to the side, to press his fingers against the nearest window and peer out into the night, switching rapidly from regular vision to night vision to mid-infrared and back, satisfied no alarm had been sounded.

"We are ^safe for now."

Ghost flitted back over to him, dropping into a crouch and evaluating him with a criticism unbecoming of any sort of medical practitioner.

"The ^effect on _you was not minimal."

"You're right, but I'll be okay until we get out. I can't set the repairs until we get somewhere safe. It'll take me at least a day to repair the hardware," he said it, but his hands were shaking. He felt the bile rise. His hands were shaking. He clamped down his thoughts, trying to control them, and figure out what to do.

"We need to wait about two hours, they shift change then. Then we need to get out. I can't stay here while I repair, or they'll find me. If they interrupt the process..." he trailed off, the thought enough to make him ill. "No. I'll bypass the repairs for the moment."

Open Post 001

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