When Robert Farrell thought back on the first heist he’d ever pulled it was usually with embarrassment. Still, there was one moment he couldn’t help but recall with a secret bloom of pride. He could even remember exactly what he’d said when, racing along the side of a building, he’d looked over his shoulder and seen none other than the amazing Spider-Man bearing down on him. Of course he could remember. Dude, how could he forget?

“Uh-uh, ace… you ain’t getting’ your sticky little fingers on me!”

Hah! Oh man, what was he about back then? Nineteen years old and mixing it up on the city streets with Spider-Man. Spider-Man! Damn. Balls of brass, it had to be said. Brains of a goat, though. Not more than five minutes later and he’d been trussed up in a web net and staring at a jail-stretch. Just like that. There’d been other days, better days, on both sides of the moral line, but it was that first encounter that sometimes got stuck on perpetual reply in his head. Because -

“Robbie?”

Robert blinked and twitched, and then turned to gaze sheepishly at the pretty red-haired girl sitting alongside him. She was giving him that goofy grin, the one that made her nose wrinkle and her freckles dance, and it melted his heart. Robert wasn’t nineteen any more, he was twenty-five, and Johanna Taylor was actually two years older, although no one would ever believe it; all shy sweetness and dimples and Heidi plaits, she was the kind of girl who’d probably look eighteen forever.

“I’d ask you where your head’s at,” Jo said, with a teasing smile, “but I doubt I’d understand the answer. What was it today? Gyrometric provocation?”

“Force precessed gyroscopic propulsion.”

“See? I was listening when you tried to explain, I swear I was, but - ”

“It doesn’t matter. I don’t get your lawyer stuff either. Despite the fact I’ve spent so much time inside a courtroom…”

Robert looked abashed. It wasn’t obvious to observe him now, seated to attention on a bus heading west along Santa Monica Boulevard in his smart suit and polished shoes and his four-hundred dollar spectacles and his black dreadlocks neatly trimmed, but he was well acquainted with the law; twenty-five years old and he’d already seen out two small prison sentences that could have been much worse. But he wasn’t a bad guy, not really. He was just an idiot. An ESU graduate in advanced sciences and an expert in gyroscopic engineering (described by no less than Tony Stark as one of the potential geniuses of his generation!), but still an idiot - and a thrillseeker. Because that was the crux of it, wasn’t it? Some people went rock-climbing or abseiling, some got their kicks from parkour… but his personalized brand of extreme sports hedonism had involved vertical acceleration up the outsides of skyscrapers on a rocket-powered skateboard, often after engaging in illicit activity. As wastes of talent went, Robbie was the proverbial poster boy.

Still, in the last few months he’d turned things around. He was presently employed by the experimental and developmental research division of Stark Solutions in Los Angeles, he was earning a high enough salary to enjoy a modest lifestyle as well as help out his six brothers and sisters and their sick mother back in New York, he’d been dating a bright and attractive junior lawyer since early fall - man, he couldn’t ask for more. Really, he couldn’t.

So why did his mind keep drifting back to the old days? And why, in his spare time, did he keep tinkering with designs for that blasted old -

“There you go again. Earth to Mr. Farrell, are you receiving?”

Robert flinched again like a startled cat, then groaned. “Damn, I’m sorry. I just - ”

“Don’t worry. I’m just riding your tail.” Johanna leaned in and kissed him, softly yet urgently, her slender arms sliding around his waist. “You know how that genius intellect of yours gets me all… tingly.”

“Don’t give me to much credit. I’m - ”

“Just being modest, as usual,” Jo said, briskly. “You gotta go, beautiful dreamer, this is your stop. So, you still on for dinner tonight? Luigi’s at eight?”

“I… yeah. Yeah, that’s - ”

“Oh, wait. Almost forgot. I found this under the hall table this morning, it’d fallen out of your bag again.”

Jo held out what looked like a BlackBerry smartphone but which was actually a substantially more sophisticated device called a StarkPAD. All Stark employees had one although they weren’t yet available on the direct market. Robert sighed and shook his head as he took the PAD and zippered it into his jacket pocket. “Man, how many times is that now?” he muttered. “Seriously, I try and keep it safe, but it’s like the damn thing’s alive and just wants to escape.”

“It must be mad. Who’d want to escape from you? I love you pressing my buttons…”

Johanna stroked her boyfriend’s thigh, then gave him a saucy smack on the backside as he stood. “Get going, ace,” she grinned. “I’ve got a busy day too. But text me later, okay?”

Robert smiled shyly as they parted, then stood on the sidewalk and watched the bus roll away, his girlfriend waving at the window, her copper-red plaits shining in the morning sunlight. Sweet, sassy, clever… she was wonderful. She really was. But, damn, did he feel guilty now. Because if she even suspected that his mind wasn’t drifting to his real work but instead to those times he’d kit himself out in some garish, armored costume and go hurtling around the rooftops on a souped-up board, well… she’d be more than disappointed. She’d be ashamed.

Brains of a goat. The world’s stupidest genius.

“Just get to work, Farrell,” he sighed. “And pull your damn fool self together before you’ve got yet another thing to regret…”

---

“Mr. Farrell? Could you come this way, please?”

Robert frowned as the two men in charcoal suits who had just approached his desk now shepherded him towards a private elevator. It didn’t take a genius - world’s stupidest genius or otherwise - to work out that he was in trouble. These individuals weren’t scientists or affiliated to the installation in any way. They were outsiders, part of an elite division of personal assistants answering to one very important man…

“I didn’t do anything.”

“Mr. Farrell, please…”

“But I didn’t do anything.”

Glum, Robert had no choice but to ride the elevator up to the seldom-used seventh floor, whereupon he was directed into a conference room. The two suited men remained present, flanking the door. They’d obviously been instructed to prevent Robert from trying to leave of his own volition. Robert wondered why they were so concerned that he might run, but he was correct when he supposed that he was about to find out.

On the far side of a broad oak table that filled the conference room, a man sat forward in his leather chair, fingers steepled as he studied a laptop monitor. He was dark-haired and handsome, a rugged strength to his features that few men could boast. He didn’t look happy. It was only the third time in his life that Robert had met Anthony Stark, and he wished with all his heart that it wasn’t happening now.

“I didn’t do anything.”

“So you said in the elevator,” Stark murmured. He looked up, his eyes dark and hard. “I’ve got ears everywhere, you know. Some people would call that an invasion of privacy, but where my company’s concerned I find it pays to be aware of everything.”

“Well, that’s good,” Robert said, becoming angry now rather than fearful. “Because that means you know I didn’t do anything.”

“The lady doth protest too much, methinks. Not that I’m calling you a lady, Robert. It’s a quote from - ”

“Hamlet. Yeah, I know. Poor black kids from Brooklyn read Shakespeare too. You want to quiz me on some Elvis lyrics now?”

Stark grimaced. “Sorry. I just wanted to point out that you’re being very defensive for someone who’s done nothing wrong.”

“Really? Well, the kind of life I’ve led, I’ve learned to recognize trouble when it comes looking for me.”

“The life you used to lead,” Stark said. “When your name was suggested to me I looked past your previous criminal identity as the Rocket Racer and instead focused on the glowing recommendation stating what an asset you could be to my company and me. Eight months ago, when I employed you, I believed that was the right decision.”

“But now?”

Stark fixed Robert with an iron gaze. “Can you hand me your StarkPAD, please? Because if I find what I think I’m going to find, then you’re in a world of trouble…”

Robert glowered. He’d never appreciated being talked down to. Stark was… well, he wasn’t doing that exactly, but he was coming over all authoritative, and Robert hated that too. That was part of the reason he’d fallen into crime so easily. He respected Stark - hell, he was in awe of him and always had been, even as a kid dismantling his first radio - but that didn’t mean he had to go woof when The Man said bark. Nevertheless, he had no choice.

He fished his PAD from his pocket and skimmed it across the table. Stark snatched it up and connected it to his laptop with a remote cable, all without another word or glance. Then he went to work on the keyboard for a minute or two before stepping back, his scowl so deep that his dark brows almost met in the center of his forehead.

“Goddamn it.”

“What?” Robert asked. But the mulish vitriol of before was somewhat diluted now, and his shoulders were slumped. He already knew what Stark had found before the other man spun the laptop around to show Robert the tri-colored schematic on the screen.

“You want to explain?” Stark snapped. “There are those who wouldn’t agree, but I’ve always considered myself fair. You’ve got ten seconds.”

“Ten?”

“Down to eight now.”

Robert sighed. “Listen, I don’t know why you think this is any of your… no. No, okay, alright, I’m sorry. Okay? I know I told you way back when that I wasn’t interested in the whole Rocket Racer shtick any more, but it’s something I’ve been tinkering with in my spare time, and… man, it’s not like I’m going to go and start robbing banks again or anything like that. I never even thought about rebuilding the suit or the board, not really. It’s just a cerebral exercise, to…”

Robert trailed off. Stark was just staring at him, his expression a little less fierce now. More… bewildered?

“Robert, do have any idea what I’m showing you here?”

“Of course I do. It’s the design print for my Rocket Racer armor and jetboard.”

“Uh-huh. Look closely.”

Robert frowned. He had no idea what Stark’s problem was, but -

“Wait.”

Robert’s heart skipped. He moved forward, pushing his spectacles down the bridge of his nose and scrutinizing the schematic on the screen in front of him. “Dude, what the…?”

“This is your design?”

“Well, yeah. But… no.” Robert looked up, confused. “This is the basic template, but there are alterations. Augmentations. Some of this circuitry, it - ”

“It’s mine.”

Robert blinked. “It’s what now?”

“It’s Stark tech. Experimental, nothing your division is working on. It’s been leeched from my private files over a supposedly secure network - we’re talking quadruple-encrypted data at the lowest strata - and grafted onto the existing schematic via your personal interface.”

“My what?”

Stark tapped the StarkPAD. “Every one of these has a unique identity chip that can be tagged and tracked whenever it connects with the core drive, as the owner does every morning when he or she comes to work. In the past six weeks, however, there have been three separate anomalies recorded when someone’s hacked into those aforementioned private files - using this machine. Your PAD.”

“What? No.”

“I agree. It’s impossible. Even if someone as gifted as you were to try it they shouldn’t have been able to penetrate as far as they did, especially not three times. But it’s happened. It was only on the third occasion, last night, that I personally managed to decipher the scramble built around your data ID, otherwise I’d still be the none the wiser where the incursion was originating from.”

“But I didn’t… I mean, I never let this machine out of my sight, I swear, I - ” Robert faltered. He stared the screen, then looked at his StarkPAD. His heart skipped.

Oh, wait. Almost forgot. I found this under the hall table this morning, it’d fallen out of your bag again.

“No,” he said, quietly. Then again, more firmly, “No.”

“No what?”

It was only on the third occasion last night -

Stark’s eyes were narrowed thoughtfully. He was a clever man in so many ways, but his most commonly overlooked talent was surely his uncanny perception. Tony Stark had always been able to read people. Admittedly he hadn’t been sure about Robert Farrell for a while there, but now he was beginning to see the real picture. He said, “Has someone else had access to your StarkPAD?”

Robert felt sick. “No.”

“Have they?”

“She couldn’t have done it.”

“Who?”

“My girlfriend. But she doesn’t like computers. She’s not interested. She couldn’t - ”

“How long have you been seeing her? I’m guessing just over six weeks, right?”

In the past six weeks there have been three separate anomalies…

Robert made to turn away. Stark placed a firm hand on his shoulder.

“Robert, listen to me. Your initial designs here, they’re brilliant, even before being augmented with my tech. I think you’ve got something special about you, even more than I realized, and I’d love to sit down with you sometime and brainstorm together. Believe me, I don’t say that lightly. But this is serious. The expertise needed for someone to have pulled this off and the implications of what they might do with the stolen tech… I’ve been there before. It’s not good. Now, please. This girl. I need her name and address.”

Robert looked up. His eyes were glistening behind his spectacles.

“I’m not saying she’s guilty of anything,” Stark said, gently. “But if you’ve been played here, well… trust me, I’ve been there before too.”

Robert chewed his lower lip, hesitating. Then, his heart breaking, he gave Stark the information he wanted.

Stark set to work immediately, bypassing the laptop keyboard and progressing to voice recognition and virtual projection software. A three-dimensional grid-net in pale green and white flickered into life in mid-air, and Stark began to filter intangible data streams with both his fingertips and precise verbal instruction with all the elegance of a virtuoso at an imaginary cello. Robert looked on, agog. At first he thought that Stark was accessing police database files, maybe FBI, but then he saw a brief flash of a SHIELD logo and whistled beneath his breath. He’d known Stark was connected, but this -

“Is this her?”

Stark flexed his wrist and a floating image aligned with Robert’s eyeline. It was Johanna. Robert swallowed painfully, then nodded. Stark wiggled his fingertips, his brow furrowed in concentration. Not a musician, Robert thought. A magician. Once upon a time mankind would have decried even the most basic engineering science as mysticism. Hell, fifty years ago they would have scoffed at the Internet. But the world was always changing, and men like Stark not only kept up with the flow, they directed it.

“All hard data cross-referencing is negative,” Stark murmured. Talking to himself, Robert noted. “Facial recognition pattern, nada. Let’s try recent image capture and cell phone activity…”

“Wait. What? Is that allowed?”

Stark said nothing. His eyebrows were beetling again. Then, suddenly, he cursed so vehemently that it made Robert jump.

“What happened?”

“Do you know this man? Have you seen him before?”

Stark waved his hand angrily, and another image aligned. This one showed Johanna standing outside a coffee shop close to her apartment, a location Robert had come to know well these past few weeks. In this recording, however, Jo was talking with a man with reddish-blonde hair and a pinched, mean expression but who was otherwise remarkably… average. Forgettable. The pair seemed to be arguing. The brief segment culminated with Jo handing the man something - a computer disc by the look of it - and the man sliding it into the pocket of his coat. The sight made Robert feel weak at the knees.

“I don’t know him. Who is he?”

Stark said nothing again, his face like thunder. Robert swore.

“Come on. I’ve been screwed in this just as much as you. I deserve to know.”

Stark scowled. “His name’s Sinclair Abbot. He used to be a rival of mine in the business arena, but these days he’s renowned more for being a highly accomplished criminal strategist and for his forays into industrial espionage and terrorism. A spy, in other words - operating under the name The Spymaster. Abbot’s incredibly gifted at what he does. One of his talents is advanced cyber decryption, which explains how he managed to hack into my systems once he’d got his hands on an active StarkPAD. He’s probably one of only a dozen individuals on the planet who could have achieved that, and certainly the only one who’d want to. The thing is, his presence in the image shouldn’t really be possible.”

“Why?”

Stark breathed deeply. “Because this visual capture we’ve just seen is only an hour old. And, according to all the official data, The Spymaster is presently in the middle of a lengthy criminal sentence as a resident of The Vault…”

---

Robert Farrell had never been in love before. Crushes in high school and college, of course. A six-month relationship at ESU that had been founded more on mutual infatuation at the time than anything romantic, but nothing more serious. Johanna Taylor had changed all that. For almost two months now he’d been thinking that maybe she was The One. But not any more.

Robert was standing outside Jo’s apartment an hour after his meeting with Tony Stark when she turned the corner just ahead. She stopped in surprise when she saw him, and after a moment’s hesitation she smiled - but in that moment Robert knew that everything Stark had said was true. Because in that instant, behind all the freckles and the dimples and the Heidi plaits, she looked guilty, and Robert had never seen that look before. Not from her.

“I thought you said you had a busy day?” he asked, flatly.

Jo cocked her head, smiling. “I forgot some papers, had to trek all the way back. How about you? Aren’t you - ”

“I’m guessing you hitched my StarkPAD up to some kind of remote server last night while I was sleeping. Right? Used something standard to retrieve my passcodes, something you programmed in without me suspecting the last time the PAD ‘accidentally fell out of my bag’ when I was staying over, then just worked from there. Or not you specifically. You set it up, but it was your friend who executed the hack.”

Jo’s face turned white. Robert saw her tremble.

“What? I don’t - ”

“I need to know two things. First, who is Abbot to you? Just an employer? A relative? A… your…”

Your lover?

“Your real boyfriend?”

Johanna had the temerity to look hurt. “Oh, please. He’s…”

Her shoulders sagged. The jig was up and she knew it. “He’s my godfather, alright?” she sighed. “He and my dad are practically brothers. That’s all.”

Robert looked down at the ground. He’d wondered what she would answer and whether it would make him feel any better. Now he realized it didn’t matter. “Second question, then,” he said. “Did he set everything up? Did he target me because I was a Stark employee and get you to come onto me so he’d have access to Stark through me? Or did he just take advantage of the fact that I was your boyfriend? What part came first?”

Jo buried her face in her hands. “Dammit.”

“Just answer, will you? Because this is tearing me up.”

“Okay, okay.” Jo sighed. Her red hair flickered in the breeze and her freckles danced as she wrinkled her nose. Eternally eighteen. But that was the thing, Robert mused; when someone looks that young, and when they’ve perfected that little girl act, it’s difficult to accept how sharp they might be inside. How cold.

“Sinclair’s in trouble. He made contact a while back and told my father that he’d got himself mixed up in something that… wasn’t good for his health. He needs money. I saw a way to help him get it.”

“Stark tech.”

“Actually, no. That came after, just something he took advantage of because it was there. Oh, Robbie… don’t you see? I told you, you’re too modest for your own good. It was you. You were the target, not Stark. Or, rather, your designs were.”

Robbie blinked. “The Rocket Racer plans?”

Jo sniffed. “Well, I was never taken with the name, but yes. I knew you were still tinkering with the project, even though you kept it secret - I’m not as tech-dumb as I made out, which I guess is obvious now - but you were too bewitched by the minutiae, you couldn’t appreciate the potential. Individualized transport modules? It’s the future, Robert. All I wanted to do was pass the plans on to someone who could do something with them. But Sinclair’s always been… greedy. It was him who suggested we go for broke and loot Stark’s tech into the bargain.”

“To enhance my design?”

“Only to gain a working knowledge of how the tech could be incorporated into an existing model. Sinclair knows he can accrue a fortune on the black market by selling off the tech piecemeal, a hundred times more than by putting the new Racer suit and board up for grabs, but to be able to demonstrate that tech in action… that was the key.”

Robert’s eyes darkened behind his glasses. “You talk about it like it’s something real, not just screen data and blueprints.”

Now Johanna looked even guiltier, if that was possible. Robert groaned.

“Oh, man. Tell me you haven’t - ”

“It’s what prospective buyers need, isn’t it? Something corporeal. If you wanted someone to buy your new processor you wouldn’t just show them a chip, you’d demonstrate its power within a core unit. So - ”

“You’ve actually built the new suit and board?” Robbie barked.

“Twice. For different colour schemes and application highlights, all with Stark tech incorporated. I was just gleaning the latest execution codes last night, so Sinclair can go live for clients later today.”

Robbie shook his head in despair. “Goddamn, Jo. Listen to you. How could I think you loved me…?”

“I did. I do. I - ” Jo ran her hands over her hair, her expression desperate. “Come on, Robbie. Honestly? You’re wonderful. You have a wonderful mind and a wonderful personality. But… you needed this. You needed a push. The world isn’t black and white, I thought you’d understand that. I do. You think I enjoy being a lawyer? When I started out, I was so… idealistic. Trust me, that changed pretty damn quick. This opportunity, it - ”

“You’re not right. In the head, I mean. Everything about you, it’s… skewed.”

Johanna looked crestfallen. “Robbie, please. What, you’re saying we’re over? I did this for us as much as Sinclair. I promise. I - ”

“I want to see it. Them.”

“What?”

“The new suits. And the boards. I want to see what my design looks like as prototype.”

Jo grimaced. “I don’t think Sinclair will - ”

“Make it happen, Jo, or I swear we are finished.”

The woman with the red hair suddenly looked hopeful. “You’re not angry with me?”

“Angry? I’m furious. But… I love you. That doesn’t just stop just because you’ve turned out to be crazy.”

Jo grinned. Reluctantly, Robbie smiled in return. It was at that point that he heard a voice buzz in his ear, carried via a micro-transmitter so small it was nigh invisible.

“What the hell?” the voice crackled, for Robbie’s benefit only. “This isn’t what we agreed, Robert. Your remit was to elicit her confession and try to learn Abbot’s location, not to become further involved yourself. Our arrangement was that I’d enlist Iron Man to - ”

Robbie pressed a receiver button in his pocket and Stark’s voice immediately cut out. Robbie’s expression didn’t change. He just kept smiling at Jo with just the right measure of believability whilst inside he was consumed by one burning emotion - and it wasn’t love.

He’d been used. Played for a fool. Broken.

Now Robbie Farrell wanted revenge…

---

Sinclair Abbot, The Spymaster, sat in the near-darkness of an unfurnished apartment and stared out of a bay window onto a private deck that overlooked an exclusive residential district on the edge of Franklin Canyon. He didn’t own the building, of course, and nor did he lease it in any shape or form, but for a man of his talents locked doors may as well not have existed. The views were nice, but he’d chosen to set up temporary occupancy here because the pre-installed alarm system was elaborate but familiar, offering him a measure of security, and because four-fifths of the apartment had been converted into an enormous, singular space. Perhaps the owners intended to let the property to some filthy rich young thing to throw wild parties four times a year. Or perhaps not. In all honesty, Abbot didn’t care.

The only thing that mattered was that the lunatic who called himself The Taskmaster - a man whose wrath Abbot had incurred some time ago over a small matter of a missing six million dollars - wouldn’t be able to track him here, at least not immediately. That, and the apartment was a suitable space in which Abbot could show off his wares at a private auction scheduled to begin in a little over an hour.

Until then, Abbot merely sat, quiet and still, like a spider in its web. Dressed in an all-in-one costume and mask of black Kevlar weave with magenta bands of cushioned armor plate and cybernetic circuit-piping about the upper torso, there was almost something of the insect about him. He’d rarely worn his Spymaster garb during his period of incarceration in The Vault, even when secretly vacating the prison on his many and varied personal missions, but now that he was a free man - unofficially - he’d been spending more and more time in the mask. A supervillain persona was like that. Addictive. All-consuming. Or perhaps it was his despair at being reduced to The Taskmaster’s lackey that was causing him, an inherent control freak, to slowly lose his sense of… perspective.

Abbot grinned. But now the boot was on the other foot, wasn’t it? That insidious bastard with his sepulchral mask and his cowl and his flair for the dramatic - he was going to find out what it was like to be subjugated now. The Taskmaster had arranged for an LMD - a Life-Model-Decoy, a hyper-realistic android construct as developed by SHIELD - to take Abbot’s place in The Vault on a recent mission. When the time came for the real Abbot to return to his cell, however, he’d executed a sleight-of-hand only one as accomplished in the arts of stealth as himself could have hoped to achieve.

Fooling The Taskmaster as much as the chumps in charge of The Vault, Abbot had engineered a scenario whereby the LMD had been left in situ whilst he had escaped and gone underground. The Taskmaster had seen through the deception quickly, of course, but by then it was too late. And the authorities? So far as Abbot was aware, they were still oblivious to the turn of events. Imbeciles.

Now The Spymaster’s plans were proceeding apace. With his goddaughter’s aid he’d gained access to a modest selection of Stark tech, enough to earn him a tidy little sum, plus the schematics for a particular apparatus with which to demonstrate the properties of that tech for his clients. In truth, the unlawful acquisition of other men’s achievements was such second nature to a fellow like Abbot that the name of Robert Farrell barely registered on his radar.

That was about to change.

“Sinclair…?”

The Spymaster almost slithered from his chair in shock when he heard a female voice echoing about the walls in the gloom. Johanna.

“What in the world?” Abbot spluttered behind his mask as he saw two figures emerge into the over-sized central room. “What are you doing here, girl? I told you never to come here without contacting me first. Especially today. And, what… you turned off the alarms to get in here? Dammit, Jo, you - ”

“You took something that belongs to me.”

Now it was a man who spoke, a fellow with short black dreadlocks and glasses who had entered the room in Johanna’s shadow. He eyed the costumed Spymaster with disdain then, without further comment, he strode towards the only real items of interest in the room: a pair of bulky shapes covered with a sheet close to the far wall. As Robert whisked away the sheet and stared, sickened and dumbfounded, at what lay beneath, Abbot skittered like a nervous cat.

“Whoever you are, you’d better stay away from there, else - ”

“What, you’re going to get all proprietary on my ass?” Robert snapped. “With my suit? Bite me, you leech.”

Cursing, The Spymaster strode forward. His gloved hands were clenched into fists that were now beginning to spit and glow with a faint blue energy discharge. “Do you have any idea whom you’re talking to?” he asked.

Robert sniffed, evidently unimpressed. “Uh-huh. But do you know who you’re listening to?”

He reached up and plucked the transmitter from his ear, then tossed it. Spymaster caught it and held it up to the side of his mask.

“Hello, Sinclair,” a familiar voice crackled. “How many times is this you’ve stolen from me now? I guess I should be flattered.”

“Stark…?”

“I just wanted to warn you that Iron Man is currently hovering some fifty feet above your exact location. Assuming the ownership of the residence in question isn’t officially in your name, I’d rather I didn’t have to give the order for him to tear through the roof to get at you. But you know how excitable he gets…”

Spymaster made a choking sound and hurled the transmitter to the floor. Then he turned on Johanna.

“You idiot!” he bellowed at the girl, who was looking on in confusion. “You brought him here when he’s in contact with Stark?”

“I didn’t… I wasn’t…”

“Don’t blame her,” Robert said. “She just doesn’t credit anyone with the same aptitude for duplicity that she has.”

Spymaster turned back towards Robert, then baulked. The man who’d designed the original Rocket Racer suit when he was just a teenager - and who’d been tinkering with it ever since - had taken advantage of Abbot’s distraction, stepping up onto a plinth and removing a number of items that were displayed there. He now slipped a newly-constructed steel micro-weave vest and power harness over his shoulders and then connected a segmented belt around his waist. The Racer suit he’d chosen, perhaps out of nostalgia, was predominantly crimson with threads of gold and black, beautifully streamlined and gleaming even in the semi-darkness. When Robert fitted the stylishly angled helmet over his head it automatically attached to the flared collar with a hiss and a series of rapid electronic blips. The golden goggles whirred softly as they immediately conducted an ocular calibration test and adjusted accordingly to the wearer’s specific field vision, and when Robert thumbed a pressure pad on the curve of his belt the limbs and torso of the suit ionized in response, stiffening to establish an incredibly resilient, hard outer shell that was simultaneously cushioned with an inner vacuum layer that protected the wearer’s body whilst allowing complete freedom of movement.

Which, Robert now overcame his much-maligned modesty to admit, was awesome.

“Get away from that!” Spymaster shrieked. “It’s mine.”

Robert snorted. “No,” he said, his voice digitally filtered through the transparent micro-crafted quartz visor that shielded his lower face. “It really isn’t.”

Spymaster raised a hand, now burning fiercely with barely restrained energy leaking from a circular repulsor disc in his palm. Johanna wailed. And then, from up above…

Spymaster cringed away from the sound of splintering wood and slate. “For pity’s sake!” he snapped. “He really is coming through the roof! Can’t Stark keep that armored psychopath on a leash?”

Abbot glared at Robert from behind his own mask visor, desperately wanting nothing more than to punish this upstart for daring to spoil his plans but also knowing that he couldn’t afford to be caught. Muttering oaths beneath his breath he turned his repulsor upon the bay windows instead, shattering them with a shimmering laser pulse, then ignited his boot jets and shot forward, out over the wooden deck and into the air above the secluded valley beyond.

In response, Robert Farrell reached out for the last - and arguably most important - piece of kit incorporated into the Rocket Racer design. Once upon a time he’d made do with a souped-up skateboard, customized to within an inch of its life but still a skateboard at heart. This, however - this four-foot-long platform of layered steel threaded with Stark-tech-augmented bands of sophisticated microcircuitry, magnetized plating, anti-gravity gyroscopic rings and self-perpetuating funnel jets fuelled by hydrogen extracted from the very air itself - this was something more. Much more.

Robert stepped up onto the platform and immediately the soles of his boots were aligned with instable energy flow pads that would allow him to move his feet and ankles without risk of injury or loss of balance whilst also being able to guide his trajectory with millimeter precision. With a cybernetic command from his helmet he triggered the anti-grav rings - AGRs - on the underside of the board and instantly levitated without so much as a tremble. With another instruction he fired up the jets. Then, when he was ready, Robert - The Rocket Racer - turned and looked back over his shoulder at Johanna.

“You were right,” he said, coldly. “Individualized transport modules? It is the future. My future.”

And then he departed at speed, following the Spymaster’s jet trail, leaving Jo behind to stare miserably at the wreckage of her plans - and also at the second suit developed by the Spymaster from the stolen schematics. This suit was turquoise, green and gold, and was every bit as strikingly rendered as the first.

Slowly, Johanna Taylor began to smile…

---

Spymaster was flying low over a swathe of almond trees and there was already a distinctive figure on his tail - the crimson and gold human bullet that was Iron Man, Tony Stark’s personal armored bodyguard. Robert wasn’t surprised. Iron Man had made such an elaborate fuss supposedly breaking through the roof of the residence where Abbot had been quarried that it could only have been a ruse; he was flushing the Spymaster out, like a hound with a hare, and was now giving chase.

Robert didn’t care. He was a victim of industrial theft every bit as much as Stark, so he felt justified in having a say in what happened next. As far as he was concerned, Spymaster belonged to the Rocket Racer.

The Racer gunned his jets with a cybernetic command and shifted his weight to the right. His board responded instantly, banking to a lower altitude whilst remaining perfectly synchronized to its rider’s posture, and with his aerodynamically engineered and reinforced suit protecting him from velocity friction and wind shear he felt no more discomfort traveling with such rapidity then if he’d been taking a leisurely stroll in a summer breeze. He may not have been as fast and durable as Iron Man but he was close - and, crucially, the AGRs on the underside of his board afforded him superior maneuverability at close quarters. When the Spymaster dipped further and attempted to seek shelter in the orchard of almond trees, causing a number of laborers to scatter in alarm, Iron Man was able to track the villain with his vast array of on-board radar detection sensors; however, he was hesitant about continuing close pursuit without incurring property damage and injury to the workers. Racer didn’t have that concern.

Angling his board, Robert executed a seamless swan dive at a shallow trajectory and swept down below the tree line without sacrificing speed. He curved about one laborer without so much as tipping the brim of the man’s straw hat then cut between two more with only the energy ripple of his jetstream to mark his passing. He then spotted Spymaster directly ahead, stumbling among the trees. Evidently the man’s body-armor wasn’t geared towards soaring more than short distances, especially at high speed, which was why he was seeking sanctuary at ground level.

“Maybe you should have kept this prototype suit for yourself,” Racer snapped as he shifted his balance and sliced down in front of the fleeing villain, his board purring with power. “Unscrupulous jerk like you, you could’ve gone on a crime spree like no one’s ever seen. You would’ve still made your money, it just would’ve taken a little longer.”

“Time I don’t have,” Abbot replied, whipping out a glowing fist. He released a sequence of repulsor bolts from his palm but the Racer dodged easily, the AGRs responding to his every thought. The Spymaster snarled and unleashed another volley, this time sweeping his arm from side to side, but again not a single one struck home. It wasn’t that the Racer was faster, swift as he was, it was more that he was in complete control of every nuance of his body. He could shift and spin and duck without fear of vertigo because his board compensated to the nth degree with every twitch of muscle, maintaining perfect equilibrium. It was a masterpiece of calibrated efficiency. Even Tony Stark, the man inside the Iron Man armor, was impressed. Not that he could show it, of course.

“Stand down, Mr. Farrell,” the golden Avenger commanded as he finally caught up with the sparring combatants. Robert cocked his head, his scowl plain even through his visor.

“You out-ranking me?” he asked.

“I have official governmental authoritative powers through my association with the Avengers West Coast.”

“Yeah? Impressive. But I bet your boss still won’t let you borrow his Lamborghini Murciélago on the weekend…”

“Funny. You can tell you spent time around Spider-Man.”

The Racer looked back at Spymaster, who was standing motionless at the third point of the triangle and observing the exchange before him, ready to attack or make another attempt to flee at a moment’s notice.

“You want to know what I’ve got?” Robert asked, eventually. “See, the anti-grav and the pulse jets, they’re great - just how I envisioned them - but there’s one more upgrade I’m dying to see in action. Way back when I called it my ‘rocket-powered punch’, if you can believe it.”

“And now?”

Robert crooked his arm. “Same name,” he said, with a grin. “Why mess with a kitsch classic?”

And then he triggered a micro-boost through three narrow, parallel tubes that ran along the flat of his forearm, causing his fist to snap forward at five times the normal speed and slam into the Spymaster’s face before he’d even seen it move, spinning him around on the spot and then ramming him backwards into a tree with a resounding crack!

Sinclair Abbot slid to the ground, head lolling. Shielded faceplate or not, he wasn’t getting up from that any time soon. Iron Man strode forward, gauntlets on hips. He looked down at Spymaster, then across at the Racer.

“Rocket-powered punch,” he murmured. “Sweet. Guess I’ll have to get me one of those…”

Robert Farrell settled back on his board but every muscle remained visibly tense even through the gleam of his armored suit. “So what now?” he asked. “You’re in contact with Stark, right? Is he going to want to ace this prototype?”

“Well, Mr. Stark’s tech and execution codes have been incorporated into your design. I’d say that makes it a joint venture.”

“That’s not an answer.”

Iron Man turned, and the Racer saw himself reflected in the metal hero’s faceplate.

“If I say yes,” Iron Man said, slowly, “Does that mean you’ll give the suit and board up without a fight? Or are you going to try and out-gun me?”

“I could.”

“You could try. But regardless of whether you succeeded you’d be wasting these last few months of working to make something of your life, not to mention placing yourself on the wrong side of the law and becoming a fugitive for the foreseeable future.”

Robert bowed his head. “I… thought I loved her, you know?”

“The girl?”

“Johanna. What happens to her now?”

“I don’t know. We may not even be able to track her down immediately. I was more interested in making sure Abbot was apprehended. But, for now, I do know that you shouldn’t throw everything away because of a broken heart.”

“So what’s your suggestion?”

For a moment, Tony Stark said nothing. Then, inside his helmet, he suddenly began to smile.

“Well, actually,” he said, “There is something that’s been mooted just recently that may be perfect for you. A certain… initiative proposed by certain parties within the Avengers.”

“Which is?”

“A recruitment drive. See, now, the general consensus was that we wouldn’t be taking on rookies - Hawkeye was adamant about that, in fact - but now I’m thinking one new youngster wouldn’t actually be a bad thing…”

Iron Man held out a crimson hand. Hesitantly, a little confused, but ultimately knowing he had little choice, the Rocket Racer accepted it and shook.

“Robert Farrell, I think your life is about to change beyond anything you could have imagined…”

---

A short way away - but gaining crucial distance from any potential pursuers with every passing second - Johanna Taylor simply couldn’t wipe the grin from her face, despite the fact that her day had recently degenerated into total disaster. It was just so exhilarating, you see. She could understand now how Robbie had never been able to put the past behind him. Once a person had a taste of this, how could they give it up?

Jo shifted her weight into her right hip and then, in mid-air some one hundred feet above ground, she executed a perfectly calibrated pirouette. She’d always wanted to be a prima ballerina when she was a girl. Funny how the child just bubbled up at times like this, wasn’t it? Maybe she was a little… maladjusted, as Robbie had intimated. Still, what was wrong with crazy when crazy was so much damn fun?

Sunlight gleamed on the secondary Rocket Racer armor, a shimmering beacon of turquoise, green and gold skimming through the sky on an anti-gravity board, as Jo spiraled and dipped and skated on towards the horizon. She and Robbie would meet again, she was sure of that. Maybe as boyfriend and girlfriend. Maybe as enemies. Who knew? But until then… well, sometimes a girl just had to dance.

---

TO BE CONTINUED! 

---

 

Coming Soon in AVENGERS WEST COAST # 49…

California’s been a hotbed of supernatural activity for some time now. Vampires and an assortment of undead, dark sorcery, Dracula himself… and now - demonically possessed nuns!? Who can stand tall amidst such blasphemous brouhaha? Well, there’s a certain young English lass with a shotgun full of trouble who’d like to stake a claim… Be here next time as “New Blood” continues!