---

Rhodes had become accustomed to his new armor quickly enough, although he didn’t trust it at all. While it mimicked his old armor perfectly, better even in some respects, it had been created by the same nutcase that was now trying to kill him.

The multi-colored sections of the Murderworld seemed to mock him. Through his visor and HUD he saw the hanging Guardsmen on the very far side of the floor, held aloft by steel cables around their wrists. While the humanitarian in him wondered if he could save them, the professional in him wondered who was guarding the prison. Arcade obviously had little regard for human life, otherwise he wouldn’t have gone to all this trouble and placed so many people in danger just to get to him.

He recalled Arcade delightfully detailing how he had come to power in the Vault, and focused on the only clue he had as to this insane conundrum: Arcade had implied that someone had hired him. That meant that there was someone out there that wanted Rhodes dead enough to allow a manic like Arcade to endanger countless others.

The control room where Arcade watched gleefully was too high off the ground for Rhodes to get to without flying, and since he had already discovered that Arcade had disconnected that function of his armor, there was no chance for him to bust in and accost the madman directly. That meant he was forced to work his way through the funhouse o’ horror and do whatever it was that Arcade wanted him to. He hated being at the mercy of scum like Arcade, but what choice did he have?

And there were lives on the line, something else to keep him from running off half-cocked. The Guardsmen, people he had come to know from his short term as security chief, were depending on him. He had to play the game until an opportunity presented itself.

The hallway he was in now looked like it had been dolled up to reflect that which was most famous in funhouses: a house of mirrors. His own image bounced back and forth down the long corridor, bending and twisting the light to make him seem tall and skinny, or short and fat. He got a good look at his new armor in one of the mirrors that wasn’t so distorted, and for a brief second admired the work Arcade had put into it. It didn’t quite have that Stark fit, but he had to admit that it was good. It was painted in yellow and green to match the other Guardsmen, and there was a weapon called an MDR magnetically attached to his right shoulder.

He walked carefully and slowly down the hall of mirrors, occasionally looking from the left to the right in an attempt to remain focused. The twisted images the mirrors were throwing back at him were disorienting.

“Oh, great,” someone said from behind him. “I get one of the fucking guard dogs.”

Rhodes whirled around, mentally chiding himself for not paying attention to his complete surroundings. Standing at the end of the mirrored hall was a lone figure that he did not recognize, but who was looking him over with a gleeful expression. He wore one of the Vault jumpsuits but there was something odd around his wrists and ankles. Something silver, like bracelets, only they weren’t raised off of his skin.

“Who are you?” Rhodes demanded after he planted his feet firmly on the ground and faced the inmate.

“Name’s Wilbur Day,” the man replied as his lips formed a sneer. “People on the inside call me Stilts.”

“Wait a sec…Stilt-Man? Seriously?”

The sneer on Day’s face flicked over to an annoyed smirk for just the briefest of moments before his confidence returned. “It’s just Stilts now,” Day replied. “I was Hammerhead’s boy in the Brawl, his right hand guy in this hell. Now I’m stuck in this maze, and that means you’re in a world of hurt.”

Rhodes recalled how Hammerhead had once been at the top of the prisoner hierarchy before the coup led by Otto Octavius. “Was? Past tense? He trade up for a real villain bodyguard?”

“Say what you want, but you won’t be making cute little jokes in a minute.”

“Wilbur…Stilts…c’mon. I’m wearing top of the line combat powered armor. You’re just a person with no powers. Your thing was growing your legs and it wasn’t even you doing it. It was armor you stole from Stark Enterprises. Without it you might as well put your hands up and surrender. Hell, even with it, you might as well put your hands up and surrender.”

“Things change.”

‘Stilts’ bent at the knees momentarily before jumping into the air. Amazingly, his legs split open just above the ankles where Rhodes had seen the silver ring, telescoping outward. His legs doubled in length as metal stints elongated from inside his calves, and he used the force of the extensions unraveling to further his jump. Within a moment, Stilts was on top of a startled Rhodes.

As Stilts’ legs retracted back into his body, the inmate hooked his hands over the rim of the chestplate protecting Rhodes, yanking down on it with a surprising amount of strength. A few sparks sputtered out from just under his helmet, but the armor remained in place.

“Holy shit!” Rhodes exclaimed as he gripped Stilts’ prying hands near his wrists.

“Damn straight,” Wilbur Day replied smoothly. “I underwent a few alterations while on the inside. Telescoping legs, arms, and a little added bonus…augmented strength.”

Stilts began to step away from Rhodes but his grip remained tight on the chestplate. Where Rhodes held him by the wrists, he saw the silver rings that weren’t bracelets, but were apparently the point at which his limbs separated. Despite the fact that Rhodes held his hands firmly in place, Wilbur Day continued to walk backwards, unimpeded by the act. His arms split open at the silver rings and his arms telescoped out into metallic shafts. The sneer returned to Stilts’ face.

“You might say it’s a whole new me.”

Stilts yanked down hard again, utilizing his newfound strength to pull the chestplate out just a hair from where it was sealed, forcing more sparks to leap out of the armor. Rhodes was too astounded to move. He found it hard to believe that a lame criminal like Stilt-Man, who had been mostly a laughing stock amongst the other villains from what he understood, was now actually peeling his armor off with his bare hands.

“What say we get a little leverage behind this, huh?” Stilts said as he mentally commanded his legs to extend. He rose twenty feet in the air and was now holding Rhodes down by the shoulders, keeping him pinned. “It never occurred to you what the Vault did with people it couldn’t regulate with power dampeners? Guys with surgically implanted hardware don’t just turn off. So the warden stuck us all down here.” Stilts looked around at the Murderworld for a brief moment. “Course, looks like things have changed again. I’m cool with that.”

Rhodes was still gripping Stilt’s wrists, struggling to rip them off him so he could fight back. “After I open your tin can up I’ll move on to the next guy,” Wilbur continued. “Then the next guy, and the next guy. Eventually I’ll be the last one standing as top dog, and Hammerhead will have to get me the good shit again.”

But Rhodes wasn’t paying attention to the rambling. He was too busy adjusting the HUD in his visor to find a weapons system that could get him out of this jam. He couldn’t risk moving his hand away to grab the MDR on his back, lest he allow Stilts to freely rip him open. Arcade, as maniacal as he may be, had an odd habit of giving his prey the tools that they needed. He was sure that a psychiatrist would have a field day explaining that, but he had other matters to attend to then mental diagnosis. Crossing off items on his weapons list, he finally found one he could use.

Selecting an entry on his HUD, Rhodes firmly grasped the metal columns that were Stilts’ arms. Instead of fighting back now, he was simply waiting for something to happen. He felt his chestplate peel pack another centimeter, meaning that he was quickly running out of time. From what he could see in the surrounding mirrors, the elongated arms and legs were even further distorted by the reflecting images, making it look like he was being attacked by a series of metal snakes.

A low humming crept into his ears, generated by his gauntlets. After another heartbeat, Day’s sneer turned into shock and then horror as his entire body began to wobble atop the extended tent poles that were his legs. “What are you doing to me?” he cried out, a hitn of worry and frustration in his voice.

The grip on his chestplate began to dissolve. “Sonic amplifiers in the gloves,” Rhodes replied happily. He felt the vibrations generated by his gloves and he saw the effects it had on the telescoped arms. “My guess is if you don’t retract your arms and legs they’re going to shatter from the stress.”

“S…s-s-screw y-y-you!”

“Pretty soon I imagine that your organs will be liquefying. Better hurry up.”

With a look of reluctance, Stilts finally let go of Rhodes’ armor and retracted all four of his limbs. The Vault’s security chief let go of his wrists, stood up and walked over to the still shaking inmate. “Smart man,” Rhodes said as he cocked back his fist and threw a punch straight at Stilts’ clacking jaw.

There was a solid crack! from the punch and the former Stilt-Man went sailing through the closest mirror. He exploded through it easily, as the walls didn’t seem to be that thick, and landed in another corridor with mostly rounded edges. Thin glass broke away from the mirror and smashed on the floor, which soon cracked even further after Rhodes stepped on it to walk through the hole.

Away from the mirrors, Rhodes found he could concentrate better on his surroundings, and he didn’t like what he saw. There were a half dozen robots stalking toward him, each dressed like the famous Nutcracker, and possessing a rifle that was aimed at his head. He ducked down instinctively, slipped his right hand up to his shoulder and gripped the MDR that hung there.

Steadying his fire by crouching down on one knee, Rhodes let fly a volley of whatever the MDR cannon would let loose. He had never used the weapon or even seen it in action, but from glancing over it momentarily, it looked like a serious piece of hardware. He pulled the trigger and watched a splurge of blue energy belch out of the nozzle, aimed squarely at the gathered robot soldiers.

He had no idea what he had just shot at them, but whatever it was it seemed to do the trick. The blue energy splashed over them, coating them for a brief second before their entire bodies simply exploded into pieces. Gears and wires bounced off of Rhodes’ armor as he stood back up and replaced the MDR to the magnetic hilt on his shoulder.

“Piece of cake,” he said, allowing a brief moment of pride to himself. He glanced down at the unconscious Wilbur Day at his feet and wondered if he should take the time to stash him somewhere safe.

“Easy for you to say.”

Rhodes slipped the MDR off his back again and spun to face the voice, ready for another backstabbing attack. What he saw was a black man with his hands held high walking toward him. “Easy,” the man said. “I’m not looking to join him,” he added with a nod to Stilts.

Rhodes felt a sense of déjà vu as he said, “Who are you?”

“Elias. You just saved my neck. I’m not sure how much longer I could have held out.” He motioned behind him with a casual wave. “Another group had me pretty well cornered back there. These ones up here you just did in were boxing me in. Thanks. You saved my life.”

Rhodes lowered the MDR but didn’t put it away. “Welcome. You should find more cover. I’m not sure what’s going to happen next. I’ve got to find a way into that booth to shut all this down or else it’s liable to kill all of us.”

“I thought Guardsmen could fly?” Elias asked as he let his arms drop down to his sides.

Rhodes shook his head. “Those systems have been shut down. I have no idea how to get them back online. Until I figure this mess out, you just—”

“I might be able to help.”

“No offense, but—”

“My heart’s been replaced with a beta-particle generator,” Elias interrupted again. “I could bombard you with enough particles to shut down your armor, like an EMP. Then if you can reboot your systems all of your functions might come back online.”

Rhodes paused, staring at the inmate. “And you expect me to just trust you.”

“Desperate times, right?”

He lowered the MDR a bit further. He hated to admit it to himself, but this Elias guy was right. Desperate measures were in order, given the situation. He still had no clue as to how to get up to Arcade, and he couldn’t do it by playing exactly to the madman’s rules. Adhering to everything Arcade did would be like suicide. It was time he took a more active stance in finding a way up to the booth.

“Fine,” he said as he slipped the MDR back over his shoulder. “Hurry it up.”

Elias nodded and stepped forward, his palm outstretched. He gently placed his hand on Rhodes’ chestplate, but even after a few moments nothing happened. “Give it a second,” he said. “Too much too fast will likely stop your heart, too.”

“Well, we wouldn’t want that, would we?”

Elias smirked but his brow was rumpled in concentration. After another few heartbeats a soft, blue glow began emanating from Elias’ palm. On the inside of his armor, Rhodes could feel the heat of the beta-particles spread throughout the armor, working their way into the crevices of the suit. Pins and needles were stabbing his skin all over, but the armor was already beginning to shut down and he couldn’t move to stop Elias. He was trapped inside the armor, and a startling thought entered his mind as he began to blank out: this man was trying to kill him, and he had let him.

But then Elias pulled away, gasping. The soft glow left his hand and the uneasy feeling crawling over Rhodes’ skin started to fade. Almost at once his systems began to restart themselves, the failsafe now kicking in.

“Did it work?” Elias asked, panting.

“We’ll know in a second.”

Rhodes’ HUD sprung back to life, telling him that all systems were nominal, and that the power had been returned to his equipment. He swung his arms to test the joints and found that the servo motors there were fine, again in working order. He nodded to Elias, who stepped back out of the way to give Rhodes some room.

The boot jets ignited with a thunderous fury, sending waves of compressed air washing over Elias. Rhodes slowly, but surely, hovered up into the air. Without wasting time, Rhodes waved a thanks to Elias and then shot up into the air toward the booth.

According to his HUD, everything was back online. He now had complete control of his armor, hoping that it would now be enough for him to take down Arcade and end this insanity. He sped toward the control booth, aiming his fists in front of him to smash through the one-way glass. His velocity increased as he approached, and with a chaotic crunch, he shattered through into the booth and somersaulted in the air to place his feet firmly down once more. Instinctively, he grabbed his MDR and swiveled its end around the room, looking for a target.

But the room was empty.

“Did he bolt?” Rhodes inquired aloud.

“Not a chance!”

Electrodes spread throughout the room flashed to life, arcing brilliant electricity directly into Rhodes’ armor. He convulsed from the onslaught, feeling as if his skin was on fire. His MDR clattered to the ground, now useless since his muscles could barely grasp a pencil, let alone a mass disrupter rifle. He fell to his knees, feeling the agony of the electricity burn through him.

“If there’s one thing I know,” Arcade said as he stepped out from behind a computer bank, “it’s never run away from a sure kill. Did you really think I wouldn’t have everything accounted for, even you getting into my control booth?”

The white suit that Arcade wore looked out of place against the background of sophisticated equipment. His bow tie, which was a putrid shade of orange and green, looked ghastly and childlike, as if the madman who wore it had no sense at all. He held a remote control in his hand with a giant red button in the center.

“I have to admit,” Arcade continued as he walked around to the front of the smoldering Rhodes, “this has been one of my more fun assignments. Not all of my targets gets this far, and I don’t usually have so many colorful extras to play with. I’ll have to take my next vacation in a prison!”

“That…that can be arranged…” Rhodes managed to utter. His systems were still barely online but it didn’t matter anymore: his muscles were fried. He could barely stay up straight on his knees.

“Sorry, but I’ll have to decline your sweet invitation.” He waved the remote gently in front of Rhodes’ face. “See this? It’s the kill switch. Your kill switch. We’ve had some laughs, but you’ve run the course and reached the finish line. The only thing to do now is press this big red button watch your brains scramble! Luckily I have this all on video, piping directly to a screen that someone you’d be interested to know is watching.”

Rhodes couldn’t move. He tried, but the strain made his nerves scream in pain. He couldn’t even raise his arm to try and smack the remote out of Arcade’s hand.

“So long! Fair well! Auf wiedersehen! Good bye”

Arcade raised his free hand up over his head dramatically, readying to slam his palm home on top of the red button. His arm only fell halfway, however, before a shot rang out and his head exploded.

Instead of pouring out blood and brain matter, Arcade’s head spat out a dark liquid resembling oil, and sparks sputtered. Arcade wobbled a bit, fell into the console along the wall, and crashed to the floor in a motionless heap.

“Well, look at that,” someone on the far side of the room said. “Asshole was a robot.”

A man that Rhodes recognized as a mercenary called Paladin shuffled over and helped him to his feet. Now that the blood was circulating through his system for a few moments, Rhodes found he could stand on his own, but it still hurt incredibly to try and move. He leaned on Paladin for support for a few more seconds before he noticed a strange looking rifle gripped in the mercenary’s hand.

Paladin followed his gaze and lifted the rifle up for him to see. “I know, it’s like a friggin’ toy or something. I grabbed it off of one of those Nutcrackers down there. Does the job.” He looked over at Arcade, who was still sparking. “Sloppy though it may be.”

“He wasn’t a robot,” Rhodes finally said.

“Beg your pardon, but he sure as hell looks like one to me.”

“That’s a robot, Arcade is a person. He must have escaped just before I got here. From what I know about him, he’s not the kind of guy to stick around. Speaking of getting here…how did you?”

Paladin motioned over his shoulder to the wide open door behind them. “Took the stairs. I found the end of the maze and there was a ladder leading up to a stairwell with a big painted arrow beside it. It was like he wanted us to get up here.”

“He probably did. That’s how he operates, for whatever reason.”

“So…you reckon this guy had an escape route, huh?”

Rhodes looked around the room and finally saw a small hole in the far corner. He managed to raise his arm, even though it hurt to do so, and pointed to it. “There. Looks like he slipped out there and left the robot duplicate behind to delay his escape. Coward.”

“You okay to stand?” Paladin asked. Rhodes nodded, and Paladin said, “Good. See ya around.”

Paladin, rifle in hand, slipped out from under Rhodes’ bulky armored arm that he had been supporting and then trotted to the hole in the floor. He looked down it, seeing a slender shaft dive down into the floors below them. He nodded to Rhodes, and then fearlessly jumped into the shaft and disappeared.

Rhodes would have given chase but for two reasons. First, he doubted that he could have walked more than five steps, and second, the guy had just saved his life. He looked at the remote on the floor, resting next to Arcade’s robot, and frowned.

“I better get a raise for this shit,” he muttered aloud as he opened the clasps to take off his helmet.

---

Now that the rampant chaos on the lower levels was done, Rhodes finally had a chance to catch his breath. The Guardsmen, for the most part, were alive. So were the dozen inmates that had been set lose within the Murderworld. It had taken a few hours to get the Guardsmen mobilized again to collect everyone, but once Rhodes had figured out the control commands that Arcade had used when messing with their minds, it was simple enough to bring them back to consciousness.

There had been a few causalities and Rhodes regretted them, the most prominent of which had been the death of the warden. Rhodes had never really known Miguel Jones, but no matter what kind of person he was he didn't deserve to die at the hands of Arcade. No one did.

The prison was back on lockdown. The Guardsmen had been run through the infirmary, and the Vault seemed to be intact once more. There was some kind of glitch down in the morgue, but whatever was happening there would have to wait. Rhodes had to turn his attention elsewhere for the moment.

He plopped down into the comfortable leather chair behind the warden's desk and sighed out his relief. The armor that Arcade had designed was sitting back in his quarters, awaiting further debugging. He couldn't trust it, not until it had been thoroughly examined. But before he could even do that, before he could even take a hot shower and collect himself, he had a phone call to make.

He slid open the laptop on the warden's desk, which he had carried in with him from his quarters, and punched in the secure link to a number only a few hundred people on Earth possessed. The link connected and a window flashed open on his screen, displaying an attractive blonde woman with a serious look on her face.

“Jim,” she said. “Is this a secure contact? I didn't expect to hear from you for another week.”

“It's secure as it's going to get, Val,” he replied with more than a bit of attitude. “I nearly got killed today. Seems that Arcade infiltrated the Vault and killed Jones.”

“What?”

“Jones is dead,” he reiterated. “Arcade impersonated him, built a Murderworld in the basement, rounded up a bunch of psychos, and tried to fry me after he mentally enslaved the Guardsmen.”

Valerie Cooper, an acting liaison of the Commission for Superhuman Activities, looked stunned. Her eyes went wide and it looked as if her face went a little pale as well. “...you're joking right?” she said after a moment. “There's no way Arcade could have done all that, it doesn't fit his profile. He makes the mark comes to him, he doesn't set up shop outside of his own parameters.”

Rhodes shrugged. “He said it was the only way to get to me since I was basically locked up in here with all the prisoners. I'm not sure how long he was impersonating Jones, but it seems to have been a long time.”

He leaned closer to the laptop where a webcam was transmitting his own image thousands of miles to Val's computer. “Look. This was supposed to be simple. You recruited me to the Commission and said you needed my help to find out what Jones was doing and gather evidence. Arcade said he had been hired to kill me. That means someone leaked that I was here. Someone on your end.”

“Not possible,” Valerie said with a shake of her head. “No one at the Commission would risk that.”

“Well, someone sure as hell thought my life was worth risking. You were right, if it makes a difference now that he's dead. Jones was running a private fight club inside here as a way of ending disputes between crime bosses. He pocketed a ton of money, of course, which was why you wanted him investigated in the first place. But now that Jones is dead my job is done. I'll be pulling out as soon as you get a new security chief in place.”

“Rhodey—”

“Don't call me that. Only my friends call me that.”

Valerie visibly huffed back a sigh. “Fine. Jim. I'm not authorized to do this...but, if someone is actively seeking to kill you, it's probably related to the work you've done for us within the last few years.”

“No shit.”

“What I'm saying is that Arcade won't be the last one to come after you. It would be smarter for you to stick with the Commission and work with us to find out who's targeting you. I can get you more resources—”

“To do what? Look, Val, I'm not the security chief you were looking for, okay? Get someone else. I'm not staying here and sitting on my hands.”

“I understand. That's why I'm going to enable you to be a but more...proactive on behalf of both the Vault and the Commission.”

“How's that?”

“Like I said, I'm not authorized to do this, but I can work that out very quickly after meeting with my superiors. Jim, we're going to make you the new warden of the Vault.”

Rhodes laughed before replying. “The Commission only advises, it doesn't have the muscle to make an appointment like that.”

“Things have changed. Don't forget that this institution was originally created by the President. We've got more power than you think.”

“How is making me the warden any different than what I was doing before? Assuming I go along with this, anyway.”

“I can speak for the Commission when I say that we're interested in taking a more active role in the apprehension of super-powered fugitives. We have a task force nearly ready to take the field, and as the warden, you'd be in charge of them.”

“What exactly are you saying?” Rhodes inquired as he raised an eyebrow in interest.

“Jim,” Valerie replied, “the Commission is reactivating the Jury, and I want you to lead them in hunting down escapees from the Vault.”

---

Letters From Prison