Chapter 537

Fully equipped primary and secondary weapons. Level-three armor from head to toe. A car with a full tank.

What was there to fear?

Tony flipped up the visor of his ballistic helmet, shifted into gear, and slammed the accelerator. They were heading straight for what he expected to be the final battlefield.

Miami was about to get interesting.

Evenson sat in the passenger seat, bored enough to start repairing things.

He wove his magic into a small barrier and sealed the hole in the windshield he’d made earlier. December’s freezing wind was considerably less enjoyable when it was blowing directly through a windshield at highway speeds.

Tony, meanwhile, looked far too confident.

Evenson decided a warning was in order.

"The people we’re dealing with have clearly undergone extensive biological modification," he said. "I can sense an extremely unstable energy source inside their bodies. They’re practically walking explosions."

Tony’s expression sharpened.

"There’s some kind of restraint keeping that energy just below the point of detonation, but the restraint is incredibly fragile. It’s like putting a grenade inside a pressure cooker."

He paused.

"So when we engage them, keep your distance."

In other words, this wasn’t the time to rush over and loot the corpse after knocking someone down.

A dying Extremis soldier might have one last surprise waiting.

Tony barely reacted to the warning about keeping his distance.

Instead, he frowned.

"An explosion... a restraint..."

He was thinking.

When he’d seen Killian’s experimental footage aboard the news van, he’d had the nagging feeling that something about it was familiar. Something he’d almost remembered.

Now that feeling had returned.

"You mean Killian has a technology that prevents those enhanced people from exploding?" Tony asked. "It’s just... unstable?"

Evenson raised an eyebrow.

"Unstable would be a fair description."

Tony sucked in a sharp breath.

Something clicked.

The memory that had been lurking just beyond reach suddenly snapped into focus.

A small potted plant.

A sapling that had spontaneously burst into flames.

And a business card.

"Wait."

Screech!

Tony slammed on the brakes again.

This time, thankfully, Evenson was wearing his seat belt. He was thrown forward but remained firmly inside the car.

He turned toward Tony.

"What the hell are you doing now?"

Tony had already pushed open the door and crouched beside the car.

Evenson sighed.

He climbed out.

Sure enough, Tony was hunched beside the driver’s door, breathing hard again.

Evenson’s jaw tightened.

He clenched his fist.

Fine.

If the first treatment had worked...

He raised his hand.

Then stopped.

Not because he’d suddenly developed a conscience.

"Here," Evenson said. "Take off the level-three helmet. I’ll knock some sense into you properly."

Tony suddenly whipped around.

"It’s me!"

Evenson paused.

"What?"

"It was me," Tony said, words tumbling out as his mind raced. "Yes. That technology... it was me."

Finally, he managed to force the whole thought into a coherent sentence.

"I wrote the technology Killian is using. I developed the formula. I wrote that formula down on a business card."

Evenson’s eyes widened.

Now that was an unexpected development.

"The formula?" he repeated. "Tony, who did you give that business card to?"

If Killian’s entire Extremis system had been built around a formula Tony himself had created, then whoever possessed that formula had to be one of Killian’s most important people.

Probably one of the technical pillars of the entire operation.

Someone like that would almost certainly have access to the complete Extremis research. More importantly, they would understand the formula well enough to modify it and apply it to actual subjects.

That kind of person was worth recruiting.

Then Evenson remembered Tony’s reaction.

If Tony had been frightened badly enough to trigger another anxiety attack just from remembering them...

Maybe this person wasn’t exactly harmless.

"Maya..." Tony swallowed. "Maya Hansen."

The name finally came out.

"I taught her the formula in 1999."

Evenson immediately understood why Tony had reacted that way.

Maya Hansen was with Pepper.

And if she was working with Killian, then Pepper was sitting beside one of the most dangerous secrets in the entire operation.

Elsewhere, in a hotel in New York, four people checked into a room for the night.

One man.

Three women.

The hotel employee who handed over the key probably needed considerable self-restraint not to run for a torch and gasoline.

Fortunately for everyone’s dignity, nothing scandalous was happening inside.

They were hiding.

The four occupants were Sherlock Holmes, Dr. Watson, Pepper Potts, and Maya Hansen.

The mansion overlooking the cliff had been destroyed, but Tony owned plenty of other properties. Pepper simply had no way of knowing whether those locations were safe. If the Mandarin had marked Tony’s other residences as targets, staying there would be asking for trouble.

So she’d booked a hotel suite instead.

And because Pepper was Pepper, it wasn’t exactly a budget motel.

The hotel was luxurious enough that calling it merely "expensive" felt inadequate.

During their stay, Maya had finally confessed everything.

Her connection to Killian.

Her involvement with his work.

And even the truth that Killian and the Mandarin were working together.

Her explanation was simple.

"We were naive at first," she admitted. "We were doing it for science. Then we became proud. Obsessed. By the time we realized what we’d become, we’d already gone too far. There was no way back."

History was full of scientists whose brilliance had eventually led them somewhere terrible.

There were different kinds of people who pursued science.

Some cared about discovery above everything else. They wanted to understand the truth of the universe, and the methods they used or the purposes their discoveries were eventually put toward seemed secondary.

Others were still driven by genuine curiosity, but they were human.

They had ambitions.

They wanted money.

They wanted influence.

And the greater their discoveries became, the more they wanted in return.

Eventually, ambition could swallow everything else.

Maya had gone down that road.

Pepper listened to her confession without condemnation.

She simply said, "I forgive you."

Evenson wasn’t there to hear it, but even Pepper probably couldn’t have said exactly which part of Maya’s actions she was forgiving.

Sherlock, however, wasn’t interested in dwelling on the past.

"I realize this may be a poor time to interrupt," he said, looking toward Maya, "but I’d like you to provide more information about Aldrich Killian."

Maya opened her mouth.

Before she could answer, the doorbell rang.

Pepper glanced through the peephole.

Room service.

She opened the door.

The waiter had barely pushed the dinner cart through the doorway when someone appeared behind him.

Killian.

The waiter never even had time to react.

Killian twisted his neck and dropped him.

Then he surged forward.

His hand clamped around Pepper’s throat, and he slammed her against the wall.

"Pepper," Killian said coldly. "We meet again."

His eyes shifted toward Sherlock and Watson.

"As for you two..."

His expression hardened.

"You know too much."

His other hand disappeared inside his coat.

When it emerged, he was holding a pistol.

Sherlock and Watson raised their hands.

Neither looked frightened.

Their eyes remained calm, alert, searching the room for an opening.

Killian raised the gun.

And pulled the trigger.