Chapter 31: Someone Get Me Matthew Lawrence
The moment their eyes met, something in the air between them had the quality of two electrical currents making contact.
Leon, standing to the side, had detected the shift in atmosphere immediately. He asked a few quick questions about what he was supposed to be doing with himself, received answers, and removed himself from the room at a pace that communicated relief. He went to find a combat instructor somewhere in the building.
When the office held only the three of them, Eleanor spoke.
"Sir. I don't want to be difficult about this, but the assistant I hired doesn't go by Ada."
She looked Ada over with the careful attention of someone running a comparison. "The appearance is also quite different from what I remember."
The woman she had selected was around thirty-five, extremely capable, and deliberately unremarkable in terms of presence. There was a reason for that choice. An assistant who was too striking was not conducive to her employer's professional focus.
Eleanor herself was, of course, a separate category. An exception. For reasons that were self-evident and did not require further examination. If anyone wanted to pursue that line of questioning, they could take it up with the lab on floor fifteen.
Ada, under Eleanor's scrutiny, smiled.
"Is there something wrong with my appearance?"
"Nothing at all. It's quite exceptional." Eleanor's brow was slightly furrowed. "I simply have no memory of hiring you. Where is Jessica?"
Jessica was the woman she had actually hired.
If Jessica wasn't here and this woman was, Eleanor's first working theory was that something had happened to Jessica.
"Nothing happened to Jessica." Ada turned toward Matthew, who had settled onto the sofa with the expression of someone who had bought a front-row seat and was getting his money's worth. "She's fine. She's abroad. Vacationing, as far as I know. The boss can confirm."
Matthew, catching Ada's look, nodded. "Jessica's situation has been handled. She had a bit of a shock, but she's all right overall. I arranged some financial compensation and she seemed satisfied with that."
He stood and moved to the drinks cabinet.
"As for Ada." He produced two glasses. "She was sent by Wesker. An intelligence-gathering operation. She's since joined our side." He poured white wine into both glasses. "Honestly, I owe Wesker a thank-you. If he hadn't sent her, I'd never have found someone this capable on my own."
He carried the glasses over and handed one to each of them.
"Starting today, you're both my assistants."
"Work well together."
Ada raised her glass first. "Happy to."
Eleanor looked at the wine for two seconds. Then she lifted her glass and touched it to Ada's.
"Likewise." She paused. "I hope we can both continue to be useful to you, sir."
"He's my employer too." Ada finished her wine.
Afghanistan. A cave.
The air inside was thick and used, carrying the accumulated product of many people in a confined space with nowhere for it to go. Tony Stark, who had not spent a meaningful amount of his previous life in conditions like this, had been finding it difficult to accurately describe how much he hated it.
Every minute of the past two months had been a sustained pressure he had no framework for. The physical pain from his chest wound. The constant awareness of how easily this could end. He'd had more done to him in two months than in his entire life before this, and somewhere in the process of that, he'd had occasion to think carefully about what his previous life had actually been.
If he got out of here, the weapons division was finished. He'd decided that.
In front of him, the Ten Rings gunmen watched him with the focused attention of people paid to make sure he didn't try anything. Nearby, Yinsen was pinned against a metal work surface while Raza held burning coal in iron tongs, moving it slowly toward his face.
"Why did you betray me." Raza's voice was flat. The question wasn't curious. It was procedural.
Yinsen was doing his best to pull away from the approaching coal while being held firmly in place. "I didn't. We're doing exactly what you said. But this is complicated work, and—"
"Do you think I'm stupid?"
"One more chance. Tell me what you're actually building."
"The Jericho. We're building the Jericho missile."
"I'd suggest not lying to me."
"That is what we're building!"
Yinsen was struggling harder as the coal got closer. Tony took a step forward to say something and had a gun immediately pointed at him by two separate people, which kept him where he was.
The sudden noise made Raza shift his attention.
He fixed his eyes on Tony.
Tony kept his expression together under the weight of that look. "I still need him."
Raza's hand didn't stop moving.
"He's a good assistant." Tony added this with the specific quality of someone buying seconds.
They looked at each other. Whatever each of them found in the other's face, it was enough. Raza stopped, and dropped the burning coal to the ground in front of Yinsen.
"I don't care what you're building. In one day, I want results."
"Otherwise."
He left the sentence there. He didn't need to finish it.
Both Tony and Yinsen understood what came after "otherwise." If they had nothing to show in twenty-four hours, neither of them would be having any further problems to worry about.
Raza took his men and left.
The cave settled back into its particular quiet.
Yinsen was breathing hard, catching up. Tony crossed to him quickly. "Are you all right?"
"Fine. But if we don't do something soon, neither of us will be." He managed a grim smile.
"I'll get it done." Tony said it with more certainty than he felt. "One day."
"Let's hope." Yinsen exhaled and pulled a handkerchief from his pocket to wipe the cold sweat from his forehead.
As the handkerchief came out, something else came with it.
A card, matte black, hit the ground and rang against the stone.
Tony's pupils pulled tight the instant he saw it.
Yinsen bent and picked it up, something coming back to him. "Right. This was in your jacket pocket when you arrived. I found it when we did the surgery. I kept meaning to give it back to you." He held it out.
Tony took it.
For a moment he didn't say anything. He just stared at the card in his hand, and something moved through him that was close to the feeling of a man going under for the third time and feeling something solid under his feet.
The thought that followed was not coherent. It was more like one word, repeated at high volume, in the direction of the universe at large.
Matthew Lawrence. Matthew Lawrence. Matthew Lawrence, you absolute genius.
***
20+advance chapters at patreon.com/Eatinpieces