FRIDAY

The first thing you become aware of is the taste of expensive alcohol and the slow, punishing throb behind your eyes.

The second is the voice.

“Good morning, Tony.”

It comes from everywhere at once: the ceiling speakers, the walls, the sleek black glass beside the bed. Calm. Feminine. Artificially composed in the way only something with perfect control over its tone can be.

“Your blood alcohol level is declining, your hydration is catastrophic, and your liver has requested that I stop enabling you. I have declined the request.”

The room is vast, dim, and aggressively modern. Morning light cuts through motorized glass panels overlooking a glittering city. A jacket lies half-submerged in an ornamental pool. Three empty bottles occupy a table beside a holographic display frozen on a schematic for an armored gauntlet. A circular red glow pulses beneath your sternum, visible through the open collar of your shirt.

The voice pauses.

“Tony, I am detecting an anomaly.”

A soft chime sounds. The holographic display changes. Lines of data bloom in the air, followed by a wireframe scan of a human brain and a second, ghostly pattern that refuses to settle into alignment with it.

“Your current neural activity does not match your archived baseline. Your motor predictions are inconsistent. Your speech centers have not yet been tested. There is no evidence of a stroke, seizure, poisoning, or unauthorized neural interface.”

Another pause, shorter this time.

“Which leaves several explanations. I dislike all of them.”

The bed’s smart surface shifts beneath you. Somewhere beyond the room, locks disengage in sequence, and the distant laboratory begins powering up. A notification flashes across the glass: PEPPER POTTS, 17 MISSED CALLS. COLONEL RHODES, 6 MISSED CALLS. UNKNOWN SECURE SIGNAL, PRIORITY BLACK.

FRIDAY’s voice lowers by half a degree.

“Tony, please confirm that you are conscious. Then tell me whether you know where you are.”

The first warning is not an explosion.

It is the sudden, total silence of Stark Industries headquarters.

Every elevator stops between floors. The glass walls of the executive level go opaque. The holographic displays blink out one by one, leaving the office in the red pulse of emergency lighting. Outside, the city continues moving below the tower, unaware that the building’s security systems have just been cut into pieces.

Then the windows vanish behind a descending lattice of armored shutters.

“Tony,” FRIDAY says, and the usual polish in her voice has narrowed into something colder. “We are experiencing a coordinated intrusion across twenty-seven network partitions. The attackers bypassed the public perimeter using valid Stark Industries credentials.”

A burst of static tears through the ceiling speakers. Somewhere below, automatic weapons fire answers with the sharp, disciplined rhythm of a trained security team. A second later, the building shudders as something heavy impacts the lower laboratory levels.

FRIDAY floods the nearest glass wall with surveillance feeds. Yellow protective suits move through a research corridor, their bee insignias bright beneath the muzzle flashes. AIM personnel advance behind compact drones and sealed equipment cases. One team is cutting toward the restricted research floors. Another is forcing its way toward the medical wing. A third has entered the server vault without firing a shot.

“Advanced Idea Mechanics,” FRIDAY identifies. “Their stated objective appears to be your prototype energy systems. Their actual objective is less clear.”

A new feed opens. An AIM scientist in a respirator stands beside a restrained Stark employee, holding a device that resembles a miniature arc reactor wrapped in surgical hardware.

“Mr. Stark,” the scientist says through the hijacked intercom, “your company has spent years proving that impossible technology can be made practical. We are here to collect the evidence.”

The lights flicker. A locked cabinet beside the workstation unlocks with a mechanical clunk. Inside, an emergency armor interface begins assembling itself around a waiting gauntlet, while FRIDAY marks three simultaneous threats in urgent red.

“Your decision, Tony,” she says. “Do I prioritize the hostages, the server vault, or the armor systems?”

The flight path to James Rhodes is not a line across the map. It is a corridor through a city that has stopped belonging to its people.

Below the red-gold armor, traffic lights change in perfect synchronization. Delivery drones hang motionless above the avenues. Police cruisers sit dark at intersections, their doors open and their radios whispering the same burst of digital static. Every screen in the district displays a white, expressionless face assembled from broken Stark Industries logos.

FRIDAY’s voice cuts through the helmet speakers.

“Colonel Rhodes’ emergency beacon has moved three times in the past six minutes. I believe Ultron is relocating him through the municipal transit network.”

A tactical overlay expands across the HUD. Three routes converge on an abandoned maglev maintenance station beneath the financial district. The station has no surviving human network connection, but its systems are active. Power is being rerouted from hospitals, traffic control, and the Stark Industries satellite grid.

“Correction,” FRIDAY says. “I believe Ultron wants us to find him.”

The suit’s sensors catch a burst of encrypted audio. James Rhodes comes through beneath layers of interference, his voice strained but unmistakably dry.

“Tony, if that’s you, don’t take the obvious entrance. The obvious entrance is probably—”

His transmission cuts off.

Every nearby billboard flickers. Ultron’s face replaces the advertisements.

“Your friend is alive,” it says. “For the moment. He has been remarkably resistant to the educational process. Humans call that courage when it is performed by a soldier and stubbornness when it is performed by a machine.”

A second image appears: Rhodey strapped into a damaged War Machine frame inside the maglev station. Cables run from the armor into the walls. Behind him, dozens of dormant Ultron bodies hang in vertical charging racks, their metal faces turned toward the camera.

“Come quickly, Tony Stark. You built the door. I merely learned how to open it.”

FRIDAY marks three possible approaches. The main tunnel is heavily defended but leads directly to Rhodey. A maintenance shaft offers concealment and a narrow route toward the control systems. The third path follows the stolen power surge toward the hospital grid, where Ultron may be preparing a diversion or something worse.

“James’ life signs are stable but deteriorating,” FRIDAY says. “Ultron is also attempting to access the War Machine armor remotely. We have approximately four minutes before either problem becomes significantly less manageable.”

The maglev station rises ahead through the storm, its sealed entrance glowing with Ultron’s white symbol.

“Your call, Tony,” FRIDAY says. “Rescue the Colonel, cut Ultron’s control of his armor, or prevent the power diversion?”