Chapter 8: Revelations and Relationships

The flight capabilities of the Iron Man suit had special meaning for both Serenity the person and Midnight the hero. In either persona, this was the most important modification to the suit's abilities, as she saw it as representing her biggest contribution to my becoming the new Iron Man, born out of the tragedy that had been the rise and fall of Lord Steel.

Flight was good, and that first night time flight lesson was where the depth of this contribution first came clear for me. This wasn't just a matter of slapping on an anti-gravity unit and some controls, this was an integrated, complete system that made flying effortless and being heroic while flying even possible.

The key to it all was information and feedback. Inside my suit I had instantaneous access to information that was contextual where it needed to be without putting barriers between me and other information I might want. Flying at night was hardly more difficult than flying during the day. I had radar, infrared, ultraviolet, audio, gravitic and other detection systems that integrated together, provided a seamless picture of where I was and what was around me. I got speed, distance, vector and acceleration readings on just about everything the sensor systems could detect, and those systems did automatic threat appraisal, flagging things with priority flags.

It wasn't simple, don't get me wrong. There was a very steep learning curve there, but it was full of logical steps and recognizable transitions. It didn't require blind leaps of understanding, and after my first session of night flying, I felt like I had it about 80 percent mastered. For sure I knew that what I had learned that night had already made me a better fighter during daylight hours. I had been depending to heavily on sight and sound. I now knew there was a complete range of detection systems that I should have been accessing.

"The gravitic detection sensors will give you a big advantage over most of Terana's villains," Midnight told me later that night. "Everything has a gravitic signature, and they're hard to mask. Most biological systems, even those super powered ones, aren't going to be able to mask it, let alone detect it."

"That's going to be great, but for me, the most amazing thing is the way things are integrated. I already feel like I can do most things with barely a thought about how I'm doing them. I guess my only real concern is to wonder how I'll stack up against some of the bad guys out there."

"You mean as far as skill?"

"No, skill will come with time, I know that. I mean power-wise. How will I stack up that way? How do my gravitic repulsor blasts stack up against, oh, something like the Shrike's sonic needles, for example."

"I understand your concern, and I think over time you'll come to have a lot of confidence in your repulsors, but don't forget that it is the suit and its physical strength that is your primary asset. Your basic strategy against most foes is going to be to get close and physically engage them. You're going to be bringing more strength and mechanical advantage to the situation than just about anyone you fight, and between that, and the amazing alloy Trey Young made his suit from in combination with the new gravitic shielding ... well, you have a grip like nobody else. As close to irresistible as exists here, I think. Once you've got them in your grip, you've always got a good blast from the suit to tame them if they're resisting."

This was something else about the suit that had been less than obvious at first, but which came through with practice. It was also the reason the suit wasn't painted but was left as burnished metal. The fusion plant that drove it could generate an incredible electrical charge that could be discharged through the skin of the suit. When I did that while I had a good grip on something, guess where that charge went? It was a high-powered weapon of last resort, definitely to be used only against very powerful opponents. Used against a normal person, it would very definitely be fatal.

"So I'm a grappler at heart then?"

"Exactly. Haven't you proved that the last few days?"

"You've proved it for me, I think," I countered. "All I can say is I'm glad I'm not going to have to worry about going up against you for real."

"Well, I'm not your typical Teranan super hero, that's for sure."

I thought maybe Serenity was offering me a peek behind the curtain, so I asked the question that I'd wanted to ask for quite some time.

"You're not exactly what could be called your typical Teranan at all, are you?"

"You could say that. To be honest, I've been told I'm not much like anyone anywhere, but I came here because it was always my dream to be a super hero."

So that place you took me to do all the flying, that wasn't Terana?"

"No, its a place I call Glacier. That entire world is mostly as you saw it, an endless series of mountains with little pocket valleys everywhere. There are no people there, so our rough stuff in that valley isn't enough damage to be concerned about."

"But it seemed so much like Terana, where is it?"

"It is Terana, in a way. Its not another world so much as it is another facet of this one, but that explanation isn't something I think you need to know any more about. Its enough that you know that some of what I've given you are from places like that."

"Like Wing?"

"Like Wing, both the shell and the intelligence inside of it."

"Yeah, Wing," I echoed, my thoughts drawn to the ship and the bright intelligence that lay at its core.

"You need to spend some time with her," Serenity told me. "The new shell will be done soon, and you and her have to reach a mutual understanding."

"Yeah," I said, more to myself than to her. I'd been thinking the same thing, off and on.

"Before you worry about that though, you need to decide what to do about Rebecka," Serenity said, her tone suddenly softer. "She can't be happy with your weekend disappearances. The current situation will not last."

"I'm mad about her Serenity," I said with a sigh. "I can't walk away, I just can't."

"I've known that for months, Spider. I'm not asking you to walk away."

"But I've got to tell her, give her a chance to walk away. Not everyone can handle the..."

"That's why I picked you, you know." Serenity chuckled.

"What?"

"You'd already faced death, and worse, and you coped. Came out stronger, truth be told. You were still an honest, honorable man, but one without pretensions, bitterness or anger. You had no axe to grind."

I sat and thought. Wing was hovering at the edge of the atmosphere, somewhere in the middle of the Pacific Ocean. The new shell was awesome, just perfect. It was almost twice as big as the old one, and seemed bigger. The flight cabin had room for four people and there was a comfortable service room behind it. The suit bay behind it was empty tonight. I'd left the suit back at the fortress, this was just a good way to get away from it all and think, and still give myself some time with Wing.

There's no real 'talking' when it comes to Wing, not as far as 'friendly conversation' goes, but when I'm around her now, I sort of feel her moving around the edges of my thoughts. I try feeling for the edges of hers as well, but as Serenity explains it, her thoughts are mostly just a slightly altered reflection of my own. I still wasn't sure how much more we had to go down this road towards comfortable acceptance, but we were clearly moving in the right direction.

Wing wasn't at the center of my thoughts tonight though, Becka was. I told her Monday morning at work that I didn't want to spend my weekends apart any longer, but that there were things I would have to tell her that might be hard for her to accept. I had expected her to demand to know immediately, but to my surprise, she was completely amenable to my suggestion that she come to dinner Friday night, when I would reveal everything. She countered by offering me Thursday night, our night, at her place, dinner and all.

"I don't know what's coming Friday night, but I love what we have now, and I want as much of it as I can get between now and then."

That was one of the infinite reasons why I loved her. What a woman!

I had to work hard to pull my thoughts back from thinking of Becka and into the present. At the altitude Wing and I were at, and in this remote and isolated region, I didn't expect any traffic, which was why I had chosen it in the first place, but Wing continuously kept me apprised of whatever traffic she did see at the periphery. Faint arcing tracks were painted on the display in front of me, all at the far edges.