Waking up, I decided not to let grass grow under my feet. Despite the melancholy cloud still hovering over me, I needed to stay busy. My mother always told me that idle hands were the devil's workshop, and I couldn't afford to sit around dwelling on how unlikely I was to ever hear her advice again.
I needed concrete objectives: reset the door code, take inventory of the bunker, and work out my next steps from there. Starting with inventory made the most sense. A thorough exploration would help me locate the interior controls for the door system. When I'd first entered the armory looking for a knife, I'd been too focused on my immediate goal to really look into details like the computer terminal on the desk, or the terminal in the comms room.
Slipping on my clothes and shoes (needed to find new clothes, or a laundromat. They were starting to reek), I headed to the central command area first. I needed something to write with for my inventory. Rummaging through the scattered papers on the planning table, I found what I was looking for: a small spiral notebook half-buried under some maps, and a few ballpoint pens scattered around. Most of the pens were dead, but the third one I tried worked well enough. Basic supplies secured, I could start my proper inventory.
I yawned and cracked my neck as I strode down the right corridor in my sneakers. The bunker's recycled air felt stale against my skin as I walked into the armory, my footsteps muffled on the concrete floor. I opened the armory door with a metallic click, slumped into the cold plastic chair, and powered on the terminal. As the display flickered on with a soft electronic whine, I rubbed the sleep from my eyes and yawned again. I was usually a morning guy but the twilight of the emergency lighting was playing merry hell with my sleep cycle.
The terminal flickered to life, displaying startup information:
I pressed 'L' to view the log. The display showed a simple database interface. Scrolling through the log with the arrow keys revealed check-ins and checkouts for the armory. The entries were pretty sparse, with a regular pattern of various operatives checking out and checking in sidearms, utility belts, grenades. There was one interesting pattern of multiple assault rifles, grenades and some sort of heavy energy weapon being checked out by one B.Hughes, around 76, but also in 77 and 78. I assumed B.Hughes was the quartermaster. A note in the reasons column specified that had been a group checkout for a strike team.
Scrolling down to the last entry on April 9th, 1979, I saw that B.Hughes had struck again. However, this time he had checked out nearly everything. The vast majority of the ballistic assault rifles, sidearms, utility belts, grenade launchers,3 squad automatic weapons, 30 plasma rifles, even 12 prototype energy weapons. His reasoning (in the reasons box) was the "amount of heat we're taking". I assumed that the quartermaster had decided to get while the getting was good, and had emptied out the majority of the gear in the armory while he could. Seeing as the Corporation had been about to implode, and most of the upper tiers were either dead or in jail, it would definitely have been an opportune time to scarper.
I pressed 'I' to check the current inventory status. Taking stock of what remained, I noticed around 12 ballistic assault rifles (M16A1s), chambered in NATO standard - though one had been fitted with an M203 underbarrel grenade launcher. 5 S.H.I.E.L.D. issue energy weapons (manufactured by some European-sounding company), 4 AIM plasma rifles (manufactured by what sounded like an AIM front corporation), 2 Silver Sable International concussion rifles (manufactured by the Brand Corporation) and a prototype energy weapon—the Solar Rifle, which the database euphemistically listed as "acquired" from Care Labs.
Tucked away in a separate case was what appeared to be a prototype railgun pistol with "DRC PROPERTY - EXPERIMENTAL" stenciled on the side. This was also diplomatically listed as "acquired" from the Deterrence Research Corporation. I suspected both had been acquired with a glass cutter and a healthy disregard for property rights sometime around 4 AM. In terms of sidearms, there was a .15 caliber needle gun, a plasma beam handgun, and a .30 caliber rapid fire machine pistol, all S.H.I.E.L.D. issue. The machine pistol was either meant for enhanced users, or had some sort of space-age recoil compensation system. Either way, if you were down to needing that kind of firepower from a sidearm, you were in pretty dire straits. The final sidearms were 2 9mm Glock 17's listed with a red "C4" designation and a gyrojet pistol with a small case of specialized ammunition.
For ammunition, the ballistic weapons were well-stocked: 2,400 rounds of 5.56 NATO for the M16s, 300 rounds of 9mm for the Glocks, 180 rounds of .30 caliber for the machine pistol, and a measly 45 rounds for the needle gun. The M203 had an additional 18 40mm rounds beyond the standalone grenade launcher's 24, while the RPG came with 6 rockets. The gyrojet pistol came with 20 standard miniature rockets, 10 explosive rounds, and 5 heat-seeking rounds—all illegal as hell. The energy weapons used rechargeable power packs—48 S.H.I.E.L.D. cells, 32 AIM plasma cartridges, and 16 Brand Corporation concussion charges, along with charging stations built into the armory walls. The prototype Solar Rifle was apparently self-charging, according to a note taped to its case that read "Ambient light collection - no external power required." The DRC railgun had its own specialized power cell and a note warning "PROTOTYPE - 50 SHOTS MAX BEFORE COIL REPLACEMENT REQUIRED."
Hmmm. I decided to start considering the implications of what I had learned thus far. Hughes hadn't completely stripped the armory down to the studs, probably due to time constraints—much to my benefit. But something nagged at me about the logistics. How had Hughes managed to strip the armory so bare so quickly? Either there was some sort of cargo elevator to the surface so they weren't completely bottlenecked by the sewer entrance, or Hughes had somehow pulled up in a flatboat with an incredibly shallow draft, loaded the vast majority of the armory's contents, then made his escape through the tunnels. I wasn't exactly an expert on the logistics of hidden criminal hideouts, but the simplest answer was usually the right one. There had to be a cargo elevator to the surface somewhere in this place.
After taking an impromptu inventory of the remaining items in the armory, I moved back down the right corridor to the equipment staging room. Looking through the built-in lockers, I took note of the 2 AIM beekeeper uniforms that I saw earlier, scribbling them down in my notebook. I'd love to test the properties of one of the suits, and figure out more than what was portrayed on the page. Moving on to the SHIELD uniforms, they were pretty much what I expected. Thick bodysuits with utility belts. I moved on to the Silver Sable International outfits.The Silver Sable International outfits, despite the bright colors, looked more practical to my eye. There was a proper plate in the vests, the utility belt seemed more practical, and there was an included helmet/face mask with eye protection, and what looked like an optional gas mask module inside the locker.
If I was in need of a combat outfit, I'd take one of these. It looked like the safest option.
Moving on from the staging room, I moved back into the central command area. The snarled mess of maps and papers stared back at me. Deciding that I didn't have the mental bandwidth for this, I just wrote "maps x20" down and moved on. I'd look at the maps in more detail later, as some of them could be quite useful.
Moving back down the hall to the communications room, I took a closer look at the setup I'd only briefly glimpsed earlier. Multiple radio units, computer terminals, and early satellite communication equipment were arranged across a large desk, with cables snaking across the ceiling. The Corporation had clearly wanted serious C2 capacity down here.
As I examined the equipment more closely, I realized how systematically it had been destroyed. Every terminal except one had been physically gutted—memory modules yanked out, hard drives removed, circuit boards smashed with what looked like a hammer. Very thorough operational security.
But something felt inconsistent. If they were this careful about destroying computer memory and communications equipment, why leave behind an armory with sensitive prototypes? My theory was that Hughes had gotten wind of what was happening ahead of time and bailed, leaving everyone else to conduct a very non-standard cleanup.
The one surviving terminal was plugged into what appeared to be a network cable—unexpected for a late 70's setup. Next to it sat a box of floppy disks and a binder labeled "Codebook," though all the pages were missing. I groaned. Of course they'd remember to destroy the cipher codes.I shook off my annoyance and powered on the terminal. As it flickered to life, I refocused. The terminal booted into a basic command prompt showing General Techtronics UNIX v3.2.Typing helpbrought up a short reference listing standard Unix commands like ls, cd, and vi. At the bottom, it mentioned to use ls /usr/local/bin to see locally-installed utilities.
Following that suggestion, I found a handful of custom programs including a doorcontrol executable and some basic documentation. The docs mentioned it communicated with door controllers via some odd serial standard. I'd look at that later. A Unix OS I was used to, but serial standards were different. Alternate timelines are weird. After tooling around in the various directories, I couldn't find the source code anywhere on the system. The doorcontrol binary was there, but without the source, I couldn't understand exactly how my earlier buffer overflow had worked.
While flipping through the box of floppies on the desk, I found one labeled "EAGLESTAR C COMPILER v1.3" and a second labeled "door_control_src." Jackpot. After copying the compiler executable to the system, I dove into the door control source code. Thankfully, there didn't seem to be too much programming language divergence, as this was good old C. Looking at the code, I could see exactly what had happened with my earlier break-in. There was a telling comment from the developer: // No bounds checking needed - firmware integrity verified every 500ms. Any corruption caught by integrity check. // Why duplicate effort with redundant input validation? // - M.T.
Five hundred milliseconds... I whistled softly. For what was obviously some in-house hack job cobbled together by whoever they had on staff with programming experience, this was impressively tight timing. If some mid-level operation could manage real-time firmware attestation over serial in the late 70's, what the hell were the high-end guys playing with?
My buffer overflow had corrupted the door controller's firmware right after an integrity check, giving me nearly 500 milliseconds before the next verification cycle would catch it. More than enough time for the corrupted firmware to send an unlock request over the serial connection. I had gotten exceedingly lucky with the timing. I added a fix requiring both bounds checking in the controller code and fresh integrity verification before command execution.
Thankfully, the original developer had written a build script that compiled the code and flashed it to the door controller, but when I opened it up, I frowned at the syntax. It looked like some kind of build automation tool - part makefile, part shell script - but written in a language I didn't recognize at all. Lots of parentheses and what looked like functional programming constructs, but definitely not LISP or ML. If I had to guess, it was some scripting language that the dev had decided to use for a build. Another weird divergence from my timeline - apparently someone here thought traditional makefiles weren't good enough. At least it was commented well enough that I could follow what it was doing: compile the source, then flash the resulting binary to the door controller console.
After running the deployment script and changing the door code, I found myself reluctant to move on. Falling back into the familiar rhythm of debugging and optimization was keeping the negative thoughts away. Better to stay busy. After deploying the executables for the controller, then running the command to reset the password, I decided to look at the compiler some more. I was curious as to how far the ripples in the 616 universe would deviate from my own, and decided a good starting point would be checking on this odd compiler.
estc --version brought up a detailed credit screen:
Suzi Endo. That name was definitely ringing a bell, and not just from the earlier inventory control system. I had a vague recollection of her showing up as a Stark Industries employee in some 90's Iron Man comics—cybernetics expert, I thought. Eaglestar was some sort of defense contractor who had shown up in the comics, but I didn't recall much about them. Didn't know they had been founded this early.
Figuring I might as well waste some more time, (and delay thinking about never seeing my family again) I dumped the assembly for the program. I had never been the best at reading assembly, but it looked far more optimized than I expected from a compiler of that vintage. Yet another interesting difference.Finally, realizing I could no longer put off exploring the rest of the base, I sighed and got up, cracking my neck as I did so.
Moving down the left corridor, I took a precursory look at the bunk room, and only found a spare pair of socks and a bath robe that someone had left behind. No toothbrushes for me, unfortunately.
Next, I had to move to the showers, the final area in the left corridor that I hadn't taken inventory of. Moving through the showers, I didn't find much of interest. They were as dusty as anything else, but not as much dust had accumulated in the intervening years as I'd expect. (probably whatever air pressure system they have set up in this bunker). I did find some bars of soap in a nearby locker which I'd get some use out of later.
Moving back down the hall to the kitchen for a more thorough look, I decided to examine the other four cans I'd spotted earlier alongside the lima beans. Pulling them out from the back of the pantries, I found myself pleasantly surprised: military-grade beef stew, some sort of "Enhanced Nutritional Paste" that sounded unappetizing but probably had a shelf life measured in decades, what appeared to be freeze-dried coffee, and another can of what looked like some kind of protein ration. The expiration dates were all consistently around 1987-1988, suggesting someone had done a bulk purchase of long-term storage food. There was also a small medical kit tucked behind the microwave - basic stuff like bandages, antiseptic, and some pain relievers, but still useful. At least I wouldn't starve while figuring out my next move.
Walking back to what I had mentally labeled the R&D room, I took a proper inventory this time. The Rocketeer suit hung on its display dummy like some sort of 50's scarecrow, but the real treasure was the equipment scattered around the room. Two CNC lathes sat under dust covers, along with what looked like a small foundry setup and a workbench covered in precision tools.
Scattered technical drawings showed detailed schematics for the suit's propulsion system, with handwritten notes filled with complaints and frustrations. I picked up one of the larger sheets, squinting at the circuit diagrams in the dim light. "AG field generator specs don't work! AG field is completely unstable at anything above 60% power output." This was scrawled angrily next to what looked like a power regulation circuit that someone had erased and redrawn multiple times.
Someone had clearly been having a hell of a time trying to implement anti-gravity systems instead of conventional jet propulsion into the Rocketeer suit, with bitter comments about AIM contractors making undocumented modifications scattered throughout the margins. Mixed in were Brand Corporation engineering drawings of some sort of anti-gravity generator. I held one up to the emergency lighting, noting the much cleaner line work and professional drafting compared to the frustrated scribbles on the Corporation's attempts. Someone had written in the margin: "One of our guys at Brand pinched these specs - this actually looks functional".
I rolled up the schematics and tucked them back where I'd found them, leaving behind the engineer's frustrated commentary as I made my way back to the central command area. I forced myself to actually examine the snarled mess of maps and operational documents I'd been avoiding. Most were standard New York street maps with various locations circled in red ink - police stations, government buildings, corporate headquarters. But mixed in were building schematics, security layouts, and what looked like patrol schedules for both NYPD and SHIELD operations. One particularly interesting document was a detailed timeline of superhero activities from 1976 to early 1979, tracking when various heroes were active, inactive, or off-planet. The Corporation had been running a sophisticated intelligence operation, monitoring not just their targets but the entire superhero community's operational patterns. No wonder they'd been so successful at avoiding detection - they knew exactly when the coast would be clear.
Moving further down the right corridor, the ventilation room turned out to be more than just air handling equipment. Beyond the humming machinery that kept the bunker's atmosphere circulating, I found additional storage lockers containing spare parts and maintenance logs. But the real discovery was tucked behind the main air handler - a smaller cargo elevator, clearly functional. The control panel was simpler, with just two buttons marked "B" and "S." This must have been how they moved personnel discreetly, while the larger elevator I'd find elsewhere was for heavy equipment and supplies. Smart operational security - multiple exit routes in case one got compromised.
Walking back down the corridor and looking to the end of the right hallway, I saw the telltale large doors of the main cargo elevator. Finally. I probably had missed it earlier due to being tired and running on pure adrenaline - the dim emergency lighting and my frazzled mental state hadn't exactly been conducive to thorough exploration. Now that I was thinking more clearly, the elevator's location made perfect sense from a logistics standpoint. It was positioned close to both the armory and the vent room where the majority of heavy equipment would need to be moved through.
Slapping the call button, the doors ground open with the protest of machinery that hadn't been maintained in years. Stepping inside the spartan interior, I found myself wondering what kind of cover the corporation had set up upstairs. A warehouse was the only thing that really made sense - you needed legitimate reasons for heavy freight deliveries and industrial equipment moving in and out. Still, I couldn't help feeling slightly disappointed as I hit the up button.
After a jolting five-minute ride, the doors opened to reveal exactly what I'd expected: an abandoned warehouse. Dusty concrete floors, high ceilings with rusted fixtures, and loading dock doors that had clearly seen better days. It was perfectly logical, completely predictable, and utterly mundane. I suppose I'd been hoping for something a bit more... interesting as a front operation. But then again, the whole point of a good cover was to be forgettable.
The elevator itself was inside a staging room of some sort. The walls contained pegboards for tools,but the outline shadows on the pegboards told the story. There had been wrenches, screwdrivers and specialty equipment, all systematically removed. Walking forwards, I saw a ramp, leading down into the greater area of the warehouse and a loading dock.
On the floor of the warehouse were some dried oil stains—big ones. The kind you'd get from parking an 18-wheeler for extended periods. Judging by the oil stains and the old scuff marks gouged into the elevator walls, I figured out how the logistics head/inventory management for this bunker had absconded with the majority of the weapons. Someone had backed a semi right up to this cargo elevator and systematically looted everything that wasn't nailed down.
I cracked my neck. Finally, I was going to have to confront what I had been trying to put off through inventorying and a bit of recreational programming. Making a plan for the future. Before I made a definitive plan however... if I had my isekai tropes right, there might be... assistance available. I felt slightly ridiculous doing it, but I closed my eyes and thought as clearly as possible: Activate System.
There was no response. Ah well, back to plan B. I looked around and walked over to a staircase, wondering what was upstairs.
Upstairs turned out to be a late 70's office space overlooking the warehouse floor. Wood-paneled walls, dingy carpet, and a few desks with dead computer terminals—chunky beige monitors and keyboards that looked like they weighed ten pounds each. The fluorescent lights were off, but enough of the early morning sunrise filtered through the grimy windows to see clearly. After hours in the bunker's sterile green emergency lighting, the warm natural light felt like a warm hug. Even filtered through decades of grime, it was infinitely better than that clinical glow that had been my only illumination below.
I found several filing cabinets, (all empty of course), but I lucked across a whiteboard mounted on one wall. Now I'd have to find some markers. Looking through an abandoned desk, I found some un-opened markers tucked in the back of a drawer. I pulled open the packaging and doodled quickly on the whiteboard. The markers weren't dead! That would help significantly with brainstorming.
Taking stock of what I could do, I promptly came to the conclusion that my main advantage was my knowledge of future events from the comics. I could preempt or prevent some of the worst occurrences. I needed to solidify a timeline. Right now, I was at the beginning of Secret Wars, where the heroes were called away to Battleworld.
Which meant Tony Stark had already moved to the west coast after his "Demon in a Bottle" arc, founding his new software and hardware company. That got me thinking—if Stark could reinvent himself with a tech startup, so could I. With my advanced knowledge of what was coming in computing, the internet boom, the information revolution at the end of the millennium... I could position myself to make a fortune. Found a company that would be perfectly positioned to ride that wave.
But that was a medium-term goal. To get there, I had two problems: no seed capital and no legal identity. No birth certificate, no passport, no SSN, no nothing. Then it hit me. Really, these were the same problem. With enough money, I could buy my way into the system.There were definitely criminal elements willing to insert me in the right databases for the right price..
I wrote down SEED CAPITAL PLANS in all caps in the middle of the board.
Standing in front of the whiteboard in the abandoned warehouse, marker in hand, I stared at the words "SEED CAPITAL PLANS" until they started to blur. The early morning sun crept through the grimy windows, casting long shadows across the empty space. Outside, distant traffic sounds filtered through the walls—the city slowly waking up around me as I pondered.
I needed money. I needed an identity. And I needed both fast, before the next cosmic catastrophe hit New York. I wanted to be well out of dodge when things got crazy.
But how does a homeless guy with no ID make enough money to buy his way into the system? The answer had been staring me in the face.
I thought back to the R&D room downstairs—the Rocketeer suit and frustrated engineering notes scattered around it. Someone had been trying to reverse-engineer anti-gravity technology from incomplete specs, (and complete specs) brilliant minds hamstrung by resource constraints and incomplete information.
But how does someone with no connections break into the criminal supply chain? Engineering! That was it! There had to be opportunities to provide gear to villains—not the big names, they had their own resources, but the smaller fish. The wannabes and up-and-comers who needed an edge.
Better yet, intelligence agencies. The non-SHIELD supernatural intel groups were definitely under geared in comparison. The British supernatural intelligence community, for instance—I'd bet they were scraping by on hand-me-downs and improvised tech. With S.T.R.I.K.E.'s fall creating a vacuum in the British intelligence supply chain, and three competing agencies guzzling funding, there had to be gaps I could fill.
I racked my brain for upcoming events I could exploit to really get my name out in the right circles, besides small scale transactions. Something big enough to create demand, chaotic enough to provide cover...
Armor Wars. Tony Stark going completely off the rails in a few years, hunting down anyone using his technology. (Spymaster had swiped the blueprints from the Long Island factory). He'd leave a massive hole in the market. Tech villains relying on stolen Stark tech would suddenly find themselves defenseless, desperate for replacements.
The Tinkerer would fill that gap eventually. Phineas Mason had the skills, reputation, connections. First-mover advantage in every sense.
But he didn't have perfect knowledge of what was coming. And besides, I didn't need to compete directly with someone that much smarter than me - there were plenty of other opportunities that wouldn't step on the Tinkerer's stomping grounds. At least not yet.
A current opportunity was Stane's takeover of Stark Industries. With Tony having retreated to the west coast and Stane now in control, there had to be massive gaps in oversight. Corporate upheavals like this always meant lost inventory, misfiled patents, and abandoned projects slipping through the cracks. The Iron Monger suit development alone would create dozens of spillover opportunities—prototype components, failed iterations, rejected designs that someone like me could salvage and repurpose.
If I could figure out the right timeframes, I'd be able to snooker a lightly used Iron Monger suit right off Stane's slowly cooling corpse. People would pay me serious money for that kind of hardware. Beyond that, there were potential blueprints for the Iron Monger itself, schematics for the Guardsman suits, Iron Man components, missile designs, and all sorts of SHIELD-adjacent technology that Stark had developed over the years. It was a regular treasure trove just waiting for someone with the right knowledge and timing to exploit it.
Of course, I wasn't talking about keeping all this hardware for myself or trying to build some kind of tech empire. I wasn't talking about building death rays or world domination. Just being a supplier. A specialized quartermaster for people who were already going to commit crimes regardless of whether I helped them.
I pulled out my notebook and flipped to a fresh page, clicking my pen as I prepared to organize my thoughts.
STANE INDUSTRIES - TARGET ASSESSMENT
I wrote "MAIN FACTORY - LONG ISLAND" in large letters on the page, then started scribbling:
TIMELINE:
1982: Stane begins corporate maneuvering1983: Full takeover complete, Tony exiled to West Coast1984: Current situation - Stane in control, consolidating power1985(?): Iron Monger suit development/Stane's downfallESOTERIC TECH:
Atomic naval cannons (500-mile range)Miniaturized transistor applicationsRadiation-proof coatings for space vehiclesSynthetic tissue generation work?Cryogenics?Early repulsor technology iterationsMagnetic force field generatorsPotential Iron Monger blueprintsGuardsman blueprintsBits (and bobs) of Iron Man techFORMER SCIENTISTS (Potential Equipment Left Behind):
Dr. ???? Shapanka (Jack Frost/Blizzard) Dr. Anton Vanko (Crimson Dynamo)I stepped back and studied what I'd written. The Long Island facility would be my primary target - that's where most of the really interesting stuff would be stored. And with Stane focused on business consolidation rather than R&D security, there had to be opportunities.
Time to get to work.