Who do you trust more to drive you to a destination? Who do you trust more to defend your civil liberties on the field of combat? Man or machine? That is the question that dominates the current landscape of technological innovation. Tony Stark seeks...
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During the Cold War, America's clandestine intelligence and defence agency S.H.I.E.L.D. established secure bases around the globe. These facilities were top secret and housed state-of-the-art nuclear missiles that could be launched within a moment's notice in the case of an attack from the Soviet Union. However, during the 70s it became clear to Director Fury that the Soviets weren't going to nuke the US; to do so would be to basically knock on their front door and ask for one thrown at them in return. Fury disarmed and abandoned these bunkers, and all of them have become ruins of an age long passed. One of these locations, such as the one built in the Puerto Rico wilderness, would be a perfect place for illicit material storage.
Tony conducted a wide satellite-assisted scan of the coordinates supplied to him by the Black Widow, and the only thing of note he came across was this aforementioned S.H.I.E.L.D. weapons bunker. Considering the context, he believed it was definitely worth a further look.
Instead of the usual army of dudes ready to fruitlessly open fire upon him with AK-47s and RPGs, Tony made landfall to nothing but the ambient buzzing of insects and the gentle breeze brushing sweetly through the jungle trees. "This is nice. Wish more terrorists would hang out in places like this." Stark murmured lowly to himself.
He paced forward, approaching the vine-ridden and stained concrete structure that almost blended in completely with his surroundings. It was a fairly small bunker with a gigantic reinforced titanium bulkhead that stood at least one and a half storeys tall. "Scan for hostiles." Stark commanded, and the Model 13's display flashed the following message in response: [LMRIS scan enabled]
The LMRIS, Low Microwave Radar Imaging System, passively scanned the environment by dispersing tiny levels of microwave radiation that would be scattered by the human body, then monitoring the patterns via a sensitive receiving unit. The scanning system can scope out vital signs by detecting breathing activity or heartbeats. Once a human being was detected, it was denoted on the display by a marker indicating distance from the PDS as well as heartrate. Its range of effectiveness fluctuated with the density of the matter it needed to penetrate. After designing the system for his suits, Tony refined it into a handheld scanner for use by search and rescue crews to help in locating survivors in disaster zones. Microwaves can be harmful to humans in high doses; earlier, Tony developed a non-lethal weapon that used microwave radiation to incapacitate hostiles by evaporating the water in their skin. Higher emissions could easily kill. The levels emitted by the LMRIS are way too limited to cause any damage at all.
Soon enough, wedges marking the position of detected persons appeared beyond the door. There were about a dozen men over there according to the scan.
Tony instantly identified the bulkhead's weak points with his experienced engineer's eye, then engaged the High-Intensity Ionized Pulse Laser mounted in the Model 13's forearm compartment. His helmet was equipped with a simple neural signal reader that could identify certain strong thoughts, such as the command to deploy and fire a weapon or enable flight. These commands required a decent amount of concentration to enable, as to prevent accidental firings.
