Sherlock didn’t take Helen’s real-estate joke seriously.
Building a house was barely more than beginner-level alchemy for him.
He drove the Raptor into the newly created garage, woke John, and left plenty of food and water in the house.
Then everyone picked a bedroom.
And went right back to sleep.
By the time Sherlock woke again, the sky outside was already dark.
What finally dragged him out of bed wasn’t an alarm.
It was the smell of food.
Sherlock washed up, followed the aroma into the dining room— and nearly started swearing.
John and Doro were already sitting at the table.
Worse, judging by the devastation around them, they’d clearly been eating for a while.
Sherlock’s eyes narrowed.
“You son of a bitch, Zhao Wick!”
John looked up.
“You started eating without me?!”
Before John could even respond, Doro hurriedly swallowed whatever she’d been chewing and waved at Sherlock with both greasy little hands.
“Human!
Come quick!”
Her eyes were shining.
“There’s so much yummy food!”
Sherlock looked at Doro.
Then at John.
Back to Doro.
He couldn’t stay angry at that face.
So he settled for giving John a vicious glare before immediately joining the battle for food.
There were priorities in life.
Revenge could wait until after dinner.
By the time the meal was over, Sherlock, John, and Doro were all sprawled in their chairs, rubbing painfully full stomachs.
Only then did Sherlock realize something.
Someone was missing.
He looked around.
“Where’s Helen?”
John slowly turned toward him.
The eye roll was spectacular.
Interesting.
When Sherlock had been fighting him over the last chicken leg, apparently Helen hadn’t existed.
Now that Sherlock was full, he’d suddenly remembered her.
Still, John answered.
“Taking a shower.”
He leaned back.
“Relax.
She already ate.”
“Oh.”
Sherlock immediately relaxed.
A while later, Helen emerged and carried Doro off with her.
Once the two were gone, Sherlock and John finally started discussing the rescue.
Or, more accurately…
how not to rescue Tony too early.
Sherlock wasn’t in any particular hurry.
After all, Tony needed enough time to finish the crude armored suit he was building in that cave.
Otherwise, how was the future supposed to produce that beautiful showdown between Tony and Obadiah Stane?
Sherlock valued his peaceful life above almost everything.
But when the universe was offering him premium front-row entertainment?
He wasn’t going to turn it down.
More importantly, this kidnapping was Tony Stark’s crucible.
This was the experience that would transform him into Iron Man.
Sherlock had no intention of barging in too early, robbing Tony of that transformation, and accidentally changing the future in ways he couldn’t predict.
So after some discussion, he and John eventually put together a plan.
Calling it a “rescue operation” was generous.
It was closer to a road trip that would eventually happen to pass through Tony Stark’s prison.
The next morning, everyone packed up and climbed into the Raptor.
Sherlock glanced back at the comfortable house he’d built.
Then waved a hand.
Alchemy rippled through the structure.
Walls collapsed seamlessly back into raw earth.
The roof dissolved.
The garage disappeared.
Within moments, there was nothing left but desert.
Then, with John guiding the route, they headed deeper into the wilderness.
There was a reason nobody had found meaningful information about Tony all this time.
Part of it was the Ten Rings’ professionalism.
They’d executed the kidnapping quickly, cleanly, and decisively.
But there was another major reason.
The valley where Tony was being held was buried deep in an almost completely uninhabited stretch of desert.
Sherlock adjusted the Raptor with alchemy, giving it a desert camouflage pattern.
And then…
the “rescue mission” became a vacation.
A very stupid vacation.
During the day, Sherlock and John took full advantage of what the Raptor could do.
The two grown men tore across dunes like teenagers who’d been handed the keys to someone else’s truck.
Up slopes.
Down ridges.
Drifting across sand.
Competing over who could push the vehicle harder without rolling it.
They were having the time of their lives.
Helen initially regarded their behavior with the patient disappointment of a woman surrounded by idiots.
Then Sherlock introduced her to the ancient wisdom of traditional Chinese medicine.
Or, more accurately, he bullshitted her.
“Sand therapy.”
Helen stared at him.
Sherlock nodded solemnly.
“Draws out dampness.”
Somehow, this ended with Helen lying peacefully in warm sand whenever Sherlock and John decided to hold another ridiculous driving competition.
And somehow— against all reason— it actually seemed to work.
After several days, Helen’s skin genuinely looked better.
She’d even lost a noticeable amount of weight.
Helen was delighted.
Sherlock wisely chose not to explain that spending days in a hot desert while eating differently and moving around more might have contributed.
She’d already decided she was going to study traditional Chinese medicine when they got home.
Sherlock wished her luck.
Then there was Doro.
Doro might have the head of a chibi anime girl.
She might be able to talk.
She might technically be an alchemical creature that didn’t fit cleanly into any normal biological category.
But Sherlock had built certain dog-like traits into her personality.
And Doro had never seen this much sand before.
The result was predictable.
She went completely insane.
“DORO!”
Across the dunes she went.
“DOROOOO!”
Back again.
“Doro!”
Circles.
Sprints.
Random digging.
Occasional attempts to attack moving patches of sand for reasons known only to Doro.
Even when nobody played with her, Doro was perfectly capable of entertaining herself from sunrise to sunset.
The empty desert also gave her room to finally unleash her full speed.
And what John discovered was mildly terrifying.
If Doro went all-out…
she could nearly keep pace with the Raptor.
John stared through the window as the white blur raced beside them.
“…You’ve been keeping that thing in your house?”
Sherlock looked offended.
“That thing has a name.”
Fortunately, Doro had one major weakness.
Stamina.
She was fast.
Absurdly fast.
But her tiny body couldn’t sustain that speed for long.
After a brief sprint, she’d inevitably collapse into the sand with all four limbs spread out.
“Hah…
hah…
Doro…”
Then someone had to pick her up.
At sunset, the routine changed.
Sherlock would find a decent location.
Clap his hands.
And build them another comfortable house in the middle of nowhere.
Every night they had proper rooms.
Running water.
Hot showers.
Good food.
Alcohol.
Comfortable beds.
They’d sit around eating and drinking as though they weren’t currently driving through hostile territory in search of a kidnapped billionaire.
Occasionally Sherlock and Helen even held cooking competitions.
Neither John nor Doro ever complained.
They were the only real winners.
Sherlock’s side of the desert journey was comfortable enough that calling it a rescue mission felt increasingly dishonest.
Tony Stark’s experience couldn’t have been more different.
Tony was having an absolutely miserable time.
To keep him alive, Yinsen had been forced to install an electromagnet in his chest.
Which meant Tony spent his early captivity dragging around a car battery just to keep himself from dying.
It was an absurdly miserable existence.
Eventually, Tony solved the problem himself.
He built a miniature arc reactor.
That replaced the bulky external power source and finally freed him from being permanently tethered to a damn car battery.
Unfortunately, the Ten Rings weren’t impressed by his engineering breakthrough.
Quite the opposite.
Their leader was furious.
They’d kidnapped Tony Stark to build weapons.
Missiles.
Things they could actually use.
Not so he could waste time building some mysterious miniature reactor for himself.
Tony had a perfectly reasonable excuse.
If he wanted to work effectively, he needed to stay alive.
The Ten Rings leader didn’t care.
Instead of punishing Tony directly, he turned on Yinsen.
The beating was brutal.
Tony eventually had to threaten to kill himself.
He made the situation perfectly clear.
Without Yinsen, he couldn’t build what they wanted.
Period.
That finally saved Yinsen’s life.
But it also settled something in Tony’s mind.
Nobody was coming.
If a rescue team had been anywhere close, they would’ve arrived while Tony was building the arc reactor.
Instead, he’d gone from a chest-mounted electromagnet powered by a car battery…
to a functioning miniature arc reactor…
and outside?
Nothing.
No gunfire.
No explosions.
No soldiers storming the camp.
No sign that anyone had even found them.
So Tony began preparing his own escape.
What he didn’t know was that after the cave doors closed behind him once again, the Ten Rings leader returned to his quarters.
And received a phone call.
From a voice Tony would have recognized instantly.
Obadiah Stane.
“Raza.”
Obadiah’s voice came coldly through the phone.
“I’ve seen the military reports.”
Raza Hamidmi smiled.
“They never recovered Tony’s body.”
The smile on his face became increasingly vicious.
“Are you certain he’s dead?”
“Of course, my dear Obadiah.”
Raza sounded almost cheerful.
“We took Stark’s body with us.”
He leaned back comfortably.
“Don’t worry.
When the time is right, Tony Stark’s corpse will be found.”
His smile widened.
“All in service of the greater good.”
There was a pause.
Obadiah clearly didn’t believe a word of it.
When he spoke again, the warmth was gone.
“You’d better have killed him.”
Raza’s expression cooled.
“The military and every intelligence service with an interest in Stark are tearing the region apart looking for him.”
Obadiah’s voice hardened.
“So if something goes wrong, my dear Raza…”
A final pause.
“Believe me.
You won’t receive so much as another bullet manufactured by Stark Industries.”
The call ended.
Raza slowly lowered the phone.
The smile disappeared from his face.
Cold contempt replaced it.
Then his lips curled again.
“Bullets?”
A quiet laugh escaped him.
“Heh.”
Raza looked toward the cave where Tony Stark was being held.
“Stupid American.”
His eyes hardened.
“What we have our hands on is worth far more than bullets.”
Keep reading.