Central City, California

Deep in the woods outside of Central City, a man dressed in jeans, work boots and a tank top chopped wood behind a small cabin. The house was at one point destroyed, but Aaron Stack since took the time to rebuild it. From all normal appearence, he looked just like anyone else, with his short black hair and some would say he was the spitting image of his father, Able. The only difference was his eyes.

Aaron Stack’s eyes glowed bright red. They were the only thing he found he couldn’t conceal in his human guise. Whenever he had to go into town for supplies, he would never remove his sunglasses. This limited his trips to only bright days. But Aaron didn’t mind. He had found peace here at the place which was once home to his father, the man who built him.

Aaron was a robotic construct, the product of a project that tried to create a series of humanoid computer systems programmed to replicate human thought and behavior. Aaron was the last in the series, designated with the serial code of X-51. Thanks to his father’s influence, Aaron became something more than just a machine, even becoming part of the Avengers under the name of the Machine Man. Since then, however, Aaron had chosen to retire from the life of a superhero, instead relegating himself to a life of peace and tranquility.

Unfortunately for Aaron, things rarely go according to plan.

“Target acquired. He’s alone and it doesn’t seem like he even notices our presence.”

“Probably too busy chopping wood. Waiting on your word, Steel-Fist.”

“Attack.”

One of the three armored men engaged first, firing off a blast of ice energy. Aaron could feel the sudden cold snap and his joints began to freeze up. He fell to his knees as the attacker continued the assault. Aaron’s eyes glowed brightly and his entire appearence seemed to shift in a flash of light. What remained in place of Aaron Stack was a man dressed from head to toe in purple—the Machine Man had been reborn.

“Move!” said Steel-Fist. The three activated the thrusters in their armor and hovered slightly above ground.

“Who are you? What do you want?” asked the Machine Man.

“We’re the Iron Trinity,” said Steel-Fist. He lifted his hand with his palm facing the Machine Man. “You don’t need to know anything else.”

A blast of intense heat energy was released from Steel-Fist’s hand and struck the Machine Man in the chest. Steel-Fist’s teammates, Heavy Metal Jacket and Killdozer, moved in once the Machine Man appeared to be weakened. Before they could move closer, the Machine Man’s legs telescoped. He rose into the air and retracted his legs, flying over the heads of the Iron Trinity.

He landed and turned immediately, his arms telescoping. Each of them wrapped around Heavy Metal Jacket and Killdozer, binding them. The Machine Man lifted his leg and it extended just as Steel-Fist tried to sneak up on him. With the Machine Man’s leg forcing him back through the woods, Steel-Fist struck a large tree, going through it. The Machine Man retracted his leg and turned his attention to the other two. He pulled them closer to him.

“Now, what’s the meaning of this?” he asked.

“It’s like Steel-Fist said, you don’t need to know!” said Killdozer. A charge of electricity was emitted by Killdozer’s armor and Heavy Metal Jacket followed suit. The charge ran through the Machine Man, shorting out his own circuits. His limbs slowly loosened, before two-thirds of the Iron Trinity were released. The Machine Man slumped to the ground as Steel-Fist approached.

“Good work,” said Steel-Fist. “Now it’s time to move on to phase two.”

GHOST IN THE MACHINE

Part I: Man and Machine

By Dino Pollard

The Crash Pad

Originally just a storage facility for the Taylor Foundation, it was given to the New Warriors when Dwayne Taylor himself originally led the team. Over time, it had come to be known as the Crash Pad and now served as the meeting area for the latest group to call themselves by that name.

Dwayne Taylor himself wasn’t one to frequent this location much these days. He appointed Speedball and Rage to serve as his eyes and ears among this new group of Warriors, and he trusted them to do their job. But after the latest information they brought him, he felt it was necessary to come down here in person.

In the Crash Pad’s small gym, he found the man he wanted to talk to. Who he was behind the mask remained a mystery, but he called himself Patriot and he was the one who brought together this new team. When Dwayne entered the gym, he saw Patriot going through an acrobatic routine on the uneven bars. His shirt and boots were off, but he still wore the white and red pants as well as the mask.

“Always working, I see,” said Dwayne.

“I have to stay on top,” said Patriot. He brought himself up to the higher bar, his legs sticking straight in the air. He swung himself around it, then flew off, flipped in the air, and landed on his feet right in front of Dwayne. “Something I can help you with, Mr. Taylor?”

“I heard about the Taskmaster incident,” said Dwayne.

Patriot walked over to the bench and picked up a towel to wipe his chest. “Are you here to reprimand me?”

“On the contrary,” said Dwayne. “I’m here to congratulate you.”

“Come again?” asked Patriot.

“The Pig posed a unique threat, one you couldn’t be sure you’d be able to contain. And instead, you chose to combat it through other means. Turning the Taskmaster on him was a good move. The Taskmaster is a much more acceptable alternative to the Pig in my mind.”

“I half-expected you to side with Speedball and Rage,” said Patriot.

“So did they, but the two of them have a different outlook on these things. They look at it from a black and white perspective, and while I admire that, it’s not always the right view and sometimes borders on the naive.”

“I imagine you had similar difficulties when you led this team,” said Patriot. He pulled his shirt on and buttoned it.

“I had my fair share,” said Dwayne. Patriot looked up at him.

“You surprise me again, Taylor. I expected you to deny that.”

“Speedball already told me you figured out that I used to be the Night Thrasher,” said Dwayne. “I could try to deny it, but would you have believed me?”

“No.”

“So why bother?” asked Dwayne. “You’re not an idiot, Patriot. I respect your need for secrecy, but I want you to remember that this is my team. I’m just allowing you to lead them. I provide funding for this operation and I respect what you want to do here. But just like I don’t think of you as an idiot, I don’t expect you to think of me as one. I know you have some ulterior motive. I just haven’t figured out what. But I will. Do we understand each other?”

“It looks like we have visitors,” said Patriot.

Dwayne turned around and saw Ricochet walking in with a young man beside him. Ricochet’s friend had short, dark hair, a goatee, and purple-tinted glasses. What caught Dwayne’s eye was the fact that the man’s left arm was damaged.

“Am I interrupting anything?” asked Ricochet.

“No, Mr. Taylor and I were just finishing,” said Patriot. He looked at Ricochet’s friend. “This is him.”

“Yeah, Eddie McDonough,” said Eddie. He reached his hand out to Patriot, but the young hero just looked at it. Dwayne moved in and shook Eddie’s hand himself.

“Dwayne Taylor,” he said. “I’m the team’s financial backer. And I assume you’re taking over the technical aspects of the operation?”

“Yeah, nobody knows their stuff better than Eddie,” said Ricochet.

“We should probably start working on some of that stuff right away, then. After all, we never know when something’s going to happen,” said Dwayne. “Have you ever flown a helicopter, Eddie?”

“Hey, hold up!”

Spider-Woman glided through the air on the wings built into her costume. Once she heard the voice coming from behind her, she landed on a rooftop in a crouched position. She saw her fellow teammate, Gravity, flying towards her. He came to a stop and hovered in the air a few feet in front of her.

“What’s up?” she asked. “Something going on?”

“Nah, I just thought we could talk. Y’know, get to know each other a little better,” said Gravity. “After all, we’re both on the same team and I really don’t know a lot of people since I moved to New York.”

“Oh, you’re new here?” asked Spider-Woman. “Where’d you come from?”

“A small town in Illinois,” said Gravity.

“Near Chicago?”

“Nah, almost two hours away from Chicago. I’m from the cornfields,” said Gravity.

“No wonder you left,” said Spider-Woman. “Why New York, though?”

“Because this is where the action is. Haven’t you ever noticed all the supervillains seem to come to New York?”

“…y’know, you’re right,” said Spider-Woman. “So you just came here because you wanted to be a superhero?”

“Yeah, that’s why I chose to go to ESU,” said Gravity. “Where do you go?”

“I… I don’t go to college,” said Spider-Woman. She felt maybe it would be best to keep her age to herself. At least for the time being.

“Ah, one of those types, huh?” said Gravity. “How’d you get your powers anyway? You a mutant?”

“Nah, I got them through some mystical ceremony thing—it’s kind of a long story,” said Spider-Woman. “How about you?”

“Just a mutant, no long story there,” said Gravity with a slight smile. “So what was up with that guy you fought at the Pig’s?”

“Oh, the Boogeyman,” said Spider-Woman. “I dunno, he was just weird. Some sort of demon clay guy or something. He could like, reshape his body and he tried to eat me. So I just blasted my way through him.”

“‘Blasted’?”

“Yeah, I can do this thing, fire energy or something, I got it from the original Spider-Woman.” She noticed a quizzical expression on Gravity’s face and she laughed. “Sorry, that’s another long story. But she called it a venom blast or something. Something to do with bio-electric energy, whatever that means.”

“I didn’t even know you could do that.”

“There are a lot of things I can do.”

“Like what?”

“Well, I’ve got that telepathy and I have spider-legs that can come out of my back.”

“Whoa, really?”

“Yeah.”

“Can I see them?” asked Gravity.

“I… don’t really use them that much,” said Spider-Woman. “Still not really comfortable with them. Plus, it’s just… weird, y’know?”

“I think it’s kind of cool, actually,” he said.

“Really?”

Gravity nodded in response and Spider-Woman smiled at him.

“Y’know, even though Joystick and Ricochet give you a lot of shit, I think you’ve been doing a pretty good job,” said Gravity.

“Thanks!” she said. “I mean, Joystick, who is she to talk? She’s an ex-con! And then Ricochet’s just some lame Spider-Man wannabe. Doesn’t even have a cool costume or webs. All he can do is jump around a lot.”

“Yeah, he’s pretty lame,” said Gravity. “I’m Greg, by the way.”

“…are we revealing our secret identities now?” asked Spider-Woman.

“Well, you don’t have to, I just thought it’d be nice to actually know who some of my teammates are,” said Gravity.

He pulled off his goggles and mask. Beneath it he had short, brown hair and blue eyes. Spider-Woman was a bit taken aback by this sudden trust he showed in her. She also couldn’t help noticing that he was very attractive. She hesitated for a moment, and then pulled her mask off, revealing her own brown eyes.

“Mattie,” she said.

“What do you say, Mattie? Wanna get off these rooftops and go get a cup of coffee?”

“I’ve got a better idea,” she said with a slight grin. “How about first one to the Statue of Liberty buys?”

“C’mon Mattie, I can fly and you’ve just got those web—”

Before Greg could finish his sentence, Mattie leapt off the building. She fell a bit and pulled her mask back on while in freefall, and then shot out a psionic web. When she released it, she glided through the air, putting distance between her and her teammate. Greg smiled to himself and pulled his own mask back on.

“Alright, babe—it’s on.”

Central City, California

A young woman dressed in a skintight, dark emerald bodysuit inspected the home of Aaron Stack. It was empty, but she knew someone had been here. Her hair was a lighter green than her outfit, which left only her hair and eyes exposed. Her midriff and right arm were left bare, whereas her left arm was encased in a gauntlet of some sort. Her name was Carmilla Black, a new recruit to SHIELD.

“Dugan, you read me?”

{{ Loud and clear, sweetheart. What’ve you got for me, Scorpion? }}

“No sign of X-51, but it looks like there was a struggle outside,” she said. “We’re too late, the Iron Trinity got to him before we could.”

{{ Beautiful. }}

“What’s our next move?” she asked.

{{ Get back to the Helicarrier, we’ve gotta move on to New York. I think I might know who their next target will be. }}

“Who’s that?” asked the Scorpion.

{{ You hear about these guys callin’ themselves the New Warriors? Seems they’ve got a member who might be useful to the Trinity. }}

NEXT: It’s the Iron Trinity versus Machine Teen! What do they want with Adam and the Machine Man and how is it connected to SHIELD?