Justin Hammer liked to imagine himself as the man on the cusp of greatness. All his life he'd been told he was "almost." Almost as brilliant as Stark. Almost as innovative as the giants of the arms industry. Almost someone who mattered.
"Almost" wasn't good enough.
Now, staring at the headlines splashed across his desk, Hammer could taste the bile in the back of his throat.
"Brendon Technologies Unveils Unbreakable Glass."
"Visionary Inventor Reshaping Consumer Markets."
"The Next Stark?"
The last one nearly had him snapping the tablet in half.
"Visionary," he scoffed aloud. "The guy's a fraud."
His aide, a twitchy man with more fear than spine, cleared his throat. "Sir, with respect, Brendon's patents are… they're clean. Independent verification, government-certified."
Hammer glared. "And that's the problem, isn't it? No one goes from nobodies to toppling industry pillars in a year. Not without help."
He leaned back in his leather chair, gazing through the floor-to-ceiling windows of his skyscraper office. The city spread below him, a sprawl of glittering lights and untapped power. He drummed his fingers against the armrest.
"People think Stark was a genius. What Stark really had was luck. He inherited an empire, made a couple flashy toys, and got knighted by the press. Brendon? He doesn't even have a pedigree. Yet suddenly he's ahead of me in energy storage, material sciences, micro-mechanics? No. Someone's feeding him."
The aide shifted uncomfortably. "What do you want me to do, sir?"
Hammer smiled. The kind of smile that made people nervous.
"You call in our little friends. The ones still hungry. The ones who don't mind coloring outside the lines."
Within hours, files were moving. Names appeared. Ex-mercenaries. Suit engineers desperate for funding. Black market suppliers who owed Hammer favors.
He rose, poured himself a glass of scotch, and toasted his reflection in the window.
"Let's see how the great Brendon handles fire. Let's see how long Morpher lasts when the game isn't a street brawl but a war."