A Man on the Brink of Death

Tony jolted and turned his head to look to the other side.

What he saw nearly froze the blood in his veins.

On a crude wooden crate beside his cot sat a huge, heavy car battery. What terrified him even more was that two crude wires extending from its positive and negative terminals were connected directly to his chest!

Trembling, he lowered his head to look at his chest. Where his bare skin should have been, thick bandages now covered him, and embedded in the center of the bandages, inside his chest, was a round object.

The instant he tore away the bandages with shaking hands and saw the metal device in his chest, boundless panic swallowed Tony Stark.

It felt like waking up from a coma only to be told, "You're awake. The operation was a success. You're now an adorable girl/boy." It filled him with an overwhelming sense of losing control and an ultimate terror of the unknown alteration.

His mouth hung open, but no sound came out. He could only stare wide-eyed and gasp for air.

After his emotions gradually settled and he had a brief exchange with the thin, bespectacled man sharing the cave with him, Tony learned that the man had seen him at a Bern Technology Conference. He was also the one who had made the electromagnet device in Tony's chest.

Its purpose was to attract the shrapnel fragments that could not yet be removed from Tony's body, preventing them from traveling through his bloodstream into his heart and killing him.

Watching from the screen, Lin Hai knew something big was coming once he saw that Tony had fully regained consciousness and could communicate with Yinsen.

Sure enough, not long afterward, several armed militants opened the metal door sealing off the cave Tony and