Super-embassy
What do you think of when you think of a diplomatic embassy? A musty old building, right? With its only security being a bunch of big dudes in sunglasses. There has to be a better way.
Delmar Insurance is proud to present the super-embassy, the latest in anti-terrorist security developed with cutting edge 20th Century technology. From an impregnable nerve centre, human operators monitor every square inch of the grounds via closed circuit television. At the first sign of danger, the super-embassy's computer system seals every door with a six-inch thick titanium steel bulkhead and fills the corridors with a tranquilising gas. Within four seconds, the super-embassy's invaders will be immobilised, and its precious visiting bureaucrats will be safely secured inside.
Preorders open on October 31, 1984.
Fiction
For years, Delmar's Byron J. Benjamin had had his people developing the super-embassy as the ultimate solution for the prevention of terrorist attacks on visiting diplomats. He considered the project a win/win situation for detente and company profits.
One morning in October, Benjamin called an emergency meeting to announce to his top staff that the super-embassy would be put on the market on Halloween with an inaugural costume party and a guest list full of foreign dignitaries. As the meeting drew to a close, he collared Aaron Stack and asked him to personally ensure that nothing went wrong with the grand opening – subtextually recruiting Machine Man for the task. Which was fortunate, as the night before, the merciless mercenary Jack O'Lantern had caught wind of the super-embassy project, and planned to use its own defence mechanisms to hold the visiting ambassadors hostage so as to ransom them back to their respective countries of origin.
On Halloween, Aaron was given a tour of the super-embassy by one of its head staff members. Aaron was amazed that a singular computer system could control everything on site, but concerned by the large bulkhead doors that automatically seal at the first sign of danger, telling his guide that such a safeguard would trap invaders and diplomats alike. As he left, he spotted a notorious gangster named Geoff Peckman happily snapping pictures of the embassy. After changing into Machine Man in the upper reaches of a secluded tree, he tailed Peckman's car to Jack O'Lantern's hideout, where Jack examined the photos for reconnaissance purposes. After accidentally making his presence known, Machine Man was incapacitated for long enough for Jack and his men to escape.
With no time to get his damaged humanised face repaired or to pick up a costume, Aaron bribed a pair of young trick-or-treaters for a rubber superhero mask. He entered the super-embassy and met up with his Delmar colleagues Maggie Jones, Pamela Quinn, Eddie Harris, and Brock Jones, though he struggled as always to loosen up around them.
Jack O'Lanterns's plan to infiltrate the impregnable embassy was to simply walk in, using genuine invitations purchased from a "banana republic" unable to send their own ambassadors. At his request, he and his costumed freebooters were given a tour of the embassy as though they were prospective buyers. When Aaron spotted Jack through the crowd, he left to pursue him, snubbing Pamela's offer to dance.
Jack and his men used knockout gas in the security to take control of the super-embassy, and they immediately triggered its defence measures, trapping its invited guests within thick bulkhead doors and giving him 724 valuable hostages. Trapped in a partitioned corridor, Machine Man used his finger sensors to communicate with the embassy's computer, attempting to cause it to cease all functions. Peckman detected the disturbance on one of the security centre's monitors, and Jack and his men went to investigate. They attacked Machine Man; the henchmen proved easy to overcome, but Jack tried to give him the slip, turning their encounter into a chase.
After he'd burned through a wall into a ballroom, Jack threatened to toss a grenade into the crowd to get Machine Man to stand down. Machine Man took his only option and generated a highly-charged magnetic field around Jack, containing the explosion of his concussion bomb. Jack was knocked unconscious, unharmed thanks to his suit. Machine Man reasoned that his freebooters will surrender without their leader, and left before any awkward questions. The esteemed party guests watched him leave in stony silence, Aaron all too aware of the rejection he felt when none of them attempted to show him gratitude for saving them.
Shortly afterwards, Aaron underwent a nine hour surgical procedure courtesy of his mechanic friend Gears Garvin. While he was out, Benjamin phoned Peter Spaulding to say that Jack O'Lantern's capture had made international headlines, and that the super-embassy would go back to the drawing board. Jolted by Jack O'Lantern!
