From Tony's conversation with old Jarvis, President Maya pieced together his plan. The man was just a classic engineering nerd, consumed by obsessive curiosity over a piece of technology he found fascinating.
The problem was, President Maya knew perfectly well what her own fantasy-edition ODM gear actually was. Compared to Tony's DIY prototype, hers was like comparing bamboo scrolls to an iPhone Plus.
As for the gyroscopic stabilizer Tony mentioned, President Maya understood the concept—it was the critical component that kept a moving object balanced. Satellites orbiting Earth, for instance, relied on gyroscopes to ensure their cameras stayed pointed at the surface without drifting.
But a gyroscope could also be a concept rather than a physical device. Tony's future Iron Man armor, for example, would use a sophisticated computational algorithm paired with micro-vector thrusters to serve as its stabilization system. Right now, Tony's green hat was already performing a rudimentary version of that same function.
Planes had gyroscopes too. So did ships. These systems ensured stable, balanced movement during flight or navigation.
But President Maya had none of that. Her ability to perform fluid aerial maneuvers relied entirely on mental calculation, physical coordination, and her perception ability. No mechanical assist whatsoever.
It was like fighter jet pilots—not everyone qualified. You needed exceptional spatial awareness.
President Maya was essentially pulling off sci-fi stunts through purely supernatural means. Tony trying to learn from her was completely hopeless.
Since she now understood everything and had no intention of revealing her secrets to Tony, Her Excellency decided to quietly slip away.
Her Shadow Stealth could fool ordinary cameras and even spy satellites, but infrared cameras were a different story. The supercomputers of the 1990s weren't necessarily weaker than a standard 2018 PC. If infrared and visible-light feeds were cross-referenced and the supercomputer happened to catch the discrepancy, Jarvis would almost certainly spot the anomaly.
But just as President Maya was about to leave, a thought stopped her cold. What if Tony didn't find Spider-Man tonight and came back tomorrow? And the day after? And the day after that? She wasn't about to retire the Spider-Man persona—what if she went out for a swing sometime and this idiot showed up demanding answers?
"Sorry, Shitty Stark!" President Maya murmured.
Right as Tony was savoring the crowd's adulation, the rush of velocity, and the thrill of those vertiginous dips and climbs, he failed to notice that on the ground below, several broadcast vans' satellite dishes were slowly rotating—all converging on the same patch of empty air.
"Ha ha, this is incredible! Jarvis, you've got to try this sometime. Seriously—it's better than drag racing!"
Tony crowed with delight as he swooped over the crowd once more.
But at the lowest point of his arc, Tony was horrified to discover that while his cable-tipped projectile had already fired at an upward angle, the waist-mounted vector thrusters hadn't adjusted to match. They were still generating horizontal thrust.
"Holy shit—Jarvis, what's happening?!" Tony screamed.
"Kzzzt... Sir, kzzzt... inter—kzzzt—interference, kzzzt... careful, kzzzt... signal jammed..."
Watching the flood of signal noise on his monitors, Jarvis spun in frantic circles.
"Something's wrong—oh! Oh God, Spider-Man's going to fall!" A physics-savvy engineering type in the crowd was the first to figure it out.
"Mother fu—" Tony had barely managed to manually kill the waist thrusters before—without time to finish a single expletive—he plummeted into the crowd with a meaty SPLAT.
Every high school student had solved this exact problem: An object at height h is given a horizontal initial velocity v. Find the landing point.
Well, President Maya could tell you: Tony's altitude was about 13 feet (4 meters), his horizontal velocity after killing the thrusters was roughly 55 mph (25 meters per second), and his landing point was the slow-reacting fat guy directly ahead.
SPLAT—CRASH.
"AAAGH! My leg—my shin is broken! Jarvis, help me! It's BROKEN—my shin snapped! Oh God, it hurts, ow ow ow..."
Well, if Tony was screaming this loudly, his body was probably fine overall. Although... ahem... the fat guy pinned underneath him appeared to be rolling his eyes back.
Jarvis couldn't hear a thing by this point. He'd already dispatched a rescue team, racing toward the scene at top speed.
Because Tony's green hat had been knocked clean off his head in the fall.
"BIG NEWS! BIG NEWS! Spider-Man finally got what was coming to him—he lost control and fell right out of the sky! Sweet justice! That jerk flew over my head thirteen times tonight—THIRTEEN! Serves him right! Hope he broke something!" Some random New Yorker hollered with zero sympathy, undisguised glee in his voice.
"Go, go, go! Camera crew, follow me! Good evening everyone, this is Anna from ABC! As you all just witnessed, Spider-Man got overconfident and took a nasty tumble. What a shame that the height was so low—oh no, wait! I mean the low height is good! Yes, very good! Spider-Man is definitely going to be fine. At most he'll, um, need an amputation—NO! At most a broken leg! We're heading over now to interview—ahem—to check on Spider-Man! Yes, to comfort him!"
While narrating breathlessly into her mic, Anna kicked off her high heels and sprinted toward the leg-clutching, wailing Tony.
She drove an elbow into the midsection of a middle-aged white man blocking her path. As he doubled over, she planted a bare foot squarely on his back and vaulted over him. BONK—her oversized interview microphone clocked another bystander, a woman, on the way through.
Finally, Anna closed to within six feet (about 2 meters) of Tony. Her camera crew, huffing and puffing, squeezed through the mob right behind her.
"Quick—get the broken leg! Close-up on the break! You moron, not from that angle! You need to capture the fold, the bend—that's what makes it visceral! What? Blood would look bad? Right, right—the blood's hidden under the fabric. Damn red suit pants, totally kills the impact. Hey Sam, think you could pull his pants down? Jail time? So what—this is a HUGE story... hmm, wait, maybe instead we could..."
Anna circled the howling Tony, talking a mile a minute, until something clicked behind her eyes.
She shot a covert signal to her cameraman. The man instantly dropped into a deep squat—an impressively athletic move—lowering his lens to point directly at Tony's masked face. Meanwhile, her assistant Sam raised his still camera, popped the flash, and dialed in the focus.
Anna gave an imperceptible nod, then shrieked at the top of her lungs: "OH NO! Spider-Man, are you okay?! What?! You can't breathe—you're going into shock?! SPIDER-MAN IS GOING INTO SHOCK! We have to—"
While Tony stared up at her in utter bewilderment, Anna seized the top of his mask and—heedless of whether she was grabbing hair underneath—yanked with everything she had.