DISCLAIMER THE FIRST: "Has he lost his mind? - Can he write or is he blind? - Is it conceit or is it gall; That Marvel and Paramount owns it all? - Or if he's sued that will he fall? - Is he alive or is he dead? - Has he trademarked thoughts in his head? - We'll just leave this here: No money was made; So he's in the clear!"

PITHY STATEMENT RELATING TO THIS CHAPTER: "Get correct views of life and learn to see the world in its true light. It will enable you to live pleasantly, to do good, and, when summoned away, to leave without regret." Robert E. Lee – U.S. and Confederate General and superintendent of the US Military Academy – 1807-1870

LAST UPDATED ON: 03-22-2020

XxXxX

Story Notes: This fic will center mostly on the Marvel Cinematic Universe (MCU) with a lot of elements taken from the Ultimate Marvel comic line. Additionally, this 'IHCU' is concurrent with an AU version of Harry Potter. However, that part is going to be updated as viewed through the Marvel universe (cinematic and comic canon) as well as being moved up in time. I know I'm talking to a wall, but really, I put a LOT into the follow-on author's notes to help illustrate changes as well as cast of characters for those who don't have a comic reading history going back to 1978.

XxXxX

CHAPTER ONE – KARMIC IRONY

XxXxX

50 KILOMETERS WEST OF CAMP LIGHTNING, AFGANISTAN, JULY 04th, 2010 – MORNING

Riri Williams tried to concentrate on the laptop in front of her and thus ignore the antics of her boss. Once again, the Jericho missile had performed remarkably. And once again the famous Tony Stark was mugging for the cameras, making suggestive remarks to the female soldiers in range and generally being the total ass that Riri had come to despise. How could such a genius also be such an asshole?

As the dignitaries, airmen and soldiers milled around her, Riri let the numbers coming up on her screen flow over her. To anyone paying attention, they might think she was just randomly skimming the data considering how her eyes darted around seemingly at random. But they would be wrong.

Her parents called her a prodigy; her classmates usually just went with teacher's pet when they weren't calling her a freak behind her back. At least at her MIT, her current school, most appreciated her talents even as many tried (and failed) to match her brilliance. Some even muttered her talents were unnatural and that she wasn't brilliant but a mutant with some weird brain enhancing power.

She'd often wanted to ask Stark if he had gotten that when he was at MIT. Or if Richards got it or was it because she was a woman?

It didn't help that she had followed Tony Stark's path of being one of the youngest students to enter MIT. If it wasn't for the opportunity to intern with Stark Industries, Riri would have graduated a long time ago. Only now was her age comparable to that of the freshmen even if she was years ahead of them.

Of course she was always years ahead of most everyone which helped with the snide comments about her being a freak or a closet mutant.

When she was alone in her darken dorm room at night trying to get to sleep, those comments would bother Riri. She had enough strikes against her being black and a woman in the science community. That she also came in via a scholarship also brought nasty comments about affirmative action no matter that she'd been winning science awards since she was 6 years old. Yet even at MIT, there were always those who had to make excuses for her achievements.

That she was at MIT at all was a bit of a fluke given how she had been contacted by Professor Storm of the Baxter Building Project. The accident with Storm's own children derailed her first entry into the program and then the incident with the facility in Oregon had delayed it once again. So, she had opted for MIT until things got sorted out.

And that's when Anthony "I Make Enough Money to Avoid Sexual Harassment Suits" Stark entered her life. A chance meeting when her favorite professor introduced her while Stark was there for an alumni charity function. After that, her life had taken a bizarre turn that had taken her from all-nighters in the MIT labs to the dusty foothills looking up to the craggy mountains of eastern Afghanistan.

The number flow stopped and Riri saw everything was as it should. She quickly shut everything down, stowed the laptop in the ditty-bag the military had provided her and made her way over to where Stark was leaning against a HUMVEE and speaking on his phone. She could hear Obadiah Stane's tired voice; it was very early in New York.

Stark turned to her with a smirk, "Ah the Ririster herself. Are we fab?"

"Everything checks out, Mr. Stark. If anything, preliminary numbers indicate we've increased accuracy by 2.3% which I believe will increase lethality ratios to anywhere from 4% to 5%," Riri replied coolly.

Nothing had showed on her face as Riri had long practice at not wearing her emotions on her sleeve. The nickname was bad enough, but Stark had recently been using all sorts of Seventies slang around her. She knew it was because of her afro given how many times Stark had commented on it. It grated on her that once again, whether it was the color of her skin or something simple as her hairdo kept people from acknowledging that she was a genius who made things happen.

Indeed, she felt that the Jericho missile project would have been four years away from even a prototype if she hadn't joined the project. Of course, Stark, like Thomas Edison before him, got the credit and his face on all the magazines while Riri Williams languished in obscurity and being kidded over her 'fab' hair.

"Turn me around, Tony," came Obadiah's voice. Tony held up the phone towards Riri. "Miss Williams; don't let Tony here give you any crap, okay? While he may never have left the frat parties behind, I assure you that Stark Industries appreciates your exceptional work."

Stark's face morphed into one of fake pain, "You wound me Obi! My parties today are on quantum levels above my old frat parties. What was fab back in MIT in my day are totes lit today!"

It took all of Riri's control not to roll her eyes or worse, vomit on the Stark's shoes which probably cost more than that Stark Industries paid her in a month. For all his undeniable genius, Starks most annoying habit was using inappropriate slang when he wasn't dropping movie quotes. From things she'd picked up from his driver Happy and his assistant Pepper, this was a trait going back to his boyhood. Probably to annoy his dad Morgan and his grandfather Howard no doubt.

"Tony, try not to piss off any more of the delegation, will you? While we have plenty of bids, the shareholders don't like it if we miss out on the mainline bid. It doesn't play well with the media either," Obadiah said.

"Oh don't worry Obi; we gave them the Stars and Stripes forever today. I'm sure July Fourth will be Tony Stark Day here any day now," Stark said with a smirk before a lot of movement around him caught his eye.

"Well Obi, it looks like all the green teens are loading up, so I'll catch up with you later when you've gotten more sleep. Tell Pepper not to worry and once again remind Happy that Rhodey is taking very good care of me," Stark said after seeing most of the crowd moving toward the vehicles lined up for the convoy back to Camp Lightning and then on to Kabul. In fact, Colonel Rhodes was making his way over to them with an impatient look on his face.

Riri noted how Stark cut off his phone before Obadiah could respond or maybe give more instructions. While Stark was the owner of Stark Industries, Riri couldn't believe how much disrespect he gave Mr. Stane given how the man kept the company's day-to-day business going. While Stark's inventions made them billions, many of the people she was interning with said it was like trying to work with the genie from the Disney movie Aladdin. He'd blaze in and leave chaos in his wake that they had to deal with.

Colonel Rhodes stopped in front of Stark who was obviously checking his Facebook account. Rhodes frowned before he turned to look at Riri. The frown deepened which surprised didn't surprise Riri in the least. The colonel might as well be her dad and she had a bet with their driver, Airmen Manning, that he'd eventually break down and tell her to get a haircut. Manning had told her how bad the colonel had reacted when the young man had forgotten to take out some of his piercings.

Staring back at the colonel, Riri's eyes almost dared him to say something. She had already gotten on his bad side for categorically refusing to wear a hajib to cover her hair. She compounded this by refusing to wear a hat or helmet. If Stark didn't have to, she reasoned she didn't have to either. Besides the Colonel wasn't the one who would have to deal with what that would do to her hair. For a man who hung out with Partyman Stark, Rhodes was an uptight square as Stark himself often remarked behind the man's back. Riri wondered if Stark kept the Colonel as his military liaison as a subconscious check on himself in the way Pepper obviously did back in the States.

"Come on Tony; your vehicle's waiting," Rhodes said in a tired voice. To Riri, it was almost like he sensed a totally senseless fight coming on.

Her instincts were correct when Stark shook his head as he opened the door to the HUMVEE, "Oh I'll be going along in the Funvee here. Come on Ririster; your chariot awaits." With a grand gesture with one hand, Stark slapped her ass as she moved to comply.

Okay the annoying slang was the second worst habit Stark had.

XxXxX

LOCATION UNKNOWN, AFGANISTAN, DATE UNKNOWN, 2010 – EVENING

Riri dreamed. It had to be a dream because Sigourney Weaver was telling her that things looked bad and she needed to hold her hand. Riri did so as there was a pain in her chest the likes of which she'd never known. It kept building and building.

As she thrashed in pain, she noticed an old man in dusty leather jacket and a brown woolen scarf wound around his neck. He looked sad as he patted her hand. In a British accent he finally spoke, "I'm sorry my dear but this, if I may be forgiven for saying so, is going to hurt."

Before Riri could gasp out a question as to what was going to hurt, her chest burst open and what looked like a red and gold alien cyborg with eyes that shimmered with the glow of the ARC Reactor back in Pasadena. The alien opened its jaws but instead of a hiss it let out a terrible scream.

A scream Riri suddenly realized was her own as she jolted into consciousness.

Instantly she felt both her arms being grabbed. A gentle voice with an odd Asian lilt to lilt told her to be calm. Another voice, this one closer to the accents she had heard at the Jericho demo told her that he'd given her something for the pain, but she needed to not move.

A bright light shown down onto her so the faces of the two men who loomed over her were cast in darkness. What she could tell was she was on her back and there was an odd weight between her breasts. Looking down she saw that her shirt had a hole in it and some sort of device had been inserted directly into her sternum.

Before she could take a deep breath for another scream, Riri felt two hands cup her face as another face loomed directly over her, blocking out the light. It was Stark. A very dirty and tired looking Stark.

"It's okay Riri. It's okay; we've got you. Just try to stay calm. Can you do that Riri?" Stark said in a tone unlike any she had heard him used. It was almost paternal.

Taking gulping breaths, Riri got herself under control. As her vision cleared, she turned her head to find that she was lying on a basic frame cot in a room which looked like a cross between a mad scientist lab and pirate cave. High tech equipment was interspersed with gear which might as well been used in these parts when the British still ruled.

Worse was the smell.

Riri blinked the final haze out of her eyes and concentrated on the two men with Stark. The first was a short Asian man with white hair who wore a black blazer over a stained dressed shirt. The other man was also oddly dressed given the room. He also wore a stained white dress shirt with a tie covered by a brown wool vest. He was balding and had a Van Dyke beard streaked with grey much like Stark's. The eyes behind the round glasses he wore were kind yet at the same time oddly cold.

Riri turned her head to see that Stark was wearing the same clothes he had the day of the demo. Except now the expensive clothes were torn and ripped and Stark's face had bandages in two places.

"What happened? Where are we?" Riri blurted out. She tentatively reached out to touch the device on her chest. "What did you do to me?"

The kind man in the glasses made a tisking sound, "What we did, Miss Williams, was save your life. I've seen many people in my home village with wounds like the ones you had when you were brought here. We would call them the walking dead because shrapnel would eventually make its way into the blood stream and thence to the heart, killing them. You should be commended. You and Mister Stark have created a most ingenious killing machine. I'm sure you are very proud."

The Asian man frowned, "Fahim, that is not helping. The girl is in pain enough as it is."

The other man smirked slightly, "She's in enough pain as it is, you say? She does not know the meaning of the word. I've seen what pain she has wrought enough as it is. I thank Allah that both she and Stark finally witness what their labors have brought to the Afghan people."

Riri looked over to Stark who had a haunted look on his face. Even worse was he looked defeated. The young scientist had seen many sides of Tony Stark and even when faced with a project which was frankly going nowhere on hyperdrive, Stark never looked like he did now.

Stark sighed, "I am Shiva; destroyer of worlds."

The man Fahim chuckled, "A little late now for such thoughts, eh Mister Stark? One might say you both have been hoisted on the petard of your own making. Allah, it seems, is not without a sense of irony."

Stark snorted humorlessly, "Thanks Doctor Morpheus for that bit of wisdom."

However, the Asian man's face darkened in anger, "That's enough Doctor Fazli! Did you work so hard to save this young woman's life just so you can torment her? Do you believe yourself to be a tool of Allah to show her the wickedness of her ways? If so then you are no better than those Ten Ring animals who have imprisoned us! So, are you a doctor or a fanatic?"

To Riri, the Asian man might as well have slapped the other man. At first rage flitted over his face before he visibly calmed himself before his shoulders sagged. And he bowed his head. The man took off his glasses, rubbed his eyes before putting them back on and looking at Riri. "Professor Yinsen is right. I am a doctor and it would be the height of arrogance to see myself as some avenging tool of Allah. I am sorry Miss Riri. I saved your life because all life is precious and even though you helped bring in another terrible weapon into this world, it is not as if you personally fired the missiles into the villages of my homeland. Forgive me."

Riri nodded dumbly at the man before something clicked in her brain, "Yinsen? Professor Ho Yinsen? Famous cybernetic and robotics expert?"

Professor Yinsen clapped his hands as if in glee, "Ah it gladdens my heart that you know me. China has worked hard to keep my work secret."

Riri goggled at him, "You're a legend at MIT. Mister Stark here has a quote of yours framed in one of his labs!"

Yinsen laughed, "Yes well our first meeting was a bit…interesting but we later worked out our differences."

Stark harrumphed at this, "You mean we had some interesting discussions after I sobered up."

Yinsen smiled kindly, "I was not going to say it."

Riri tried to get up but quickly stopped as the pain laced through her chest all the way down to her toes. She noticed that the thing in her chest was connected by wires to a car battery of all things. "What happened to me?"

"You don't remember anything?" Stark asked.

Riri tried to think but shook her head, "Last thing I remember was you saying something about no gang signs."

"Ah that was right before the attack from Mister Stark has said. You are lucky to be alive given how lethal Stark-made weapons are. However, it seems the modifications your company made to the vehicles you were driving in kept the brunt of the explosion from killing you," Dr. Fazli said. "Unfortunately for you, the windows were not as hardened thus our need to operate on you."

Riri tried to roll over and found that while painful, was doable. From this position, she finally managed to sit up with help from Stark. She looked up into his haunted eyes, "Stark weapons? What does he mean?"

Stark sighed and rubbed his face before answering. "Well our convoy got hit and hit bad. Frankly I'm starting to understand why General Ross wanted to give us an Army escort. Those zoomies were likable enough but instead of trying to drive through the ambush, they all just jumped out and started fighting. They were cut down in minutes. I tried to run; I don't know why given how we were in the kill zone. In fact, a submunition dropped not 20 feet from me right next to a bunch of our guys. I blacked out when it detonated and I'm lucky there was a big rock between it and me. But before it went off, I saw the name, my name, printed on it as bold as brass."

"How is that possible? I thought Pepper's team rigidly controlled who gets access to such weapons? Did one of our buyers resell them?" Riri asked.

Stark shook his head, "Come on Riri, you know no one outside Stark Industries has any of our repulsor tech weapons and what almost killed me was definitely one of our Shrike anti-personnel bomblets. I'm not sure how these Ten Rings assholes got them let alone a Jericho but I'm going to find out."

"Assuming you live long enough to do so," Professor Yinsen quipped.

"Ten Rings?" Riri asked. "We had a briefing on them…can't remember…" She shook her head. It was obvious she was still rattled.

"Careful Miss Williams. I'm almost positive you still have a concussion like Mister Stark. With the limited facilities here, I can only do so much for the both of you," Dr. Fazli said.

Stark snorted, "You can't tell if we got concussions, yet you managed to pull a miracle off with Riri? Pull the other one, doctor."

Dr. Fazli sighed, "A temporary solution at best and one which may yet kill her if infection sets in."

Riri looked down at the wires leading to the car battery. Motioning to it, "So what's the deal with that?"

"Ah yes, well you may be very familiar with these," Dr. Fazli held up a sealed jar with some metallic looking shards in it and jiggled it. "Souvenirs?"

Riri gulped. She was indeed familiar with what jangled in the jar. Each submunition from one Jericho missile was packed filled with them. She noted these were bloody. "You took those out of me?"

Dr. Fazli nodded, "These were the easy ones. The ones which were mostly intact. But, as I'm sure you know, these are designed to fragment to increase their lethality. Ingenious how they go from being sharp and penetrating to being able to fragment into such small parts. Did you come up with that Miss Williams?"

Stark spoke up, "No, her work is more in ballistics and control. It was another team who created the Jericho Daggers. If anything, their mine because the rigidity to pliability is a function of the repulsor technology which is all on me."

Yinsen clapped his hands together, "Ah! I thought so. I've often theorized that it was how you could seemingly make hardened materials soft and pliable. I take it you have some sort of body armor in the works? One pliable enough to be worn under clothes but could become rigid armor in moments?"

Riri laughed ruefully, "He does, and I sure could have used some of that. Too bad it's got a while to go before it even gets to the prototype stage. I've helped them out with it."

Yinsen's eyebrows went up, "Ballistics and working with mimetic polyalloy? I'm impressed."

"Oh, the Ririster is quite the polymath prodigy," Stark said with the first hint of his normal swagger. Yet his next words shocked her, "I'm lucky to have her working with me. I was sure Professor Storm was going to put his foot down and try to steal her back to the Baxter Building Project. But I've had my eye on Miss Williams for a long time since even back to her pre-high school days. I wasn't going to let her get away."

Riri tried to keep from goggling at Stark. That was more praise from him she'd ever gotten. Most of the time his praise was in the form of challenges. Comments which at the time seemed to Riri like he was belittling her. Now she wondered if he was doing it to challenge her. It dawned on her that she and Tony Stark were alike in one way: tell them they couldn't do something and they both would work to prove their detractors wrong.

Dr. Fazli waved a hand at this, obviously uninterested in how Stark staffed his company, "Well then I'm sure she can appreciate the problem at hand."

He turned back to Riri and tapped the widget between her breasts, "You see I've managed to place an electro-magnet in place to try and keep these Jericho daggers from reaching your heart. It is obviously an imperfect fix and one I could have made more efficient if I could have centered the unit better but removing your breast wasn't an option. Besides Professor Yinsen showed me that using your sternum solved quite a few problems I did not know existed."

Yinsen frowned at this but it was Stark who spoke up, "Don't sell yourself short, Fahim. I've seen your work. Hell man, you were at the same symposium where I met Yinsen here! Plus, I've seen some of the prosthetic designs of yours in action."

A light went on in Riri's head. That's where she'd heard the doctor's name before! He was famous in certain circles relating to creating various replacements for lost limbs and organs. She remembered reading something about him disappearing a few months ago. For that matter, so had Yinsen. This brought her back to one of her original questions. "So, you guys mentioned the Ten Rings. I guess we're captives then? Are we going to be ransomed?"

Stark sighed, "I wish it were so even if Stark Industries doesn't pay ransoms. No, they want us to make weapons for the Ten Rings; weapons or other pieces of tech. Fahim here has been working on a lot of things given how a lot of Ten Rings men have been chopped up pretty good in the last decade of war."

"Are we going to do it? I mean make weapons?" Riri asked.

Stark looked down at his feet and didn't answer. Yinsen reach out and laid a hand over hers. "We have little choice. They have told us they have many inventive ways torture you if we do not comply."

Riri frowned, "Hey, don't be all chivalrous on my account."

Dr. Fazli laughed. A laugh laced with bitterness. "Oh, we are not being chivalrous. If it wasn't you, it would be one of us. We used to have a few other scientific types trapped here with us. No one of renown but good people. They all suffered for our reticence to play along with the Ten Rings' mad schemes. Actually, while I'm not surprised they are threatening us with your torture, I am surprised they picked you over me given how you are more capable of giving them what they want in the form of weapons."

Riri swallowed hard. She had thought she'd been picked being a woman, but it seemed the Ten Rings didn't care and were equal opportunity terrorists and did whatever it took to achieve their ends.

She looked at Stark who was still looking at his feet. "Mist…Tony, are you alright?" She'd never called him by his first name before but at the moment it felt appropriate.

Stark didn't look up, but he answered, "Fahim's right. It so easy to sit in a lab and create things and never really think about the effects they have. Oh, you and I bandy such terms like lethality and casualty ratings around with ease, but I'd never really looked at what that meant on the ground."

Stark looked up and stared deeply into Riri's eyes. "My dad always made such a big deal over how Grandpa Stark helped build the Bomb. So have I. But you know what? He saw a lot on the ground during the war. And he talked a lot with Captain America who saw first-hand some pretty nasty things. Grandpa used to say with contempt that war looks so clean from the air."

Stark looked away, "Till the other day, I hadn't thought much of it even though these last few years I've seen a lot of things I now realize I've actively ignoring or letting myself be willfully ignorant. You? You barely have been out of the lab; it's been mostly theoretical and sterile for you. Me? I've pushed away the photos, purposely missed briefings by going to parties instead. I didn't want to see their faces, Riri. Well while you've been out, I've had a lot of them staring at me."

"Or at least the fathers and mothers of those you've killed. Many of the fighters in the Ten Rings are not fanatics. They are men and women burning for revenge," Dr. Fazli said quietly. "I understand this rage. But as Professor Yinsen was good to remind me, I'm a doctor and there are enough people who need me to forgo any such thoughts."

Riri looked down at the module on her chest. Stark was right about her being locked away from things in her lab. But he was wrong in one sense. There had been plenty of people back at MIT who kept reminding her of the consequences of her work. The door of her dorm had once been defaced with the words "Merchant of Death Minion" carved into it. She'd even had a group of anti-war protestors douse her in red paint as she walked to the train station that would take her from class to the Stark labs where she worked.

Riri looked up and saw all three men were lost in their own thoughts, Stark most of all. Riri had to wonder how much of his party animal persona was a coping mechanism to deal with the fact his family had been responsible for some of the world's most deadly weapons. Stark himself always talked about working towards peace. He quoted Washington often about being prepared for war as being the most effectual means of peace.

Yet peace wasn't what many places in the world had, did it? Riri herself had coped with the science. Was she a workaholic because she was dedicated like she always had told herself or was it because having friends and being sociable would mean keeping in contact with the world where weapons she helped design existed?

Riri fingered the wire leading to her chest. Was this just happenstance? Or was Dr. Fazli correct and this was Fate bringing the karmic smack down on her?

XxXxX

A/N: Originally planned to be a one-shot through the end of the original Iron Man movie. But that didn't last long simply because while I'm very invested in my Harry Potter stories, I've been following Marvel and DC comics since the late 70's before losing interest in the Aughts. Of course this was just in time for the MCU to kick in. So, while (for now) this is an Ironheart story, it will be a vehicle to get through the MCU films. Also, I've gone back and changed the dates in this story. I have NO idea why I set in 2014. Also, I'm cognizant of the 2008 vs 2010 issue regarding Iron Man. I've decided to go with the 2010 version if only because most of the current wiki's use this time frame.

HYDRA vs. Thanos: Unlike Phase 1-3 of the MCU, the big bad is not going to be Thanos. It will be HYDRA. So while the first few films will be mostly the same, things go off the rails rapidly after the Avengers. See Chapter 7 author notes for a large break down of this. This will mean there will be changes to the whole Infinity Stone arc so some of them will be in different places or replaced entirely.

Riri Williams – The Original Character: For the purposes of this fic Riri Williams is 100% an OC as I haven't read any current comics beyond a few DC trade book compellations. Thus all I know of her characters is that she's taking over from Stark. Don't know how or why or anything about her. Beyond her physical description and her name, she's going to be 100% what I write her as.

Yinsen/Fazli: In the original Vietnam version of Iron Man, Tony is helped by a Chinese scientist. I always felt that what the two men did in the cave was impossible simply because of the amount of work needed. So I felt I'd "resurrect" the real Ho Yinsen as well as keep the version from the film. However, obviously I made him a bit curter so as to help create the needed tension. His name is taken from an actual Afghan actor seen in many films and television. I picked it because comics like alliteration (i.e. Peter Parker, Lois Lane etc.) so I thought the name fit that paradigm. Also, for those who don't know, Allah is Arabic for "the Lord" so keep that in mind when Fazli says something like '…some avenging tool of the Lord" given how an extremist Christian could say the exact same thing. I spent a year in Afghanistan working with a lot of great people there. I don't want people to think I'm bashing them by making them all sound like religious fanatics. If anything, most of the issues in Afghanistan are tribal based, not religious based.

Stark Quote: For those who never played Civilization IV, you might not recognize the quote Tony uses about being Shiva. Robert Oppenheimer said this after the first atomic test. He also had one of those "Oh crap; what did I just make?" moments. Indeed, most of the first atomic scientists did this. Ironically Oppenheimer's beliefs sort of mimics what Stark says in the film about a weapon you only use once because it's so horrible no one will stand against you. However, for both Oppenheimer and Stark, that horror proves too much. That and the knowledge that when you build a weapon there are always those who want to use it, no matter how horrible it is.

Bad Zoomies: While I was lucky to have two very hard-working USAF analysts working under me when I was the senior intelligence analyst for the 203rd Regional Corp Assistance Group at Camp Lightning back in 2006, I scoffed at the 2008 movie given the fact all the personnel shown were Air Force even though the bulk of troops in Afghanistan are Army. And as alluded to in this chapter, the LAST thing you do in a convoy ambush is stay and fight. Oh sure, if you're on foot, current Army doctrine is to immediately take the fight to the enemy. However, in a vehicular convoy, doctrine is to barrel through and get out of the kill zone. Stopping and jumping out is a good way to get yourself killed…just like all those zoomies did in the movie.

Hidden Joke: I really hope that most of you out there get the joke hidden in the dream sequence.