Chapter 4: The Art of the Cave Scam
"Let me tell you, there's nothing quite like being held captive by terrorists to really make you appreciate the little things. Like, say, a non-exploding toilet. Or a consistent source of potable water that doesn't taste faintly of regret and despair. But hey, every cloud has a silver lining, right? In this case, the silver lining is that I get to watch Tony Stark invent a super suit out of literal garbage. It's like 'MacGyver' meets 'Project Runway,' but with more explosions and fewer fashion critics. Though, if I'm honest, the whole Mark I aesthetic isn't exactly Paris Fashion Week."
Days blurred into a monotonous cycle of heat, dust, grim faces, and the incessant clanging of metal from Tony's corner of the cave. Alex, now unbound, used his newfound 'freedom' to subtly integrate himself into the periphery of the cave's operations. His "Scavenger's Ingenuity" skill, acquired from his desperate struggle with the ropes and the wire, turned out to be surprisingly useful. It wasn't about building complex machines, but about seeing the potential in discarded junk, finding alternate uses for things, and generally making something out of nothing. Think extreme cave-based dumpster diving.
He started by "finding" small, innocuous items that the guards had overlooked or discarded – a broken flashlight, a few spare nuts and bolts, a discarded length of sturdy cord. He'd "trade" these to other, less resourceful captives for their meager rations, or for information about the guards' routines. He was becoming the cave's unofficial, entirely self-appointed, black market dealer of useless trinkets.
"You want that rusty nail? That'll cost you half your daily water ration. What? It's a vintage rusty nail, from the pre-explosion era! Extremely rare. Collectible, even. Look, I'm just trying to make an honest living here. And by 'honest,' I mean 'not getting shot in the face while also acquiring enough spare parts to build a really sad, tiny trebuchet.'"
His "Basic Engineering Intuition (Partial)" was a faint whisper in the back of his mind, not enough to design anything, but enough to offer seemingly insightful, offhand comments to Tony, or, more importantly, to subtly mess with the Ten Rings' own shoddy equipment.
One afternoon, he spotted Raza trying to fix a sputtering generator that powered the cave's lights. The thing was coughing like an asthmatic donkey. Alex, feigning ignorance, wandered over.
"Having some trouble there, chief?" he asked, trying to sound helpful, not sarcastic. It was a struggle.
Raza grunted, wiping grease from his brow. "Broken. Always broken."
"Huh," Alex mused, tilting his head. "Looks like it's sputtering. You know, sometimes, with these older models, the fuel line can get a little… clogged. Or maybe the carburetor's just feeling a bit… emotionally unfulfilled. Have you tried telling it how much you appreciate its hard work?"
Raza stared at him, utterly bewildered. "What… are you talking about?"
"Oh, you know, positive reinforcement for machinery. It's all the rage in… uh… Western engineering circles. Or, you could just tap it here." Alex pointed vaguely at a random section of the generator, knowing full well it wouldn't do anything. "Sometimes, it just needs a little percussive maintenance. Like a reset button for its tiny mechanical soul."
Raza, clearly at his wit's end, and probably thinking Alex was just a harmless lunatic, actually tapped the generator where Alex pointed. Nothing happened. He frowned, then, out of sheer desperation, gave the generator a frustrated kick. Surprisingly, the generator coughed, sputtered, and then, with a groan, roared back to life, its lights flickering brighter.
Alex tried to suppress a triumphant smirk. He hadn't actually fixed it. He'd just subtly nudged Raza towards a brute-force solution that, by sheer dumb luck, worked. But in Raza's mind, the crazy captive had offered some bizarre, half-baked advice that somehow, miraculously, worked.
[Mischief Points Earned: 35 (Raza - Confused & Grudgingly Impressed)]
[Hidden Achievement Unlocked: "The Incompetence Whisperer (Tier 1)"]
[Reward Acquired: F-Rank Skill - "Basic Mechanical Acumen"]
"Boom! Another skill! 'Basic Mechanical Acumen.' So now I can tell a wrench from a screwdriver, and I know how to make a grown man question his life choices by offering nonsensical advice. My resume is really starting to fill out! Look out, MIT, Alex Kane is coming for your engineering department, armed with sarcasm and a vague understanding of how things sort of work."
The guards, particularly Raza, started to view Alex with a strange mix of annoyance and superstitious dread. He was the weird captive who sometimes said things that didn't make sense but occasionally led to unexpected, though usually minor, positive outcomes. He was the one who could find that one missing screw, or tell them where a piece of equipment might be misplaced, always with a cryptic, half-sarcastic comment. He wasn't a threat, he was just... there, a constant, low-level irritant.
Meanwhile, Alex quietly observed Tony and Yinsen's progress on the arc reactor and the Mark I suit. He would offer a quiet, almost throwaway line, feigning a sudden, unbidden thought, a "didn't they mention something about..." that gently nudged them towards a solution he knew they'd eventually reach. He wasn't giving away spoilers, he was just... accelerating the inevitable.
One evening, while the guards were less attentive, he sidled up to Tony's workbench. Tony, engrossed, barely looked up.
"You know," Alex murmured, picking up a discarded spring, "I always wondered why they used so many… unnecessary components in the first version. Like, all that extra wiring? Seems a bit much for a power core, doesn't it? Almost like they were trying to make it less efficient."
Tony paused, his brow furrowed. He looked at the spring, then back at Alex, a flicker of something in his eyes. "Less efficient, huh? Trying to make it less efficient… that's an interesting thought." He went back to his work, but Alex saw him re-examining some of the schematics, a new intensity in his gaze. He hadn't given Tony the answer, but he'd given him a slightly different perspective, a seed of doubt about the standard approach.
"Don't thank me, Tony. Just remember this when you're flying around in your fancy metal suit, getting all the glory. Somewhere out there, a sarcastic genius-adjacent type was the one who pointed out that maybe your original design had too many doodads. You're welcome, future Iron Man. You're very, very welcome."