CHAPTER 15

Tony tumbled down the spiral staircase toward the spikes. He was dizzy almost immediately. But this wasn’t the first time Tony had almost fallen to his doom, and he quickly slapped at his spy watch, unleashing the grappling hook built within.

The grapple fired from the end of the muzzle, and the hook launched up into the distance. The rope went taut. It had latched on to something! Tony pushed a button on the tiny handle, and the thin rope began to retract, pulling him up, out of immediate danger, but toward Dr. Rowan.

Between him and Dr. Rowan, though, was a glass ceiling.

As Tony twisted his wrist in just the right way, his spy watch responded by reeling in the grappling hook and speeding Tony up toward the thin glass ceiling.

Too fast, Tony thought. Gotta think fast!

He quickly reached into his pocket and grabbed the first thing he found—a spare spark plug with a hard ceramic and metal housing. Just what he needed! A moment before his body would crash through the glass, he flung the spark plug above him, shattering the ceiling a split second before it would have sliced him to ribbons. Then he sailed through the gap and rolled to his feet.

Rowan was there with a series of computers stretched out in front of him. In his hand was a remote control.

“You . . . you can’t,” Rowan started to say.

Tony wasted no time and knocked the remote out of the villain’s grasp. It plummeted through the hole in the glass floor to the depths of the staircase below.

Tony whirled, ready for the final battle.