Chen Zheng was exhilarated. Despite years of inactivity, his body had responded when he needed it to and his equipment had functioned perfectly. Though now he could feel the beginning of all-too-familiar fatigue setting in, it was if he here in his twenties and just starting out again, rather than a man well into his fifties playing at superhero. Taking the private penthouse elevator at a luxury Hong Kong hotel, he would be off-camera and his equipment would be waiting, including a trusty medical kit. Chen stood under a scalding hot shower and manipulated any small rocks and slivers of metal that had worked into his skin, being rewarded with small flows of fresh blood that he found invigorating. A call down to his private kitchen and shortly Zheng was eating several steaks, quarts of soy milk and half a bottle of expensive scotch; he was sitting on the edge of his bed, considering calling up a masseuse when sleep overcame him.
Waking more than twelve hours later, Zheng felt as if his body was made of rocks and shattered glass stuffed into a wetsuit. Unclenching his fist, Zheng was rewarded with a series of snaps and pops that indicated he had not moved at all since falling asleep, a sure sign of complete exhaustion. He sent for strong coffee, congee and the massage he'd passed on the previous evening, though opting for the ancient man with his needles and callouses rather than the young lady with oils and soft hands. Later, sore but invigorated, Zheng made a call to the office, blustering all of his appointments off to another day as he dressed in a tracksuit and arranged a car to take him to one of the company's warehouses, deep in the industrial district. The warehouse was something of an open secret among the staff who knew Zheng well, it was a hidden workshop with vintage cars and motorcycles where he went to "tinker" from time to time. Whilst that was true to a degree, the warehouse held a deeper secret as well.
Once assured he was alone, Zheng started up an automatic program that would reliably produce the lights and sounds of work whilst he accessed the true workshop in the hidden sub-basement, The Masked Warrior's Ironworks. Despite being inactive for many years, Zheng still came by this place and tinkered from time to time, mostly on projects he could never get to work properly in his heyday; a powered exoskeleton that once broke his leg, a gas gun and countless other weapons that never did what they were supposed to. Firing up the computer, Zheng cleared space on the main workbench as his proprietary AI searched the dark web for what he needed, a back door into wherever the Science Patrol's files where archived. Zheng had long ago learned that hacking was near useless when just about any information was available somewhere for a price, which he could typically easily afford.
Soon Zheng was having the computer analyse the schematics, performance records and diagnostics of Super Inframan, comparing them with currently available technology and the materials that were at hand in the workshop. By pulling some supplies from across the company and "losing" the paperwork, Zheng should be able to construct a new armoured suit and suite of weapons within a couple of days, a week at the most. With his new gear, The Masked Warrior would return like righteous lightning from heaven, to destroy Inframan and end the pathetic rebellion in Hong Kong once and for all.
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