Synopsis
Riri Williams is at home in Chicago in her garage workshop. She's not at MIT because she's trying to help her friend Daija Hamilton who's got mixed up with some bad people. Currently another friend Xavier King is helping her clean up the mess made by her fight last issue with Midnight's Fire before her mother sees it. She's told her mom to keep out because she's testing a new motion-sensor.
She's also planning to track Daija's movements. Xavier points out that's invasion of privacy. But Riri already tried *asking* Daija what's going on. Xavier is worried about Riri and thinks she should ask for help, but she doesn't like that idea. Riri's NATALIE AI informs her that motion-sensors have detected Daija leaving her house. So Riri is *already* tracking her friend. And she points out before she leaves as Ironheart that what she told her mom was technically true - she *is* testing motion sensors.
Ironheart in flight engages her new stealth mode as she follows Daija's bus journey to a boarded-up building. She tracks her inside with thermal imaging to a meeting with someone. Riri activates a bug she hid in 1 of Daija's shoes (#3) and hears a voice she knows from somewhere, but it's not Midnight's Fire. He reminds Daija that they let her go so Ironheart would stop investigating (#3 again) their child gang. But Daija wants the whole thing to stop, and the man threatens to kill her ...
... so Ironheart smashes in through the roof, where she finds a child sweatshop working on presumably stolen gadgets. And Daija holding a gun on Councilman Thomas Birch, and his 2 minders are pointing *their* guns at Daija. In previous issues we learned that Daija interned for would-be governor Birch. And that his rival dropped out of the race because someone leaked personal info about him. Now she says that he's getting the kids to steal phones, and then he's selling data from those phones or just using it to get rid of rivals. Birch gloats that it's part of something much bigger.
Riri talks Daija into lowering her gun. But then Birch grabs it and uses the girl as a hostage to make Ironheart back down. Riri pretends to give in but then squirts the villain with some gloop which she describes as liquid iron, and then uses a magnetising pulse to send him crashing into a load of metal objects which engulf him. (She can't decide what to call this new weapon.)
However now Midnight's Fire shows up again - and they fight again. Riri is more concerned in blowing an escape hole for Daija and the kids, so MF is initially able to best her. (Birch and his goons seem to disappear too.) But then she fights back, and when they wind up in a midair clinch she electrozaps him in the back double-handed - and he falls to the floor unconscious.
Ironheart ties Midnight's Fire up and locks him in a handy vault. But then the police arrive to find her alone with a load of stolen merchandise. She tries to prove her evidence by showing them the villain in the vault - but MF has done 1 of his vanishing acts. Riri finally convinces the cops by showing them recordings of the incident. (But presumably without Councilman Birch because he's never mentioned!)
Ironheart joins Daija outside where she's phoning up kids' parents to come collect them. But it takes a long while before some of them can be picked up, and then there are still 6 left. Riri calls on Xavier to help, and he brings a car which can take 4 of them home. After that she says goodbye to Daija, and Ironheart carries the last 2 home herself.
Several days later Riri and her mother see on the News that Birch has been arrested on the basis of anonymously-supplied photos. As Ronnie Williams is about to leave for work Riri tells her she's going into the lab. Mom is surprised that her daughter is going to MIT on a Saturday, but Riri says she's got a new lab, paid for with money from a patent on an audio recorder/GPS tracker that fits on a shoe. And money from people who were grateful to learn about their stolen data. And it's Riri who leaves her mother behind fuming about her ditching MIT.
At the new lab we find 5 of the kids who are using it as a secret clubhouse. NATALIE keeps them amused while Riri works. But at 5:30 she leaves to join her mom at a meeting. Ronnie introduces her to the group, and Riri starts to open up about having lost her stepfather and her best friend to a drive-by shooting.