By 3:00 AM, the rain had settled into a heavy, cold fog that blanketed the docks, swallowing the steel skeletons of the shipping cranes in gray dampness.
Inside the Pier 54 basement, the temperature had jumped ten degrees.
The main glass reactor groaned under thirty pounds of internal pressure. Inside, the pale yellow mixture had boiled down into a thick, syrup-like liquid—an oily, dark emerald green substance that clung to the glass like liquid resin.
Jack stood over the collection array, his rubber gloves covered in condensation.
He held an iron wrench in his right hand, tapping the brass pressure release valve twice.
Tink. Tink.
A thin, high-pitched hiss escaped the seal, carrying a faint whiff of sweet, sickly almond paste. Jack turned his head away instantly, relying on his mask's intake valves to filter the bleed.
With steady precision, he adjusted the feed line, guiding the liquid down into four custom-reinforced titanium cylinders. Each cylinder clicked into place under the automated seal with a heavy, mechanical thud.
[Synchronization Rate: 6.2%]
The blue text flickered faintly across his peripheral vision for a split second before vanishing.
Jack didn't pause. He didn't smile. He just felt the slight, sharp shift behind his temples—a sudden clarity in spatial awareness, a subtle twitch in his hand movements that made picking up small iron bolts feel as effortless as breathing.
He reached for the final seal on the fourth cylinder, turning the lever until the indicator needle snapped to green.
Mark III was sealed. Four compact, pressurized aerosol charges. Small enough to fit into a trench coat pocket, volatile enough to wipe out an entire floor of an office building.
Click.
The faint sound came from the floorboards directly above his head.
Jack froze. His hand stayed clamped on the titanium cylinder.
It wasn't the sound of settling timber. It was the distinct, heavy crunch of a steel-toed combat boot stepping over wet, rotting plywood near the loading bay door upstairs.
Then came a second set of footsteps. Quiet. Spread out.
Three men. No... four.
They weren't moving like police officers. Cops were noisy; they shouted clear-outs and kicked doors. These men moved in a spread-out tactical wedge, keeping their weight on their heels to muffle the floorboards.
Jack slowly reached down with his free hand, unholstering the customized snub-nosed revolver from his hip. He didn't rack the cylinder. He just held it low by his thigh, his eyes tracking the dust falling from the ceiling joists above.
Upstairs in the darkened warehouse, five men moved through the fog slipping in through the cracked loading doors.
They didn't wear suits like Fisk's corporate goons. They wore dark waterproof jackets, heavy combat pants, and green cloth patches stitched onto their sleeves—the mark of the Kitchen Irish.
The man leading the stack was Finn Cooley's eldest nephew, a broad-shouldered brute named Liam with a scarred neck and a sawed-off 12-gauge shotgun held low across his chest.
"Keep it tight," Liam rasped under his breath, his heavy Irish accent thick despite his effort to whisper. "Fisk's suit-and-tie said the bastard's using a lab down here. Shoot on sight. Don't let him talk, don't let him throw shit."
Behind him, a younger shooter named Tommy raised a modified submachine gun, his eyes scanning the rusted machinery scattered around the floor.
"Place smells like a chemical dump, Liam," Tommy muttered, wiping rain off his cheek. "You sure he's still down there?"
"Vance's office was empty. The van parked outside has Pier 19 license plates," Liam said, pointing his shotgun toward a heavy steel trapdoor set flat into the concrete floor near the back wall. "He's down there. Get the breaching charge."
Tommy pulled a flat block of plastic explosive from his tactical pouch, stepping toward the trapdoor.
Before his boot could touch the iron handle, a low, metallic thunk echoed from underneath the steel plate.
The trapdoor didn't burst open.
Instead, a small, circular iron pipe—no thicker than a broom handle—punched up through a rust hole in the corner of the door, sticking six inches out into the damp air of the warehouse.
Liam's eyes widened. "Back up—"
PFT.
A small, high-pressure burst of thick green mist shot out of the pipe like a flare, expanding instantly into a three-foot cloud that caught Tommy dead in the face.
Tommy didn't scream. He choked, dropping his submachine gun as his hands clawed at his throat.
"Tommy!" Liam lunged forward, grabbing the kid's tactical vest to pull him back.
The green mist hit Liam's bare wrists and neck.
It didn't burn like acid. It felt ice-cold—a strange, numbing sensation that rushed straight up his spinal cord and slammed into the base of his brain.
Tommy stumbled back, his boots slipping on the wet floorboards. His face twisted. His eyes went wide, blood vessels bursting in the white of his left eye.
"L-Liam..." Tommy wheezed, his jaw twitching violently. "...he... hehe..."
"Shut up! Get back!" Liam yelled, but his own chest felt suddenly light, his diaphragm locking up in a terrifying, involuntary spasm.
"HA... HAHAHA!" Tommy collapsed onto his knees, his forehead slamming against the concrete as his shoulders shook in wild, uncontrollable convulsions.
The other three Irish shooters scrambled backward, raising their rifles toward the trapdoor in blind panic. "What the hell is that?! What did he do to him?!"
CLANG.
The heavy steel trapdoor was thrown open from below.
A single flashbang grenade flew out of the dark opening, bouncing twice across the concrete floor before stopping right between the feet of the two rear shooters.
BANG-FLASH!
A blinding white light shattered the darkness, accompanied by a deafening roar that blew out the ear drums of the men nearby.
Before the smoke could clear, Jack stepped up out of the trapdoor.
He wore his black trench coat, his face covered by the dark respirator mask, his eyes calm behind the clear visor. In his left hand, he held one of his newly sealed Mark III canisters. In his right, the revolver.
He didn't fire a wild barrage. He didn't scream a catchphrase.
BANG.
The bullet caught the disoriented shooter on the left right through the chest, dropping him instantly into a heap of wet clothes.
BANG.
The second shot hit the other stunned shooter in the knee, folding him backward before a third shot ended his thrashing on the floor.
In less than four seconds, the five-man strike team was broken. Two were dead, two were on the floor laughing themselves into asphyxiation, and Liam was crawling backward toward the open loading bay, clutching his throat while fighting the hysterical laughter bubbling up his own windpipe.
Jack walked over to Liam, his heavy boots making slow, deliberate thuds against the concrete.
Liam slammed his back against the tire of a parked forklift, his face bright red, sweat pouring down his forehead as he tried desperately to keep his lips sealed shut.
"Pfft... cough... you... you bloody... HA!" Liam choked out, tears streaming down his face.
Jack stopped two feet away. He leaned down, his shadow falling over the trembling Irishman.
He reached into his pocket, pulled out a small, laminated business card he had printed earlier, and tapped it against Liam's soaked jacket pocket.
"Tell Finn Cooley that Hell's Kitchen has a new landlord," Jack said, his voice flat, low, and completely unbothered through the respirator speaker. "And tell Wilson Fisk... I'm coming for his payroll next."
Jack turned his back on the dying man, grabbed his duffel bag packed with the four Mark III canisters, and walked calmly out into the foggy rain, vanishing down the alley before the sound of sirens could even reach the docks.
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