The next four hours were pure, unfiltered labor—if your idea of labor was turning a 1950s dilapidated arcade into a psychotic death trap.
Outside, the ocean storm raged, rain slamming against the rotting wooden walls of the Funhouse like thrown gravel. Inside, the place smelled like fresh spray paint, hot soldering metal, and burnt copper.
Felicia was up on a rusty steel catwalk twenty feet in the air, secured by a single climbing rig, wiring commercial pyrotechnic charges into the old overhead pipe system.
"Jack!" Felicia called down, wiping black grease off her forehead. "If I ignite these three magnesium flare boxes at the same time, it’s going to flash-blind anyone entering through the main mirror maze. Like... permanent retina damage level."
"Fabulous, Kitty!" Jack yelled back from the center of the main floor, his raspy voice echoing off the vaulted rafters. "Give 'em the full VIP light show! Flash 'em till they see neon angels! HAHAHA!"
Down on the ground, Natasha was working on the entrance turnstiles with a soldering iron, her dark red hair tied back in a messy knot. She’d hijacked the park’s rusty secondary fuse box, splicing it directly into three heavy-duty helium compressor batteries they’d rigged under the floorboards.
"I’ve electrified the metal turnstiles at six hundred volts," Natasha said calmly, blowing a trail of gray solder smoke away from her face. "Anyone trying to force the gate without the kill-switch is going to have their shoes melted to the concrete."
"Ooh, heated footwear!" Jack gasped, skipping over to her like a cracked-out tap dancer in his heavy leather boots. "Stark charges thousands for that! We’re giving it away for free! You’re a philanthropist, Red!"
He dropped to his knees right beside her on the dusty floorboards, his white-painted face gleaming under the harsh light of a single hanging halogen lamp. His smudged black eyes were wild, red-rimmed, and unblinking, the [10.8% SYNCHRONIZATION] humming like a high-tension power line behind his forehead.
He reached into his velvet jacket, pulled out an old, chipped porcelain clown mask he'd pulled out of a carnival prize bin, and held it up right next to his own chalk-white face.
"Look, Natty! It’s my long-lost twin brother, Barnaby!" Jack rasped, pitching his voice up into a ridiculous, squeaky puppet voice. "Hello, Miss Romanoff! Would you like a balloon? Or perhaps a pipe bomb?!"
Natasha didn't even stop soldering. She reached out, took the porcelain clown mask by the nose, and crushed it in her bare hand until the cheap ceramic shattered into a dozen pieces, dropping them into the dust between them.
"I prefer the original, Jack," Natasha murmured, her steel-grey eyes flicking over to meet his bloodshot gaze. "The porcelain ones don't bleed when I punch them."
Jack’s mouth expanded into that wide, wet, crimson-painted scar of a smile, his chest vibrating with a low, raspy hehehe.
"God..." Jack whispered, leaning so close his split lip almost brushed her ear, the smell of greasepaint and copper thick in the air. "...you really know how to make a guy's heart skip a beat, Moscow. Or maybe that's just the six hundred volts under the floorboards!"
"Keep playing with fire, Jack," Natasha purred softly, her hand casually resting on the grip of her Glock tucked into her waistband, "and you might just get burned."
"I'm already ash, baby!" Jack cackled, throwing his hands in the air as he stood up, his purple silk shirt catching the yellow glow of the hanging bulb. "Now... where did we put those two hundred pounds of industrial confetti?!"
By midnight, the Funhouse was no longer an abandoned ruin. It was a masterpiece of manic lethal engineering.
The mirror maze was rigged with flash-bang magnesium charges; the hall of mirrors had three hidden pressure-plate shotguns scavenged from Fisk’s hitmen; the bumper car arena was turned into a high-voltage grid; and right in the center of the main stage, sitting on a velvet throne under a spotlight, was a giant, mechanical jack-in-the-box connected to sixty pounds of fireworks.
Jack stood on the top balcony overlooking the entire glowing, lethal playground, his heavy coat draped over his shoulders like a king's cape.
"Look at it, girls..." Jack rasped into the dark, his crimson smile shining in the gloom. "...it's beautiful! A masterpiece! The greatest show on Earth!"
He reached out, his gloved fingers tapping against the iron railing as he stared out toward the dark Brooklyn highway in the distance.
"...now..." Jack whispered, his voice echoing in a low, terrifying hum through the empty carnival hall. "...who's gonna be the first unlucky bastard to buy a ticket?... DARE 'EM TO COME... DARE 'EM! HAHAHAHAHA!"
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