The top floor of Oscorp Tower always smelled faintly of polish and smoke.
Dark wood paneling caught the light from the city beyond the glass, the skyline reflected across every surface like an oil slick. Norman Osborn's office was at that moment, the next stage of the plan.
Norman frowned at the amber alert still blinking in the corner of his monitor. Anomaly detected: Sub-Level Server Connection. The words pulsed like an accusation. He tapped the desk twice, impatiently, then reached for the phone.
"This is Osborn."
A crisp voice on the other end answered, "Sir, the investors are waiting downstairs. They'd like to finalize tonight's agreements."
Norman's eyes narrowed slightly. "Investors," he repeated, as if tasting the word. "Tell them I'll be right down soon."
He hung up, pressing his fingers to his temples. Investors—his euphemism for the foreign buyers Oscorp wasn't supposed to have. Latveria, Madripoor, Symkaria, plus other that were considered enemy countries. Each one had offered obscene sums for proprietary weaponized tech, and Norman had accepted every one with the smile of a patriot.
He straightened his jacket, tapping the intercom. "Send my assistant to check the server room on the upper floor. Tell them to verify if the anomaly was a breach. If it was, find out who and deal with them."
"Yes, sir."
Norman pocketed his access card, crossed to his private elevator, and swiped. The doors opened with a polished ding.
Ethan was already in motion.
He sprinted down the maintenance hall adjacent to Norman's route, coat flaring behind him. The maintenance elevator—smaller, unremarkable—was positioned just opposite the CEO's private one. He arrived just as Norman stepped inside his, calm as ever, flanked by the reflection of a predator in polished steel.
Ethan waited until the doors almost shut before sliding a palm-sized device from his pocket: a wireless card cloner. He pointed it toward Norman's elevator panel, catching the signal bounce from the CEO's keycard as it pinged the reader.
Access code intercepted.
"Thank you for your donation," Ethan whispered.
Norman's elevator descended. Ethan's, moments later, ascended.
He counted the seconds, estimating Norman's travel time to the lower investor level. When he reached the top, he paused—alone in a hall of glass and shadow. The city stretched beneath him, a smear of light through Oscorp's spotless windows.
No guards here. No cameras with live feeds—he'd re-looped them all earlier when Felicia triggered the sublevel distraction.
Perfect.
He crossed to the heavy double doors and slid the cloned card through the slot. The lock disengaged with a soft electronic click.
Inside, Norman Osborn's private sanctum felt almost intimate.
A sculpted desk of black walnut. Framed photos of charity events, each one more staged than the last. A glass cabinet with small trophies—military commendations, magazine covers, and one cracked football helmet from his college years.
And at the heart of it, Norman's computer—sleek, customized, secured behind three layers of encryption that might as well have been tissue paper to Ethan.
He slid into the chair, cracked his knuckles, and began.
The monitor flared to life.
Three folders dominated the desktop:
PERSONAL — DO NOT TOUCH.
H.A. (Human Acceleration).
LEGACY ACCOUNTS.
Ethan smirked. "Subtle, Norman. Very subtle. God, he's an idiot. Well, I guess in his defense, he doesn't believe anyone is stupid enough to try this."
He opened LEGACY ACCOUNTS first. The list unfolded like a confession: a labyrinth of offshore holdings, shell companies, dummy trusts. Each name a ghost corporation laundering the 'donations' of Oscorp.
He scrolled through transactions. Transfers to Symkaria Industries. Payments to unregistered research sites in Madripoor. Wire deposits to U.S. regulators.
"Jesus," Ethan muttered softly. "You really don't do half measures, do you?"
He copied the entire directory to his device, then flagged specific files with a red tag—those would go public with the Insight exposé, and those unmarked were for his personal use.
But he had his other priorities to see to now.
In a new window, he isolated the shell company routing tables. With a few keystrokes, he replaced the bank codes for half of them—redirecting funds through dummy intermediaries he controlled. It wasn't theft so much as delayed punishment; when Norman panicked after the exposé dropped and tried to move his assets, the reroute would automatically initiate. Billions siphoned under his nose, legally untraceable. He spent the 10 days making sure these were ready, along with the other things.
"Consider it a transaction fee," Ethan murmured.
Then, with surgeon's precision, he altered two of the shell companies to connect directly to flagged foreign defense contractors. Enough to make Norman's financials look like active treason when investigators inevitably came sniffing.
It was elegant. Predictable.
People, when cornered, revealed who they really were. Norman would run straight into the trap.
The download completed—his secondary drive now holding Oscorp's crown jewels: research blueprints, experimental tech data, and a handful of government contracts with suspicious black bars. Most of the tech and blueprints had to do with killing Spider-Man, but Ethan felt he could repurpose some of them, so why not take it?
But there was one last step.
Ethan opened the PERSONAL folder. Inside was a compressed archive, a file labeled KELSO_CREDENTIALS, tagged with Mendel Stromm's employee signature. Perfect.
He embedded the whistleblower's digital keys into the archive, ensuring that every data leak trail would lead back to Stromm—Osborn's old partner, his academic rival, and an easy scapegoat.
"Poetic justice," Ethan whispered.
He locked the edits, encrypted his drive, and rose.
The door latch clicked.
Ethan's blood froze.
Norman's voice drifted in from the hallway. "Thank you, gentlemen, it was a pleasure doing business with you. I'll be down shortly."
Ethan darted behind the heavy desk just as the handle turned.
Norman entered, muttering something under his breath about "idiot investors." He tossed his jacket on the chair, frowning at the computer. The amber warning was gone—Ethan's patch had wiped it clean—but Norman didn't look convinced.
He picked up the phone. "Yes? The anomaly earlier—false alarm? Good. Likely the system calibration."
He hung up, sighing, and sat down.
Ethan crouched beneath the desk, motionless, watching the reflection of Norman's face in the black glass of the computer tower.
Then Norman tapped a key. The screen lit up.
The same system Ethan was still jacked into.
For a heartbeat, both man and machine hummed in sync—the digital equivalent of holding one's breath.
Norman leaned forward, scanning files. Ethan's connection light blinked once, faint and treacherous. 'Don't notice it. Don't—'
Norman frowned, moving the mouse.
The light blinked again.
Ethan's pulse roared in his ears as he silently reached toward the cable, praying for time.