Chapter 5
I didn't think today's incident would end so shitty.
The transparent sphere vanished, and now nothing separated me from the result of my actions. I had expected anything from her: a villainous tirade, pleading. But even after it was over, there was no relief. Sarah's words clung to my thoughts like a sticky web. "My first sentence determined your fate." What exactly did she want to make me into? Damn it, the way she described her power, it doesn't give a full understanding. This garage, her tapes, me showing up here... was this all planned from the start? Does it mean there's no choice, just a pre-written script?
Wait.
Why was I taking her words as truth? She hadn't shown anything supernatural, except, perhaps, a frightening perceptiveness. All my decisions were the result of my choices. I decided to track her. I decided to enter this garage. I decided to kill her. And it doesn't matter what she said or what she wanted. It was my will. When I came to this conclusion, the tension in my shoulders eased a bit. It became easier to breathe.
What now? I wasn't going to clean up what was left of her. What difference did it make if she was found? I turned to grab the tapes and leave, but at that moment, a click came from under the chair. And then the garage exploded.
The shockwave, which should have torn a normal person to pieces, slammed into the invisible barrier around my body. Flames roared, greedily consuming the old shelves and the cassettes. Superheated air beat against my protective shell, but I felt no heat. I expected to suffocate, for my lungs to be seared by the hot smoke. When I took a breath, the air was clean, but there wasn't enough of it. Because of the fire feeding on the oxygen, the amount had significantly decreased.
I finally understood, or at least, began to guess, why I felt the wind when I was falling, even though I shouldn't have. My power wasn't just a dumb shield. It worked autonomously, like an immune system, determining what was a threat. The shockwave, the shrapnel, the fire, the toxic smoke particles—all of it was blocked. But the oxygen molecules, necessary for breathing, passed through this invisible filter. Okay, no time for discoveries. I had to get out of here.
The explosion itself was a logical end to her life. It seems she had installed some kind of sensor, linked to her vital signs. When she died, the detonator triggered. All the evidence—her recordings, her "collection"—was meant to disappear in the flames. Her goal was to create monsters, and she had made sure their pasts couldn't be traced. If I had known... if I had just guessed, I would have covered the shelves with the tapes in a barrier.
I stepped through the wall of fire and slipped out onto the street, leaving behind the roaring funeral pyre that Sarah Connelly had arranged for herself.
---
Today was the last day of my suspension. And according to my schedule, I was supposed to have a session with Sarah Connelly today. I walked to her office through the morning-sunlit streets, feeling like an actor who had learned his role perfectly. The same secretary was at the desk. "Diego, hello. Are you here for your ten o'clock?" "Yes, that's right," I managed a slight smile. She pursed her lips and tapped on her keyboard. "Dr. Connelly hasn't arrived yet. And she's not answering her phone, which is not like her at all." "Maybe traffic?" I suggested.
"Maybe," she clearly wasn't convinced. "You can wait in the reception area. I'll let you know as soon as she gets here." "Of course, no problem."
I sat on one of the sofas and picked up a random magazine from the table. Last night's news was already plastered with headlines about an explosion in an industrial area of Brooklyn. The fire was put out, but the body, of course, was not found. To the rest of the world, the brilliant psychotherapist Sarah Connelly had simply vanished.
I sat like that for almost an hour, methodically flipping through the glossy pages. The secretary glanced at me worriedly several times, made a few calls, and spoke in a low voice. Finally, I stood up. "I should probably get going." "Yes, of course," she stood up to see me out. "I'll be sure to call you as soon as we hear from her." "Thanks."
All formalities had been observed. Perhaps this game of being the diligent patient was excessive, but I preferred to do things right.
I settled into a small cafe across the street from a bank, ordered a coffee, and just watched the bustling life of the city. I had nothing else to do. What did I need to do to become a successful journalist? With my powers, I could "interview" people that regular reporters would be afraid to even speak to. I already had one target in mind—the mysterious organization, The Hand. The way they dissolved into shadows said a lot. But the main thing was that all five of them did it. It was unlikely to be a coincidence, a group of five mutants with the same rare ability. More likely, it was a honed technique, one that could be taught. And that meant they could be mass-producing such fighters. How many of them were in the organization?
And right now, as I was thinking about it, wasn't one of them sitting in my own shadow, watching me? The thought sent a shiver down my spine. Too many questions. And the main problem: how to make them talk? I doubted that torture was an effective method for getting truthful information. Suddenly, the cafe's plate-glass window trembled. A moment later, the facade of the bank across the street exploded into pieces, throwing a cloud of dust onto the street.
At the same time, a mechanical, emotionless voice came from the cafe's ceiling speakers: "ATTENTION. A CLASS ONE THREAT HAS BEEN DECLARED. CIVILIANS ARE ORDERED TO PROCEED IMMEDIATELY TO THE NEAREST SHELTERS. REMAIN CALM." From the breach in the bank's wall, a man in a massive, gray, rhinoceros-styled armor suit emerged, his steps heavy.
I watched him from a safe distance, feeling not fear, but interest. Almost immediately, several armored vans screeched to a halt at the scene. Soldiers in black tactical gear with "SOB" on their chests poured out—the Special Operations Bureau, created for exactly these situations. Stark Industries used to be their main weapons supplier, but after Tony Stark publicly renounced weapons manufacturing, the shipments stopped. In exchange, he gave the squad access to his non-lethal developments, so now their arsenal consisted mainly of containment and immobilization technologies.
The soldiers acted in concert. They scattered dozens of small discs around Rhino. The discs stuck to the asphalt and began to emit low-frequency vibrations. Rhino's suit sparked; the hydraulics in its joints froze. He tried to take a step, but the armor no longer obeyed him.
It would have ended there, but in the next second, the trap-discs began to flash and shut down, one by one. A second man in a yellow-and-brown quilted suit with metal gauntlets on his arms, Shocker, emerged from around the corner. He aimed one of the gauntlets at the nearest SOB van, and an invisible shockwave crumpled the armored door inward. The threat had just escalated from Class One to Class Two.
---
Wilson Fisk watched the events unfold on the screens in his underground command center. Each monitor showed the same scene of chaos from different angles: traffic cameras, surveillance drones, even hacked news feeds. He knew the SOB's protocols and armaments by heart. Every sonic emitter, every vibration trap—it had all been accounted for. He didn't need the bank; he wasn't interested in the money in the vault. This event was a carefully orchestrated performance, a prelude to his speech tomorrow, where he would announce his intention to run for Mayor of New York. It was a challenge, thrown not just at the city administration, but at the entire rotten system of the United States. One of the conditions of his contract with The Hand was the transfer of compromising material on key political figures in the country. Fisk, however, did not know that his new partners in The Hand were working closely with HYDRA. Therefore, the kompromat he received was carefully filtered: he was only given information on HYDRA's enemies, not on its numerous agents embedded within the government.
Fisk suspected that something wasn't right. Too much frankly useless information, minor sins that wouldn't sink a career, too many hits on figures with no real weight. He felt he was only being fed what was convenient for his mysterious partners, but he couldn't point it out. In any case, he had no intention of using this data for an attack. The kompromat was his insurance, his final argument in a dialogue where all other words had run out. It was needed only to keep him alive. If the day came when he was forced to lay those cards on the table, it would mean only one thing: he had already lost.
On the screens, Shocker and Rhino had already neutralized the first squad. Their synergy was flawless. Shocker, whose suit generated localized electromagnetic pulses, disabled the SOB's high-tech traps with his mere presence. And Rhino, invulnerable to their non-lethal weapons, simply plowed forward, protecting his more vulnerable partner. They complemented each other perfectly.
Ten minutes passed. The performance was dragging on. The usual sequence of events had been disrupted, and Fisk felt a chill of irritation run down his spine. "Wesley. It's been ten minutes. Where is he?" James Wesley replied without a moment's hesitation: "All calculations are correct, sir. He should appear any minute."
Calculating Spider-Man's identity had been a complex, multi-stage task. They had staged dozens of minor incidents at various points in the city, analyzing the time and place of his appearance. The data relentlessly pointed to the fact that there was an eighty percent probability he was a high school or college student whose route passed through the city center. This narrowed the search to a few educational institutions, among which Midtown High School of Science and Technology was the primary candidate.
Then came the personal surveillance. Fisk's agents tailed every student in the high-risk group. And only one of them, Peter Parker, repeatedly and inexplicably shook his tail. There was no direct, irrefutable evidence. But, as was often the case in Fisk's world, the very absence of evidence was the main proof.
Spider-Man was strong, incredibly strong. Fisk could have destroyed the boy's life with a snap of his fingers, but why destroy such a valuable asset when it could be controlled? And then, finally, a familiar figure in red and blue appeared on the screens.
He swung into frame on a web, landing on a lamppost with acrobatic precision. Wasting no time, he fired several sticky projectiles from different angles, creating a thick cocoon around Shocker that instantly immobilized him and, more importantly, blocked his combat gauntlets. Rhino roared and charged him, but Spider-Man leaped to the ground directly in front of him. The armored giant swung an arm capable of punching through a bank vault wall. Spider-Man met the blow with his own fist.
On Fisk's monitors, the collision looked surreal. A massive armored arm against a normal one, covered in fabric. There was a dull sound of cracking composite, and Rhino's huge suit staggered. A second punch, fast and precise, landed on the helmet's joint, and the giant collapsed to the asphalt. A few quick movements, and he was hopelessly stuck to the ground.
The entire fight took less than a minute. Spider-Man dusted off his hands and addressed his defeated opponents. "Alright, guys, practice up. Hope I don't see you again." He shot a web at the cornice of the nearest building and disappeared into the labyrinth of skyscrapers as quickly as he had appeared.
A smile spread across Fisk's face. Everything had gone perfectly. The SOB had demonstrated their complete helplessness. And then a hero appeared who playfully stopped a Class Two threat, showing the city that the official structures couldn't cope. Fisk rose slowly from his chair, squaring his shoulders. "It's time to proceed to phase nine."
---
The bright glare of spotlights hit his eyes. Dozens of cameras from major news channels were aimed at the stage where the final mayoral debate was taking place. Two other candidates had already spoken before Wilson Fisk. Their rhetoric was predictable and, in Fisk's opinion, extremely amateurish. They tried to ride the wave of fear being fanned by the government, calling for registries, total control, and the isolation of mutants. They said what they thought the frightened public wanted to hear. It was Fisk's turn.
He walked onto the stage—enormous, clad in an impeccably tailored suit. His movements were slow and confident. A step behind him followed his personal bodyguard. If Diego had been in the hall, he would have recognized this man as Benjamin, the young man with the scar on his eyebrow from Sarah Connelly's second videotape. Fisk approached the podium and stared silently at the audience for several seconds, letting the noise die down.
"My opponents offer you simple solutions. They tell you what you want to hear: 'Be afraid,' 'Control,' 'Eradicate.' I will tell you the truth: their solutions are a path to catastrophe." A surprised murmur went through the hall. Until this moment, no public figure had dared to so openly condemn the government's official position.
"They urge you to hate. But answer me,"—he scanned the front rows—"are you prepared to kill your own son if he manifests an X-gene tomorrow? Are you ready to turn in your best friend, whom you've known your whole life? I think not. Your hatred is built on fear for your lives. But I ask you: who creates this fear? Who creates these evil mutants?"
He paused, letting the question hang in the air. "The answer is simple: we do. A teenager who is bullied for years at school finally snaps, and the stress awakens an ability in him. He strikes back. Who is to blame? Is it him alone? Words and actions have consequences. Hatred begets hatred. And those who shout the loudest about the threat are the ones contributing the most to its creation."
"Sooner or later, a Class Five mutant will appear. And what do you intend to do then? Kill him? Control him? Wake up. We are weak! Just yesterday, the elite SOB squad couldn't handle a Class Two threat. Class Two! And then Spider-Man flew in and solved the problem in a minute."
"The authorities are afraid of losing control. I, however, offer a solution. As part of my platform, the 'Guardians of New York' initiative will be created. These will be mutants who will protect this city from other mutants. Anonymously, without total control. Any gifted individual whose ability can be useful to society can come to my foundation and receive a decent job with a five-figure salary. We will turn a threat into an asset! We will give them a purpose!"
At that moment, a bullet cut through the air. Benjamin, standing behind Fisk, flicked his wrist almost imperceptibly, and the small stone he had been holding between his fingers vanished. The bullet, fired by a sniper from the roof of an adjacent building, was aimed directly at Fisk's head. But a split second before impact, it was met by that small stone. The bullet's trajectory shifted by several critical centimeters. Instead of his head, it entered his shoulder.
Only then did the sound of the shot reach the auditorium. People screamed. Panic began. Fisk staggered from the impact, his massive body swaying. He grabbed the podium with his good hand to stay on his feet. Blood quickly soaked the fabric of his expensive jacket. Everything was going according to plan. This was one of the riskiest, but also one of the most effective, scenarios they had worked through: in the event of an assassination attempt, Bullseye was supposed to not eliminate the threat, but merely redirect the bullet to a non-lethal zone—the shoulder or arm, for maximum drama. Benjamin had executed the order perfectly.
"BE CALM!" Fisk roared into the microphone, his voice drowning out all other sounds. The panic froze for a moment. All eyes were riveted on him. "THOSE BEHIND THIS WANT TO PLUNGE OUR CITY INTO CHAOS!" he shouted, looking directly into the cameras. "THEY FEAR THE TRUTH! THEY FEAR CHANGE! WE WILL NOT ALLOW IT!"
With those words, his security team surrounded him in a tight circle and began to lead him off the stage. Fisk walked on his own, unbowed, and this image of a leader, wounded but not broken, who had taken a bullet for his beliefs, was seared into the consciousness of everyone who saw it. With his speech, Fisk had forced the world to move at a frantic pace.
---
In his office, Alexander Pierce watched the recording in silence. The assassination attempt had not just failed; it had become the best part of Fisk's election campaign. "We underestimated him," Pierce said to himself, slowly swirling the whiskey in his glass. He focused on the screen, where a slow-motion replay showed the bodyguard making an imperceptible movement with his hand. Who was this man? The Hand had provided no data on him. Had they deliberately withheld the fact that the target had his own mutant? But, even worse, people were actually starting to support him. Fisk's ideas were infectious. There was no guarantee now that even if they killed him, the movement would die with him.
And Fury... he had been too quiet lately. Could he suspect something? Pierce dismissed the thought. No, impossible. Their digital footprint was non-existent. Arnim Zola's artificial intelligence gave them an absolute advantage in the information space; not even Tony Stark could breach it. Besides, every member of HYDRA had mental blocks, borrowed from The Hand, installed in their consciousness. Even under torture or telepathic assault, they could not give up their secrets. Pierce set the glass on his desk and walked to his terminal. Enough analysis. Time to act. "Time to unfreeze the 'Winter Soldiers,'" he decided.
A list of eight codenames appeared on the screen. They hadn't been given Erskine's original serum, but a crude copy. The soldiers were incredibly strong, but far from Captain America's level. They could withstand a direct hit from a tank shell, but that was about it. Eight trained killing machines would be sent after Fisk. From the very beginning of the mutant emergence, Pierce understood they were the future. But every gifted individual HYDRA had tried to get to had mysteriously slipped through their fingers. And now Fisk, a simple crime boss, was parading around with a specimen capable of deflecting bullets.
He looked out at the lights of Washington, and for the first time in many years, a crack appeared in his confidence. Was HYDRA truly still the strongest organization in this world?
---
Charles Xavier did not like to invade the minds of others. To him, it was a gross, intimate violation he only permitted himself in the most extreme cases. And Wilson Fisk, the man who had overturned the political landscape of New York in a single night, was without a doubt such a case.
Sitting in the silence of his study, Xavier focused. He did not probe deeply, did not dig into childhood memories or hidden desires. He only needed the surface, the structure of thoughts, the plans for the immediate future. But even what he saw was enough. The picture that opened up to him was ugly and complex. Wilson Fisk was not just a businessman with a dubious reputation. He was the shadow king of New York, the spider in the center of a vast criminal web. Trafficking of hard drugs, weapons, and people.
But what struck Xavier the most was not the scale of the crimes, but Fisk's intellect. He had known all this time that a ninja from The Hand was hiding in his shadow. Xavier hadn't even suspected the existence of this organization, but Fisk not only knew of them, he was calculating their moves. He deliberately conducted all important negotiations with his key assets, like Bullseye, through encrypted correspondence and dead drops, never giving his mysterious "allies" the full picture. While all the other players on the board were waiting for each other's moves, Fisk was already playing his own, separate game.
He had little information on the truly major powers, like S.H.I.E.L.D. or the Hellfire Club, but with his speech, he had seized the initiative from all of them. The realization made him sick. Despite the fact that Fisk was a monster, at this very moment, he was doing exactly what was vital for the survival of mutants. To expose him now would be to destroy this fragile hope. To plunge society back into the abyss of hatred and, perhaps, provoke an open war. Charles Xavier, the man who had dedicated his life to protecting peace and harmony, found himself in a monstrous position. He was forced to protect the very man he wished with all his being to stop. To protect a monster in order to save the innocent.