One of the handcuffed thugs thrashed against the side of a squad car. "This is rigged! That freak caught a rocket like a baseball! How are we supposed to fight a monster like that?"
"Shut your mouth!" a young patrolman snapped. He shoved the man's head down and forced him into the backseat. "You just fired a rocket launcher at cops holding service pistols, and you're crying about fairness?"
Captain George Stacy offered Spider-Man a grim, slightly embarrassed smile. He tipped his chin toward the red-and-blue figure perched on the nearest telephone pole. "We all appreciate the save. But we both know your webbing takes hours to degrade. This is Manhattan. The city can't afford a total traffic blackout on 95th Street."
"Oh, right." Spider-Man scratched the back of his masked head. He snapped his fingers. "Acid accelerates the dissolution. If you don't have chemical solvents on hand—" He pointed at the confiscated Chitauri shield-generator resting on the hood of a cruiser. "Try that. Just jam the emitter into the center of the web-net and trigger the shield. Do it a few times and the kinetic expansion will snap the tensile fibers. Oh, and the power coil in the back of the rifle should have enough juice to recharge it."
Captain Stacy nodded. "We'll find out exactly who is building this garbage."
Spider-Man stood up. He crouched low, preparing to leap, but suddenly stopped and looked back down. "Hey, Captain? Those weapons are running on salvaged Chitauri cores. The Battle of New York was barely four months ago. Someone is already fencing weaponized alien tech on the black market. You guys need to watch your backs."
"We will," Stacy promised.
"Your friendly neighborhood Spider-Man is always at your service!" Peter offered a quick two-finger salute. He launched himself into the sky, firing a web-line.
He swung high above the gridlock, the wind rushing past his ears. He checked the digital watch strapped to his left wrist and tapped the side of his mask.
"Aunt May's cake!" Peter groaned. "Metenno Bakery. Wait, what day is it even? Why did May order a cake? Is it a birthday? Do we have company coming over?" He twisted mid-air, radically adjusting his trajectory south. "Please let the bakery still be open. And I still have to find my backpack."
In the deep shadows of an alley intersection, Herman Schultz watched the entire exchange.
He had his jacket hood pulled low over his eyes. He tracked the red-and-blue figure until it vanished into the skyline. He had to admit, the whining thug had a point. One or two guys with jury-rigged blasters were never going to beat a freak who could catch heavy ordnance and swing between skyscrapers. If you wanted to kill a monster, you had to become one.
But Spider-Man wasn't a god. He had weaknesses. The kid's bicycle on the subway tracks proved it. Herman had tossed that bike over the fence himself. He had been tracking the bug's movements all afternoon. The vigilante had literally dropped out of the sky just to fetch a toy for a crying toddler.
Spider-Man wasn't some glory-hound. He wasn't a ruthless, tactical enforcer. He was a bleeding-heart pushover. And there was always a way to break a pushover. You just had to use the entire city of New York as a hostage.
Herman adjusted the heavy duffel bag on his shoulder. It held the absolute last of the Chitauri scrap his crew had scavenged over the past four months. It was his final bargaining chip.
He walked steadily toward the edge of Manhattan. He checked his periphery, ensuring the street was empty, and hopped the concrete embankment. He landed silently on a rusted maintenance ladder. Below him, the massive, damp throat of the New York storm drain system gaped open.
He climbed down into the dark.
He walked for blocks. The tunnels were pitch black, illuminated only by widely spaced, flickering inspection bulbs. Rats and cockroaches skittered away from his heavy boots. The only sounds were the steady drip of condensation and his own breathing.
He reached into his pocket and pulled out a heavy, intricately machined key. It was a token. The "buyer" gave one to every trusted supplier. It was the only way to access the drop point.
Herman stopped in front of a completely unremarkable brick wall. He felt along the mortar line until his fingers brushed a tiny, hidden seam. He inserted the key directly into the solid-looking concrete and twisted.
Metal ground against metal. A full minute passed in absolute silence.
Then, a sickly green light bled out from the cracks. The entire brick wall slid backward and rolled aside on recessed tracks.
The hidden room was cramped. Several heavy server racks hummed loudly, screens scrolling with cascading green code. Herman stepped inside. He threw his duffel bag onto a stainless-steel workbench. The heavy Chitauri metal clanged loudly.
"Deliveries have been thinning out lately."
The voice echoed from the dark corner of the room. It was heavily modulated, warped by a layer of electronic static. Three glowing green optical sensors flared to life in the shadows. They formed a tight triangle. The sensors whirred, scanning the duffel bag. A low, distorted chuckle vibrated through the room.
"Scarcity creates value. Name your price. I will ensure you leave satisfied."
"I don't want cash," Herman said. He reached into his jacket and pulled out a crumpled, hand-drawn schematic. "There are Chitauri-hybrid rifles floating around the streets today. I assume you know exactly who makes them?"
The electronic voice laughed again. "Looking to expand your enterprise? Start a new crew? Not a problem. The scrap in that bag buys you one, maybe two pieces of custom hardware. Tell me what functions you need. We can fabricate it."
"The guys holding those rifles got wiped out," Herman said flatly. "In under ten minutes."
Herman felt the buyer's sudden shift in posture.
"That is the inevitable result of amateurs lacking discretion," the voice buzzed. "The Avengers occupy this city. Anyone causing a public spectacle will attract the circus."
"It wasn't the Avengers."
The green optical sensors flared brighter. "What? Who was it?"
"Spider-Man."
Herman let a grim smile touch his lips. He enjoyed the sudden, sharp spike of electronic feedback that hissed from the speakers.
The buyer quickly regained control. "The masked pest in the red and blue? An unexpected variable. Ever since the sky opened up, the cockroaches have been crawling out of the woodwork."
The voice dropped, turning cold and philosophical. "A wall-crawler swings through Midtown. A devil and a skull haunt Hell's Kitchen. Ten years ago, individuals with power were classified as mutants and locked in cages. Today, they put on spandex and the public calls them heroes. It is a profound cosmic joke."
The room fell silent for several long seconds. Then, a sharp, distorted laugh barked from the dark.
"Ah! I process the data now," the buyer said, the mechanical tone warming with genuine appreciation. "The fireworks display at the Midtown bank this morning. That was your crew. Those localized kinetic gauntlets... you engineered those? And now you are here for an upgrade?"
Herman narrowed his eyes against the glare of the monitors. He stared directly into the three green sensors hovering in the blackness. They looked like the eyes of a deep-sea predator.
"More than an upgrade," Herman said, his voice echoing off the concrete. "I want to be like Spider-Man. Look at the world we live in right now."
He clenched his fists.
"Guns aren't enough anymore. Not against these enhanced freaks. I need a complete transformation." He slammed his palm down on the crumpled schematic. "The scrap in that bag pays for my new suit."
A heavy mechanical whirring sound filled the room.
From the pitch-black shadows, three massive, segmented metal tentacles slithered forward. The cold steel gleamed in the monitor light. One of the heavy mechanical claws delicately pinched the paper schematic and pulled it back into the dark. Rusty hinges screamed in the background.
"A complete upgrade?" the buyer mused, his voice dripping with condescension. "You assume I possess the ability to make it happen?"
"Maybe you don't," Herman said, not backing down. "But your boss definitely does. You haven't been buying up months of alien tech just to sell it for scrap. You're arming people. You're building an army. And an army needs a general."
A blinding arc of electricity flashed in the back of the room.
For a fraction of a second, the darkness vanished. Herman saw a massive, spherical metal drone suspended in the air. The robotic tentacles extended directly from its chassis.
As the afterimage burned in Herman's retinas, the voice returned.
"I have transmitted your proposal to the employer. He is always eager to sponsor individuals committed to the eradication of masked vigilantes. But I am curious."
One of the heavy mechanical claws darted forward. It stopped exactly one inch from the bridge of Herman's nose.
"Why the sudden obsession with matching these costumed clowns? You do not strike me as a man driven by theatrical ego. Nor are you asking for cash."
"Is that an issue?" Herman asked, unblinking.
"Not at all."
Another metal tentacle uncoiled from the shadows. It dropped a thick stack of banded hundred-dollar bills onto the steel table. "Compensation for the alien hardware."
"I said I wanted the suit," Herman ground out.
"I am aware."
Herman stared at the money. He didn't move. The tentacle picked up the stack of bills and forcefully shoved it into the front pocket of Herman's jacket.
"Consider it a signing bonus," the voice buzzed. "The employer looks out for his investments. The streets are unforgiving. A man must leave provisions for his family when he goes to war."
Herman's jaw tightened. "Thanks."
The primary mechanical claw extended forward, opening its pincers in a crude approximation of an open hand. Herman gripped the cold, heavy steel.
An electronic laugh rattled through the sewer pipes.
"Return tomorrow at this exact hour," the buyer said. "And you may call me Otto. It is what my friend call me."
Herman climbed back out of the sewer grid. He didn't head toward his Brooklyn construction site. Instead, he took the subway north, walking the familiar, cracked pavement of Harlem. Streetlights flickered above him. He couldn't remember the last time he had actually walked up the steps to his mother's apartment. Nothing good ever happened when he came back here.
He pushed open the heavy wooden door. The hinges whined.
The living room was quiet. A familiar body lay draped over the worn fabric sofa. The chest was caved in, dark blood pooling and drying across the cheap linoleum floor.
"Gang dispute," his mother said. She sat in the armchair in the corner. She didn't look up. She was steadily running a needle and thread through a heavy piece of white canvas. "Just like your father. Just like your brother. The corner boss wiped him out, but he didn't have anywhere else to go. I need to bleach the floor before the church ladies get here to help move him."
Herman swallowed hard. He reached into his jacket pocket, pulled out the thick stack of bills Otto had given him, and set it on the coffee table.
His mother finally looked up. Her eyes tracked the money. She reached out with practiced, exhausted efficiency and swept the cash into her apron.
"You still running that chop-shop business?" she asked, her voice hollow. "I thought you got cleared out."
"This is the final job," Herman said.
He walked over to the sofa. He stared down at the dead body pale, lifeless face. His hands curled into tight fists at his sides.
"I'm doing what has to be done," Herman whispered, the anger finally crystallizing into something cold and permanent. "It's time I made the whole world remember the name Herman Schultz."