Chapter 38
"Shocker? Who the hell is that?" Blade growled, his voice low and dangerous.
"One of Kingpin's meta-mercenaries," I explained calmly, watching his reaction carefully. It came immediately.
"Damn!" He slammed his palm on the steering wheel. The car swerved slightly. "What the hell did Kingpin want with Frank?! Frank is straight as a rail. He never got involved in business at that level!"
"You know about Kingpin?" I asked carefully. I needed to understand how much he already knew before deciding how to play the conversation.
"How could I not know the biggest shark in this New York ocean?" Blade chuckled bitterly. "This isn't my bloodsuckers who hide in holes and fear the light. This is a higher tier entirely. A monster who sits at the top of the food chain."
"Yeah," I confirmed grimly.
"Alright, kid. Let's be straight." He sharply reduced his speed and turned his head toward me. In the semi-darkness of the cabin, his gaze was heavy as stone. "What's the deal with this Shocker? And where are you getting your information? I can see you're not just blowing smoke. But someone attacked my friend. So if you want to stay in the category of 'useful acquaintance' rather than 'potential problem,' start talking."
There it was. The moment of truth. Information that would determine how this night ended, and possibly how our lives did. Shocker I could talk about freely; no need to lie there. But Kingpin's identity was a different matter.
"Do you know who Kingpin is?" I decided to give him the chance to resolve my dilemma on his own.
"How would I?" Blade snorted. "I bash bandit skulls occasionally, sure, but my main specialty is the mystical. I don't get into the political games of the big criminal outfits."
The dilemma wasn't resolved. Which meant I could only hope Blade had enough sense not to throw himself on the grenade. Or enough strength to survive going up against whoever Fisk threw at him, whether that was Rhino, Scorpion, or anyone else covering Shocker.
"Wilson Fisk," I said, not drawing it out, pronouncing the name evenly and clearly.
"You. Are. Serious. Right now." He put a space between each word. The car lurched again as he turned to stare at me in shock.
"Completely."
"Holy shit," Blade exhaled, turning back to the road. "The shadow bastard who hides under the brightest light. The billionaire philanthropist. Man of the Year according to Time magazine. I saw him on TV. He was writing a check for pediatric cancer treatment with that fake, fatherly smile on his face. What a creature."
"As for Shocker," I continued, giving him a moment to absorb the Fisk revelation, "I found out about him yesterday. I was helping a certain spider heroine patch up her wounds. She told me who had worked her over like that. A mid-tier super with extremely unpleasant vibro-gauntlets that hit by area. Name's Herman Schultz. She promised to dig up more information on him."
"Now we've got something to work with!" Steel entered Blade's voice. "Call her. Right now. Find out everything on this Schultz. Maybe we won't have to go knocking on alley heads to fish out a bigger catch."
And here the problem arose. A small one, but unpleasant. I had Gwen's number, the one Peter had given me. But as far as she was concerned, I shouldn't have known who Spider-Woman was. She was supposed to have contacted me herself from some other, "spider" number. Brilliant. Making too many mistakes for someone on NZT. The feeling of my own stupidity was thoroughly unpleasant. But there was no other way.
I dialed.
"Hello?" A cautious girl's voice came through.
"Hi. Did you find anything on Schultz?" I went straight to the point. She already knew who I was. Let her figure out how to feel about me calling Gwen Stacy's personal phone.
"Um, what Schultz? Who is this? How did you get this number?"
"The filing on the lab window frame," I said. "I don't have your hero contact, and information on Shocker is needed urgently, not tomorrow, not in an hour. So let's skip the misunderstanding act. Herman Schultz. What do you have on him?"
A heavy silence hung in the receiver for a few seconds. The important thing was that she didn't hang up.
"Ha. Okay," she breathed out, somewhere between angry and resigned. "Herman Schultz, thirty-two years old. Former engineer from Hammer Industries. Fired for corporate espionage, but who he was working for is unknown. Officially unemployed, but judging by the fact that he's living in Manhattan, his finances are in perfect order. Kingpin pays his elite dogs well."
"Manhattan, then. Where specifically?"
"You," alarm crept into her voice. "Please tell me you're not driving to him right now. I can hear your engine."
Of course. She'd put it together in an instant and was already thinking about joining us. Even without NZT that was obvious.
"Just give me the address for now," I said calmly.
"Second Avenue, building twenty-five, apartment two-thirty," she blurted out.
"Thanks. And you don't have to be there."
"I'll decide that myself!" Gwen cut me off.
"Fair enough," I shrugged, even though she couldn't see it. "That's beyond my power to stop. Talk soon."
I hung up and noticed we'd already pulled up to my garage. Good timing. We needed to seriously improve our odds of surviving whatever came next. And I had no doubts that something was coming. The only question was the scale.
"You heard all of that?" I asked Blade as soon as the heavy garage door shut behind us and cut us off from the city night.
"Yeah," he cracked his neck. "Plan's simple. We walk into this gauntlet freak's place. We make him very uncomfortable until he tells us where the boss is. We find the boss. We make him even more uncomfortable. Frank gets his justice. Questions?"
"I wish I had your optimism," I said, actually chuckling this time. I walked to the cracked mannequin in the corner where Proteus hung. Its time had come. I'd delayed this moment as long as I could, trying to stay out of Marvel affairs. I'd delayed too long. Vampires were child's play compared to what was coming.
I lifted the elastic fabric from the plastic torso and began the final assembly. I carefully fixed the plasma barrier generator to the belt and connected it directly to the palladium reactor. With an eternal battery, there were no time limits on the barrier. Without another thought, I put the suit on. It fit perfectly, like a second skin, with a little room for future muscle growth. There really was no substitute for sewing your own measurements.
"Eric, try not to be too surprised by what comes next," I warned Blade, then began quickly dumping supplies into several open boxes: stimulators, weapons, first-aid kits. I touched one of the boxes and it simply vanished. Dissolved into thin air.
"You a mutant or something?" Blade held his poker face, but the raised eyebrow gave him away.
"No idea," I answered honestly, spreading my hands and making the second box disappear. "Spatial inventory, as I call it. It's just part of what I am. I genuinely don't know how it works. Maybe I am a mutant."
I did a quick mental inventory check of the contents. Stimulators, weapons, protection, even anti-vampire flash-bang grenades designed to produce a flash and a toxic cloud that would also inconvenience ordinary people. Seemed like I hadn't forgotten anything critical. Time to move.
"And what are its limits?" Blade stepped closer, curiosity plainly written on his face. "Do you have to touch something? Could you shove me in there?"
"No, only inanimate objects with clearly defined boundaries. Revenant vampires technically fit that definition, but awakened ones probably don't. I think it comes down to whether or not something has a soul," I answered, heading back toward the Charger.
"Still not bad. Can you pull equipment off me? Try my armor."
I walked over and touched his tactical vest. A light mental effort, and the heavy plates vanished, leaving the vampire hunter standing in just a form-fitting black turtleneck with Kevlar inserts. Another touch and the armor reappeared with a dull click, fitting back under his body perfectly. The inventory was considerably smarter and more adaptive than I'd given it credit for.
"Overpowered," Blade delivered his verdict, and there was genuine respect in his voice. I agreed. For all my knowledge, skills, and crafted gear, the inventory remained my most decisive trump card.
"What's the plan?" I asked as we settled into the car again.
"We go to Shocker. Meet Spider-Woman there. Figure it out on the ground."
And we went. My brain, sharpened by NZT, ran at its limit, calculating hundreds of possible scenarios. Multi-layered contingencies, retreat routes, analysis of potential allies and threats. No. All of that was excessive. All of that would only complicate and slow things down. For this specific situation, the right approach was Blade's approach. Direct. Brutal. Decisive. Bloody, if it came to that. Shocker gives up Kingpin's location. We find Kingpin. We take him off the board. And then we watch New York plunge into anarchy, because too much of the city was held together by Fisk's hand. His disappearance wouldn't simply remove a piece from the board. It would flip the whole board over.
"The city is going to be ugly afterward," I muttered, watching the night lights rush past the window.
"When hasn't it been?" Blade snorted. "The agencies will deal with it. That's what they're paid for. If a new gang war spills over onto civilians, it'll be peripheral. What matters is that Frank gets justice. By the way..." He hesitated for a moment. "Do you happen to have any healing potions for him? I'll pay whatever you want."
"I have the recipe," I nodded, still turning his words over in my mind. His dismissal of global consequences had its own brutal logic. "But I only have the recipe right now. Lucas is bringing the components tomorrow, and I'll make the first batches then. I'll set some aside for Frank. No charge."
Blade gave a single grateful nod. We drove the rest of the way in silence. Finally, the Charger rolled smoothly to a stop near an unremarkable apartment building on Second Avenue.
Schultz was inside. And if he wasn't, he'd come home eventually. Right into the trap.
The electronic lock on the front door beeped and clicked open without resistance. Blade did it in three seconds, sliding something resembling a stylus into the speaker grid. My inner engineer helpfully noted that it probably wasn't a simple toothpick. Most likely, the tip held a piezoelectric crystal. A sharp press generates a short, high-voltage pulse that burns or, more likely, simply blinds the lock's microcontroller, forcing it into emergency mode and popping the door. Simple, dirty, and effective.
The sleepy concierge in the spacious, marble-finished lobby wasn't a problem either. Blade threw him a single glance, and the middle-aged man sighed heavily, closed his eyes, and dropped his head onto his chest, drifting off to sleep. We walked calmly toward the stairs. The elevator was too risky, and unnecessary anyway since we only needed the second floor. I noted the camera positions as we moved. Panasonics, wide-angle, good coverage. I was glad that my simple respirator mask and the deep hood of Proteus at least hid my face. But Blade?
"Hey," I said quietly on the stairwell landing. "Are you invisible to cameras, or do you just not care?"
"I'm invisible to the system, kid," Blade shrugged without slowing. "Whatever footage surfaces, the people upstairs will wipe it immediately and chalk it up to solar flares. And I've got nothing to hide. I'm a law-abiding citizen in the service of Her Majesty."
We were already on the second floor. A long, quiet corridor with carpet thick enough to muffle our steps. By some law of irony, the unit numbering started from the beginning, putting our target at the very far end. Moving behind a superhuman while wearing a suit designed to take bullets, I felt relatively safe.
We passed unit twenty-four. Then I spotted her. Tucked into the dark corner at the end of the corridor, almost directly across from unit two-thirty, a female figure crouched on the ceiling, knees pulled to her chest like a gargoyle out of a monochrome nightmare, drilling us with her gaze through white mask lenses. Gwen. Already here. Judging by the fact that Blade hadn't slowed even slightly, he'd clocked her long before I had.
With a completely silent, graceful drop she returned to the floor and moved toward us. Specifically toward me. I braced myself for anything: accusations, anger, another flash of temper. But either Gwen was more mature than I'd given her credit for, or the sight of a grim Blade and my full kit had adjusted her priorities. She gave me a quick, assessing look, her eyes lingering on the belt with its unassuming plasma shield generator box, and she understood that I hadn't come empty-handed.
"So what's the plan?" was the first thing she asked, barely above a whisper.
"John," Blade said in my direction when the three of us stopped in front of door number 2-30.
I nodded. Under what I was sure was Gwen's stunned stare, I placed my palm flat against the steel door. An instant later it was gone, dissolved into thin air, leaving a perfect rectangular opening into the apartment. Yes, Blade knew how to use every card in the deck. And as for Gwen, well. Let her consider this a mutual exchange of secrets.
Blade didn't wait. He was off from a standing start so fast the air hissed. He flew into the apartment like a shadow. Gwen and I heard only a short cry, the sound of breaking glass, and the dull impact of a body hitting the floor. By the time we stepped inside, it was already over.
A blond man, Schultz, lay on the floor in the middle of the living room. Blade had one knee planted precisely on his neck. No matter how Schultz strained, his body barely twitched. The strength disparity was total. Chi was probably involved, given how fluid and controlled Blade's movements had been, far too smooth and forceful for simple adrenaline.
I stepped back to the opening and pulled the door out of my inventory. It settled into place with a dull thud, the fittings slightly loosened, but that was a small price for the advantage.
"Let's have a little chat about superiority," Blade muttered darkly, angling Schultz's head so the man had no choice but to look up into his eyes.
I tuned out the beginning of the mental interrogation and began scanning the apartment. My target was the vibro-gauntlets. They couldn't stay here. They'd need to be appropriated for the benefit of my garage and the engineering instincts I'd never quite managed to suppress.
An absurd thought flickered through my mind. A Black man with a grudge, a Nazi mercenary, a capitalist heroine, and an engineer with communist tendencies regarding other people's property had gathered in one apartment. That sounded like the setup to an excellent joke.
"Why did you kill Frank Castle's family?" Blade opened with, his voice quiet and level, which somehow made it more frightening.
While he ran the interrogation, I used the moment to study the apartment carefully. My perception, sharpened by NZT, absorbed every detail. A typical bachelor's den: the ingrained smell of sweat, stale food, and something faint and metallic underneath. One toothbrush in the bathroom, a mountain of dirty dishes in the sink, a cardboard pizza box on the coffee table. No trace of a woman's presence. Against the backdrop of this kingdom of entropy, one object looked completely out of place. An unremarkable closet in the corner. The carpet in front of it was more worn than anywhere else in the apartment, which was strange for a place that should have been used primarily for storing junk, especially when Schultz's everyday clothes were draped carelessly over chairs elsewhere.
"Or-orders. I'm just an exe-kh-cutor," Shocker wheezed, nearly choking, his terrified gaze locked on Blade's face.
I moved to the closet. From the corner of my eye I noticed Gwen was watching me more than the interrogation. She understood I was looking for something specific.
"Orders from Kingpin? What was the purpose of the killing? Why did Frank survive?" Blade fired the questions rapidly, giving him no room to breathe.
I opened the closet doors. Simple clothes on hangers inside: t-shirts, a couple of sweatshirts, jeans. But something was wrong. Everything was too clean. In an apartment where dust was a permanent resident, the interior surfaces of the closet were sterile. And the clothes hung with near-military precision, perfectly ironed. Out of character for someone who lived like this. The final detail was Schultz himself, who, even pinned under Blade's pressure, had let his panicked gaze flick in my direction for just a fraction of a second. Bingo. For elite operatives who could be called out at a moment's notice, equipment needed to be within arm's reach.
"Yes. Purpose unkn-khz-own. He refused the boss several times. He wasn't supposed to survive!" The last part came out with genuine bewilderment. That cleared one thing up: Frank Castle had somehow beaten the odds.
I began tapping on the interior back wall of the closet. I could have simply removed it to my inventory, but if the mechanism was built into the furniture itself, that wouldn't help. Finally, near the very base of the wall, my fingers found a small cavity. There it was.
"Where is Kingpin now?" Blade got to the main question.
I straightened and delivered a short, precise kick to the spot, then another and another, searching for the right frequency. After six attempts, I found it. The mechanism responded not to force but to the resonant vibration of the strike, activating only when someone hit the right point at exactly the right angle. Like something out of a spy film: the back wall of the closet slid smoothly to the side. Inside, mounted on quick-release brackets, hung a quilted yellow-brown suit, but my eyes went straight past it. The vibro-gauntlets. Steel, simultaneously massive and elegant, they looked like artifacts from a future that hadn't arrived yet.
"I don't knoooow!" Schultz howled.
"Then who does?!" Blade growled.
Gwen materialized silently beside me.
"And what exactly are you planning to do with those?" she asked quietly, nodding at the gauntlets.
Without a word, I touched them and they vanished. I didn't need the damn suit. I'd study the gauntlets later. If I put them on now and made one careless movement, there'd be nothing left of this apartment.
"My handler. J-fzv-effrey Wykle. He's one of Kingpin's deputies!"
"Jeffrey Wykle. Where is he right now? Address! Base! Anything!"
"The base. On Sixth Avenue. An underground complex under building four-khr-teen!"
"Good," Blade glanced at both of us. "Anyone else need anything from this guy?"
I reached into my inventory for one of the gauntlets, but Gwen was faster. Her voice trembled with barely contained grief.
"Police Captain George Stacy. Who gave the order for his death?"
"First I've heard of it," Shocker answered without hesitation. His face made it clear he wasn't lying. Gwen knew it too. Intellectually she understood the order had come from Kingpin or someone near the top, but she needed a name, an executor, somewhere to start.
"Alright, my turn," I stepped forward, holding up one of the gauntlets. "How do you operate these?"
"Compression force," Schultz wheezed. "Internal lining, piezo-sensor matrix. Squeeze your fist sharply and you get a short, focused pulse, like a shock wave from the fist. Squeeze and hold and charge builds in the capacitors, and when you release it you get a wide, constant vibration. Change the frequency with finger pressure: low frequency crushes concrete, high frequency turns glass to dust."
"Drawbacks? Trackers?"
"Recoil," he wheezed. "The stronger the impulse, the worse it is. The suit absorbs the vibration and distributes the load across the entire surface. No trackers. This is my technology. Only a suicidal person attacks Kingpin's people."
Good. That meant the suit was actually important after all. I'd need to take it too.
"Sorry, buddy," Blade's voice turned ice cold. "But the suicidal person here is you. From the moment you decided to put your hands on my friend. Goodbye."
"Wait! No! You're going to kill him?!" Gwen cried out, stepping forward.
But it was already too late. What followed wasn't a loud crack but a quiet, wet, sickening sound of tearing ligaments and shifting vertebrae. Herman Schultz's body went limp. Blade straightened without sparing the heroine a glance. Dirty work completed with absolute efficiency.
He turned to me.
"Let's go, kid. Self-righteous heroines are not on our path."
I didn't think she'd hang back, but I hoped she'd taken something away from it. The man had murdered an entire family, and those weren't his first kills by a long stretch. Leaving him alive would have been a mistake. The kind of mistake a friendly neighborhood Spider-Man would make, but not a death machine like Blade or the Punisher, and on that I agreed with them. Although the cold pragmatism that NZT had amplified in me might have been doing some of the talking. Either way it didn't matter. What mattered was that we were now heading to Fisk's base, where we were unlikely to be welcomed with open arms.
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