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Masque crawled through the ventilation duct in rat form, navigating layers of accumulated dust and grime until he reached the sublevel two outlet. He poked his head out — whiskers twitching, tiny black eyes scanning the room.
Two guards. Two hostages.
Harry Osborn was bound hand and foot, tape across his mouth, slumped against the wall but conscious — his eyes were open, darting around the room with a sharpness that didn't belong on a six-year-old's face. Beside him, an older man — late fifties, white-haired, heavyset, the well-fed build of someone accustomed to comfort. Also bound. Also gagged.
Masque released his grip and free-climbed down the wall — tiny hook-claws extending from his fingers and toes, moving with the fluid silence of a gecko. Not a scrape. Not a whisper. The guards were facing the door, backs to the wall he was descending.
He reached the ceiling directly above the first guard's head. Then he let go.
The guard felt something land on his scalp — a featherlight pressure, barely noticeable. Then a spike of pain through his eye socket, and then nothing at all. Masque's blade punched through the orbital bone and fanned outward inside the skull. Instantaneous.
The second guard hadn't even registered the first man's death when Masque pulled the blade free and flicked his wrist. A pulse of electromagnetic force launched the tiny rapier like a needle-sized missile — spinning, precise, crossing the room in a fraction of a second.
It found the second guard's eye with the same surgical accuracy. Brain. Shredded. Dead before his knees buckled.
"Alas," Masque murmured, retrieving his blade with a magnetic recall. "Had you been sleeping like your colleagues upstairs, I might have spared you the final curtain." He flicked the blade clean and sheathed it.
Before approaching the hostages, Masque swept the room. Methodically. Every corner, every surface, every suspicious object. Behind the door — there. A grenade, rigged to a tripwire. Anyone forcing entry from outside would have detonated it, killing both hostages instantly.
Masque disarmed it with two precise cuts, then sent the all-clear through the AllSpark link.
Seconds later, the muffled sounds of combat filtered down from above — gunfire interspersed with the heavy thuds of fists meeting flesh. Kade and Matt had engaged the remaining guards on sublevel one.
Masque turned to the hostages. Harry first.
The blade sliced through the ropes like they were made of paper. Then, as gently as a fifteen-centimeter robot assassin could manage, he peeled the tape from the boy's mouth.
Harry Osborn did not cry. He did not scream. He sat very still, looked directly at Masque, and said: "Thank you."
Then his eyes went wide with wonder.
"Whoa. Are you an alien?"
Masque considered the question with the gravity it deserved.
"I am no extraterrestrial, young master. I am Masque — an artist of shadow and steel, sworn to the Commander's service."
Harry blinked. "What?"
"I am... a robot."
"A robot?" Harry's fear evaporated, replaced by the kind of full-body excitement that only six-year-olds could produce. "That is SO COOL. Can you fly? Do you have lasers? Can you turn into a car?"
"I am a specialist in the arts of disguise and —"
"Can you turn into a dinosaur?"
"My transformations are limited by my physical dimensions, and therefore —"
"What about a really small dinosaur?"
Masque paused. Then, with the air of a Shakespearean actor accepting a role beneath his dignity, he shifted. Light bent around his frame, and where a cloaked robot had been standing, a miniature velociraptor now perched on the concrete floor.
Harry's gasp could have been heard on the surface.
"AWESOME."
The raptor bowed.
Upstairs, Kade and Matt cut through the remaining guards like a two-man wrecking crew. Matt's radar senses mapped every heartbeat, every footstep, every drawn breath — calling out positions before the guards even knew they were under attack. Kade followed his lead, Sensory Gauntlets deployed, striking with the precision of a man who'd spent one lifetime training to kill and a second lifetime acquiring the tools to do it better.
In deference to Matt — and because Harry was already safe — Kade pulled his punches. Mostly. A gauntlet-enhanced fist to the temple put men down without necessarily putting them in the ground. Whether they'd wake up with all their faculties intact was a question for the hospital, not for Kade.
They reached the hostage room door. Kade's gauntlet blade sheared through the bolt, and they pushed inside.
Harry Osborn was sitting cross-legged on the floor, watching a tiny velociraptor perform what appeared to be a theatrical bow. The boy was grinning so hard his face could barely contain it.
"Once more unto the breach, dear friends," the velociraptor was saying, in a voice like a miniature stage actor projecting to the back row. "Once more —"
"ONCE MORE UNDA THE BEACH!" Harry repeated at full volume, mangling every word with the cheerful confidence of a child who had no idea what he was saying.
Matt turned to Kade. "What exactly is happening?"
"I have no idea," Kade said. "And I've decided not to ask."
He called Norman first.
The phone barely rang once before Norman answered — the desperate speed of a man who'd been staring at his phone for an hour.
"Norman. Harry's safe. He's here with me."
"Let me — can I —"
Kade held the phone to Harry's ear. "Hey, Dad."
Whatever Norman said in response, Kade didn't hear it. The sound coming through the speaker was mostly just a man trying very hard not to cry. When he finally got words out, they were broken, raw, stripped of every shred of corporate polish.
Kade stepped away to give them the moment.
That handled, he turned his attention to the second hostage. The white-haired man was still bound — Masque hadn't untied him without authorization. Kade crouched down and removed the tape.
"Who are you?"
The old man's eyes were still glazed with terror. Kade spoke gently, gave him a moment, and waited for the shock to recede.
The man was just opening his mouth to answer when Violet's voice cut through the AllSpark link.
"Commander. Two vehicles just arrived at the entrance. The bodies have been discovered."
Reinforcements. Already.
Kade didn't hesitate. "Matt — take Harry and this man out through the secondary exit. Get them to Oscorp Tower. You know Hell's Kitchen better than anyone, and your senses will keep them safe."
Matt nodded. He scooped Harry up with one arm — the boy protested briefly, wanting to stay with the "dinosaur robot" — and guided the old man toward the back corridor.
Kade watched them go. Then he pulled two pistols from the dead guards' holsters, checked the magazines, and rolled his shoulders.
Masque materialized on his shoulder. Back in cloaked form. Blade drawn.
"Shall we give them a show, Commander?"
Kade smiled. It had been a long time since he'd had a proper fight.