Mechanical-Arm Spider #69
Star City's downtown had the look of a place where wealth had accumulated to the point of becoming architecturally visible.
Glass towers rose above street grid that had been planned with the kind of precision that suggested someone had actually cared about traffic flow and pedestrian access. Clean facades reflected morning sunlight in ways that made the whole district look like it had been polished specifically for promotional photography. The kind of urban development that showed up in Chamber of Commerce materials under headlines about economic growth and business-friendly environments.
Jake swung between those towers with weblines that caught glass and steel in patterns his spider-sense calculated automatically. Each movement pulled him forward through airspace that was rapidly filling with things designed to stop him -- bullets from street level, more bullets from elevated positions, some kind of explosive ordnance that detonated close enough to make his ears ring even through Sleeper's sound dampening.
The symbiote rippled across his shoulders in response to the constant impacts. Small-caliber rounds flattened against black material that had learned to harden on contact, distributing kinetic energy across surface area instead of letting it punch through to Jake's actual body. Larger rounds hit hard enough to leave bruises even through the protection, and something that felt like buckshot had torn through part of his left leg where the symbiote's density was spread thin.
He'd been fighting for hours.
The compounds he'd gathered in the Glades were still webbed to his torso beneath Sleeper's surface -- three intact containers out of the original seven. The others had been destroyed by gunfire or lost during maneuvers that had required dropping weight to maintain mobility. What remained represented enough raw material to synthesize maybe half of what he'd originally planned, assuming he could find somewhere with the right equipment and enough time to work without getting shot.
Both assumptions were looking increasingly theoretical.
Jake fired webbing at a communications tower and yanked himself upward, clearing the roofline of a forty-story office building just as concentrated fire converged on the space he'd occupied a second earlier. Glass shattered below him. Someone was shouting coordinates into a radio. His spider-sense painted threat vectors from positions he couldn't see, and somewhere in the chaos a sound cut through everything else with the clarity of something that operated on frequencies human ears weren't supposed to process.
The Canary Cry hit him like a physical force.
Sleeper convulsed across Jake's entire body. The symbiote's cohesion fractured under sonic assault that targeted the exact frequencies symbiotic material couldn't tolerate, breaking molecular bonds faster than they could reform. Jake felt the suit peel away from his skin in sections, black material writhing like it was trying to escape the sound, and his grip on the webline failed.
He dropped.
Forty feet straight down before his spider-sense screamed loud enough to cut through the disorientation. His right hand shot out on pure instinct and caught a window ledge, fingers finding purchase on architectural detail that hadn't been designed to support human weight. The ledge held for exactly the two seconds Jake needed to fire another webline, and then he was swinging again with Sleeper struggling to maintain coverage across his torso.
Black Canary stood on a rooftop three buildings east.
Blonde hair, leather jacket, the kind of stance that suggested martial arts training refined past the point of conscious thought. She was tracking him with visible focus, mouth open, and Jake's spider-sense was already warning him about the next Cry before she'd finished drawing breath for it.
He changed direction mid-swing. The webline released and he fired another one perpendicular to his trajectory, yanking himself sideways through airspace while the Cry tore through the space he would have occupied. Glass exploded from building facades. Metal shrieked. Something structural groaned under sonic assault that wasn't particularly concerned about collateral damage.
Jake landed on a balcony and immediately webbed the railing, using it to launch himself toward street level. The gangs he'd pissed off were still down there -- scattered groups with weapons raised, taking potshots whenever he dropped low enough to present a target. The cops had established perimeters at major intersections, blocking vehicle access with tactical barriers that looked more symbolic than functional.
And threading through all of it, coordinating, was Black Canary.
She'd shown up maybe twenty minutes after he'd entered downtown, which meant someone had called in reinforcements, which meant Star City's hero community had decided this rated immediate response. The Canary Cry was a problem Jake hadn't accounted for in his planning. Sleeper could handle bullets. Could adapt to most conventional weapons through hardening or redistribution. But sonic assault that specifically targeted symbiotic frequencies -- that was designed to break what he'd come to rely on.
Another Cry split the air. Sleeper rippled and Jake felt the suit thin across his left arm, black material pulling away to protect his core. His spider-sense guided him through a gap between buildings that put architecture between himself and the sound source, and he used the momentary cover to reassess.
Three intact compound containers. Downtown had laboratories -- had to, given the concentration of corporate research facilities and tech startups. Queen Industries alone had at least two buildings in the financial district that would have the equipment he needed. If he could synthesize the Kobra-Venom, get it into his system before his stamina failed completely, he could push through another few hours of this.
That was the plan.
The problem was that every move he made was bringing him deeper into downtown, closer to whatever infrastructure kept Star City's wealth concentrated and its rot properly hidden, and he'd just led an assault into territory that apparently had defensive measures he hadn't anticipated.
His spider-sense spiked before conscious thought caught up. Jake threw himself sideways and something that wasn't a bullet tore through the space his torso had occupied. The projectile embedded itself in concrete behind him with impact that cracked masonry, and when Jake looked back he saw metal fragments that looked too precisely machined to be conventional ammunition.
Something new moving with coordination that suggested training that went beyond civilian law enforcement.
Jake fired webbing and swung toward the nearest building with laboratory signage visible through ground-floor windows. If he could get inside, find what he needed, buy himself three minutes --
The Canary Cry hit him again and Sleeper screamed across every nerve ending Jake possessed.
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The office occupied the top floor of a building whose address didn't appear in any public database.
Dante stood at the window with his hands clasped behind his back, watching Star City's downtown tear itself apart through glass that was thick enough to stop rifle rounds and treated to prevent external surveillance. The chaos spread below him in patterns he recognized immediately -- gang violence bleeding into corporate territory, police response stretched past effective capacity, emergency services overwhelmed by incidents multiplying faster than they could be addressed.
And threading through it all, visible in feeds his security team was monitoring on screens behind him: the Spider.
"Same pattern as Gotham," someone said from the cluster of personnel working the monitors. Dante didn't turn to see who. The voice didn't matter. The observation was accurate regardless of who made it.
The tablet in Dante's hand displayed economic projections that updated in real-time as the chaos continued spreading. Distribution networks crippled in the Corridor and bleeding into the Glades. Revenue streams disrupted across secondary markets. Quarterly projections down eighteen percent in the last three hours alone, and the curve was still dropping.
"The Spider's trajectory puts him nine blocks from the Castellan Building," another voice reported. "Current vector suggests he'll be in range of primary operations within forty minutes."
Dante watched smoke rise from the financial district. Watched emergency vehicles converge on intersections that were already lost. Watched Star City's carefully maintained facade crack under pressure from someone who'd walked into downtown and forced the rot to surface whether the city was ready to acknowledge it or not.
Gotham had burned. Now Star City was burning. The pattern suggested someone who either didn't understand consequences or didn't care about them, and Dante had built his position in the Ninth Circle by understanding that both types were equally dangerous when left unchecked.
But they were also useful.
His thumb moved across the tablet's surface, pulling up files that had been sitting in secure storage for months. Field test parameters. Enhancement protocols. Deployment authorization codes that existed in systems conventional law enforcement couldn't access even if they knew to look for them.
"Sir, the board wants to convene an emergency session to discuss response options --"
"No." Dante's voice cut through the suggestion with the finality of someone whose opinion was the only one that mattered in this room. He didn't turn from the window. "There's no time to navigate committee discussions while the asset moves closer to critical infrastructure. This decision gets made now."
Silence behind him while his security team processed the implication. Dante continued watching the Spider's trajectory through downtown streets, calculating variables that included acceptable losses, profit margins, and the question of whether this represented threat or opportunity worth converting.
"We've been looking for field test parameters," Dante said, still watching the chaos below. "Controlled urban environment, enhanced target, measurable outcomes." His thumb touched the tablet again, entering the first authorization code. "We've been waiting months for the right opportunity. The Spider just provided it."
"Sir, deployment without board approval --"
"The board will approve what I tell them to approve." Dante turned from the window and looked at the security team directly. "Prepare for deployment. I want full tactical coordination and real-time data collection. Let's see how our product performs against Gotham's washed-down experiments."
The hesitation lasted exactly as long as it took for the personnel to remember who they reported to and what happened to people who questioned Dante's decisions after he'd made them. Authorization was confirmed. Codes were entered into systems that existed in spaces conventional oversight couldn't reach.
Dante returned his attention to the window. Watched the Spider swing between buildings with Black Canary coordinating response forces below. Watched chaos that had cost the Ninth Circle millions in revenue and would cost millions more before it resolved.
And somewhere in Star City's underground, things that had been waiting in containment began moving toward deployment coordinates that would intersect with the Spider's trajectory in approximately thirty-seven minutes.