The two guards at the entrance were having a quiet night.
One was leaning against the wall scrolling his phone. The other was walking slowly back and forth along the front of the building, hands in his jacket, not really paying attention to anything. The harbor was empty. No one had ever been stupid enough to attack here.
Then one of them looked up.
He stopped walking.
In the distance he saw something green walking toward them.
"Hey." His voice came out quieter than he intended. "Hey — what is that."
The other guard looked up from his phone. Stared.
Neither of them moved for a full three seconds.
Then the first one started shouting.
Suddenly gang members came running out from inside due to the shout.
Someone opened fire first and then everyone did.
The sound was loud and sharp in the open dock air. The bullets hit the crystal figure and made a sound like hitting concrete — sharp little cracks, one after another. The figure didn't flinch. It didn't even slow down. It just kept walking toward them at the same pace while the bullets hit it and fell.
One guy in the back stopped shooting and stared at his own gun like it had done something wrong.
"Why isn't it—"
The crystal moved. Both arms came out and the ground around the figure's feet grew upward in a fast low wave that swept the front row off their feet all at once. Clean. Fast. Like knocking over bottles. The ones behind them didn't have time to react before the crystal reshaped and came at them from the sides, pressing them back against the walls of the entrance and pinning them there.
It was all over in about forty seconds.
Jack stepped over the ones on the ground and walked through the front door.
In the distance a SHIELD drone held its position two hundred meters above the building, its camera locked on the entrance.
Natasha watched the monitor. The entire front crew was down. She checked the time — less than a minute since first contact.
"Deploy team one," she said.
The agent to her left was already on the radio.
"All units move to assigned positions. Full perimeter."
Natasha kept her eyes on the screen. The crystal figure had already gone inside. The drone feed showed the building from above — lights on in the upper floors, movement behind some of the windows. Her team was closing in quietly from three sides.
"Prepare everything according to plan," she said.
"Yes ma'am."
The room went quiet except for the low sound of radio confirmations coming in one by one.
The inside of the building was a wide open warehouse floor with metal shelving units running down both sides and a concrete ceiling two floors up. Bare bulbs on wires. Boxes stacked in the back corners. A metal staircase on the far wall going up.
Jack walked in and stopped.
The room was full of people. More than outside. They had heard the shooting and they were ready — spread out across the floor, using the shelving units as cover, weapons up. Someone near the back was giving short quiet instructions. They were organized. They had a plan.
Jack looked around the room slowly.
Then he started moving.
He went left first — a fast cut along the wall that pulled three of them out of position. The crystal came up from the floor between them and the shelving, cutting off their cover. Two of them swung at him — one with a bar, one with a kick that connected with his shin and hurt the guy's foot more than it hurt Jack. He put them both down with one wide crystal push that sent them sliding back across the floor.
The ones at the back opened up with everything they had.
Jack turned into it and let it hit him and kept walking forward. He was trying something — he brought the crystal up in front of him at an angle and the shots deflected sideways instead of just stopping. He filed that away.
A group of four came at him together from the right, which was smarter than anything the others had tried. He backed up two steps to let them commit, then dropped low and brought the crystal up from underneath in four separate points — one for each of them — and they all went up and came back down in different directions.
He stood up. Tried a different angle with the left hand. Better.
Kept moving.
It went on for a few minutes. The building got quieter in sections as he worked through it — the left side, then the back, then the middle. The guys near the staircase lasted the longest because they had the high ground on the first landing but he took the wall away from them and that ended that.
With one final wide sweep the last group went down.
The room was quiet.
He left the scene.
Near the far wall, half hidden under a knocked over shelf, one eye opened.
Just one. Moving very slowly left, then right, scanning the room with extreme care.
The young gang member — patchy beard, mismatched shoes, jacket two sizes too big — had been lying completely still since the moment the fight started. He had taken one small hit at the very beginning, decided instantly that being unconscious was the correct strategy, and had been deeply committed to that decision ever since.
He scanned the room one more time.
No crystal monster anywhere.
A slow smile spread across his face.
Thank god that monster left.
He sat up carefully, moving like every sound could kill him, which as far as he knew it could. He got to his feet. Dusted his jacket off with quiet little pats.
He had done it. A superhuman crystal alien thing and he had completely fooled it with acting. He was honestly a little impressed with himself. He straightened his collar.
Not bad, he thought. Not bad at all.
He turned toward the door and started walking. Then jogging. Feeling better with every step. The door was right there —
Jack was sitting in a chair made entirely of crystal, right outside the door, one leg crossed over the other, completely still, looking at him.
The gang member's body stopped moving before his brain told it to.
Every system shut down for a moment.
"Hello," Jack said with a smile. "Where are you going?"
Something snapped back on in the gang member's legs and he spun and ran. Or tried to. The fear had gotten into his feet and somewhere in the middle of his first full step they went out from under him completely and he hit the floor chin first with a loud thud. He was back up in half a second — pure survival instinct — took two full running steps toward freedom and walked straight into a wall of crystal that rose up from the floor to the ceiling directly in front of him.
He pressed both hands against it. Solid.
He turned around very slowly.
Jack was standing now, arms at his sides, just watching him.
The gang member looked left. Looked right. Looked at the ceiling like it might offer something. It didn't.
His face crumpled.
"Don't kill me." His voice came out completely wrong — high and cracked and nothing like he intended. "Sir, please. I am a new guy. Three weeks, sir. I just started three weeks ago. I don't even know anything. I have a mother at home. Old woman. Very old. Who is going to feed her, sir? Who?"
The tears came and they were completely real. Whatever else was happening, the tears were one hundred percent genuine.
Jack looked at him.
"Where is your boss."
The gang member blinked. His brain processed this. Realized with a wave of relief that he was not currently being attacked. Made a very fast decision.
"Sixth floor." The words came out like they had been waiting. "Main room sir, end of the hall, big room, you cannot miss it. Sixth floor. Yes. One hundred percent."
Seeing Jack move, he panicked thinking he was about to be attacked.
"Sir, please have mercy. My wife is innocent. Very dependent woman, sir. Emotionally she cannot function without me. I am her whole world. If something happens to me she will—"
Jack stopped.
He looked at the guy.
"So," he said. "Mother or wife."
The gang member opened his mouth. Nothing came out for a moment. He looked at the floor. He looked at the ceiling. Something behind his eyes gave up completely and he just started crying. Loudly. With absolutely no dignity left anywhere in the situation.
"Mother," he managed between sobs. "My mother, sir. Old innocent woman. She doesn't even know I'm here. She thinks I have an office job."
Jack stood there and looked at him for one long moment.
He knew it was nonsense. Every single word from beginning to end was nonsense delivered by a guy in mismatched shoes who had just tried to play dead and nearly got away with it. None of it was true. Probably not even the mother.
But standing here looking at this crying person, Jack found it very hard to treat it as a serious situation.
He turned and walked to the stairs.
The gang member stood completely still and listened to the footsteps going up until he couldn't hear them anymore.
Then he looked around the empty room. At all the people on the floor. At the crystal wall slowly dissolving behind him.
"He fell for it," he said quietly.
He stood there with a proud face for a moment.
He straightened his jacket one more time.
Then he ran. No looking back, full speed, completely committed, straight through the corridor and into the exit door which he hit with both hands and burst through into the cold night air outside like a frightened deer.
He took one full breath.
"I made it."
"Freeze."
The word came from everywhere at once.
He stopped.
Lights hit him from three directions. Figures in tactical gear had the full perimeter locked — in front, both sides, every gap covered. Weapons up. Nowhere to go.
He stood there.
He looked left. He looked right. He looked straight ahead at the people pointing things at him.
His face changed color.
"Don't shoot." His voice came out as a cry. "Please. Don't shoot."
They moved in from both sides and he didn't resist. Not even a little. He was completely done resisting things for the evening.
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