New York weather was always unpredictable. Rain came down without warning.
The roll-up door of Sal's garage had already been pulled shut, with only the neon sign outside still flickering.
Inside the storage room, Eddie stared through the gap toward the modified-car workshop outside.
He was waiting.
As a street kid who had grown up clawing his way through alleys and bad neighborhoods, he had always been waiting for a chance to make a name for himself, and now...
Eddie clenched a battered flip phone tightly in his hand. The video recording had already started, and his palm was slick with sweat.
As long as I get real evidence... as long as I get hard proof of Sal's deals... Eddie repeated the line to himself over and over inside his head.
He wanted desperately to prove himself.
When he stood next to his friends, there was always that feeling inside him, helplessness, inferiority.
He refused to accept it.
He did not want to spend the rest of his life fixing cars.
This was his chance to change his fate.
The metal side door of the garage was pushed open. Rain and cold wind rushed in, along with a scattered set of footsteps. Behind them came the glare of headlights.
Eddie aimed the phone camera in that direction.
Several men in black raincoats walked in. At the front was a heavily built man with rough features and eyes as cold as a snake's. Even the way he moved carried something mechanical about it.
Mac Gargan.
Eddie did not yet know that this was the man the New York underworld already feared as Scorpion, but every instinct he had from surviving on the street was screaming that this guy was dangerous.
Sal, the fat loudmouth who usually swaggered around like he owned the world, now acted like a lapdog, hurrying forward with a broad smile and practically bowing as he greeted him.
"Mr. Gargan! You finally made it. Rough trip, huh? Hell of a storm out there tonight." Sal bent over and offered him a cigar.
Gargan did not even look at the greasy slob. He walked straight to the lift platform in the workshop and spoke.
"Cut the crap, Sal. Mr. Fisk's unhappy with the heat on the street right now. George Stacy, the new psycho in charge, keeps tracking our transport lines. Where's the old man's new merchandise? I want to inspect it."
"Of course, of course! It's all right here, top-of-the-line stuff!" Sal immediately scurried off to the corner of the garage and yanked away a tarp.
Under it sat a green crate stamped with the Hammer Industries logo.
Sal flipped it open eagerly.
From behind the storage-room crack, Eddie sucked in a breath and kept the camera fixed on the contents.
Inside lay rows of modified heavy firearms. Some had even been converted into electromagnetic rifles more advanced than anything the military fielded.
Of course, they were all dangerously unstable, which was exactly why the military had rejected them.
But that had created the perfect opening for the underworld to get its hands on them.
"These are electromagnetic rifles reworked by the Tinkerer from decommissioned military stock," Sal said proudly, like he had invented them himself. "Not only can they punch through body armor, they can tear through armored vehicles."
Gargan stepped forward, lifted one of the rifles, and weighed it in his hand.
"Not bad. But Fisk doesn't pay real money for toys." He looked at Sal with narrowed eyes. "Where's the thing I actually came for?"
Sal went to a second crate and opened it with far more ceremony.
The inside was packed with protective filler. Resting in the center was a metallic construct.
It was a mechanical tail, nearly ten feet long, assembled from dozens of titanium alloy segments. Each piece mimicked the movement of a real tail, and at the far tip sat a vicious metal barb. Hidden within it were also nozzle ports.
"What the hell..." Eddie had not expected something this big. This was way beyond an ordinary gang shootout.
Sal's grin turned feverish.
"Mr. Gargan, this is the Tinkerer's custom-built prototype neural-mechanical exoskeletal tail. Designed specifically for you. It links directly into the spinal nerve interface, so it moves like part of your own body. The barb at the end can tear through inches of steel plate, and it has internal launch capability for all kinds of payloads."
"It still needs field data, but the destructive power..." Sal spread his hands dramatically. "It'll make the cops, and any costumed freaks who show up, understand who really runs New York."
Gargan stared at the new weapon and looked satisfied.
He stripped off his coat, revealing a tight tactical suit underneath. Along his spine ran a line of metal interface ports.
"Good. Put it on me." Gargan gave the order like it was the most normal thing in the world. "I want to have some fun testing it. Let's see whether it's really as incredible as you idiots claim."
The men with him stepped forward at once, lifted the tail from the crate, aligned it with the ports in his back, and locked it in place with a hard mechanical clack.
As the system finished interfacing, Gargan's body trembled slightly, as if he were syncing with it.
Then, with the smallest shift of thought, the ten-foot mechanical tail began moving behind him like a living venomous creature, coiling and circling with eerie flexibility, even cutting sharply through the air.
It snapped forward once and punched straight through a solid block of iron.
Sal jumped and broke into a fresh sweat, forcing a smile onto his face.
"A perfect killing machine, Mr. Gargan."
Behind the tires, Eddie's heart was hammering.
This was huge.
This was real ammunition.
If he handed over this footage, not only was Sal finished, Fisk's smuggling network would take a massive hit too.
Enough. This is enough. I've got the weapons deal on camera. Next I wait for them to leave, then I grab the ledger... Eddie encouraged himself silently and stopped recording, slipping the phone away.
But he was not a trained field operative.
He had been crouched in extreme tension for too long, and the numb leg beneath him twitched.
The tiny scraping sound it made against the floor was enough.
Gargan caught it instantly and locked onto the direction of the storage room.
"Who's there?"
Sal froze, panic flashing through him.
Shit. Don't tell me it's Eddie, that worthless little bastard. How did he make noise? Couldn't he just sit still?!
But Sal still tried to bluff out loud.
"There's no one there, Mr. Gargan, I—"
Gargan did not even bother listening. He pulled on a helmet.
"Infrared thermal imaging mode. On."
At once, the world in front of him shifted into heat signatures. His gaze swept past tools and steel, then fixed on the area beside the tires.
A bright red human outline.
Gargan smiled.
The mechanical tail shot out toward the storage room.
"Looks like you've got a restless sewer rat hiding on your turf, Sal."
"A rat?" Sal's face changed instantly. "That's... Eddie? That little bastard mechanic? He's been back there spying this whole time?!" At that point, Sal stopped pretending. They were already exposed, and now both his mouth and his brain were full of curses aimed at Eddie.
Behind the tires, the moment Eddie heard Gargan say that, all the blood in his body seemed to turn cold.
I've been spotted.
The survival instinct of a street punk took over in an instant.
He knew begging was useless. Against gangsters at this level, against killing machines like this, explaining yourself was just another way to die.
"Go to hell!"