Location: S.H.I.E.L.D. Quinjet, Airspace above New York
The city below was a grid of amber light, oblivious to the war unfolding in its suburbs. Inside the cockpit of the Quinjet, the only light came from the tactical displays, casting a harsh green glow on Deputy Director Maria Hill's face.
"ETA, ten minutes," Hill announced, her hands moving fluidly over the controls. She tapped her earpiece. "Update from Romanoff. She's breached the Hammer Industries facility in Queens. She says Vanko is cornered."
Agent 47 sat in the jump seat, his posture rigid, his briefcase resting on his knees. He didn't respond immediately. His eyes were fixed on the live feed of the Stark Expo playing on a secondary monitor.
Iron Man was weaving through the Unisphere, pursued by a swarm of drones. Explosions blossomed like deadly fireworks.
47 processed the data.
Subject: Ivan Vanko. Son of Anton Vanko. Disgraced physicist. History of incarceration in Soviet gulags.
Psychological Profile: Obsessive. Vindictive. Nihilistic.
"He is not there," 47 said.
Hill glanced back. "Natasha is clearing the hallway to his control room right now. She has eyes on the heat signatures."
"Vanko is driven by a blood feud," 47 stated, his voice cutting through the drone of the engines. "He does not want to kill Stark remotely. He wants to be the last thing Stark sees. A man who constructs an energy whip to attack a racing car on a public track is not a man who hides behind a computer screen."
47 tapped the armrest.
"Furthermore, he possesses the schematics for the War Machine armor. He has had access to Hammer's resources for weeks. He would not simply build drones. He would build a suit for himself."
"You think he's at the Expo?" Hill asked, frowning.
"I think he is preparing for a duel," 47 corrected. "And in a duel, if you cannot strike the opponent directly, you strike what he values."
47 looked at the screen where the camera panned over the panicked crowd.
"Connect me to Romanoff."
Hill hesitated for a fraction of a second, then flipped a switch. "Patching you in."
"This is Romanoff," Natasha's voice crackled over the comms, accompanied by the sounds of impact and grunts of pain. "I'm a little busy."
"Vanko," 47 said calmly. "He is not in the control room."
"I have guards outside the door," Natasha replied, breathless. "He's holed up. I'm taking them down now."
"They are a distraction," 47 said. "He is gone."
"I appreciate the pessimism, 47," Natasha said, her voice straining as she likely threw a man through a wall. "But I can handle a few rent-a-cops. Clear the channel. I'm breaching."
The line clicked.
47 looked at Hill. "She is walking into an empty room."
"Director Fury," Hill spoke into the secure channel. "47 suggests Vanko has vacated the Hammer facility and may be onsite at the Expo. He predicts a personal confrontation."
"I heard him," Fury's voice came through, sounding weary. "The Asset's profile on Vanko matches the psych eval we just pulled from the KGB archives. Vanko likes his vengeance up close and personal."
A moment of silence stretched in the cabin.
Then, Natasha's voice returned. It was quiet. Angry.
"He's gone."
Hill's eyes widened. She looked at 47.
"The room is empty," Natasha reported. "He rigged the drones to autopilot. And... Director, there's a suit missing. A Hammer prototype."
"47 called it," Fury said. "Romanoff, reboot Rhodey's suit if you can. Get control back to the good guys."
"Copy that," Natasha said.
"Fury to 47," the Director's voice shifted focus. "Since you're so good at predicting the bad guy's dance steps, what's his next move?"
"He will engage Stark," 47 said. "But while Stark stays and fights with him, he will make sure that he has leverage in case he fails. He will target Virginia 'Pepper' Potts."
47 pointed at the screen.
The CEO of Stark Industries was currently on the main stage, trying to coordinate the evacuation with the NYPD.
"She is exposed. The drones are programmed to cause maximum chaos. Vanko will use her death to unbalance Stark."
"We can't lose Potts," Fury said. "She's the only thing keeping Stark Industry from collapsing, and she's the only one who can talk sense into Tony."
"Then the mission parameters have changed," Fury ordered. "Let Stark and Rhodes handle the robots and the Russian. I want you on Overwatch."
"Clarification," 47 said. "You require protection, not elimination."
"I require her to be breathing when the smoke clears," Fury said. "You are a shield tonight, 47. Not a sword."
"A shield," 47 repeated.
The concept was inefficient. A shield waited for impact. A sword removed the source of the impact. Nonetheless.
"Understood."
"Hill, get him a bird's eye view. Drop him high."
"Copy, Director," Hill said. She banked the Quinjet hard. "Stark Expo in sight. Dropping altitude."
The Expo was a sea of screaming people. The Unisphere glowed in the center, a beacon of tomorrow surrounded by the destruction of today.
Smoke billowed from the Oracle Dome.
"There," 47 pointed.
To the east of the main stage, there was a partially constructed pavilion—the Stark Energy Spire.
It was a latticework of steel beams and concrete platforms, overlooking the main evacuation route where Pepper Potts was currently directing civilians.
"I can't land there," Hill said. "Too much debris."
"I do not need you to land," 47 said. "Just hover."
He stood up. He grabbed his briefcase.
The rear ramp lowered. The wind whipped into the cabin, smelling of ozone, burning plastic, and fear.
47 stepped to the edge. The drop was forty feet onto a steel gantry.
He didn't hesitate. He jumped.
He landed in a roll, his enhanced physiology absorbing the shock that would have shattered a normal operative's ankles. He came up in a crouch, the briefcase already in hand.
He moved to the edge of the platform. He was five hundred yards away from the main stage. The vantage point was perfect.
He set the briefcase down on a concrete slab. He keyed the combination.
Click.
He assembled the Remington MSR.
It was a thing of beauty. The modular chassis snapped together with a satisfying metallic resonance.
He attached the heavy barrel, the bolt assembly, and the high-powered variable-zoom thermal scope.
Finally, he screwed on the suppressor—a massive cylinder designed to turn the roar of a .338 Lapua Magnum round into a polite cough.
He opened the ammunition compartment.
Inventory:
18 Rounds: Incendiary (High-Heat/Structure Destabilization).
18 Rounds: Subsonic (Silent/Soft Target).
18 Rounds: Armor-Piercing (Tungsten Core).
Fifty-four bullets.
Below him, the chaos was escalating.
Hammer Drones—Army, Navy, Air Force variants—were landing in the plaza. They weren't just chasing Iron Man anymore. Their targeting protocols had degraded into indiscriminate slaughter.
47 raised the scope to his eye. The world narrowed to a circle of green luminescence.
He scanned the crowd.
Target Acquired: Virginia 'Pepper' Potts.
She was standing near a police barricade, shouting into a phone. She was terrified, dust coating her strawberry-blonde hair, but she wasn't running. She was helping a fallen officer.
Threat Analysis.
Three Army drones had landed fifty meters from her position. Their shoulder-mounted cannons were spooling up. Their sensors swept the crowd.
Targeting solution: Civilian population.
47 adjusted the windage. The updraft from the burning Oracle Dome was significant.
He had to dismantle heavily armored automated combat units using a bolt-action rifle.
A direct hit to the chassis would do nothing; the armor plating was designed to withstand tank shells.
He engaged his enhanced cognition.
Time seemed to decelerate. He looked at the drones not as machines, but as blueprints.
Hammer Industries Design Flaw #478: Thermal exhaust ports on the Army variant are unshielded during firing cycles to prevent overheating.
Design Flaw #209: The primary sensor array on the 'head' is covered by ballistic glass, but the neck joint relies on a flexible, synthetic weave for mobility.
He loaded a magazine of Armor-Piercing rounds.
He centered the crosshair on the lead drone. It raised its cannon, aiming directly at the cluster of civilians where Pepper stood.
The drone's neck extended slightly as it acquired the target.
47 exhaled. He squeezed the trigger.
Phut.
The recoil kicked into his shoulder, a familiar, grounding sensation.
The tungsten-core bullet traversed the five hundred yards in less than a second. It struck the drone exactly in the neck joint, threading the needle between two armor plates.
It severed the primary servo connection and the optical data cable.
The drone's head snapped back violently. It fired its cannon, but the aim went wild, blasting a hole in a harmless advertising billboard instead of the crowd.
The machine spasmed and collapsed, its gyroscope failing.
One down. Two remaining.
The other two drones turned, their threat algorithms triangulating the shot vector.
They looked up to where 47 is.
They saw him.
Shoulder rockets opened.
47 didn't move. He cycled the bolt. Clack-clack.
He had 1.5 seconds before they fired.
He shifted his aim to the second drone. This one was shielding its neck.
Alternative weakness: Munitions feed.
The belt of 20mm rounds feeding the shoulder cannon was exposed for a six-inch stretch under the armpit.
47 fired.
The bullet struck the primer of a high-explosive round in the drone's feed chute.
BOOM.
The drone's right side disintegrated in a chain reaction. The explosion knocked the third drone off its feet.
Pepper Potts looked up, shielding her eyes from the flash. She saw the drones falling. She looked toward the tower, but saw nothing but shadows.
47 cycled the bolt again.
The third drone was damaged but active. It was crawling, dragging itself toward the civilians, its repulsor charging for a suicide blast.
47 swapped magazines. Incendiary.
He aimed for the thermal exhaust port on the drone's back, which was glowing cherry-red.
He fired.
The incendiary round pierced the vent and ignited the fuel cell inside. The drone glowed white-hot from within, melting into a pile of slag before it could fire.
Three threats neutralized. Three rounds expended.
"Sector clear," 47 murmured to himself.
But the swarm was large. More drones were dropping from the sky. War Machine—still under Vanko's control—was strafing the Expo grounds.
Iron Man was leading the chase away, but the ground units were left behind to purge the area.
47 scanned the plaza.
Pepper was moving again, heading toward a side exit.
But a Navy drone—bulky, equipped with missile pods—crashed through the wall, blocking her path.
It leveled a missile pod at her.
47 cycled the bolt.
Distance: 600 yards.
Wind: 15 knots East.
Target: Missile pod warhead.
It was a risky shot. If he hit the missile, the explosion might kill her. If he didn't, the missile would definitely kill her.
He needed to disable the launcher, not detonate it.
He aimed for the hydraulic piston elevating the pod. A target the size of a coin.
His ice-blue eye didn't blink. His heartbeat slowed to 40 beats per minute.
The drone's launcher locked into place.
47's finger tightened.
==============
If you want to read some advanced chapters, just check out my pa treon. You can support me or not, your choice.
patr eon.com/ ReaderViewPointpatreon.com/ ReaderViewPoint
[P.S.: Happy Christmas, everyone!]