Peter led the way, his suit's internal heaters fighting the bone-chilling dampness of the Bay. Behind him, Matt moved with a fluid, haunting silence, his senses navigating the pitch-black tunnel better than any HUD. Richard brought up the rear, his Nova armor dimmed to a faint copper glow to avoid detection.
"We're inside… uh, this should be the primary heat exchange for the lower levels," Peter whispered, his voice echoing through the comms. "The map says there's a maintenance hatch three hundred yards that way. Once we're through, we should be right under the old Citadel."
"Something's wrong," Matt interrupted, his head snapping toward the ceiling of the vent. "The vibration... it's changing. It's not just a pulse anymore. It's a sweep or movement."
Before Peter could respond, the walls of the vent hissed open. Not with the clank of old machinery, but with the seamless slide of advanced hydraulics. From the shadows of the ceiling, they dropped—the Cataloguer Drones.
They were sleek, obsidian orbs the size of a human head, trailing long, prehensile needles that glowed with a sickly violet light. There were no lasers, no gatling guns—just a terrifying, absolute silence.
"Look out!" Peter yelled, firing a web-line, but the drone he targeted shifted mid-air with a grace that felt impossible. It didn't just dodge; it moved slightly to the exact coordinate where the web would not land.
"I think they're reading us!" Richard shouted, his fists erupting with gold energy. He lunged at a cluster of them, but the drones swirled around him like a murmuration of starlings. One dived low, its "Data-Injector" needle snapping toward the gap in his armor. "These things aren't just programmed! They're being piloted! I think whoever's in charge knows we're here now!"
"Yeah, you're right," Matt gasped, parrying a needle with his billy club. The impact sent a jolt of static through his arm. "I'm guessing it's reading our minds and feeding them to these robots. They sound like they predict our muscle movements before we even make them. It's like fighting a shadow that knows your thoughts."
The drones weren't designed to kill. They were made to harvest. Every time a needle came close, Peter felt his spider-sense scream. One scratch from those injectors and they would be catatonic, ready to be filed away into the cryo-chambers lining the deeper halls.
"We can't outthink a telepathic AI!" Peter shouted, flipping over a drone and sticking to the ceiling. "Matt! Corner of the room—flush them toward the center!"
"Got it!" Matt swung his cable in a wide, whistling arc, the sonic vibration disrupting the drones' sensors for a split second.
The two street-level heroes began a frantic, synchronized dance. Peter provided the distraction, a chaotic blur of red and blue that forced the drones to consolidate their patterns. Matt used the acoustics of the vent to "push" them, funneling the obsidian orbs into a tight, buzzing swarm directly in front of the man who had been waiting for his opening.
"Rich! Now!" Peter roared.
Richard Rider didn't hesitate. He channeled the full weight of the Nova Force into a localized burst. "Get down!"
A blinding supernova of blue-white energy filled the corridor. The Cataloguer Drones, trapped in the crossfire of Peter and Matt's maneuver, had nowhere to go. The telepathic link was severed as the machines were vaporized instantly, reduced to molten slag before they could even send a distress signal.
The silence that followed was deafening. Richard stood in the center of the blackened vent, steam rising from his gauntlets.
"One point for the humans," Richard panted. "But the 'Brain' of these things definitely knows we're here now."
While the battle for Alcatraz raged three thousand miles away, the Friday morning in Manhattan was uncharacteristically grey.
Ethan Kane sat at a small, corner table of a quiet cafe in Greenwich Village. He had skipped today's classes—the curriculum was a century behind his current research anyway—and spent five grueling hours in his private lab. He was exhausted; the "slurry" problem with the nutrient persisted. While Sarah worked on that unknowingly for him in her own lab, Ethan focused on the machine cells, and by trying to avoid the endless feedback loop of his own thoughts, his head felt like it was being squeezed by a vice.
He sipped his black coffee, watching the rain streak the window. He was alone as he liked, or so he thought, until the chair across from him was pulled back.
A woman sat down with an aristocratic grace that made the air in the cramped cafe feel suddenly cold. She was dressed in a tailored, charcoal-wool trench coat, her silver-grey hair perfectly coiffed. Large, wrap-around silver-mirrored sunglasses obscured her eyes, reflecting Ethan's own tired face back at him. She rested a polished ebony cane against the table.
"Ethan Kane," she said. Her voice was low and melodic, possessing a rhythmic precision that made his pulse skip a beat. "The boy who has so many secrets. It's a pleasure to make your acquaintance."
Ethan didn't reach for his phone. He didn't tense up. He simply lowered his cup, his eyes narrowed as he searched through his memories. He then found a similar Marvel character that she could be. Recognizing the aura of her instantly—from the weight she sat with.
"Irene Adler," Ethan replied, his voice calm despite the adrenaline beginning to stir. "I have to admit, I'm a bit surprised by our meeting here. Based on my actions and proximity to Peter, I figured the first one of you guys to come knocking at my door would be Madame Web. I didn't think my faint, secondhand connection to Charles Xavier would be enough to bring Destiny out of the shadows of the Brotherhood of Evil Mutants."
Irene tilted her head slightly to the side. She wasn't looking at him; she was listening to the "rhythm" of his future. To Ethan, it felt like she was reading the final page of a book he hadn't even finished writing.
"Cassandra Web is a spider caught in her own threads," Irene said, her tone possessing a hint of distant disdain. "She and I watch the ripples of the same ocean, or if you like, see the threads of the same web. The only difference is what area draws our attention. Right now, you, Ethan Kane, have cast a stone in the part of the part that interests me."
"My, a threat from a prophetic mutant. Sounds super scary. So, am I considered a danger to you or mutants?" Ethan asked, leaning back.
"That remains to be seen as of yet," she whispered. "You are a strange one, to be sure. You are removed from fate's tapestry, yet are being slowly woven in. Even now, I cannot see more than mere months into your future. However, luckily, we are meant to meet within this short frame of time. So tell me, Master Kane... will you use your machine cells on us mutants? Or will you not?"
Ethan felt the hair on his arms stand up. She knew about the timeline. She knew intimate details about his identity and what he was doing. There could only be two reasons for that, and he hoped it was the second one in his mind.
"I've no plans to use it on mutants yet, Mrs. Adler. I know when not to make enemies," Ethan countered, his voice sharpening. "Now, if I may be so forward. Why are you here? I doubt you came all this way to hear me say a thing you already knew."
"I am here to have this conversation with you," Irene said, her gloved hand tightening on the head of her cane. "To see if I need to kill you or not. You can only be considered dangerous, but whether that danger extends to mutants was a mystery. As I said, I can only see so far when it comes to you, and I needed to verify what I saw. I was going to just kill you… but you did send your friend to rescue Charles Xavier. So, I've decided our alliance may start early in this lifetime."
She stood up, the movement as sudden and fluid as a ghost. "The you in the future, Ethan, wanted me to inform you of two things. First, you must find the woman, Moira MacTaggert; you will need her by your side when the time comes. Secondly, you die in the 'Secret War' as you called it. Ah, this last bit of information is from me. Moira is currently on her fourth life, so she might not join you so easily, knowing we will be working together in the future. Well then, Master Kane, I look forward to our next meeting and to the infinite changes you will bring forward. Good day."
Before Ethan could move, before he could ask a single follow-up question, she was gone. She merged into the crowd on the grey sidewalk like a shadow returning to the night.
Ethan sat alone at the table, his coffee now cold. He looked at his reflection in the glass; the fact that he would die in the 'Secret War' was disconcerting. However, looks like his plan would have to involve Moira MacTaggert. He had originally been interested in her power, but did not want it if he was limited as she was. The meeting with Destiny had put her back on his list. She said infinite when describing his future, meaning the weakness Moira had would not be his own.
He pulled out his phone and tapped a command to N.E.A.R.
"Collect the data of the latest experiments and stop after this current one," he whispered. "I will return to the lab tomorrow."
Finishing his coffee, he stood to leave, "Heh, so my plans will basically work until the secret wars. I wonder how I died. Oh well, one thing at a time. Let's finish things with the Exemplars first."