The floors below echoed with sounds of battle.
Death wails mixed with fierce gunfire, the chaos rising through the building's ventilation system and damaged walls. Even before reaching the penthouse, Nolan had personally executed a considerable number of Kingpin's soldiers.
But surviving gang members still occupied several floors, dug in and determined. They'd transformed the building into a vertical battlefield, fighting a desperate stronghold defense against Madam Gao's forces.
Madam Gao herself—wounded, exhausted, covered in blood and grime—refused to retreat. She led her remaining fighters floor by floor, clearing rooms with methodical brutality.
This was the Lord's command before he departed. Her final test.
Kingpin was dead.
If she couldn't eliminate his remaining forces and gradually absorb New York's fractured underworld into a coherent organization, then she was worthless. Deadweight.
And the Lord's treatment of worthless gang members had been demonstrated quite thoroughly throughout the building. Bodies everywhere provided ample evidence.
"Kingpin is dead! We've won!" Madam Gao's voice emerged flat, emotionless. She raised her weapon and pointed it forward.
"So before the police arrive... finish this."
Five o'clock in the morning.
Inside the secret base beneath Nolan's apartment building.
The facility had grown considerably. The floor space had more than doubled, and UR-025 had implemented a proper structural layout. The central area now served as a main hall, surrounded by specialized rooms.
A training ground occupied one section, complete with weights and combat equipment. A shooting range stretched along another wall, targets already installed at varying distances. A massive equipment room and material warehouse took up an entire corner.
Even personnel quarters had been roughed in—basic but functional, with bunks and lockers waiting for eventual occupants.
UR-025 had connected water lines and electrical systems throughout. Climate control hummed softly, keeping the temperature comfortable despite being underground.
The construction quality made Nolan shake his head in quiet amazement. The AI worked fast and built to last.
Nolan sat cross-legged on a metal cot in one of the side rooms, having just stripped off his combat gear. The hell gun and battery pack lay beside him, still warm from use. His helmet and gas mask rested on the floor.
He mentally catalogued his night's work.
Tangible assets: bearer bonds worth twenty million dollars, completely untraceable.
With the Underground King's death, his considerable digital wealth—bank accounts, cryptocurrency holdings, offshore investments—would become orphaned resources. No one left alive who knew how to access them.
Which meant they effectively belonged to UR-025 now. Nolan couldn't personally access those funds yet, so he mentally filed them under "Man of Iron Bank—regular savings account."
Intangible assets were equally substantial.
He'd inherited a massive criminal organization—leaderless after tonight's bloodbath, with core personnel dead and lower-level members in complete disarray. But the infrastructure remained intact. The connections. The operations. The foundation of power.
Nolan had no intention of personally managing a nest of criminals, of course. The thought made him vaguely nauseous.
But he trusted that UR-025 and Madam Gao would "clean house" according to his standards. They'd purge the organization of its worst elements—the slavers, the rapists, the dealers who sold to children—until what remained was something resembling a functional military force.
Disciplined. Obedient. Useful.
"Oh. Almost forgot."
Nolan suddenly raised his palm and slapped his forehead. He'd been so focused on immediate concerns that he'd completely neglected something important.
He opened the simulator interface with a thought and navigated to the salvage function.
[Salvage completion countdown: 0:00:00]
[Salvage harvest: Standard bolter ammunition (50 rounds)]
[Salvage harvest: Laspistol power cells (10 units)]
[Salvage harvest: Promethium fuel (one barrel, unexpired)]
Nolan skipped through a series of miscellaneous items—useful but mundane supplies he'd add to the warehouse later.
Then his eyes locked onto the final salvage result.
His breath caught in his throat. His eyes went wide, pupils dilating with shock and excitement.
The salvage function had delivered. Really delivered.
[Salvage Harvest: Solar Auxilia Pattern Void Combat Armor (Worn)]
Note: Manufactured for the Solar Auxilia, this fully-enclosed carapace armor features an integrated life support system. Designed by the Adeptus Mechanicus for chemical warfare, void operations, and hostile planetary environments. Defense capability sufficient to resist small arms fire and impacts, preventing wearer shock trauma. Self-repair functions provide limited resilience against penetrating damage from small weapons. Believe me, if you face a charging Astartes brother, it will only make your death slightly less ugly.
"Not power armor, but I'll take it!"
The grin that split Nolan's face was manic, genuine joy breaking through his usual stoic expression.
He reached for the interface, already planning how to test the armor's capabilities—
His phone buzzed. UR-025's mechanical voice emerged from the speaker, apologetic but insistent.
"My lord... the encrypted data from the black hard drive has been decoded. I strongly suggest you review it immediately."
Nolan paused, finger hovering over the salvage claim button. He closed the simulator interface with obvious reluctance.
If UR-025 was interrupting his rest without prompting, the matter must be genuinely important.
Nolan stood from the metal cot and walked out of his quarters, crossing the hall toward the central area.
In the base's central hall, beneath bright overhead lighting, UR-025 stood beside a massive circular metal table—five meters in diameter, large enough for tactical planning sessions.
Holographic projections streamed from the AI's optical sensors, filling the air above the table with data.
Nolan approached, still several meters away when Iron Man spoke without looking up.
"Omnissiah, the hard drive possessed multiple self-destruct mechanisms and the internal data employed sophisticated layered encryption. Breaking through required considerable processing power."
Nolan stopped and raised his head slightly, eyes scanning the dense text records floating in the air. Financial transactions. Coded communications. Location data. Names and faces.
He took a deep breath.
"If Kingpin went to such lengths to protect this information... what's hidden inside?"
UR-025 temporarily ceased projecting new data. The blue lights in its optical sensors pulsed thoughtfully.
"A decade's worth of records. Primarily relating to Kingpin's involvement in human trafficking, smuggling operations, and the systematic kidnapping of children."
Before Nolan could respond, UR-025 continued, its mechanical voice taking on something that almost resembled anger.
"The children documented in these files fall into two categories. Approximately one-third were transported to Sokovia and received by a mysterious organization called 'Hydra.'"
"The remaining two-thirds were delivered to a subsidiary of the multinational energy conglomerate Roxxon Industries. The specific subsidiary name remains unknown—Kingpin used only coded references."
UR-025's finger twitched, and a new projection appeared.
"My lord, I am one hundred percent certain both organizations are conducting human experimentation on these children."
A scanned image materialized before Nolan—handwritten notes on expensive paper, Kingpin's distinctive script.
Only a few intermittent phrases:
"...Hydra... mass production metahumans... Roxxon Industries... unknown compound synthesis... acceptable losses..."
As if Kingpin had been thinking aloud while writing, documenting his thoughts in fragments.
Nolan stared at the words. His expression hardened into something cold and terrible. His jaw clenched tight enough to make his teeth ache.
In his eyes—usually so controlled, so carefully neutral—fury ignited. The kind of rage that burned slow and hot, consuming everything in its path.
Several minutes passed in silence while Nolan absorbed the implications.
Finally, he spoke. His voice emerged quiet, almost conversational, which somehow made it more frightening.
"I thought gang criminals were the bottom of human society. The worst scum our species could produce."
He looked at UR-025 directly.
"But organizations like Hydra... they're worse than I imagined. More fundamentally anti-human. I can't even categorize them as the same species anymore."
Nolan's expression shifted. Something dark and predatory crossed his face—the look of a man who'd just identified prey.
"Friend, I think we have plenty of time ahead of us."
His voice dropped into something cold and final.
"So let's take our time... and crush them all."