Chapter 46: Jailhouse Blues (and Reds)
The subway network beneath New York City were a well-organized transit system of tubes and railways. But there were many other tunnels that had been shut down, or closed, due to their deterioration or the evolution of the railway. These tunnels, combined with New York's sewer system, made for an intricate labyrinth that one could easily get lost in.
If you were Jack Kurtzman, however, and you had a professional hacker providing you with a map through the sewers into a secret Oscorp blacksite, there was no chance of getting lost. He checked his phone's GPS to make sure he was still on the right track.
He emerged from one of the abandoned subway tunnels towards a vault-like steel door. According to the map, he was somewhere in the Hell's Kitchen neighborhood of New York City. The steel door in front of him looked like it belonged to a bunker. There were no cameras or any security of any kind; the Whisperer had assured him that all he'd need to get inside was the cloned ID key card that he'd sent Kurtzman.
Kurtzman swiped the blank ID card in the door and sure enough, there was a buzz and a loud clang as the door unlocked and swung inward. A murky blue haze shrouded the hallways. Fluorescent lights flickered from faulty panels.
Kurtzman walked down a passage, pulling his camera out of his bag. This was a purely reconnaissance mission, he reminded himself. He was here to get evidence of Oscorp's illegal experiments, anything that tied the company's actions to Wilson Fisk, and then get out. When he stepped into an elevator, the elevator doors closed, and he began descending deeper into the blacksite lab.
"You know, Kurtzman," he said to himself, "if you had any sense at all, which you don't, you'd be at home with the heater on and a bottle of beer. But no, you had to spend the coldest night of the year in Hell's Kitchen taking pictures of Oscorp experiments in this cesspool of a—"
The elevator stopped, and the doors opened. Kurtzman went forward, camera raised, onto a walkway suspended over a laboratory. Below him, scientists in lab coats operated strange equipment, oblivious to his presence. Beakers and pipettes lay on stained workbenches. Jars on shelves preserved what looked like human brains. At the end of the catwalk was a flight of stairs that Kurtzman climbed, into another room filled with large tanks of mysterious yellow liquid, containing naked creatures with pinched eyes and shriveled flesh. Tubes and wires hung everywhere. Computer monitors flickered, blinking the status of the huge incubators they were attached to.
As Kurtzman passed one of the tanks, he glimpsed a face. There was an Inhuman inside the tank, a woman with pale blue skin and vibrant pink hair that was floating wavily in the tank's fluid. The inside of the tank was lit up, bringing clarity to the Inhuman's features. The woman's eyes were filmed over with milky blindness, and vials punctured her neck. All the vials were empty save one, which was nearly depleted. Kurtzman peered closer. The liquid flowing into the Inhuman was fighting a losing battle to sustain the dying mutant's life.
Kurtzman's camera clicked away, snapping photos of everything. His heart was racing. So much evidence. There were tanks and tank of these mutants, with wires running between them. One of the tanks that Kurtzman had passed was stuffed full of mangled bodies, mutilated corpses of other Inhumans.
Then there was a tank that Kurtzman walked past that gave him pause. He leaned in closer, examining the creature floating behind the glass. Was that—? No, it couldn't be! But it was!
As he raised his camera to get a picture, a loud alarm sounded suddenly. "Intruder alert," a robotic voice began blaring. Startled, Kurtzman jumped, dropping his camera. The camera slid across the smooth metal floor into a corner.
"No!" Kurtzman shouted, lunging for the camera. Before he could reach it, the doorway at the far end of the hall opened, and armed security guards entered the room.
"There!" they shouted, aiming their rifles at Kurtzman. "Take him out!"
Bullets began flying, and Kurtzman ducked behind the tank he'd been trying to take a picture of. As bullets whizzed by, he looked back up into the tank, trying to see if he'd been mistaken. He had been so shocked to see what was in the tank that he couldn't believe it at first. The turtles needed to hear about this.
He took off, dodging between the incubation tanks as he ran from security back down the walkway towards the elevator. He'd almost made it. The camera had been lost, but he'd come back. Now he knew how to get here, and he could bring the turtles back next time. They needed to see this place for themselves, especially the contents of that last tank—
The elevator in front of him slid open to reveal a lean man in a tight, form-fitting black suit, with white gloves and boots, and a circular target printed on the suit's forehead. He grinned maliciously, a toothpick flicking from between his lips as he clamped onto it with his teeth. "Well, hello there," he said, making a mock salute.
Kurtzman scrambled backwards, but Bullseye was too fast. In the blink of an eye he'd flicked the toothpick out at Kurtzman with his fingers, the wooden pick burying itself in the reporter's kneecap. Kurtzman cried out in pain and fell on his seat against the wall.
Bullseye kneeled down, grabbing Kurtzman's jaw and moving the reporter's head to stare into his eyes. "If it were up to me, Nosey Parkers would get their necks broke," he said. "But the boss wants you alive. Guess it's your lucky day."
"Sacre bleu," said Batroc. "Norman Osborn pulls me out of prison for this crazy gig, and the moment it's done, I wind up back in another one. Still, I guess it's a step up."
Batroc, Vulture, and Abomination were sitting in the penthouse of their new headquarters, the Avengers Tower. They were eating a meal prepared by Batroc himself. There was no staff in the tower yet; the Thunderbolts were its only occupants. So they had to cook and clean for themselves. Osborn had made a spreadsheet of whose turn it would be to do which chores, which was almost never followed.
But it wasn't as though they had anything else to do. The Thunderbolts were under strict orders not to leave the Avengers Tower unless by Norman Osborn's orders.
"Gotta be a pretty safe place to hole up though, right?" Vulture asked, looking around. "I mean, hell, they used to keep Ultron here."
"The security network here is a joke," said Batroc. "A child could crack it. Stark really didn't leave any sort of infrastructure after he sold the tower. We're going to have to rewrite the core system from scratch."
"Long as this place has a well-stocked beer cooler, I'm in like Flynn," Vulture said, shrugging. He picked away at the food on his plate, which was various shades of pale grey and brown. "If this place used to be the Avengers' hangout, I think they must have Doordashed. Talk about cruel and unusual punishment …"
He pushed his plate away, and Abomination quickly grabbed it, shoveling the food into his mouth. "Better than the pig-swill they serve at the Vault," he grunted between bites. "I got no complaints."
"So, where's Mystique?" asked Vulture. "I was looking forward to watching her eat."
Abomination and Batroc looked with confusion at Vulture, who threw his hands up defensively. "What?" he asked. "Sometimes I like to watch a woman eat! What's wrong with that?"
The stares continued. "So, uh, anyway, never mind about that," said Vulture, rubbing the back of his neck. "Uh, what's up with that Ghost girl, though, huh? Does that chick even eat at all?"
"I saw them wheeling boxes of MREs to Ghost's quarters," said Batroc. "Army rations. She lives on that merde."
"That creep takes paranoia to a whole new level," Abomination grunted. "You know she welded shut the door to her own quarters? Only way in now is with that crazy intangibility suit she wears."
"And she never takes the suit off," Batroc added. "She's spending way too much time intangible. I think it's maybe messing with her head. Why's she even on the team?"
"Same reason as the rest of us, I guess," Vulture said. "Personally, I'm in it for the green more than the goblin, if you know what I mean." He chuckled at his own joke. "Since Stark left New York, Osborn and Fisk are the only game in town. I guess they'd rather have us inside the tent pissing out."
But Abomination wasn't convinced. "Either that, or they know something we don't …" he mused.
"None of that is your concern." The three villains at the table turned towards the bar, where Norman Osborn was standing with his back to them. "You follow your assignments and instructions. No one gets killed unless I say they get killed. Is that clear?"
"I do as I please, Osborn," Abomination snarled, pushing his chair away from the table and standing up to his full height, sneering down at Norman Osborn.
Osborn, however, was not intimidated. "Let me make this perfectly clear," he said. "For you, Blonksy, and the rest of you. If any of you start any macho ego stuff, any button-pushing, any testosterone … you're out. No three strikes. No warning. Back to whatever hellhole prison you came from."
The large television screen over the bar suddenly lit up to reveal Kingpin's bald, angry face. "Gentlemen!" he shouted, and the villains stopped their bickering. "I didn't go through the time and expense to assist in your early releases from the Raft to argue about such trivial matters," he said. "We have business. Business regarding the ninja turtles."
The villains turned to face the screen. Vulture, Batroc, and Abomination all stepped back behind Osborn, putting him between them and the mayor's mug. "What's to discuss, Wilson?" asked Osborn. "My team and I are handling it."
"'Handling it'?" echoed Kingpin. "Is that why you call it? Then why, Norman, did Oscorp Security transfer an investigative reporter into the custody of my enforcers earlier this morning? A reporter who, might I add, has ties to the turtles we're looking for?"
"Oh, that." Osborn waved dismissively. "Nothing to worry your head about, Wilson. My people already located his camera and destroyed it."
"That's not the point, Norman," Kingpin snapped. "They know about Oscorp's blacksite. They know about what you're doing there. And, once again, it seems I'm going to have to clean up your mess." He shuffled through papers on his desk. "I'll have the reporter drummed up on fake charges. We'll throw him into Ryker's. If he survives by some miracle, the prison conditions will break his mind beyond repair. No one will take anything he claims seriously."
Kingpin's eyes drifted to the slop on the plates that the Thunderbolts had been eating. "Your 'reformed' Thunderbolts are truly disgusting pigs," he told Osborn. "Living in that skeleton of a tower. I've made arrangements for a full staff of housekeepers and cooks—"
The three Thunderbolts team members at the table began to cheer and slap each other on the back. "—and armed guards at every door," Kingpin finished.
The Thunderbolts' cheers turned to groans. Armed guards? It was clear Kingpin didn't trust them.
"My team is hardcore, Wilson," Osborn said, sticking up for his crew. "That's what the world wants right now. Your PR firm has been doing us wonders, but the public wants to see us in action. That's the reason you've had us going after the New York gangs, right? We want more."
"Norman, you imbecile," Kingpin growled. "The reason you're going after the New York gangs is to cripple them. Weaken them. Make them hungry, and desperate. Then when the powder keg is ignited, you will swoop in and save the city. My opposition is wiped out, and New York's people will view you as heroes. You will be redeemed."
He pressed a button on his desk, and the mug shots of two supervillains appeared on screen next to his face. "However, I too think that the people need to see a show of your strength. I have enough villains on my payroll to be able to stage an attack. I've arranged for Juggernaut and Pyro to attack the Roxxon power plant, which the Thunderbolts will intercept and put a stop to."
Vulture scoffed. "Two B-list mutants? That's who we're going after? Come on, Mayor. How about Otto Octavius? Right? Public Enemy Number One? He kidnapped the Avengers. He's a war criminal, right? Let's go get him."
Once again, everyone in the room turned to stare at Vulture. "No," Osborn said flatly. "For now, Octavius is an inconsequential matter. Going after the man who will save the world from global warming is hardly a way to win over the public."
"Who cares about that on any level?" Vulture asked, rolling his eyes.
"I do," Osborn said flatly. "So, you do, too. Besides, we have more pressing matters at hand. The mutant turtles just broke into Fisk Tower and tried to assassinate our beloved mayor. Anybody did that to me, Wilson, and I'd call it an act of terrorism. Your enforcers have bases set up all over the city, and with the Synjas at your beck and call, that's a lot of manpower. Maybe it's time to invoke martial law."
"Don't be ridiculous," Kingpin snapped. "It is far too soon in my plans for open war in New York City. Once the gangs have gone to war, then we answer swiftly and severely. Leave the ninja turtles to me."
In the lair, the turtles were sitting in front of the TV, watching Kingpin's most recent press briefing. Mayor Fisk was upping his search for the "mutant terrorists" responsible for the attack on Fisk Tower. There would be increased Synja patrols in New York subways, and he warned that there may be a slight upset to the subway system's schedules.
"Kingpin's getting bolder and bolder by the day," Raph grunted, picking up the remote and muted the TV as Carlos Chiang O'Brien Gambe came back on to give his opinion. "We should have ended him when we had the chance. What a fat, stinking—"
"We need to see Kurtzman, now," said Leo.
"We can't go right now, Leo," Mikey said. "Topside is crawling with those Synja freaks. Just one bite, and once they sink their cyborg fangs into you, you slowly … turn … into one of them." He wiggled his fingers eerily.
"Mikey, that's not how cyborgs work," Donnie said with a sigh. "But we should see if we can get our hands on one. See how they work, any potential weaknesses."
"Bad idea," said Leo. "We bring one of the enemy back here, and they'll track us back to our own home. They'd be all over us. Kurtzman might have some information about them. We'll have to ask him tonight."
"Uh, guys?" Mikey asked, pointing to the television. The turtles turned to see Carlos Chiang O'Brien Gambe on screen, alongside an image that looked like it had been taken from a security camera. It was a woman with white hair, in a black suit, running over a rooftop. And running next to her was … their friend Casey Jones?
Leo grabbed the remote and turned the volume up as the screen zoomed in on the image, with Carlos Chiang O'Brien Gambe commentating. " … what you are seeing is CCTV video of two masked vigilantes running from the scene of tonight's daring warehouse robbery. One appears to be male, and one appears to be female. This is the first clue in a string of robberies plaguing Chinatown's more prominent business locations. The police have stated that the victim of these robberies was Martin Li, prominent Asian-American businessman, but have not released information as to what was stolen. The identities of these two is unknown, but the female seems to have taken some sort of feline form, while the male is dressed in a hockey motif. A Black Cat and a Roller-Skating Jason."
The screen switched back to Carlos Chiang O'Brien Gambe in the newsroom. "So there you have it, folks," he said. "A brief glimpse at the terror that stalks our city when the sun goes down."
Raph switched the TV off, and they all turned to glare at Casey, who had just emerged from the kitchen with a bowl of cereal. "Uh, did I do something wrong?" he asked nervously.
"Robbing warehouses, Casey?" asked Raph. "What the heck is wrong with you? And a Demon warehouse at that? Now those guys are really gonna have it in for us!"
"Woah, woah, guys!" protested Casey. "I didn't rob anything! I was out on patrol, and this cat burglar had just hit a warehouse in Chinatown." He waved his arms dramatically as he told his own embellished story of the "fight" that had happened. "I took her down, but she put up a good fight. I had her on the ropes, then she played dirty and got away after hitting me with a sneak attack. If it wasn't for that, I'd have taken her down no problem. She called herself the Black Cat."
They all looked around at each other. "A 'Black Cat', but with white hair?" asked Mikey, laughing. "She didn't think that one through. Leave it to Doctor Name-enstein. Maybe the 'Night Runner', or the 'Cat-Woman' … no, that one's taken."
While Mikey mused over nicknames, the other three and Casey huddled together. "What's her shtick?" asked Raph. "Why's she going after the Demons?"
"She didn't say," said Casey.
"You think she might be on our side?" asked Donnie. "If she's robbing Demon strongholds, then whatever she took might be of some value to us."
"Too early to know for sure," Leo mused. "For now, we avoid contact. She's a wild card. If our paths cross then so be it, but we have enough heat on us right now without having to worry about that."
"Ooh!" Mikey's head popped up in the middle of the huddle. "I got it! The 'Feline Frisker'. Because she steals things."
The huddle broke, and Leo walked a short distance away. "Alright, so tonight we'll go to Kurtzman's and see if he can tell us anything about this 'Black Cat'," he said. "In the meantime, we barricade the nearby tunnels and cut off access to the Lair. If they're sending Synja patrols into the sewers, we have to make our lair invisible. Once that's done, we meet with Kurtzman."
He turned back to the others and pointed a finger at Casey. "You're staying here."
"What?" Casey protested. "Why?"
"They're putting your face all over the news," Leo answered. "We can't take any risks of people finding the Lair. You're gonna have to live here for a while until the heat dies down. No going topside."
"Aw, man," Casey grumbled. "This is gonna be like that time I was on house arrest."
He plopped down into a beanbag chair as the turtles moved out into the sewers. Letting out a groan, he picked up the remote and started flipping through the TV station's channels. Nothing good was on. This sucked!
The hours dragged on. It was about 8:30 at night, and Casey had played enough rounds of Street Fighter Mutant Madness to last a lifetime. He groaned and leaned his head back. "This is so boring!" he said, getting up from the TV and going into the kitchen. Maybe he could find something to eat. No one was in the Lair except for Splinter, and the turtles probably wouldn't be back until much later.
Suddenly his phone buzzed with a text from April. She had sent him a picture she'd taken, and said, "At Times Square right now. I think someone left a message for you."
The image she'd sent was a picture of one of the billboards in Times Square, only someone had hacked it. It now displayed a typed message that read: "Hockey Boy, I was intrigued by our last meeting. Were you? Life is too short. We should explore this. Meet me one roof over from last. The Cat."
"The Cat?" Casey typed out.
"Friend of yours?" April texted back.
"Kind of," Casey texted. "It's … complicated."
He switched his phone off and put it back in his pocket. So, Black Cat wanted to meet? Why? Was she into him? His heart began to race at the thought. Maybe she had a crush on him, and she wanted to tell him how she felt? I mean, who wouldn't have a crush on Casey Jones? She was probably attracted to his fighting style, or his rugged good looks …
Get it together, Casey! She's a villain! he thought. A very hot villain … but a villain anyway. She robbed that warehouse. And stole something important. So, I definitely shouldn't ask her on a date or show her any kind of interest. And I should definitely stop thinking that she's attracted to me or that she's into me. Because that could never happen. Unless she stopped being a villain and gave up her thieving ways. So, really, what I should do is meet her and just tell her that stealing is wrong. I mean, that's—yeah. Sure.
And so he quietly snuck out of the Lair and made his way across the rooftops, towards their meeting place in Chinatown, rationalizing to himself the whole way. "Meeting her just to talk is okay," he said to himself. "I mean, she's probably not even there, first of all. It's just some big joke on me. Or it's some big trap! And I'm … you know what? I'm insulted she would even try a trap that is this lame. So, yeah, I'm just showing up to tell her that I am totally smart enough not to fall into her lame trap. I am so much ... smarter …"
His breath stopped in his throat as he reached the rooftop from the message. Black Cat was sitting on the edge of the roof, next to a small tablecloth that she had spread out over the concrete. The tablecloth had some food arranged on it. Was that … was that wine? And cheese?
Well, this is something you don't see every day, Casey thought. Pulling his hockey mask down over his face, he climbed up over the fire escape and onto the roof. Black Cat heard his approach and turned. "Oh, hey," she said. "You came."
She sounded pleasantly surprised to see him, which only made Casey more confused. "What is this?" he asked. "What are you—what are you doing?"
"I thought we could talk," Black Cat said, shrugging.
"About what?"
"About life."
"Are you serious?"
"Yeah. I don't meet that many interesting guys."
She thinks I'm interesting? Casey tried not to think about the pulsating heartbeat he could hear pounding in his ears—his own heartbeat, he realized. "Uh—"
"I thought about you after the incident the other day," said Black Cat sheepishly. "I thought we might have a thing or two in common. You got my message?"
"Uh, yeah," Casey stammered. She had a cute voice. Lyrical and warm, like she was singing every word.
Black Cat's eyes lit up. "I'm so glad," she said, gesturing at the spread of food on the tablecloth. "I brought some wine and cheese."
I'm not even old enough to drink yet! But Casey had to focus. Black Cat was still a criminal, he reminded himself. "You robbed a guy's office …"
"Not a nice guy's office," Black Cat said.
"And then you beat me up …"
Black Cat smiled sheepishly. "Sorry. Knee jerk reaction."
"And now you want to go on, like what? A date with me?" asked Casey. "Up here?"
"I brought wine." Black Cat picked up one of the wine glasses delicately, by her fingertips, and filled it a third of the way with red wine fresh from a bottle. "Which was actually really hard to get all the way up here."
Is this some kind of joke? This has got to be a joke. Or, maybe you're just that good with the ladies, Jones. Casey approached the blanket, and Black Cat got up off the ledge and walked over to face him. There was a slight awkward silence, before Black Cat wiped a strand of white hair from her eyes and asked, "So, uh, are you married?"
"No," said Casey.
"Are you … do you like girls?" Black Cat asked.
The question caught Casey off guard. "No. Yes! I mean yes." His face grew hot and red under his hockey mask.
Black Cat giggled. "Are you horribly disfigured under there?"
"Not at all," Casey said, clearing his throat. "In fact, I'm what some might call the ideal male specimen."
Black Cat turned away, raising her hands to her face. When she'd turned back, she'd removed her eye mask, and her face was even more beautiful than Casey had thought possible. "Hi," she said, smiling softly.
It took a few seconds before Casey realized he was staring, and that she expected him to do the same. "W-well, I guess I can stay for a minute." He reached up to pull of his hockey mask, and almost did, before a small round egg hit the ground between Casey and Black Cat.
Coughing, the two of them dropped to the rooftop as thick purple smoke billowed up. Once the smoke had cleared, Casey was dismayed to see the ninja turtles surrounding them on the rooftop with weapons drawn. "Guys!" he shouted. "What are y—"
"Stay back, Casey," Leo ordered. The turtles advanced past him, moving towards Black Cat. She had put her eye mask back on, and faced the turtles down. She didn't seem to be intimidated at all. Actually, this looked like something she had wanted to happen.
He'd fallen into her trap after all. The trap just hadn't been set for him. It had been set for the turtles.
"Someone new to sharpen my claws on," she said. Razor-sharp claws ejected from the tips of her gloves' fingers.
"You won't flip this turtle on his shell," Leo promised.
Black Cat laughed. "Let me give you a dose of reality," she said, before running towards them.
She was good. Black-belt karate, probably third or fourth degree. She charged Leo first, who was able to leap backwards and over her attacks. Raph moved in from her flank and she turned, throwing another punch. Raph grabbed her arms before he dropped and delivered a flip-kick to Black Cat's face, pushing her back off of him.
But Black Cat recovered quickly, and sent a crescent kick into Raph's midsection. This threw the red turtle against the side of an AC unit on the roof, leaving him short of breath. As he dropped back to the ground, Black Cat kicked him again, and he rolled several feet away from her on the roof. Her kicks were deceptively strong.
Donnie spun his bo staff in his hands and charged at Black Cat, who dodged each of Donnie's jabs and swings. As the purple turtle brought his staff down at her feet, Black Cat struck with a sweeping kick to Donnie's head. Donnie dropped to the ground, his bo staff clattering against the rooftop.
"You're pretty good, Feline Frisker," Mikey said, whirling his nunchuks and swinging them at Black Cat. "But you don't have what it takes. The turtle power!"
Black Cat dodged his nunchuks and stepped back. "'Feline Frisker'?" she asked incredulously. "Some of us get by on skill, dear."
"Wait'll you see it in action," Mikey said. "Hi-yaah!"
Spinning the nunchuks, Mikey leaped over Black Cat and landed on her back, knocking her down on her knees with his weight. He was going to bring the weapons down on her head, but she grabbed Mikey's ankles and rolled forward, slamming the orange turtle against the roof.
Before she could get up, Donnie swung his bo staff low, sweeping her off her feet and flipping her over onto her back. She found herself staring down the point of Leo's katana as the blue turtle aimed his sword at her face.
"We have some questions for you," Leo said. "The news report said you robbed a warehouse belonging to Martin Li. And stole something. What was it?"
"Right," Black Cat said, rolling her eyes. "Let me just tell you my super-secret plan. Because that will go over well. No. Don't think so. Until next time, turtles."
She threw a smoke pellet down on the ground, which exploded in a bright flash of light. When it cleared, she was gone.
"Woah," Mikey said, looking around. "Hey, Donnie, why don't our smoke bombs do that?"
But the other three turtles were more worried about the burglar who had just slipped through their grasp—and Casey Jones, who had set this entire thing up. "Are you out of your mind?" Raph yelled at his friend. "Sneaking out of the lair in the middle of the night to meet this Black Cat chick like this? She put an ad up in Times Square asking to meet you and you just do it?"
"Yeah!" Casey said defensively. "I was trying to find out what she stole from the Demons."
"Oh, is that why you guys had your little 'dinner party' all set up when we got here?" Leo asked.
The other turtles chuckled as Casey turned bright red. "A-anyways, how'd you guys even know I was here?" he asked.
"April texted us," Donnie said. "She was worried about you, Casey. Not that you'd care."
"I do care, actually," said Casey with a smirk. "Because it makes you jealous, Donnie."
"Keep dreaming, hockey boy!" Donnie shot back.
"Guys!" Leo shouted, stopping their argument. "There are more important things to worry about right now. From now on we go out two at a time, minimum. She knew where Casey would be because he's a regular in the Chinatown neighborhood. So, from now on we stagger the locations. Never hit the same areas two nights in a row. And we should all stay out of Chinatown for a while."
"Hey, I can't help it if Chinatown has all the good crime," said Casey, shrugging. But they all got the message. With the recent martial law order, and now that they had people coming after them like Black Cat, they'd all have to be a lot more careful from now on.
The turtles and Casey started their way back to the lair. "Hey," Casey said, "did you ask that reporter guy about Black Cat?"
"We would have," Raph said, "if he'd been home."
"What?" Casey asked.
"His apartment was empty," Leo said grimly. "It's been ransacked. All the information he had on Kingpin is gone, except for what he gave us when we went over the first night."
"And no sign of Kurtzman," added Mikey. "Not looking good, dude."
"You think Kingpin got to him?" asked Casey.
"I don't know anybody who'd leave their own apartment in a mess and take off on vacation unannounced," Raph said bluntly.
"We need to find him," Leo said. "As long as he's going after Kingpin, his life's in danger."
"Wait," Donnie said suddenly. "Kurtzman mentioned one of his contacts was the infamous hacker called the Whisperer. If we find him, maybe he can help us find out what happened to Kurtzman."
"Chasing after a phantom computer hacker?" Raph asked. "I guess it's a lead."
"The best lead we have so far," Leo said. "When we get back to the Lair, Donnie, get on it."
How did you catch a computer hacker?
If you weren't law enforcement, your options were very slim. Even as a computer expert, it was very hard to catch an experienced hacker. Someone like the Whisperer would be nigh untraceable.
Donnie sat at his desk, scribbling ideas on a notepad as he drank orange Crush out of a Styrofoam cup. Tapping the side of his head with the pencil, he mused over separate ideas. The only thing he knew for sure about the Whisperer was that he and Kurtzman communicated through some kind of chat box program on Kurtzman's computer.
He had brought Kurtzman's laptop from the reporter's apartment back with them to the Lair, and checked it for any clues. Kurtzman's search history provided no information, other than the fact that he had looked up "chocolate sundae recipes" and then, almost a day later, a map of New York City's subway tunnels. The reporter must have been looking for the Oscorp blacksite the Whisperer had told him about.
So he had a map of the subway tunnels and a recipe for chocolate sundaes. And not much else.
He moved on to his next idea: trying to find the Whisperer. He opened up the chat program that Kurtzman used to send messages to the Whisperer and took a look at the program's coding. It didn't seem to be very secure on Kurtzman's end. Donnie's fingers scurried across his keyboard as he wrote a small program that would show the location of anyone who connected to the chat box on Kurtzman's laptop, then he connected both computers with an HDMI cable and copy-pasted his code in the "Developer Tools" in the browser window of Kurtzman's laptop.
Then he sent a message into the void. Hey, it's Kurtzman. Need the info on the Oscorp blacksite.
And he waited. His palms began to sweat with nerves, and his heart rate started beating faster.
Then he got a reply, almost three minutes after sending his message.
Whisperer: No, it's not.
His heart stopped.
Whisperer: Whoever you are, you should keep your nose out of places it doesn't belong.
Then the connection was lost.
Donnie gave a sigh of defeat and slumped down in his chair. He checked his computer program to see if he'd gotten any location information. Immediately he leaped to his feet. There it was, logged by his program: an address. He couldn't see it yet, though: the information was encrypted. The address had been turned into code to keep it secure and prevent anyone from seeing it.
Fortunately for that, Donnie had a solution: he'd create another program, to decrypt the data from the Whisperer's server and find his real address.
Mikey skateboarded his way into Donnie's lab, zipping across the garage and back. "The Mike-anator shreds the gnar again!" he shouted. "Yeah boyyyy!" He whooped as he kick-flipped over Donnie's desk and landed on the other side.
"Mikey!" he shouted. "In case you couldn't tell, I'm working on something very important right now!"
Mikey skidded to a stop and faked a yawn. "Let me guess. You're gonna tell me a kernel-level application created a thread mash and synchronicity call index thingy. Then, you're gonna say something like, 'I bet it's a full-on system mismatch! It's elemental, Mikey!' Sorry dude, I'm not interested in your technobabble. The Mike-anator is here to shredddd!"
With that he skated out of the lab and out of sight. "Oh, one other thing," he called back through the door. "Raph was using your computer towers for bench pressing again."
Donnie groaned as his lab door slid shut.
It was the middle of the night when Donnie awoke with a start in his chair, wiping a strand of drool from his bottom lip as he lurched forward towards his computer screen and the blinking green notification on it. His program had decrypted the Whisperer's address, and now he had the information he'd been looking for.
He ran out of the lab and into Leo's room, shaking his brother awake. "Leo!" he whisper-yelled. "Leo, wake up!"
"Mmm …" Leo murmured in his sleep. "Yes sir … Captain Ryan, sir …"
"Leo, this is serious!" Donnie said, turning on the lamp. Leo groaned as he was stirred from his slumber and rubbed his eyes. "I found him!" Donnie went on. "I found the Whisperer!"
"Mph. That's great Donnie," said Leo. He rubbed his eyes some more.
"He's in the Graniteville neighborhood of Staten Island," said Donnie proudly. "I got his address and everything."
"Okay, okay!" Leo said. "Keep your voice down. We'll go check him out first thing in the morning."
The turtles traveled to Coney Island the next day through the subway tunnels. They had no idea what to expect once they reached the house that Donnie believed the Whisperer was hiding in. It was hard to believe he might be here, deep beneath the brick and steel of a nondescript building.
"We go in slow and stealthy," Leo said. "We don't want to be seen in broad daylight."
"Screw that," Raph protested. "I say we kick down the front door. Show of force right off the bat."
Donnie rolled his eyes. "Classic Raphael. Smash first, ask questions later."
"Yeah, and when has that not worked?" Raph asked. "I don't see anybody complaining when Hulk does it."
They circled round the back of the building and gained entrance through an unlatched second-story window. The building seemed to be empty, with desks and chairs scattered sparsely through various office rooms. They found a suspicious-looking door that looked like it opened into a stairwell.
Donnie bent over the lock, examining it. "I think I could pick the lock, given enough time—"
Raph, however, was not willing to wait. With a grunt, he kicked the door in, shattering wood and sending splinters scattering in the air. "Let's go," he said, leading the way down the dimly lit stairs into the basement level.
"Yoohoo, Mister Whisper Man!" Mikey called softly. "You have the right to remain silent, and turn over any and all slices of pizza in your possession."
The basement was a large empty room with a single bare bulb hanging from a socket in the ceiling. There were desks piled high with computer equipment: discarded hard drives, motherboards, and tools of all sorts. One of the desks had a computer that was still online; the screen was lit up, but locked, with a security prompt on screen asking for an encryption key. It was a very high-tech computer, cobbled together with different pieces of equipment like a small satellite dish.
Donnie inspected the computer, letting out a low whistle. "A triple-encrypted Linux-based machine with an encrypted LUKS partition," he said, obviously impressed.
The other turtles groaned. "I've given up trying to understand you sometimes," Leo said.
Suddenly, from the shadows, something grabbed Mikey and dragged him back. "Help!" he screamed. "The darkness is taking me, dudes!"
He began to shake as his attacker jabbed a taser into the base of his neck, shocking him with electricity. As Mikey fell to the ground twitching, the figure made a break for the stairs. But Raph was too quick. Knocking the attacker down with a leg sweep, he mounted the figure on the ground and held his sai blade a few inches from their face.
"You're not going anywhere, punk," he said.
Flipping the figure over, he was startled to see it was a young man, likely no older than twenty or twenty-two, with tousled brown hair and brown eyes. "Wait, what?" Raph asked in confusion. "Who are you?"
The young man said nothing, struggling to free himself from underneath Raph. His taser was gone, picked up by Leo, who now advanced on him. "You know, this thing must be pretty powerful to take out a mutant turtle," he said. He activated it menacingly, electricity sparking between the prods. "I wonder what it would do to you."
"Alright!" the college kid yelped. "What do you want?"
"We want the Whisperer," Raph said. "Where is he?"
"What do you mean, where is he?" the boy asked.
"We need his help," said Leo. "We're looking for a reporter. An associate of his, and a friend of ours. And he's in trouble."
The boy's eyes widened. "Kurtzman's in trouble?"
"Yeah," said Leo. Then he stopped. "Wait, how'd you know his name?"
Raph finally got off the young man, who got to his feet and moved over towards the computer. "Should be pretty obvious," he said grudgingly. "I'm the Whisperer."
Raph and Leo looked at each other in shock. "Wait, you?" Raph asked. "But you're just a dorky kid."
The Whisperer reached for the keyboard, but Donnie stuck out his bo staff, keeping the kid back away from the computer. "If you don't let me at that computer," he said, "it'll be useless in about thirty seconds."
"What, is it encrypted?" Donnie said. "I think I can take care of that."
"No, you can't." The Whisperer pushed Donnie's staff aside and started typing a flurry of number sequences into the keyboard. "I have a kill-switch program that if anyone comes into the building, I can press one button and my entire computer is encrypted. The encryption key is so long, I promise you wouldn't be able to decrypt it before everything gets wiped."
After a few seconds of furious typing, the computer beeped, and the screen unlocked. The Whisperer got up, glaring at Donnie. "Don't think of installing a key logger, either," he warned. "I have an anti-key logger program just for that."
"Hm," Donnie huffed. "Guess you've thought of everything."
"My whole infrastructure is on a virtual machine that I've double-encrypted with TrueCrypt and an encryption program I wrote myself," the Whisperer said. "So, yeah. No mistakes."
"Except one," Donnie gloated. "That's how we found you."
"And now we need your help," said Leo.
"Why should I help you?" the Whisperer asked. "I don't need your help. If Kurtzman's in trouble, I'll find him myself."
"Yeah, and what are you gonna do?" asked Raph. "Tase anyone who gets in your way?"
The Whisperer pointed at Mikey, still twitching on the floor. "Worked pretty well on your friend," he said.
Mikey was oblivious to the conversation happening. "The Pizza Monsters are back," he mumbled. "Don't let … the meatball eggs … hatch …"
The other three ignored him. "He'll be fine," Raph said. "Maybe you zapped some intelligence into that pea brain of his."
"Look," Leo said. "Maybe you're used to whatever lone-wolf thing you've got going on here, but we're used to working as a team. And a team doesn't send one of their own blindly into some trap to be caught."
"Hey!" the Whisperer snapped. "I didn't send him in blind. And I didn't mean for him to get caught."
"Then help us save him," said Leo. "We need to find out where he is. And you're our only lead."
The Whisperer sighed, pinching the bridge of his nose. "Alright," he said. "What do you need from me?"
"First, you gotta pack up everything you use to do your computer work with and come with us," Leo said. "We can't stay above ground, and we can't keep coming back to your house. That'll put you in danger. You might already be in danger."
The Whisperer chuckled. "I've hacked S.H.I.E.L.D. before, turtle man. I'm already in plenty danger."
It took the Whisperer almost an hour to pack up all of his computer equipment, and in the meantime Leo and Donnie returned to the lair and brought the Shellraiser through the subway tunnels to help carry the tech back home with them.
They arrived back at the Lair to see the Heroes for Hire sitting in the main room, waiting for them. Daredevil was there, as was Jessica Jones, Luke Cage, and Iron Fist. They stood up as the turtles entered. "What are you guys doing here?" asked Leo. "I thought we were meeting at your apartment."
"We were," Jessica Jones said. "But you guys never showed, so we got came down here to check up." Her eyes caught sight of the Whisperer, and she stared as if she'd seen a ghost. "Wait, Rick?"
The Whisperer looked up, and he was just as shocked as she was. "Jessica?" he asked.
"Hold on a sec. You two know each other?" asked Raph.
"More or less," Jessica said. "He's my little brother."
"Little?" Rick scoffed. "Only by a few years."
"Try eight," Jessica said. She turned back to the other turtles. "Time for a mission report. I've been working with some of the other mob runners, for gangs that aren't under Fisk's crime umbrella. Everyone was tense, like they were all expecting an attack from Hyperion. But no sign of him. Guess he went AWOL this week or something."
She pulled a handful of fake ID cards from her pocket and went to the other members of the Defenders, passing them out. "When you're not busy running Rand Enterprises, or if you get caught in the wrong part of town, you're Brett Hendrick," she told Iron Fist, handing him one of the IDs. "You're a security supervisor at a shopping center in Queens."
Iron Fist took the card, looked at it, and chuckled. "You gave me a moustache, Jessica? Really?"
"You could use it," she shot back. "Though not a lot can be done to try and save your looks." She dropped a card in Daredevil's hand. "Your name is Cooper Peyton. You're an engineer from Long Island."
She gave Luke Cage a card as well. "You are Rockwell Dodsworth. You're a community outreach worker in Harlem."
Luke scowled. "What kind of name is Rockwell Dodsworth?" he asked. "And I told you I wanted to be something cool, like an actor or a race car driver."
"Sorry, Luke, that's all I have to offer," Jessica said with a grin. "Besides, the secret IDs are just a place to go to ground when we aren't doing the important stuff. I'd advise you guys to get into these new secret identities. Come up with new favorite foods, movies, bands."
"Hold on," said Luke. "What's your secret identity?"
Without looking at her card, Jessica answered, "I'm Victoria Tegler, and I'm an I.T. consultant for a major international finance corporation."
Luke threw up his hands. "Oh, come on. So not fair."
Jessica laughed. "When you make the IDs, you get to decide, Luke. Besides, that's just one of mine. I'm running six, seven personas these days. Part-time bouncer. Also security consultant. Bodyguard for a couple mobsters. Even some work for your friend, Jack Kurtzman," she added, turning to the turtles.
"Wait," said Raph. "You actually work for mobsters? That's not a good thing."
"Oh yeah?" Jessica asked. "Working for them, I've uncovered enough intel to stop two prison breaks, a wave of armed robberies, and a 10-million-dollar shipment of illegal weapons. If you want to stop crime, you have to know about it. Not just see it when it's in your face. Keep a foot in as many doors as possible."
Raph waved her off. "Okay, I see your point."
Jessica turned to the others. "What about you guys? Anything noteworthy turn up?"
Iron Fist raised his hand. "The meeting with Osborn went pretty well. He was especially interested in Rand Enterprises' cybernetics division. He wouldn't say what he wanted to partner for, but I have a pretty good idea that it's got something to do with those Synja robot cops walking the streets."
"All we need is some solid proof tying the two together," said Daredevil.
"I hit up Misty Knight, an old friend in the police department," said Luke. "According to her, NYPD's being kept out of Fisk's territories. Those are patrolled by his Synja bots. He uses the Synja and the Thunderbolts to stage fake police presence in those areas, make the people think that crime is going down. But the Maggia and Inner Demon neighborhoods are hellholes. New York's finest are in charge of those, and most of the time, they get no backup."
"So is that what Fisk is doing with the Foot?" asked Jessica. "Is this all some big false flag operation?"
"Not likely," Raph said. "We found the Purple Dragons' contact; it's Fishface. They're still working for the Foot."
"And they seemed really scared of getting busted by something or someone," said Mikey. "Fishface even had them drop their drawers to see if they were wearing wires."
"So the Foot think the Purple Dragons have been compromised?" asked Daredevil.
"Or suspect it, anyway," said Donnie. "That makes me think the Hyperion attacks have been legit, not false flags."
"And we also ran into a new problem," Raph added, shooting a glare at Casey. "Or, should I say, Casey did."
All eyes turned to Casey, who gulped and blinked nervously. "Well," he stammered, "there might have been this crazy white-haired chick calling herself the Black Cat. But it was nothing I couldn't handle."
The turtles snickered. "Right," Raph scoffed. "A nice wine and cheese dinner was nothing you 'couldn't handle'."
Casey turned a deep shade of red.
"Wine and cheese?" asked Luke Cage, clearly confused.
"Never mind," Leo said. "But we found out she's working for someone. Someone who's targeting the Inner Demons. She robbed a warehouse that belonged to Martin Li, and she was trying to follow us back to the Lair."
"Looks like the gangs really are headed for war," Luke Cage said with a grimace.
"And somebody's after the turtles," Daredevil said. "Probably not the only ones, either."
"There's more," said Leo. "We found Kurtzman when we were following the Purple Dragons. He's putting together a case against Kingpin too. He made it sound like he was on the trail of something pretty big."
"He is," said Rick. "I set him on that trail. Oscorp has three labs full of armed guards in different locations throughout New York City. There's one near here, in Hell's Kitchen. That's where Kurtzman was last seen."
Rick got up. "I'll set up my computers in your lab, Donnie. With any luck, we'll figure out where Kurtzman is within the hour."
Donnie followed Rick to the lab to help set up all of the hacker's computer equipment. He lugged a computer tower inside, setting it down with a grunt. "Phew," he said, wiping sweat from his brow. Turning to the Whisperer, he asked, "So, uh, Jessica's your sister?"
"Yeah," Rick said glumly. "Stepsister technically. See, my parents had some marriage problems. Dad was a cheater. He was seeing my mom and her mom at the same time, and ended up choosing hers. Didn't care to take me with him. Just as well, I guess, cause a few years later they all died in a car accident. So, I got stuck with my mom, and she didn't want me either. They put me into the state foster care system by the time I was five, except I kept getting kicked out for 'disciplinary reasons.' The last place I went to was a state institution called Tempest Town, and I ran away from that hellhole by the time I was thirteen."
Rick climbed out from under the desk after plugging in his monitor. "From there it was drifting from town to town, all across the Southwest, looking for work when I could get it and staying away from the authorities. That's how I got started with computer work."
"Where did the name 'The Whisperer' come from?" asked Donnie.
"I thought it sounded cool," Rick said with a shrug.
"Fair enough," Donnie said. He moved towards another workbench and picked up what looked like a robot arm.
Rick glanced up. "What you got there?"
Donnie held the arm out for him. "Part of a Synja exoskeleton. I've been running chemical tests on it. Looking for weaknesses." He pulled out an eyedropper with a cloudy orange liquid inside. "The Synja armor is tough," he said, dropping a few drops of liquid onto the exoskeleton. "Military-grade composite. Not a lot of chemical weaknesses. But I still have a lot of tests to run."
While Rick worked to find Kurtzman and Donnie ran his tests, the others convened throughout the Lair. "Wait, so let me get this straight," Mikey said. "Kingpin's using the Dark Avengers to start a gang war in the city, and he's using his Synja bots to keep his city safe while the rest of the city falls apart around him?"
"Only part you're missing is that Black Cat chick, Mike," said Raph. "She's been hired to find us. And she's not helping the rising tensions between the gangs either."
"I don't get it," Leo mused. "Why is Kingpin going after the Foot Clan? They were working together before he took over New York City."
"Looks pretty obvious to me that's he's double-crossed them." Raph sat down and began to clean off his sai with a towel. "Now that Shredder's living in Japan, he probably wants to take New York over for himself."
"We'll stop him before that happens," Leo promised. "Count on it."
"Found him," Rick said. He turned in the desk chair towards Donnie. "Get the others."
The other three turtles and the rest of the Defenders walked into the lab, huddling around the computer. "What's the word, little bro?" Jessica asked.
Rick bristled at the moniker but got right to business. "Kurtzman was booked into Ryker's Island two nights ago. He's being kept in a solitary confinement cell."
With a flurry of typing, Rick pulled up a screen that showed two inmates in a small cell, engaged in hand-to-hand combat. "Seems the guards at Ryker's have a way of making money on the side," said Rick. "They have regularly-scheduled fighting between inmates. The fights are pre-scheduled and pre-determined, but the people watching the stream don't know that. They make hundreds of dollars in gambling from everyone who bets on this fight."
"You said this was a stream?" Jessica asked. "So we're watching this live right now?"
"Yeah," Rick said grimly.
"You hacked into a prison system network?" asked Donnie.
"Is that judgement I'm hearing?" asked Rick.
Donnie shook his head. "Pride. It's not easy."
"Don't be jealous, Don," Raph said. "You should accept your flaws, like me."
Donnie turned to look at Raph incredulously. "You've accepted your flaws?"
"No, I've accepted yours," Raph said with a smirk.
Leo got up. "How much time do we have before Kurtzman gets thrown into the ring?"
"Not much," Rick said. "The docket says he's scheduled to fight tonight. Some 200 pounds guy. Odds right now are 5-to-1 against Kurtzman."
"Then we go in now," Leo said. "Break up this little fight club."
They decided to use the Turtle Sub to reach Ryker's, since it was the stealthiest option they had. The Turtle Sub, still fully functional, slipped silently through the waters of the East River towards the prison island. Donnie, sitting in the driver's seat, turned back to face his three brothers, who were peddling on the exercise bikes that powered the submarine.
"Here's the plan," Donnie said. "We'll drive the sub into the prison through the water purification system, and park it inside the main filtration complex. From there we can make our way through the prison to reach Kurtzman's cell."
He piloted the sub through the prison's large waterways until they reached the filtration complex. Leaving the submarine submerged underwater, the turtles swam out of the vehicle and breached the surface of the water.
"All clear," Leo said, climbing out of the water and onto a small maintenance walkway. He helped his brothers out of the water.
"Bleugh." Mikey shook himself like a dog, sending water flying all over his three brothers. "I think the water's gotten even more gross since we got here."
Raph smacked the back of Mikey's neck with an open, three-fingered palm. "Watch it next time you're drying off, Mikey!" he said.
"Shh!" Leo said, shushing the squabbling brothers. "Keep it stealthy, guys. We need to get to Kurtzman without setting off any alarms."
Prison guard Roy Olsky walked the halls of Ryker's, on his way to the prison's lower levels. The inmate fight would be starting soon, and he didn't want to miss it. He had one grand riding on the new guy. The reporter, was it? Kirtzen, or Kurtzberg?
The ceiling above him was eclipsed in shadow, almost pitch-black. As Olsky turned a corner, the ceiling above him lit up with a pair of white eyes, and then three more pairs around it. The eyes belonged to the ninja turtles, who dropped silently to the floor.
"Alright, Donnie, where we going?" asked Leo.
Donnie had downloaded a map of the prison schematics to his T-Phone, and pointed down the hall. "That way. Solitary confinement is at the end of this corridor."
As the three turtles headed off, Mikey was about to follow his brothers when a noise behind him caught his attention. He turned to see another prison guard shuffling down the hall, a peculiar gait to his walk.
"Uh, dudes?" Mikey asked. But his brothers had continued on down the hallway towards Kurtzman's cell. So Mikey decided to follow the guard. "My turtle-sense is tingling," Mikey said to himself as he snuck after the guard, who rounded a corner.
The guard was headed towards an alarm on the wall, reaching for the lever to pull it. In a flash Mikey had tripped the guard up, throwing a nunchuk around his leg and slamming him to the floor. "Sorry, dude, can't let you sound that alarm," Mikey said.
The guard lurched forward and got up, turning towards Mikey. That's when the orange turtle saw the tell-tale sign of symbiote; half of the guard's face was covered in a thick red slime, turning his eye into a large white teardrop shape and half of his mouth into a fang-filled grin. The guard's still-human eye was wide in terror. "He's … inside … my head …" the guard said, with a mixture of a whimper and a growl. "I have to … I have to get him out!"
Leo, Raph, and Donnie reached a large metal door with a small sliding viewscreen in the center of it. Leo raised a hand and knocked on it, sliding it to the side to look inside the cell. Kurtzman was huddled at the other end of the cell dressed in an orange jumpsuit. He raised his head as Leo opened the viewscreen. "The turtles?" he asked, scarcely daring to believe his eyes.
"Just hang on, Kurtzman," said Leo. "We'll get you out of there."
"All right, how do we do this?" asked Raph. "Does Donnie have override codes for this cell or are we gonna have to rip the door off its hinges?"
"Not so fast," Donnie said. "We need the cameras off before we open the door. If we're caught on tape it could—"
Suddenly a blaring alarm went off as the hallway lights began flashing red. The noise was deafening. The turtles pressed their hands to their ears and tried to drown out the screeching alarms. Leo threw several ninja stars into the air, aimed at the alarms along the corridor. The metal shurikens shattered the bullhorns on the walls and silencing the alarm noises.
Then, over the sound of the alarms, they heard Mikey screaming for help. "Mikey!" shouted Raph, dashing down the hall towards the sound with sais drawn. Leo and Donnie followed.
Cletus Kassady walked down the hallways of the prison as the alarms blared and the lights flashed bright red to signify a prison escape. He walked calmly, in no rush as he strode past cell after cell. He stuck out one of his hands, watching as the symbiote in his bloodstream covered his forearm and turned his fingers into five razor-sharp talons. His claws dragged against the cell bars in a blood-chilling noise.
As Cletus walked, he sang a song to himself, softly, a song that he'd come up with after years of imprisonment without even a glimpse of sunlight. "There was a little turtle. He lived in a box. He swam in a puddle. He climbed on the rocks. He snapped at a mosquito. He snapped at a flea. He snapped at a minnow, And he snapped at me."
Tendrils of symbiote began dripping off of Cletus's body, crawling out from the legs of his pants and the sleeves of his shirt. They crawled across the floor, a semi-liquid mass that moved on its own, a single tendril making its way into each cell.
The prisoner closest to Cletus saw the red stream of goo squirming its way across the floor towards him. "Hey!" he shouted. "What the hell is that?!"
The prisoner pressed himself against the wall in an effort to escape, but it was no use. The symbiotic strand crawled up his leg and torso, and along the side of his neck, until it slithered its way up his nostril. The prisoner threw his head back in shock at the cold, sharp feeling of the symbiote penetrating his brain. "No!" he screamed. "Nooaaaaghh!"
Cletus continued on his path, unbothered by the man's transformation behind him. All the other prisoners in their cells were sharing the same fate as him. He was creating an army, an army to take over the prison and devour the wretched turtles who had imprisoned him.
They were here. He could feel their presence. And they would be all his very soon.
"He caught the mosquito," Cletus sang, ignoring the screams of the prisoners turning to animalistic howls of glee, as the symbiote within him started to manifest itself and cover his body little by little, enveloping him in a red sheath. "He caught the flea. He caught the minnow, but he didn't catch me."
Now fully transformed, Carnage watched as the cell doors flew off their hinges and the symbiote-ified inmates burst from their captivity, lurching after him obediently. "I'll find that turtle in the dark, with bright lights or with dim," Carnage sang at the top of his lungs. "I'll find that little turtle and I'll tear him limb from limb!"
The turtles turned the corner to see Mikey tying up a prison guard with his nunchuks. The guard had turned bestial, the symbiote in his system giving him superhuman strength as he wrestled through the chains of the nunchuks to get to the orange turtle.
"Geez, dude, calm down!" Mikey said, struggling to contain the prison guard. "I don't want to share your pizza-sauce symbiote!"
"Haha!" the guard laughed maniacally. "Do you hear it? He's coming! He's here! Do you—"
Donnie shut the guard up with a quick blow to the head from his bo staff, knocking the man unconscious. "Sorry," the purple turtle said.
"What was that about?" asked Raph. "What did he mean by 'He is coming'?"
From down the hall they heard a chittering noise, like a giant swarm of grasshoppers or flying insects beating their wings together. "Do you hear that?" asked Leo. "Everybody get back to Kurtzman!"
The turtles ran down the hallway, lining up in front of Kurtzman's solitary confinement cell with their backs facing it and their weapons pointed down the hall in front of them. The noise began to grow louder and louder, and it was only too late that they realized the noise wasn't insects.
It was teeth.
A massive crowd of inmates was charging towards them, inmates that had been taken over by strands of the Carnage symbiote. They were covered in red slime, their mouths transformed into maws of sharp fangs. They were making a mad dash down the hallway for the turtles, their teeth chittering and clicking together as they ground their jaws in anticipation of their meal.
"We gotta get out of here, Leo!" Donnie shouted. "We can't fight this!"
"No," Leo said. "We have to save Kurtzman!"
"Turtles!" Kurtzman pressed his face to the viewscreen in his cell. "Get the door open and get inside! You'll be safe in here!"
"Sounds like an even deader dead-end to me," Raph said.
"We don't have any better options right now," Leo shot back. "Donnie, start hacking those door controls. We'll hold them off!"
"Ugh," groaned Mikey as he twirled his chuks. "Where's Metalhead when you need him?"
And then there were no more words, for the Carnage horde was upon them. The turtles stood their ground against what felt like an endless wave of symbiote-controlled inmates, while Donnie worked frantically to hack the cell door.
"Remember guys, these are innocent people!" Leo said, throwing a kick into an inmate's chin and knocking him back.
"They're murderous psychopaths in prison for their crimes, Leo," Raph protested. "What about that is innocent?" He caught an inmate charging at him and used his momentum to flip the inmate and send him flying into another.
"You know what I mean, Raph! They aren't in control!" Leo leaped into the air, kicking an inmate in the side of the head and swinging the butt of his katana into another's mouth. "No killing!"
"You gotta a better plan, dude?" Mikey asked. His nunchuks were a blur, striking inmates in the head and keeping them away from him.
"Maybe!" Leo turned to Donnie. "Donnie, what was Carnage's big weaknesses?"
"Uhh, I think it was sound," Donnie said. He had connected his T-Phone to the door's control panel with wires and was tapping the screen to bypass the cell's security protocols. "And heat! We unfortunately eliminated the PR systems for the corridor, and there's no way to generate a massive amount of heat! But if we could get a massive electrical charge, that should generate enough Kelvins to provide a heat reaction!"
"Donnie!" Raph shouted. "English! Please!"
"For Einstein's sake, Raph!" Donnie yelled back at him. "Give Carnage a shock!"
"Got it!" Leo sliced through the symbiotic tendrils an inmate was shooting at him from his wrists. "Here's the plan. I'll set off the emergency sprinklers. Raph, you get to some electrical conduits and—"
"Leo!" Mikey screamed. "Watch out!"
Leo had waded into the center of the crowd of symbiotes, his katanas a swinging metal circle keeping the inmates away from his brothers. Suddenly a long, thick symbiotic tendril wrapped itself around his waist and lifted him into the air. The tendril belonged to Carnage, who immediately grabbed the blue turtle by his throat.
"Haha!" Carnage cackled. "Hello again, little turtle!"
Leo gagged from the hand on his neck, but he was helpless in Carnage's grip. "No!" Raph shouted, fighting to push his way through the wave of symbiote inmates to rescue his brother.
Carnage dragged Leo close to his face, strands of saliva dripping from his extended tongue as he licked the blue turtle's face. "We have missed you!" he growled maniacally.
"Agh!" Leo shouted. "Get … off!"
Carnage flung the blue turtle against the cell door in front of them, denting the metal from the impact. Leo slid down the door and crumpled to the ground.
"Leo!" Mikey cried, rushing to his brother.
Leo got unsteadily to his feet. "I'm … I'm fine, Mike."
Suddenly the door beeped and swung inward. "Open sesame!" Donnie cried triumphantly. Unplugging the T-Phone from the door, he and his brothers took shelter inside, swinging the door shut and bolting it again just as the symbiote army crashed against it from the outside. It would hold, for a little.
Leo sat down against the wall to catch his breath as the turtles went to uncuff Kurtzman. "Kurtzman, you alright?" asked Donnie.
With a grunt Raph jimmied the handcuffs with one of his sai. The reporter rubbed his wrists and said, "Well, isn't this a treat? We're trapped in a prison cell with three-foot concrete walls on all sides and an army of bloodthirsty maniacs in front of us."
"Hey, Kurtzman, we're trying to save you, dummy!" Raph said.
"Calm down, Raph," said Leo. "Don't be strong, be clever. That door won't hold for long."
He was right. The symbiotes were crashing against it as they spoke.
Donnie dialed April's number on the T-Phone. "Come on, come on, pick up!" he begged.
"Hello?" April's voice said on the other end.
"April!" Donnie said. "Listen. I don't know how your magic stuff works, but we need to get out of Ryker's, right now!"
"O-okay," April said uncertainly. "I'll try to lock onto your locations."
"We're trapped in a solitary confinement cell in Ryker's, April!" Raph said. "With a bunch of angry, hungry symbiote controlled creatures on the other side of the door!"
"I'm trying, Raph!" April said. "Just hang on!"
"I don't know how much longer we have, April!" Donnie said uncertainly. The door was beginning to cave in, and the pounding on the other side was becoming more and more frenzied as Carnage sensed the desperation of his prey.
The wall behind Kurtzman began to glow as a swirling orange circle appeared in the center of it, growing outward until it covered the entire wall. April had opened a portal from inside the lair, and she reached out towards the turtles. "Hurry guys!"
They ran for the portal and leaped through just as the door came flying off its hinges and Carnage burst through into the cell with a roar. He flung a tendril towards the portal in desperation, but April managed to close it just in time, severing the tendril from Carnage's body and sending him thudding into the cold stone wall of the cell.
With a furious howl, Carnage pounded on the concrete wall. He was enraged at the loss of his prey, so close within his grasp. But then he picked up his head, hearing something from outside the walls of the prison through the hive mind of his symbiote.
There were heroes on the way. The Thunderbolts he had seen on the news, they were here. Above the prison. Let them come. Carnage had control of the inmate population, and the guards had all but been devoured. He would make his stand here. This would be his new kingdom. And the so-called "heroes" would be the first of many to feed his new army.
Norman Osborn flew over the East River in his Iron Patriot suit, leading the Thunderbolts towards Ryker's. Vulture and Hyperion were in the air with him, the rest of the team riding in the military-grade helicopter a few yards behind them. Alarms had sounded of a mass prison break, and Kingpin had ordered the Thunderbolts to quell the uprising. The Mayor believed the public needed to see its new hero team in action.
For now, though, Fisk was doing little other than yelling at Osborn on phone call through the Iron Patriot suit. "Who told you you could send my militia soldiers home?"
"Oh, your spies?" Osborn asked. "They were in my way."
Fisk closed his eyes, gritting his teeth and pinching the bridge of his nose. "Don't you dare mess up my city, Osborn. You hear me?"
"We would never—" Osborn protested, but Fisk was just getting warmed up.
"What is the point of your infantile Thunderbolts if you can't even take care of a few wild dogs?" the Mayor roared. "Get in there right now and stop this prison riot or I'll have your whole team killed."
The call ended abruptly as Fisk's face disappeared from Osborn's screen.
"What a moron," Osborn muttered to himself before he opened a comm channel with the rest of the heroes. "Listen up, ladies and gentlemen. That was the Mayor. He said he wants to make sure everything possible is done to squash this uprising. 'Wreck my city if you have to,' he said. Least we get to see what the team can do."
As they approached the prison, they looked down at the courtyard and saw the swarm of Carnage symbiote-controlled inmates and guards milling about like panicking ants. "Who do we think all this is?" asked Osborn, looking down at the swarm of symbiotes.
"I know exactly who that is," said Mystique from inside the helicopter. "It's Carnage. Cletus Kassady. Worst serial killer to ever walk the earth."
"Can I eat him?" asked Abomination. He leaped out of the helicopter straight into the crowd of symbiote guards, fists swinging. As the chopper lowered itself towards the wall of the prison complex, Ghost too got out to join the battle. Mystique held back, using her pistols to open fire on the crowd of creatures surging towards the Thunderbolts. Batroc stood alongside her, the mercenary using a grenade launcher to fire explosives at the symbiotic inmates.
Meanwhile, the other five Thunderbolts were in the thick of things, fighting the symbiotes up close and personal. Carnage formed a dart-like projectile on one of his tendrils and flung it at Abomination, the weapon embedding itself deep in his skin. Abomination roared from the pain and, driven into a maddened frenzy, grabbed the nearest inmate and ripped the man's head from his shoulders.
"Jeez!" shouted Vulture. He hovered over the battle, firing down with his Chitauri gun. An inmate leapt for him, swiping at his feet with a symbiote-covered arm. Vulture in turn flew down and swiped his wing, slicing the man with the wing's blades. "Maybe we should call for backup!"
"Do not call for backup!" Osborn shouted, firing at the symbiotic inmates with his suit's repulsor beams. "If the Thunderbolts can't get this done, what are a couple of grunts with guns going to do except die?"
"Well, I'd like backup!" Ghost said. She amplified a punch at one of the inmates, sending him flying into the air, before having to dodge an attack from Abomination. "Hey!" she shouted.
"I'm having trouble here, guys!" Abomination said, swinging his fists wildly. The gamma radiation in his body had prevented Carnage's symbiote projectile from completely taking over his mind. But the goo had still slightly affected him. "Carnage is doing something to me! Can't control—aaagh! Help me!"
"Help you?" Vulture asked, flying out of the way as Abomination swiped the air blindly. "Go screw yourself!"
The crowd of symbiotes parted to reveal Carnage, staring at Norman Osborn with a hungry expression on his face. "My name is Norman Osborn, leader of the Thunderbolts, Mister Kassady!" Osborn called. "We're here to ask you return to your cell or face us head-on!"
Carnage laughed. "I've battled heroes before, tin man."
"Not like us, you haven't." Osborn extended a finger, pointing accusingly at Carnage. "Surrender or leave."
"Or what?" Carnage growled. Tendrils shot out from his body, each with a sharp object formed at its end.
Osborn half-turned to look at Hyperion. "Hyperion. You have my permission. Don't hold back."
Hyperion, in the middle of a group of symbiotes, launched himself into the air and sent the creatures scattering. "Back to the chopper!" called Osborn, taking off and flying away from the area. Hyperion's eyes began to blaze bright red as he fired beams of intense heat at the prison's power generators. The energy from Hyperion's eyes set off a chain reaction of explosions that engulfed the entire prison complex in a series of fireballs. The blasts lit up the night sky as if it were daytime, sending a huge mushroom cloud into the air.
The helicopter was flying away carrying the rest of the Thunderbolts with it. From inside the helicopter's open bay doors Norman looked out at the blast. He withdrew the faceplate from his Iron Patriot suit, scanning the wreckage of the prison for survivors. The explosion's massive heat signature prevented him from completing the scan, but already the body tolls were compiling in the left-hand side of the heads-up display. No survivors.
Mission accomplished as far as he was concerned.
