Like a meteor streaking through the atmosphere, trailing scorching points of light, it plunged into Upper New York Bay. Within mere seconds, Battery Park's famed Statue of Liberty viewing area was shrouded in dense, impenetrable steam. The out-of-town tourists who had yet to leave could not make sense of what had happened. Their tongues and nasal passages tasted the scent of heated metal in the windblown vapor, along with a rosemary fragrance that rolled up from the riverbed, mingled with the stench of river sludge.
They could not see what was happening behind the Veil of Reality, but the battle on the other side could affect the real world. Some tourists with sharper senses could vaguely make out the scene beyond that thin curtain, yet every one of them thought their eyes were playing tricks on them. Through the steam, they dimly saw flashing arcs of electricity and tongues of flame scorching the air. They thought they heard the hiss of cold water splashing onto red-hot metal, while thunderous booms rang out endlessly from beneath the water. "What is that?" As the thick steam dispersed slightly, the tourists all raised their heads to look into the sky. "Is that a fighter jet?"
"What nonsense are you talking, you New Jersey country bumpkin? That's Iron Man!" A man in a suit woke up from a bench, reeking of alcohol. His tie had vanished somewhere, and one of his shoes lay beside a trash can. No one knew why he had not frozen to death on such a cold night. Perhaps the newspapers wrapped around him offered a decent explanation. "He flies over New York every morning, more punctual than my son wetting his pants! Paul, get me some more whiskey. I really don't want to go home."
A woman screamed, "Shut