Gotham's East End, an abandoned underground auto repair shop.
The heavy stench of motor oil mingled with the sharp reek of blood. Overhead, an incandescent bulb coated in dead insects swung back and forth, stretching the twisted shadows on the floor.
Bang!
The muffled gunshot echoed through the enclosed basement.
The thug whose jaw Yang Ming had shattered with his umbrella handle had his head blown apart in an instant. Thick red-and-white matter splashed across an oil-stained support pillar and slowly slid down its peeling surface.
Fiss, the Rat Gang's boss, lowered his smoking M1911 pistol and casually wiped the flecks of blood from the back of his hand onto a nearby underling's clothes.
He was a bald brute nearly two meters tall. A rat tattoo stretched from his neck to the corner of his eye, bisecting a vicious knife scar.
Fiss spat out a mouthful of bloody saliva without so much as glancing at the headless corpse on the floor.
"So fucking noisy."
He turned to stare at the other two crippled men trembling on their knees. One had nine tendons in his wrist precisely severed by a scalpel; the other had a shattered radius.
The corner of Fiss's eye twitched violently, and the flesh of his face bunched together.
"An Asian back-alley doctor with an umbrella? And he took Selene and her sickly little sister with him?"
The thug with the severed wrist knocked his forehead against the floor in a puddle of motor oil, his voice trembling.
"Y-yes, boss. There's something seriously wrong with that guy... he knows every bone in the human body. One cut, and my hand was finished..."
"Fuck your bones!"
Fiss kicked the thug in the ribs. Bone cracked, and the man rolled away screaming, crashed into a pile of discarded tires, and went still.
Fiss's chest heaved. The Rat Gang might not have ranked among the East End's top gangs, but supplying living people to the underground organ market had earned him a measure of respect even from the Maloney Family's lower-ranking officers.
Now some unlicensed doctor with a scalpel had appeared out of nowhere, stolen the woman he had his eye on, and crippled three of his men.
Most importantly, if he failed to deliver Selene and her sister tonight, the In-Betweener at the organ market would never let him off.
Fiss bared a mouthful of yellow teeth, strode deeper into the repair shop, and kicked aside several wooden crates covered with dust sheets.
"A monster with a scalpel?"
A crowbar pried open a rusty sheet-metal lid.
Inside lay neat rows of more than twenty coldly gleaming Thompson submachine guns, along with five or six old Remington military shotguns bought on the black market. Brass cartridges reflected the light.
Fiss roared at the top of his lungs, veins bulging on his forehead.
"Hand out the fucking guns!"
"Over twenty long guns! Let's see if his scalpel can cut through bullets! Tonight, we're shooting 22 Lake Street to pieces! I'll rip that back-alley doctor's guts out and hang them from a streetlight for three days!"
More than twenty vicious killers swarmed forward, the clacks of cocking bolts blending together.
Hell's Kitchen, New York.
Click.
A barely audible snap of metal.
Jessica Jones stared fixedly at the mangled piece of pork in the stainless-steel tray. The curved surgical-steel suturing needle gripped in her needle holder had snapped in two again.
It was the fifth needle she had broken that night.
Yang Ming took off his bloodstained white coat, tossed it into the medical waste bin, and walked to the sink to pump out a generous dollop of iodine hand wash.
"You need to tighten the sutures in subcutaneous fat, not strangle it."
Jessica raked a hand through her messy short hair in frustration. Her eyes were even more bloodshot than yesterday.
"These damn needles have to be cheap junk!"
Yang Ming turned on the faucet, letting cold water wash between his fingers.
"High-carbon steel suturing needles supplied exclusively by Stark Industries' medical division. Forty-five dollars apiece."
"I'll check your work at eight tomorrow morning. If you haven't finished suturing that piece of meat, or you break another needle, I'm docking you a hundred dollars."
Jessica swallowed the curse on the tip of her tongue. She glared at the pork, fitted a new needle, and took a deep breath, forcibly restraining the strength in her fingertips that could crush a brick.
Yang Ming dried his hands and paid Jessica no further attention. He walked to the medical supply storeroom and pressed down the door handle.
A deep-blue vortex spun silently.
He stepped through.
A faint sensation of weightlessness swept through his semicircular canals. Hell's Kitchen's sour, stale-beer smell vanished from the air, replaced by Gotham City's persistent damp chill.
The Underground Clinic lay in darkness.
Only the Stark Industries portable hyperbaric oxygen chamber gave off a faint blue glow. Its pressure-release valve hissed almost inaudibly, maintaining the pressure inside.
Yang Ming walked up to the chamber.
Readings flickered steadily across the holographic display: oxygen saturation, 98%; heart rate, 75; respiratory rate, 18 breaths per minute.
Perfect readings.
Behind the blast-resistant glass cover, Maggie was awake. The little girl's bluish complexion had completely faded, and a faint flush colored her cheeks as she watched Yang Ming outside.
Maggie laboriously raised her hand, her lips moving soundlessly behind the thick glass.
The words were clear.
"Th... thank you."
Yang Ming's gaze remained impassive. He picked up the chart clipboard and quickly made a note, then raised his right hand to tap the glass and pointed at the red mandatory-sleep indicator inside.
An instruction devoid of emotion.
Maggie obediently closed her eyes. The medication's trace sedative component soon sent her back into a deep sleep.
Crash!
A sudden, violent impact struck the bottom of the Roll-up Door.
Then someone forced the shutter up from outside, opening a gap half a meter high. A black-clad figure rolled inside across the muddy concrete floor.
Selene.
She was soaked from head to toe, her fitted black leather clothes clinging to her body. Rainwater dripped from her hair, forming puddles on the floor.
She gulped for breath, her chest heaving. Her left leg spasmed faintly beyond her control after the prolonged, strenuous run and the lingering effects of the nerve block.
"They're coming."
Selene's voice was ragged and hurried, edged with panic.
She planted one hand on the floor, sprang up, and rushed over to Yang Ming.
Selene spoke at breakneck speed.
"The Rat Gang! That lunatic Fiss brought out every gun he had stashed away!"
"Over twenty men! All carrying Thompson submachine guns, plus Remington shotguns. They split into three groups and have already blocked both ends of Lake Street. They'll have this place surrounded in five minutes at most!"
Selene reached back and drew the short dagger hidden in her leather boot. Its blade caught the dim yellow wall light.
She stared hard at Yang Ming, her gaze resolute.
"This basement has no back door! If they trap us here, we're dead!"
"I'll crawl out through the ventilation duct. I know the East End rooftops-I can draw them toward the docks. Take Maggie and get away in the confusion. Go uptown, or anywhere else!"
With that, she turned to climb toward the vent in the corner.
Smack.
A dry towel smelling of disinfectant landed squarely on Selene's face.
Stunned, Selene reflexively pulled it off.
Yang Ming's voice was flat.
"Dry your face, then mop up the water on the floor."
Selene froze, staring at Yang Ming with wide eyes.
"Don't you understand?!" Selene lowered her voice.
"That's over twenty automatic weapons! One volley will turn this lousy Roll-up Door into a sieve! However good you are in a fight, can you outrun bullets?! Boss, listen to me. You can't die. Take Maggie and go first. I'll hold them off!"
Yang Ming did not answer.
He opened the triage desk drawer, took out a pair of black Kevlar cut-resistant gloves, and pulled one onto his left hand.
The dark-silver storage ring at the base of his right index finger flashed faintly.
Three oddly shaped scalpels appeared in his palm out of thin air.
These were no ordinary medical instruments, but High-Carbon Titanium Alloy blades used in Oscorp laboratories to cut through the bones of mutated organisms. Their dark-gray edges reflected no light, yet were exceptionally sharp.
Yang Ming casually slipped the blades into his trench coat pocket.
He went behind the door and took down the solid-black, long-handled umbrella.
Yang Ming turned to look at Selene, his gaze leaving no room for argument.
"I'm the boss."
"My rule is that rats die when they enter my territory."
Selene opened her mouth, but his oppressive presence choked off her words.
Yang Ming walked to the entrance and pressed his palm against the cold metal shutter.
"Lock the Roll-up Door. Whatever you hear outside, don't peek out or make a sound. If you disturb Maggie's sleep, I'm docking your pay."
Rattle.
The Roll-up Door was raised halfway.
The roar of pouring rain and a cold wind instantly flooded the clinic.
Yang Ming ducked outside.
The shutter slammed down behind him, immediately followed by the sound of the bolt locking from within.