Planning and preparation

Queens, inside Ben's little room in a crumbling redbrick apartment building.

The neon sign outside the window flickered with an electrical buzz. Benjamin Lee's room was piled high with electronic junk, its only light coming from the modified laptop in front of him, covered in cracked stickers.

"This is suicide."

Old Dog sat on a battered couch in the corner, holding a can of beer he had no idea how long he'd been carrying. His clouded eyes were fixed on the 3D building schematic on the computer screen. His voice was hoarse, with a gritty rasp ruined by cheap tobacco. "Zhao, how many days have you been in this business? You want to hit that vault at a time like this?"

"Kid, do you know what that place is?" Old Dog said between drinks. "It's an old bank site! D.O.D.C. designated it an 'orange alert zone.' Not because there are gold bars there, but because a Chitauri Leviathan snapped three of its load-bearing beams! It could collapse at any moment and crush you into meat paste! And..."

Old Dog took a hard swig, his clouded eyes bloodshot as he stared at Zhao Fan. "It's on the edge of the core zone. The patrols aren't outsourced workers like us. They're security teams carrying loaded guns, never mind those special response teams."

"That's exactly why it hasn't been fully cleared."

Zhao Fan sat on a folding chair, toying with a nut-the prop he used to practice [Basic Precision Throwing]. His gaze was cold, like a gambler who had spent a long time walking along the edge of an abyss.

"That's the underground vault of the First National Bank of Manhattan." Benjamin typed as he nervously pushed up his black-framed glasses. The screen's blue glow reflected off the beads of sweat on his forehead. "According to the internal D.O.D.C. (Department of Damage Control) survey data I intercepted, it's marked 'structural red alert.' During the Battle of New York, a Leviathan's tail swept straight through the upper structure. The whole building was crushed down onto the vault like a compressed biscuit."

"What matters isn't above it. It's below." Zhao Fan pressed the screw onto the table, his fingers still gently rubbing its threads. "Ben, pull up the energy readings."

Benjamin hit Enter. A blinking yellow dot appeared amid the red and green underground schematic on the screen.

"See that?" Zhao Fan pointed at the dot. "The reading is faint, and it keeps decaying. The last few official scans labeled it a 'residual energy echo,' so they pushed its cleanup priority back to next month. But my gut tells me it's an energy source that's still running. It might even be an energy core."

"Class C residue, maybe even class B..." Old Dog narrowed his eyes, greed and fear mingling in them. "If it's a Chitauri weapon core, even a damaged one could fetch at least five thousand bucks on the black market. If it's intact..."

"Fifty thousand minimum." Old Dog named a figure that instantly froze the air in the room.

Fifty thousand dollars. For bottom-rung cleanup workers like them, whose hourly wages barely kept them fed and were still docked for insurance premiums, it was a life-changing fortune. Old Dog had never seen that much money in his life. Benjamin could use it to upgrade his precious computer, while Zhao Fan... he could use it to buy his first ticket to a firm foothold in this man-eating world.

"But the problem is time." Old Dog took a hard gulp of beer and crushed the empty can. "D.O.D.C.'s lunch break is only thirty minutes. Getting from the surface cleanup zone to the underground vault entrance would take ten minutes of climbing, even without rubble in the way. Twenty minutes there and back leaves us only ten minutes to look around inside. And..."

Old Dog paused and pointed at a ring of red lines around the edge of the screen. "There are motion-capture cameras around the perimeter, sponsored by Stark Industries. They're for the 'lab coats,' to stop people from stealing samples. The second we cross the line, those security response teams in exoskeletons will be on us like rabid dogs within three minutes."

"That's why I came to you." Zhao Fan looked at Benjamin. "Ben, can you handle the cameras?"

Benjamin swallowed, his fingers flying across the keyboard as he pulled up several lines of complex code. "D.O.O.C.'s system has a back door... no, not a back door. A logic flaw. A few milliseconds of latency left over from a system upgrade. If I send a data overflow packet at the right moment, I can put the three cameras in that area into a 'video loop' mode."

"How long?"

"Fifteen minutes at most." Benjamin held up three carrot-like fingers. "After that, the system runs an automatic self-check. Once it detects repeated footage, the alarm system will trigger immediately."

"Fifteen minutes..." Zhao Fan repeated under his breath. That was even tighter than he had expected.

"There's also the way in," Old Dog cut in. "The main entrance is definitely sealed, and there are too many eyes around there. We need another route."

Zhao Fan pulled a crumpled sketch from inside his clothes, one he had drawn while observing the site over the past few days. "Old Dog, remember that broken sewage pipe we cleared yesterday? Its route runs right past the vault's outer wall."

Old Dog froze, then snatched the sketch and studied it in the light of the screen. A moment later, he sucked in a sharp breath and looked up at Zhao Fan, his gaze changed. "You little... you mean that pipe full of rotting alien flesh and sewage? One spark could blow that place sky-high."

"It's the only blind spot," Zhao Fan said calmly. "And we don't need a pass there."

"Fine. Say we get in and get the goods." Old Dog slapped the sketch onto the table. "How do we get out? If we're carrying something with a high-energy signature, the alarm will blow out our eardrums when we go through the security gate."

"That's where your 'professional skills' come in, Old Dog." Zhao Fan looked at him, a mysterious smile curling his lips. "Tomorrow at noon, I need you to cause an 'accident' at checkpoint D3. Nothing big. Just enough to make that old radiation scanner temporarily 'overheat' or 'malfunction.' I know you should have a way."

Old Dog fell silent. He looked into Zhao Fan's eyes, shining in the darkness.

"Fuck." Old Dog cursed, fished the cigarette pack out of his pocket, squeezed it, and put it back. "Fifty thousand bucks. I hear you people have a custom of burning paper offerings. If I die, remember to burn my share for me."

Zhao Fan turned to Benjamin. "Tomorrow at twelve sharp, I need that video loop to start on time. Are you confident?"

Fat Ben's hands trembled a little, but he gritted his teeth and nodded hard. "For fifty thousand bucks... I'm going all in!"

"Good." Zhao Fan stood and looked out the window at the city, still sleeping yet fraught with danger.

"Remember, we only get one chance."

The next day, 11:55 a.m.

Midtown Manhattan, at the intersection of Fifth Avenue and 42nd Street. The once-bustling commercial center was now an enormous scar, collapsed skyscrapers jutting from the ground like broken teeth.

"Everyone, listen up! Five minutes until lunch! Finish what you're doing!" The foreman stood atop the wreckage of an abandoned tank, shouting through a megaphone. "Anyone caught slacking gets sent to handle the level-one contaminants in Zone C this afternoon!"

Wearing a heavy dust mask and holding a pneumatic cutting saw, Zhao Fan pretended to cut through a length of rebar. The inside of his goggles displayed the time: 11:56.

Out of the corner of his eye, he glanced toward a white tent in the distance. It was the technical research team's temporary command post. Everyone going in and out wore white lab coats and carried sophisticated tablets. Their haughty gazes made them seem like a different species from the mud-covered "blue-collar workers" outside.

Zhao Fan's heart clenched sharply.

"Dr. Evelyn's car... that black Stark Industries SUV entered camp ten minutes ago," Ben said in confusion. "Why would she come to a low-level cleanup zone like this? She's a senior supervisor on the technical team!"

"Calm down," Zhao Fan interrupted, his tone firm. "Her going to a meeting is good. It means those technicians won't have time to watch the monitors. This is an opportunity, not a disaster."

Zhao Fan recalled the figure he had glimpsed from afar several times before, that woman in a white lab coat with eyes like scalpels.

"Where did she go?" Zhao Fan asked quietly, barely moving his lips, looking as though he were talking to himself.

"To the central command vehicle. Looks like a spot inspection or a meeting." Ben's voice was tight. "Brother Fan, if she catches us, we won't even get a chance to go to jail. They'll send us straight to a black prison!"

"Damn it, why hasn't that bitch gone to eat yet?" Old Dog's hushed voice came through the earpiece. He was clearing roadblocks near checkpoint D3.

"Don't panic," Zhao Fan replied quietly, his lips barely moving. "She's a workaholic. We expected this. Stick to the plan."

"Ben, camera status?"

"Connecting..." Rapid keystrokes came through the earpiece.

11:58.

Rattlesnake Rick swaggered past Zhao Fan with several of his lackeys. He deliberately bumped Zhao Fan's shoulder and sneered. "Hey, rookie. Heard you nearly pissed yourself yesterday? The radiation here will shrink your balls. Get the hell out while you can."

Zhao Fan staggered from the impact, but he didn't look up, merely shutting off the cutting saw in silence. Rick's taunts meant nothing to him now. They were even the perfect cover-how could a weak, easily bullied newcomer possibly dare to plan a theft?

At 12:00, the shrill lunch-break siren rang across the entire worksite.

As though a switch had been flipped, hundreds of cleanup workers dropped their tools and surged toward the rest area and food trucks like a tide. The clamor of voices and complaints instantly drowned out the roar of machinery.

"Move." Under cover of the crowd, Zhao Fan didn't head toward the food trucks. Instead, he slipped into the shadows of a half-collapsed wall nearby.

"Loop started! Feed locked!" Benjamin's somewhat excited voice came through. "You have fourteen minutes and fifty seconds! Hurry!"

Zhao Fan took a deep breath, stooped low, and darted like a gray rat through two cordons to the concealed sewage pipe entrance.

A massive concrete slab half-covered the opening, surrounded by eerie purple moss-mutated plants nourished by alien flesh and blood. Zhao Fan shoved the slab aside, and a suffocating stench hit him in the face.

"Urgh..." Though prepared, Old Dog, following close behind, still gagged. "This smells even stronger than anything I've sniffed in the Brooklyn sewers."

"Shut up and stay close." Zhao Fan switched on his tactical flashlight. Its beam pierced the darkness, illuminating this shortcut to hell.