The Quinjet's engine roar faded to a low rumble inside the bunker's underground hangar.
The moment it touched down, Veyric shoved the hatch open and dropped to the ground, practically throwing himself out of the aircraft.
He'd wildly overestimated his own legs. The landing hit too hard, his knees buckled, and he pitched forward like a man whose body had forgotten how standing worked.
A surge of black symbiote tissue erupted from his chest, racing down his legs to his ankles and clamping onto the concrete like suction cups, locking him upright by sheer force.
A wet, gurgling laugh echoed beside his ear. The black slime pooled on his shoulder, forming a grinning face with a mouth stretched ear to ear.
"Heh heh heh... no need to thank me, Veyric. Just keeping you vertical." Venom's voice dripped with glee. "Don't worry. The secret about your sphincter being clenched the entire flight? Totally safe with me."
Veyric stared blankly for half a second.
"Get back inside. No chocolate for you today." He smacked the symbiote's head back into his body without ceremony.
Behind him, a light footfall.
Natasha dropped from the hatch and walked over, her eyes flicking to his calves, which hadn't quite stopped trembling.
"Looks like I need to add high-altitude parachute jumps to your training regimen."
Half joke, half promise. Her smile made it impossible to tell which half was bigger.
"The cabin was too cramped, that's all. Six feet of me crammed in that tin can." He shrugged, expression perfectly straight. "Just stretching my legs."
He didn't move from the spot. Just stood there breathing deep, stomping the solid concrete a few times beneath his boots.
Feeling the ground. Trusting it. His heart rate crawled back to something resembling normal.
Right on cue, the heavy cargo truck Colossus was driving rumbled into the unloading bay. The steel weighed so much the tires screamed against the floor.
Peter dropped from the ceiling and spotted the Stark Industries logos stamped across the equipment in the truck bed, and his eyes lit up like twin searchlights.
"Captain, we cleaned them out!" He clapped his hands together, beaming.
The cargo bay was stuffed to bursting. Mountains of scavenged gear and materials spilled from every corner, and the base's reserves went from lean to lavish in the span of one haul.
Beast arrived from deeper in the base, volunteering himself as quartermaster before anyone could ask.
He had a pre-drawn inventory plan in hand, directing the unloading with the calm precision of a man who'd been waiting for exactly this problem.
Veyric watched the mutant work. Hank had long since stopped caring about his hulking, feral appearance. Every ounce of energy went into what his mind could do, not what his body looked like. Professor X would've been proud.
With Hank running logistics, there was no reason to hover. Veyric grabbed Peter and headed straight for the base's core server room.
He cracked open the anti-static case bearing the Stark Industries logo with careful hands, drew out the drive containing J.A.R.V.I.S.'s data, and slid it into the server's main slot.
The computer work belonged to Peter.
Veyric stepped aside and watched the kid wedge himself in front of the keyboard. Fingers flying, keys clattering like automatic fire, the screen erupted with cascading code dense enough to make his eyes water.
Peter muttered the entire time, a running monologue of jargon Veyric couldn't follow if his life depended on it, then slammed the Enter key with finality.
"OK! Done. Booting up!"
Every screen in the server room blazed to life at once.
A blue progress bar materialized at the center, filling smooth and fast, hitting a hundred percent in the blink of an eye.
Then every screen flickered, cut to static, and went black.
"Uh... did it crash?" Veyric blinked.
The symbiote rippled across his chest, and Venom's voice oozed out, merciless.
"Oh, so this is the tech level of your so-called genius science prodigy? You broke J.A.R.V.I.S., you little bug."
Peter scratched the back of his head, fingers scrambling back to the keyboard. "That shouldn't have happened. The load bar filled all the way. Maybe one of Mr. Stark's encryption protocols conflicted with..."
Before he could finish, the black screens vanished without warning.
A warm, vivid blue washed across every display. A waveform pulsed gently at the center, and a voice filled the room, smooth, resonant, and unmistakable.
"Good evening, sir. I am J.A.R.V.I.S. A pleasure to be of service."
Peter whipped around and shot a look straight at the black symbiote mass on Veyric's chest. Chin tilted up. Pure smugness.
Still got it.
Venom let out an irritated "tch" and retreated into Veyric's body.
"Good to meet you, J.A.R.V.I.S."
Veyric exhaled, pulled a rolling chair over, and sat.
No preamble. He spent five minutes laying out the situation: the zombie virus, the state of the world, and Tony's fate.
The blue waveform rose and fell, steady and slow.
"Regarding Mr. Stark's circumstances... I am deeply sorry." J.A.R.V.I.S.'s voice held its composure, though the pace dropped, just slightly. "How may I assist you, sir?"
"We brought back several drones from Stark Tower. I need you to run reconnaissance on our surrounding area. Priority target: Hell's Kitchen."
Veyric picked up the walkie-talkie from the desk.
"Sam, are the drones prepped outside?"
Falcon's reply came back clean and fast. "Set up and ready. Say the word."
"J.A.R.V.I.S., it's yours."
"As you wish, sir."
The main screen transformed the instant J.A.R.V.I.S. finished speaking.
The left half displayed a sprawling, highly detailed map of New York City. The right half showed a live high-definition feed from the drone's camera.
On screen, the stealth drone climbed fast through the night sky, cutting a straight line toward Hell's Kitchen.
As it advanced, every block it passed over revealed the zombie presence below: horde sizes, densities, positions, all captured with clinical clarity.
J.A.R.V.I.S. ran at full processing power, converting the raw reconnaissance data into red dots plotted in real time on the holographic map. It looked exactly like an in-game enemy tracker, hostile positions marked and glowing.
Soon the drone hovered above the neighborhood that had once been a breeding ground for crime and was now something closer to an actual circle of hell.
His eyes swept the screen. Then something in the lower-right corner of the feed caught his attention: a derelict building, half-collapsed.
"J.A.R.V.I.S., zoom in on the building windows in the C4 drone's feed."
The lens snapped tight.
On the second floor of the crumbling structure, tucked behind a shattered window, two figures in skintight tactical suits crouched in shadow.
One was a Black woman watching the street below. Her right arm caught the faint light and threw back a cold metallic gleam.
Beside her stood an Asian woman with long black hair, a katana in her grip.
"Misty Knight? And Colleen Wing?" Veyric recognized them instantly.
In his memory, this pair of street heroes, known together as the Daughters of the Dragon, were far from easy targets. Misty Knight's Stark Industries bionic arm packed devastating strength, and Colleen Wing was a master swordswoman trained in an ancient style.
But the two women who had once looked so fierce and commanding were now caked in rotting blood, grey-skinned, dead-eyed, and hungry.
"Good thing we have this intel."
A chill crept through him. "Walking in blind, we wouldn't have known they were hiding in the shadows until they were on top of us."
"Sir, based on the surveillance analysis, I've detected what appears to be an underlying movement pattern among the hordes." J.A.R.V.I.S. spoke up.
"Meaning?"
"Whether driven by a swarming instinct or some other unknown factor, the zombie waves are migrating along consistent paths at a slow but measurable pace."
Lines traced themselves across the screen, projecting the hordes' likely trajectories.
"According to my current model, tomorrow afternoon around four o'clock, the zombie presence in and around Hell's Kitchen will hit its lowest point in the recent cycle."
"Unknown factor..." Veyric murmured.
Questions stirred at the back of his mind, but between the full-map surveillance and a top-tier AI running the projections, he figured the margin for error was slim enough. He'd trust J.A.R.V.I.S.'s recommendation.
He picked up the walkie-talkie and switched to the all-team channel.
"Everyone. Eat well tonight, sleep hard. Tomorrow at four p.m., we move on Hell's Kitchen. It's going to be a fight."