Chapter 120: Smaller Guns
The cold night wind swept across the roof of the New York Sanctum as Gwen pulled her repaired mask over her face.
She adjusted the fabric around her wrists, feeling the cool press of the silver ward bracelet Ethan had created earlier. Beneath her collar, the adaptive acoustic mesh Natasha had helped her fit sat flush against her skin.
Ethan stood near the heavy roof access door, holding out Gwen's phone after checking the tracking signal.
"Send your route. Check in every thirty minutes. No walking blindly into another warehouse."
Gwen accepted without arguing. "Agreed."
A sharp click sounded in her right earpiece.
"Comms are clear," Natasha said. "I have the police channels open. Three vans registered to Fisk shell companies are moving through the Kitchen. One of them just stopped near the docks."
Gwen fired a web line toward the nearest spire and swung out into the city.
Gwen landed near the edge of the rooftop and looked down at the loading yard. The Fisk van Natasha had marked was parked below, but before she could move, a familiar voice came from behind the water tower.
"No six-eyed dog tonight?"
Gwen turned and found Daredevil standing in the shadows with one billy club in his hand.
"You again," she said. "Are you joining the party too? I don't remember inviting you."
Daredevil came closer and stopped beside her at the ledge, angling his head toward the loading yard.
"You didn't. I was already following the van," he said. "And I don't need an invitation to work in Hell's Kitchen."
"What, It's turf thing now?"
"No, it's Fisk thing. His men are moving unfamiliar weapons through the neighborhood. I'm here to find out what they are."
He tossed a broken metal casing toward her. Gwen caught it and turned it over between her fingers.
Gwen started examining the casing, then stopped and looked back at him.
"Wait. You really are blind, right? How did you know that dog had six eyes?"
Daredevil remained silent for a second. "I could hear them blink."
Gwen stared at him through her mask. "That is somehow more disturbing than the six eyes."
"It wasn't a pleasant night."
He nodded toward the casing in her hand. "I took that from a Fisk crew about an hour ago. The sound interfered with my senses. It felt like a weaker version of the pulse that passed through the Kitchen."
Natasha's voice came through Gwen's earpiece. "The plates match. That's one of the three vans."
Gwen walked to the ledge and spotted the dark vehicle below. Daredevil had already moved beside her, tilting his head as he listened to the men around the van.
"You were here first," Gwen said. "What's your plan?"
"I'll circle down and approach the van from the street. You watch the yard."
Gwen glanced at the men unloading the bags. "That works."
Daredevil disappeared down the far side of the building while Gwen crossed above the yard on a web line. She settled beneath a rusted fire escape as Matt approached the van from street level.
Three mercenaries stepped out of the van and began unloading heavy black bags. A fourth man remained inside the back of the vehicle, standing over a device mounted on a heavy tripod.
Before Gwen could drop, the man threw a switch. The device activated.
A high-pitched whine cut through the yard. The mesh around Gwen's collar activated immediately, reducing the noise before it could overwhelm her hearing.
It did nothing for the false warnings flooding her spider-sense.
Gwen's danger sense began screaming from every direction at once. Her breath caught in her throat. She froze, her muscles locking completely as she clung to the underside of the fire escape. For a terrifying second, she felt trapped again, just like she had been inside Mason's warehouse.
Down in the yard, Matt winced as the noise scrambled his radar sense. The scrape of boots against the pavement still gave him enough to track the approaching men.
"Three armed men," Matt called out. "Two moving left. One behind the crates."
Matt threw his baton at the nearest mercenary, knocking the rifle from his hands.
Natasha heard Gwen's breathing change over the comms.
"Gwen, tell me what still works."
Gwen tightened her grip on the fire escape. "I can't trust my spider-sense."
"Then stop using it. What else do you have?"
Gwen forced herself to look down into the yard. "Your voice. The van's engine. Daredevil's baton. The headlights. I can feel the fire escape beneath me."
"That's enough," Natasha said. "Move."
Gwen dropped from the fire escape, using the mechanical hum of the van engine and Matt's auditory callouts to orient herself.
Gwen aimed by sight and fired a thick web into the center of the disruptor's speaker array. The whine dropped immediately, though her spider-sense remained confused and unreliable.
"Rifle on your right!" Daredevil shouted from below.
Gwen turned toward the movement and fired a web line, ripping the rifle from the nearest guard's hands. Daredevil struck the man he had already disarmed and drove him down beside the van.
The second guard raised his weapon, but Gwen watched the barrel instead of trusting her spider-sense. She vaulted over a wooden crate, kicked the rifle aside, and sent him crashing into the open van door.
Inside the vehicle, the operator abandoned the disruptor and reached for a pistol. Gwen webbed his wrist to the tripod before he could draw it, then pulled hard enough to slam him into the speaker frame.
The yard fell quiet. Daredevil restrained the first two men while Gwen webbed the other two securely to the pavement.
Gwen ripped the receiver free from the tripod.
Her hands were still shaking when Daredevil retrieved his baton and stopped beside her.
"You still with me?"
Gwen tightened her grip on the receiver and nodded. "Yeah."
"Good," Daredevil said. "I'm checking the van."
Daredevil moved toward the open rear doors while Gwen turned back to the fallen mercenaries.
Natasha spoke through Gwen's earpiece. "Slow breath. Then read me the serial number."
Gwen took a slow breath and checked the casing. "The serial number's gone, but Mason left his mark on the inside."
"Don't pull anything else apart," Natasha said. "Bring the whole unit back."
About an hour later, a golden portal sparked to life inside the Sanctum's analysis room.
Gwen stepped through. Ethan was waiting by the central steel table with the Plumber Multispectrum Analyzer case already open. Natasha stood nearby holding a tablet.
Gwen walked up to the table and placed the damaged receiver onto the metal surface.
"Tell me we can use this to find him," Gwen said.
Ethan placed the receiver inside the analyzer's open frame.
"Maybe," he said. "Depends how careful Mason was."
Natasha set the tablet containing the van's route beside him while Ethan activated the analyzer. A blue grid passed over the damaged receiver, slowly pulling up the connections it had made before Gwen destroyed it.
The locations were incomplete, but the device had exchanged signals with several other receivers.
Ethan studied the list.
"He went smaller," he said. "But he built more than one."
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