Chapter 5: The Hand Behind the Glass

Kazir's smile vanished when Tony confirmed the signal isolation.

His eyes went to the screen, then to the man behind the glass. The man had not moved in the time they'd been talking, though something had shifted. A tension Jarrin hadn't noticed before, like someone sitting perfectly still in a room where the air pressure was changing. The hand on the glass wall was steady, and Kazir was staring at it as though it had just gone cold.

"It's dead," Kazir said. "You cut the feed."

"I cut the feed," Tony confirmed.

Kazir's hand left the console. Both hands. He stepped back from it, and Bomb Voyage's orange glow flared from every piece of equipment in the room, bright enough to cast harsh shadows against the server racks. The air smelled like ozone and burning copper.

"You didn't just cut a signal," Kazir said. "You ended the last thread."

His voice cracked on the last word. Jarrin had heard that crack before, during their fight on the mezzanine, when Kazir had realized the Avengers were going to make this harder than he'd planned. It was the same feeling as the first time. Except this time, the crack went deeper.

Jazz grabbed Jarrin's arm and yanked him behind the nearest server rack. "Down."

The first charge hit the ceiling above them. Jarrin had just enough time to see Jolly Roger's bubble form, to pop it, to feel the kinetic force of the stolen detonation wash over the server rack in a concussive wave. The rack shuddered. Cables ripped free from their mounts. Sparks showered down from the overhead panels, and the air filled with the high-pitched whine of electrical feedback.

Kazir was moving. Through the orange glow, Jarrin could see Bomb Voyage taking shape, the orange energy wrapping around Kazir's arms and hands like molten glass. He pulled a chunk of broken concrete from the floor and turned it into a charge before Jarrin could blink.

"Jazz!" Jarrin yelled.

She was already on it. A card had gone up to the ceiling, and Jazz stepped through it, appearing above Kazir with her boot connecting with his shoulder. Jazz's Stand Poker Face flared behind her, a gray woman with white bunny ears and a magician's grin, and she pulled Jarrin through the card space and out to the side of the console, where Tony had his back to the main equipment.

"Relay's taking longer than I said," Tony yelled over the sound of Kazir detonating the floor. "The grid here runs on a backup generator that's three generations behind military spec. I can get the broadcast working, but it'll take five minutes."

"We don't have five minutes," Jarrin said. Kazir was coming through the doorway now, and his hands were already glowing. Bomb Voyage pulsed from his fists, his elbows, his neck, the Stand's orange light wrapping every surface of Kazir's body. He was turning himself into a weapon, the whole thing, the flesh and bone and clothing, all of it wired to explode on contact.

"Jarrin, the charges." Jazz had pinned a card to the wall beside Jarrin's head, and she was stepping through it backward, coming out of a card Jarrin couldn't see. She hit Kazir with a kick that caught him in the side, but the impact just produced a dull pop, the charge on his suit going inert for half a second before recharging. Jazz wasn't fast enough.

Jarrin pulled Jolly Roger out. The white pirate materialized behind his shoulder, red eyes wide, blue bandana snapped in the electrical wind from the exploding equipment. The bubble popped against Kazir's chest, stealing the explosive charge. The orange glow on his suit went dull, and for one brief second, Kazir looked like just a man in a tactical vest.

Then he looked at Jarrin, and Kazir stepped forward and grabbed Jolly Roger's face. The Stand screamed. Jarrin felt the pain through his own skull, a hot line of agony driving into his temples. Kazir pulled Jolly Roger's head sideways, and Jarrin dropped to one knee, his hand still pressed against the console to keep from falling over.

"Poker Face!" Jazz yelled. A card hit Kazir in the face. Jazz pulled Jarrin through the card space, and they came out behind Kazir, who spun with reflexes that should have been impossible given what they'd seen him do. His fist connected with Jazz's side, and she went down hard against a server rack.

Kazir turned. Both hands were glowing now. Bomb Voyage's light had spread to the entire console, every switch, every dial, and every screen.

Jarrin stood up. His ribs were screaming from the mezzanine hit, and his wrist ached where Jazz had set it, though it held. He looked at Kazir, at the man whose face had gone slack with that mechanical emptiness, and Jarrin understood. The handler's signal was dead. The connection was severed. Every charge in this room was now independent of whatever was supposed to control them. They were going to detonate on proximity, or on Kazir's will, or both.

Either way, the control room would be gone within thirty seconds.

"Tony!" Jarrin shouted. "How much time?"

"Four minutes! I've got the relay on standby. Just need to bridge the power coupling to the generator."

"Three minutes. We can't keep him off this console for three minutes." Jarrin looked at the server racks. At the equipment. At the walls, which pulsed with that faint orange glow. Every surface here was a potential charge. Everything was a weapon.

Jazz pushed herself off the floor. Blood from her side had soaked through her dress, but she pulled herself up anyway and stepped toward Kazir. Poker Face's figure flickered behind her, white hair whipping in some wind that Jarrin couldn't feel.

"I'll buy you two minutes," Jazz said. "Get the relay running."

"Jazz, he just grabbed Jolly Roger's head."

"Then get the relay running. I'll handle the rest."

She threw a card. Jazz tossed it toward Kazir's face, and he caught it between his fingers, and Jazz stepped through it like she'd been doing all morning, appearing right behind him with a kick aimed at the back of his knee. Kazir buckled, and Jazz landed, spun, and came up with a roundhouse that caught him in the temple. He staggered. Jazz grabbed his collar, yanked him forward, and pulled a card from her jacket that had been pinned to the ceiling behind them. Card portal. She stepped through it, pulled Jarrin through, and they came out behind the console.

Tony was already on the server hardware. His repulsor gauntlets had retracted, and he was using his hands, pulling cables from the equipment with a speed that said he'd been doing this since before the suit. "I'm routing through the main generator. This thing will broadcast on every frequency from cellular to emergency band. It'll reach every phone, every radio, every piece of equipment in the country within ten seconds of going live."

"Do it."

"Can't. There's a power coupling that needs to be hand-secured. If I let go and it pops, this entire relay explodes." Tony's hands were on two cables, holding them in place. "Give me ninety seconds."

Jazz stood between them and the console. Kazir had gotten to his feet and was walking toward her, moving like a man who had forgotten what pain was. Bomb Voyage's orange glow had spread to his shoes, his belt, the console behind him, the floor beneath his feet. Every surface he touched became a potential detonation point. The air smelled like a bomb factory.

Jarrin watched from behind the console. Tony's cables. Jazz's stance. Kazir's approach. Jolly Roger was floating at Jarrin's shoulder, its red eyes tracking everything. The Stand's head had been grabbed, and Jarrin could feel it as a dull ache in his temples, a reminder that he couldn't use Jolly Roger for more than thirty seconds before it would force a reset.

Thirty seconds. Thirty seconds to get Tony's relay working, thirty seconds for Jazz to hold off a man who was turning himself into a walking artillery piece, and thirty seconds for the world to change.

Kazir raised his hand. A charge formed on his palm, glowing bright orange, the energy condensing and spinning. Jazz threw three cards in quick succession. She stepped through the first card, appeared behind Kazir, threw a kick that caught his shoulder, then stepped through the second card and appeared above him, dropping from the ceiling with both feet aimed at his head.

Kazir detonated the floor beneath her. Jazz dropped through the hole as the floor exploded, and reappeared through a card she'd placed on a server rack to her left. She came out holding a cable, which she jammed into the gap between two server units to create a makeshift shield. Kazir's next charge hit the shield, and the server racks on either side of it blew outward in a wave of concrete and wire.

Tony didn't look up. His hands were on the cables. "Thirty seconds," he said. "Twenty-five."

Jazz pulled Jarrin through the card space and brought them to the edge of the debris. "The console is twenty feet away. His range on direct charges is about fifteen feet. Beyond that he has to charge them first."

"We don't have time for a careful approach."

"We never do." Jazz pulled a card from her jacket. Two more cards were pinned to the walls of the room, already in place, already waiting. Jazz stepped through the card on her jacket and came out through the card on the far wall, twenty feet from the console. Kazir turned toward her, his face still that flat, mechanical mask, and Bomb Voyage's glow on his hands intensified.

Jarrin stood. He pulled Jolly Roger out fully, the white pirate materializing in front of him with both hands up, and he pointed. A bubble formed in Jolly Roger's palm, glowing faintly blue. Jarrin threw it.

The bubble hit Kazir's right hand. The charge on his palm popped, and the kinetic force of the stolen detonation threw Kazir backward into the console. He hit the back of it hard enough to crack the glass screen, and for a moment, he was on his back against the wall, dazed.

Jazz was already moving. She stepped through the card she'd placed on the wall and appeared behind Kazir, grabbing his collar and pulling him around. Poker Face was at her side, gray figure with white hair and a magician's grin, and the Stand's hand closed around Kazir's face. Jazz yanked his head sideways, and Jarrin saw the moment Kazir's eyes went wide.

Bomb Voyage's orange glow flickered.

Jarrin raised his hand. Jolly Roger's bubble was ready. He threw it at the console, at the equipment around Kazir, at every surface Bomb Voyage had touched. The bubble popped, and the charges on the console went inert. The equipment around him went dull. The floor under Kazir's feet lost its glow, and for the first time in the fight, Bomb Voyage looked like just a man standing on concrete.

Then Jazz stepped forward, and the card in her hand hit Kazir in the chest, right over his heart. Poker Face's hand passed through the card, through Kazir's chest, and grabbed something behind his body. Bomb Voyage screamed. The orange light exploded outward, filling the room in a wave of white-orange fire, and then everything went dark.

Kazir hit the ground. Jarrin could feel Bomb Voyage dissolving, the Stand's presence draining away like water from a broken cup. The rules were simple. When a Stand was destroyed, the user died. No exceptions. No recovery. Kazir lay on the floor, chest still, eyes open, and the orange glow was gone.

Jarrin's head cleared. The ache in his temples vanished. Jolly Roger's bubble had popped, and the Stand faded behind him, its red eyes shrinking until there was nothing left.

Tony looked up from the cables. "Did I miss the fight?"

"Pretty much." Jazz pressed a card against her bleeding side, and Poker Face's energy seeped into the wound, knitting the flesh together. "But we won. He's dead. The charges are inert."

Tony was still holding the cables. "Good news. The relay is ready."

"Then do it," Jarrin said.

Tony let go of the cables and pulled out his laptop. His fingers moved across the keys with practiced speed, running through diagnostics and frequency checks. The server rack hummed. A low electrical whine built from the generator beneath the facility, and Tony's laptop screen flashed green as the broadcast initialized.

"One second."

Jarrin looked at Kazir's body. Still there. Dead, though. The same face, the same flat mechanical expression that had been there since the mezzanine. The handler sat behind the glass, still watching through the feed.

The man hadn't moved. Not once. He sat in his chair, his back to the camera, and he had watched Kazir die without blinking.

"The broadcast is live," Tony said. "Going out on every frequency. Stand users exist. They're real. They're dangerous, and they need to be found."

"And?" Jarrin asked. "Anyone listening?"

Tony stared at his screen. "Nobody."

"Nobody."

"Nobody. No response. No signals. No pings. It's like the airwaves are empty." Tony pulled up another window. "I've got the relay going wide. It'll reach every device in the continental United States. Every phone, every radio, every computer. In theory, at least one person should respond."

"And?"

"Not yet. Nobody's picked up the signal."

Jarrin looked at the screen with the man behind the glass. Kazir was dead. The handler had lost his soldier. Whatever arrangement they'd had, whatever chain of command Kazir had served, it was over. The man on the screen was still sitting in his chair, still watching through the glass, and he hadn't moved a muscle since before the fight started.

The Avengers were starting to move, filtering into the control room from the corridor. Steve and Natasha entered first, both cautious, both scanning the room for threats. Natasha looked at Kazir's body, then at the glass wall.

"He's still there," she said. "Behind the glass. Is that his handler?"

"The dead man's switch," Jarrin said. "If Kazir died, his handler detonates everything. We killed Kazir, but the switch never fired. The charges went inert when Bomb Voyage was destroyed."

"So the handler is safe," Steve said. "Which means he's going to find out we killed his soldier."

"Probably already did." Tony's laptop showed nothing. Empty signal. No response. "The relay's broadcasting, but we're talking to the wall."

Jarrin leaned against the console. Jazz had pulled her jacket tight around her wounded side, and the dress underneath was still soaked with blood, though the wound itself had closed. She was watching the glass wall with that same focused expression she wore when she was running calculations in her head.

"We have two problems," she said. "The three Stand users the Architect planted in three cities. And this one." She pointed at the glass. "Which do we tackle first?"

Steve crossed his arms. "The three users. They're already out there. They could be anywhere. If the Architect activates them, we lose an entire continent."

"Steve's right," Tony said. "The three users are immediate. This guy behind the glass is a bigger threat, sure. Bigger. But he's currently sitting behind a glass wall in a room we just blew open. He's not going anywhere until he decides to."

Jazz looked at Jarrin. "And you?"

Jarrin shrugged. "Can't we do both?"

"Obviously not. We're four people. Maybe five if we count Kazir's body as useful."

"Four and a half," Tony corrected. "Kazir's body is useful for identification, but he's not fighting anyone."

Jarrin looked at the server racks. The facility's network. Tony had mentioned earlier that the relay required the facility's main power grid, which meant the facility had infrastructure, and infrastructure meant data. "What if we use the facility's network to start tracking the three users? Run a search on anything that matches Stand signatures. Electromagnetic anomalies, unexplained energy readings, anything."

Tony pulled up a diagnostic on his laptop. "The facility's server infrastructure has surveillance feeds running across the region. I can pull them. If the Architect placed these users in cities, there's going to be activity. Cameras, traffic logs, cell tower data. I can run it through the relay system and get a hit."

"Do it," Steve said.

Tony was already working. His fingers flew across the keyboard, pulling data from the facility's server architecture. Jarrin watched him, fascinated. The man was building a nationwide surveillance net on a laptop that probably weighed less than the equipment it was replacing.

Jazz pulled the card from her side and examined it. The fabric was still stained with her blood. She pulled another from her jacket and pressed it to the wound, and the bleeding slowed. "The handler will know we're watching. If we track the three users, he'll find out."

"He knows we're watching already," Jarrin said. "He's been watching us since before we walked in."

The server room hummed. Tony's screens lit up with data, rows and columns of numbers and coordinates scrolling past faster than Jarrin could read them. Tony was running patterns, cross-referencing energy signatures against known Stand frequencies that Jazz had given him earlier.

"First city is Chicago," Tony said. "Second is Miami. Third is... Denver. Three Stand users, placed, armed, waiting. The Architect is a patient man."

Jarrin leaned against the console and listened. The three cities. Three users. Tony would find them eventually, given time and data, but there was still the handler. The man behind the glass. Still sitting in his chair, still watching, and the relay was broadcasting to nothing.

Then the relay pinged.

A signal came back through the server feed. Not from Chicago, or Miami, or Denver. The ping originated from inside the facility itself, from the glass wall behind which the man still sat.

Tony froze. "He's on the network."

The man on the screen moved. Just once, a slight shift in his posture, like someone settling into a comfortable chair. The face that had been turned away from the camera for the entire fight rotated, slowly, until the man was looking directly into the lens.

"Mr. Jostar," the man said. His voice came through the facility's speaker system, clear and calm and precise. "Ms. Zepelli. I've been waiting for you."