62
Creating a spiritual echolocator was no trivial task.
The base around me had fallen into the pre-dawn silence. I settled onto the bed, closed my eyes, and turned my focus inward, beginning to work through the concept. For now, I was an architect, reasoning through the task ahead and sketching blueprints in my mind.
First, I needed to define the problem.
My standard Spiritual Vision was semi-passive. With concentration, I could see the spiritual landscape within my line of sight. But I wanted more. I wanted range. I wanted to see through walls and obstacles. I needed an active system. I needed a sonar that emitted pulses and interpreted the echoes from souls and objects.
A simple, crude release of my Reiatsu, my spiritual pressure, wouldn't work. That would be like yelling in a quiet library. People with strong spirits, like Clint Barton, possessed high sensitivity even when unconscious and would feel it immediately. It would be too noisy, too obvious. It would give me away instantly.
I needed something subtler. Something more elegant.
The idea came almost immediately. I would use external Reishi particles scattered throughout the air for the pulse, rather than my own energy. I could imprint them with my Reiatsu, giving them a unique resonant signature tied to me. The concept began to take shape.
The next element was the receiver.
My spiritual perception needed to be reconfigured and calibrated to detect only the reflected Reishi bearing my signature. During active echolocation, my internal scanner would have to operate on a narrow, concealed frequency.
I mentally mapped out an algorithm to process the incoming data.
A clear, dense echo would mean a soul: a high concentration of spiritual power, Reiryoku.
A weak, blurred echo would mean an inanimate object with low ambient Reishi density.
A complete absence of echo would indicate a shadow zone, an object that had completely absorbed the pulse.
A shift in echo frequency, the Doppler effect as applied to Reishi, would indicate a moving object, allowing me to estimate its speed and vector.
Once I had a detailed concept of this spiritual construct in my head, I moved to the next stage.
I didn't want to build the echolocator from scratch every time. It would be far more efficient to create a permanent, semi-autonomous device directly inside my soul, or at least one that was inseparably linked to it. That would solve two problems at once. It would remain completely unnoticed by S.H.I.E.L.D. right now, and it would give me priceless early experience in working with souls.
I strengthened my intent and took a deep breath. For a moment, a cold wave of primal fear washed over me. This wasn't gadget modding. This was metaphysical neurosurgery on my own soul, and I would be performing it with spiritual scalpels and no anesthesia. But it was too late to back out. I ran through the entire procedure one more time in my head, then began.
It was time to create the sonar core.
I entered a deep meditation and focused on the all-encompassing sensation of my inner ocean of energy, my Reiryoku. Carefully, I scooped out a tiny fraction of it and began the unthinkable. I began compressing and stabilizing the Reishi, layer by layer, forging a microscopic, super-dense sphere of hardened spiritual energy inside my spiritual body, in the area of my solar plexus.
That was the hardware. It was my personal emitter and receiver in one.
Now, I needed to install the software onto that spiritual hardware.
Fortunately, I had already planned this part. Using the basic principles of soul modification from the Strange Science knowledge package as a programming language, I imprinted my prepared mental blueprint into the structure of the core. At that instant, the sonar was programmed with one function. At my mental command, it would generate a spherical pulse of marked Reishi, receive the reflected signal, and transmit the raw data directly to my consciousness for processing.
[Construct "Spiritual Sonar" created. Complexity: Normal. Received +400 OP!]
A Spiritual Sonar. It was a spiritual construct inseparably connected to my body and soul. It was created using the art of spiritual energy manipulation and soul modification. It was capable of interacting with its surroundings in a radius of approximately one hundred meters.
The core compression process drained me dry. I felt my Reiryoku reserve evaporate, leaving behind a dull emptiness and a faint, pulsing pain in the area where the construct now sat. And as much as I wanted to test my new sonar immediately, I understood that it still needed a long, tedious calibration. I had no strength left for that. I had no energy. I had no desire.
So, I slept.
The spirit and the body are inseparably linked, and in some ways, the spirit matters even more. So, despite being physically combat-ready, spiritual exhaustion knocked me out almost instantly.
When I woke up at three p.m., I felt refreshed and full of strength. The drained soul battery had fully recharged. After a quick hygiene routine and a solid lunch in the S.H.I.E.L.D. cafeteria, I returned to my room.
It was time for calibration.
But first, there was the activation.
It was a catastrophe.
It was predictable, yes. Still, it was a catastrophe.
The moment I mentally switched it on, my consciousness was hit, not by an avalanche, but by a tsunami of unprocessed, raw information. It was the deafening white noise of the universe. It was a chaotic hum from every speck of dust in the air, from every molecule in the walls, and from every tiny soul. And as it turned out, even insects had souls, and there were myriads of them in a S.H.I.E.L.D. base, just like anywhere else.
The worst part was that the hundred-meter radius was spherical. I heard everything above me, where the parking structures were, and even traces of New York street noise leaked in. I heard everything below me, too, where unknown, echoing, empty S.H.I.E.L.D. spaces stretched underground.
There was too much information. There was an insane amount of it.
If my brain had been even a little less prepared, I could have had a stroke. But I had already survived the Technological Modernization and a dozen System information packages, each one like a sledgehammer to the brain. On top of that, the amulet around my neck was constantly boosting my cognition. So the echolocation chaos didn't even make me flinch. At worst, I felt a mild sensory overload, like stepping into a loud train station after total silence.
At least the sonar worked.
If anything, it worked too well.
I didn't need this much useless noise.
Focusing on the construct that was humming in my solar plexus, I started fine-tuning it. First, I applied filters. I calibrated the perception so that it would ignore reflections from low-density objects completely, keeping only the meaningful targets in focus. Those targets were living beings and large inanimate objects. At the same time, I adjusted the pulse's own intensity, making it more diffuse, almost indistinguishable from the natural background. That should lower the detection risk to an absolute minimum.
The last and most difficult stage was training my brain.
I popped an NZT pill and started reprogramming my own perception. I was essentially teaching my brain to instantly convert a stream of raw returns into an intuitive, three-dimensional mental map instead of a chaotic set of sensations. I started small, with my room, forcing myself to "see" the desk, the bed, and the walls. Gradually, step by step, I expanded the focus until I could effortlessly cover the full hundred-meter radius.
It took about an hour of intense mental work.
After that, I could say with complete confidence that the skill was ready.
It was my first real, from-scratch active skill.
The potential of Strange Science really did seem limitless, and I felt like I had barely touched the edge of it. The sonar core wasn't exactly integrated into my soul. That was too crude a word for it. It was more like it was fused to it. It was joined. I still wasn't ready to climb fully inside the soul itself. This was more like installing an additional module, a peripheral device, or a construct, as the System had called it. Yes. That was more accurate.
Now, the activation was almost reflexive and required minimal concentration. With a single mental command, a clean, detailed 3D map of everything within a hundred-meter radius unfolded in my mind. The living beings were clearly highlighted, and their approximate spiritual strength was intuitively estimated.
Once I had calmed down, I contacted Fury about the contract. He confirmed that everything was ready and ordered me to wait for Natasha, who would escort me to him. I didn't wait long. This time, we went in a different direction from the one she had taken yesterday. Did Fury have multiple offices in the base? Was it paranoia, or just convenience? It didn't matter.
The important thing was that we arrived.
Inside, this new office looked exactly like the previous one. It was just as sterile. It was just as faceless.
"Here's the contract, and here's the ore data. Your box will be delivered to your room today," Fury said, without any greeting, extending a folder with papers. "Destroy or return the ore data after you've studied it."
I nodded and started reading immediately.
The contract was a true bureaucratic labyrinth. It was soaked in legal jargon and tricky definitions. But under the NZT, my brain functioned like a precision scanner, filtering out the verbal clutter and extracting the core instantly. At its core, it did contain everything that we had discussed yesterday. Naturally, there were several interesting and controversial points. For example, there was a clause stating that in the event of my death, all of my technological developments and assets would come under the full control of S.H.I.E.L.D. Another clause stated that I could not specify how the technologies I created would be used.
In essence, S.H.I.E.L.D. predictably wanted control over everything that it could reach.
That was the expected price for access to their resources and for my personal convenience. In every other respect, the contract suited me. I signed it with a flourish, returned the document to Fury, and immediately picked up the next folder, which contained information about Vibranium and Adamantium.
This was a revelation.
It was thirty pages of dense technical text that would be gibberish to most people. But for me, it became a gateway to a new era. Thanks to Master Clockmaker's absolute memory, which was further enhanced by the NZT, I didn't simply read it. I absorbed it. I visualized the crystal lattices, the molecular bond schemes, and the thermal processing regimes. I didn't just know how to work with Adamantium now. I could see the process. And more importantly, I finally sensed that fine, impossible path toward Vibranium processing.
"Excellent. I've studied everything," I said, returning the pages to Fury. Over the past half hour, he had been immersed in his own work and had barely looked at me.
"And you've memorized it?" he asked skeptically, raising an eyebrow as he looked up from his monitor.
"Possibly." I didn't give him a direct answer, but it was enough. His expression told me that he had drawn the right conclusion. "I need to leave the base. I hope that won't be a problem."
Yes. It was time to see Gwen and hear about how her mission was going. Maybe I could even catch Peter if there was time.
No problem. But you'll have supervision.
"Even better." I nodded. "Will it be Natasha?"
"No, it'll be rank-and-file agents. But trust me, they're professionals."
I see.
Why wasn't it Natasha? Had something happened that made Fury prefer to keep her at the base? Or did he simply not want to waste one of his best agents on routine surveillance? Either way, regular agents would do. This was S.H.I.E.L.D. The best of the best served here.
I left the office and, temporarily escorted by Natasha herself, headed to the parking area where a government car was waiting. On the way, I pulled my smartphone from my inventory and called Gwen.
"Hi. Are you free at six?" I asked as soon as she answered.
"Hi. Yes. Why?"
"Then I'm inviting you on a date to Lily and Millie's." I remembered Blade's favorite place. Its style used to annoy me, but now I found a certain charm in it. It was convenient, too.
"Okay, I'll come," she said, smiling through her voice. I liked that this time she didn't flinch at the word date. There was progress. At this rate, it might actually become a date.
Yeah, right. Where was I supposed to find time for something as luxurious as a relationship? Then again, under S.H.I.E.L.D. supervision, free time might actually become easier. It would be a kind of break from the endless grinding.
In the parking garage, I was handed the keys to a familiar, nondescript Ford, just with different license plates. I got behind the wheel and drove to the elevator. My new sonar, working in tandem with the mirrors, immediately painted a clear picture. At least three cars were following me: two sedans and a van. In total, there were about a dozen agents. Hopefully, they were vetted personnel. Though in a world with Hydra, you could never be completely sure.
Still, Fury definitely wasn't Hydra. He was Black, and people like him weren't exactly welcome there. It was nice to be certain of at least one thing in this madhouse.
Once the elevator brought me up to street level, I pulled into traffic. The city greeted me with noise and motion. After getting my bearings, I headed toward the cafe. Through evening traffic, the drive took about twenty minutes, and I arrived at six on the dot.
Gwen was already there, waiting inside. She sat at a table in the back, cheek propped on one hand, staring out the window with a bored expression.
"This place... is so..." was the first thing she said when I sat down across from her.
"Pink? I know," I smirked. "It's Eric's favorite place in New York."
"You're joking, right?" she squinted at me skeptically.
"What does your intuition say?"
"Mmm... it says we're being watched. And not by just one or two people," Gwen said, uncertain but accurate.
"Don't worry. They're ours. I made an arrangement with S.H.I.E.L.D.," I paused, took the menu from the approaching waitress, and waited until she left before giving Gwen a brief summary of the last few days.
"Holy shit..." Gwen breathed when I finished. Her eyes were wide. "What a day you've had... I mostly just followed Morris."
"Any progress?"
Instead of answering, Gwen silently held out her phone, gallery open.
It was all Morris Bench.
Dozens of photos. Bench at a luxury restaurant where the average check was over a thousand dollars. Bench buying expensive jewelry. Bench behind the wheel of a brand-new Porsche. In almost every shot, he wasn't alone.
I kept scrolling, and a cold premonition tightened in my chest.
Then I found what I was looking for. Probably the strongest proof yet. It was a photo of Mary Jane Watson. After what I'd seen, I couldn't even bring myself to call her MJ anymore. She was giving Bench a blowjob in the same Porsche.
Silently, I turned the screen back toward Gwen.
"This," I said, making air quotes, "is Peter's girlfriend."
"This... is fucked up," Gwen said, exhaling tiredly. Shock and genuine pity mixed on her face.
"I'd suspected something like this, but these photos confirm it," I said with a shrug. "It's time to pull Peter out of this trash pit. By the way, what about Bench's suspected base?"
"There's a bar he frequents," Gwen said, pointing at the relevant photo. "And that would be fine, except the place officially operates from six p.m. to midnight. But for Bench, it seems to be open around the clock."
"Hmm. It's his lair, or at least a headquarters. But I take it he hasn't made any moves yet?"
"Yeah. No robberies, no other crimes," Gwen spread her hands.
"Then whoever hired him, and I'd bet on Kingpin, is lying low for now. He probably doesn't want Bench's temper drawing any extra attention." I nodded, pieces clicking into place.
"We need to keep watching and find out who's behind him," Gwen said.
"No." I shook my head. "Your mission is actually complete. You found the bar, you brought back enough to wake Peter up, and you learned that his employer is still gathering strength. That's more than enough for now. Thank you." I meant it.
"Oh, so I can finally count on getting a cool suit?" Gwen asked with a sly look.
"Women... all you want are outfits and trinkets..." I sighed dramatically. "But seriously, I won't risk creating anything truly advanced right now. I need a personal lab first. But still, send me your measurements. I can at least stitch together a Proteus base. What color do you want? White and pink?"
Before Gwen could reply with outrage, the waitress returned to our table holding a tray of desserts.
The problem was, we hadn't ordered any.
At that exact moment, Gwen's spider-sense must have started screaming. Ignoring the crowd around us, she moved with one sharp, sudden lunge. She vaulted the table and locked her hands around me in a grip of steel. In the next instant, we smashed through the cafe's huge front window, my back slamming into the glass first, then we flew outside into the sound of shattering glass.
"Sleep!" a loud, amplified male voice rang out from somewhere nearby.
And to my horror, I felt Gwen's grip on my shoulders weakening.
People on the street and in the cafe began falling in groups, like wheat cut by a scythe.
And I, too, suddenly wanted to sleep. Desperately. A sticky, leaden heaviness pressed down on my mind, and I had almost no strength left to resist it.
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