70
The five-story office building, hastily renovated into John Thompson's laboratory complex, met me with sterile cleanliness and calibrated minimalism. And there was deafening silence. The emptiness was absolute; the echoes of my footsteps rang hollow. The first floor held a spacious lobby and an empty security post, unmanned. It looked like the lobby of a respectable IT company. Behind this deceptive simplicity, I spotted camouflaged biometric scanners and the barely visible nozzles of a fire suppression system. The walls were matte, bulletproof polymer. It was a simple, fully automated security system. That would suffice for now. Eventually, though, it would need a complete overhaul.
A quick inspection revealed an underground level and a logistics hub. Essentially a reinforced truck dock, it allowed cargo to reach a giant freight elevator, a colossus capable of lifting dozens of tons directly to any floor. Practical. The first floor also housed workshops for equipment maintenance, warehouses with consumables and reagents, and the complex's beating heart: a central power node with backup generators. Everything served one purpose: complete autonomy. That pleased me.
The second floor served as the administrative hub, with offices, conference rooms equipped with interactive holographic displays, and a director's office that already bore my name. Amusing. The real work began on the upper floors.
The laboratory floors, third through fifth, were a revelation. I had expected much, but this exceeded those expectations.
The third floor was the domain of materials science and engineering. The mechanical engineering lab, familiar to me from S.H.I.E.L.D., had been expanded and improved by an order of magnitude. Several 3D printers were integrated into a single production line. The five-axis CNC machine included an electrical discharge machining module for creating unthinkable geometries. The crown jewel, however, was the nanotechnology laboratory. It housed atomic force and tunneling microscopes, molecular beam epitaxy installations for layer-by-layer crystal growth, and ISO Class 1 clean rooms. I gave it only a cursory glance, but I already knew that engineering marvels could be created here.
The fourth floor was dedicated to biology and chemistry, to the study of life itself, in both its scientific and anomalous manifestations. The biochemical laboratory included a sealed BSL-4 zone for dangerous biological threats and an automated vivarium. The analytical lab had a powerful NMR spectrometer and a fully automated sample analysis system that could operate around the clock.
Finally, there was the fifth floor. This was for energy and fundamental physics. It was the heart of the facility, the most protected sector. I found the energy research laboratory. A compact, heavily shielded, linear particle accelerator hummed quietly. Its official purpose was to conduct experiments with exotic matter. Its specifications, however, seemed tailored for the creation of a new element. They seemed designed for Stark's Element. I don't believe in coincidences like this. Nearby, a compact experimental thermonuclear reactor, a tokamak, hummed. It was an ideal platform for plasma work and a foundation for a reactor that would run on the new element. No doubts remained. This entire laboratory was a veiled, carefully calculated investment in me personally. They couldn't have built this. This gesture required an answer.
Nearby was the robotics and artificial intelligence section. It was an open space hangar with drone proving grounds. It had assembly jigs for large prototypes, like the Rhino suit analogs. It also had a separate server cluster for an advanced AI assistant.
I completed the tour and sank into the chair in my new office, stunned at its scale. This was not simply an office with laboratories. This was a fully autonomous, fortified, and integrated research complex. It had been designed by S.H.I.E.L.D. from the ground up. From its foundation to its roof, the engineering had been reworked for maximum security. I tried to estimate the cost mentally. It would have been under four hundred million dollars. It would have been impossible to retrofit something similar in just a week. This complex had been ready in advance, and now it was being passed on to a more worthy owner.
The first thing I did was send Gwen Stacy and Peter Parker the address. Once they confirmed, I turned my attention to security. What we had was enough to start, but the systems were basic. The exterior was guarded by S.H.I.E.L.D. agents on duty twenty-four-seven. I could trust them, but Hydra had metastasized throughout the organization. I needed someone of my own. I needed someone proven.
I dialed the number.
"Yo, kid! You finally decided to show up!" Blade's cheerful voice came through the receiver. "I've already heard about your exploits." He chuckled.
"What exploits?" I exhaled tiredly. "I would have gladly stayed in the shadows another year or two, but circumstances forced my hand. I'm sorry about the base. I know how much it meant to you."
"Ah, come on. I don't care about the base. I've got stashes all over the city, like a squirrel hoarding nuts." He dismissed it. "The important thing is you sent that bastard Kraven to the next world. Turns out you're not just book-smart."
"Life forces my hand." I smirked. "It's forcing me to track down Frank. You got his current contact info?"
The cheerfulness evaporated from Blade's voice.
"Why do you need him?" His tone turned serious.
"I've got a company now. My own base, under American bureaucracy and S.H.I.E.L.D. I want to offer Frank the head of security at my startup."
"A 'little startup'?" Blade chuckled. "If you make it a joint-stock company, I'll be the first to invest a billion."
"It's a private company," I corrected him.
"Still, you've climbed high. I'll send you the contacts. Just know that Frank might refuse."
"I understand."
"You have something to offer him. He might bite," Blade drawled. "Okay, I won't tie up the line. I'll send you the contacts."
After a couple of seconds, a message arrived with Frank's number. I sat in the empty lobby, lost in thought. All that remained was the arrival of my first, unofficial employees.
A taxi silently pulled up, and Gwen Stacy stepped out. Peter Parker rolled up on his moped.
I met them and began the tour. The reaction exceeded my expectations. Gwen Stacy examined the design and layout, assessing the space's potential. Peter Parker was in a state of rapture. His eyes burned as he looked at the 3D printers, and he froze in the nanotechnology lab, muttering about atomic force microscopy. This surpassed what we had at the destroyed base.
"This is just... wow." Peter Parker exhaled on the fifth floor. "A linear accelerator? A compact tokamak? This is probably cooler than Stark's labs."
I smirked at his genuine joy. The tour didn't take long. On the second floor, Peter Parker's expression turned thoughtful.
"John," he began carefully, "I've given this a lot of thought these past few days. I've made my decision. I'm leaving Connors."
He raised his gaze, and I could see indecision mixed with relief.
"I'll finish my university studies remotely, or take a leave of absence. After what I've seen here, I simply cannot go back there. My place is here."
"Excellent." I nodded. "I'm glad you've stopped doubting. Your place is here." I turned to Gwen. "You've been suspiciously quiet. What about the surveillance? What are your senses telling you?"
Gwen Stacy shut her eyes for a moment and concentrated.
"It's surprisingly clear," she exhaled. "There's not a single surge. It's completely quiet."
"That means Fury didn't lie. At least inside this perimeter, we're safe."
"Yes," she confirmed. "I don't know how that will change once I leave the building, but right now, we're alone."
"Then it's decided." I stood, and I could feel the researcher's excitement within me. "Let's go to the fourth floor. It's time to break this baby in. Let's conduct the first field tests."
The preparation took some time, but nobody complained. We put on sterile overalls, double-layered gloves, and airtight helmets with their own air supply. We passed through hissing airlocks and decontamination chambers, and we immersed ourselves in another world, one where there was no room for error.
We found ourselves in the heart of the biochemical laboratory.
"So," my voice sounded muffled in the headset. "Gwen, we'll start with you. My primary task is to study your physiology. I need to find the source of your strength, understand its nature, and learn how to control it."
I pulled a sealed case from my bag and removed a small ampoule of Blade's blood. Turning to Peter, I asked, "And your task, what about Connors' serum?" as I handed him the ampoule.
"Genome sequencing and a search for regulatory genes?" Peter Parker asked.
"Precisely." Peter's eyes lit up. "I can do even better than that. Especially with NZT. I can create an elegant, programmable gene therapy. I can make the human body remember its own evolutionary potential for perfect regeneration. This is nothing like Connors' work. The methodology is completely different. We'd be starting from scratch."
"Good. You'll handle this. But what would happen if Connors injected himself with a dose exceeding the therapeutic level? What if he ran the program at full power?"
"There's no logical reason for that," Peter Parker said. "He doesn't have any amputations. He's a scientist, not a desperate cripple. The most likely scenario is that his research would be shut down for being impractical."
"With Eric's blood and the other parts," I said, "we'll create a better path. For now, don't inject yourself with anything."
He nodded, and I placed a vial of NZT tablets in his palm. His eyes flashed.
"Don't make any hasty conclusions. Your upgrade is a separate, far more serious and fundamental project. It's still in the planning stage. For all that's holy, don't inject yourself with anything, even if it looks theoretically workable."
"Yes," he quickly agreed, clutching the vial. "I'll go to the neighboring laboratory and deal with this."
He backed toward the hermetic door and said with a smirk, "Have fun, lovebirds."
"Hey!" Gwen exclaimed theatrically, but there was no real indignation in it.
"Time to begin," she said seriously. "You should know about my powers."
We both nodded. I was curious about what I would see next, and about whether or not my new skill would help me. Spider powers were elegant, impossible nonsense. I planned to dissect them, atom by atom.
//=================//
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