Peter used a Sling Ring portal to rush over to Madripoor. Fortunately, he had been here once before; otherwise, he wouldn't have been able to open a portal directly.
Madripoor was as charming as ever. If you walked its streets at night, it would remind Peter of neighboring Gotham City: the damp, chilly environment, the stark divide between the slums and the wealthy districts, and, of course, the dazzling neon lights against the oppressive dark sky.
A place like this looked universally welcoming to evil villains.
Currently standing on the rooftop of what was likely a casino, he looked out over the entire city. The Mechanical Avengers had not arrived yet.
"Alright, the Mechanical Avengers are rushing to Madripoor, and I'm actually a step ahead of them. So where is Hydra's secret base?"
As Peter spoke, he swung through Madripoor on his web-lines, searching for traces of the enemy. Without a doubt, Hydra's base had been discovered through Ultron's network intrusion and data processing. Compared to the Avengers' Ultron, other Ultrons were not bound by privacy restrictions.
They could indiscriminately search and retrieve vast amounts of information, then analyze it at will.
Still, Peter possessed a few advantages. For instance, he diffused bio-electricity into the air, using it alongside his Ki to perceive his surroundings. This method yielded a far greater sensory range than relying solely on Ki or shadow perception. While it wasn't as exaggerated as fifty kilometers, he could clearly perceive the actions of everyone within a few hundred meters.
That included panicking individuals, those hiding high-tech gear, and people muttering "Hail Hydra" under their breath.
"Alright, looks like it's this building. A gentleman carrying a high-tech pistol just rushed inside. Hmm... how should I get in? Looks like I'll have to take the Spider-Man special entrance. I really do love ventilation shafts. Hope my Anti-Venom suit feels the same way."
Muttering to himself, Peter crawled through the air duct. He noticed a few men who were likely Hydra soldiers attempting to flee. They had only grabbed a few basic items before running, and their total numbers were surprisingly small—just seven or eight people.
Wait, this wasn't right. What kind of Hydra base only had seven or eight people?
Peter fell into confusion for a moment. He watched as a single van carried all the Hydra soldiers away, then quickly followed them, only to see the van drive straight into the airport in broad daylight...
For a second, Peter wondered if Hydra was playing him and actually had another base in Madripoor. But then his Spider-Sense tingled. He quickly swept his senses across the surrounding area, though the warning remained very faint.
He spun around sharply. In the sky almost beyond his line of sight, he spotted Iron Man from the Mechanical Avengers several kilometers away. Iron Man fired a micro-missile toward Hydra's van. The missile flew at extreme speed, rapidly closing in on the vehicle. Peter reacted almost instantly, using the Mirror Dimension to shift both the van and the missile inside, preventing the blast from harming innocent bystanders.
As for the Hydra soldiers inside the van, their fate was up to destiny.
What felt bizarre was that the Mechanical Avengers actually fled immediately after eliminating the target, showing zero intention of making contact with Peter. Peter watched them leave in confusion, shook his head, and then entered the Mirror Dimension to check on the van.
Bad news: Not a single person survived.
Good news: Everyone who died was Hydra.
"So why did Ultron come here? Was it really just to punish evil and root out crime? Let me see... Hydra evacuation... What useful data is left on this phone..."
The Mirror Dimension was safe enough. Unfortunately, to prevent the nanobots from being compromised, Peter had left his Nano-Suit back at S.A.B.E.R. Now he could only rely on the microcomputer inside his wristwatch to analyze the data. After extracting all readable information from the communication devices on the Hydra soldiers, he finally understood what had happened at this Hydra base.
The head of this base was Doctor Oyama, a former talent from the Hand who had later advanced his career at Hydra headquarters. He was the one who had successfully recreated the Erskine Serum, creating superheroes like Luke Cage, Mister Negative, and Cloak and Dagger.
He had been transferred here to continue certain research. Regrettably, whatever that research was, he blew it. As a result, Hydra silenced him, sealed the base, and ordered all personnel to destroy key files and evacuate, waiting to reactivate it in the future.
Peter exited the Mirror Dimension and sneaked through the ventilation shaft into the abandoned underground Hydra base beneath the building. He pushed aside the vent cover, landed lightly inside, and looked around. Seeing that there really was no one here, and that even the security cameras were inactive and unlit, he couldn't help but sigh.
"In other words, this was just an utterly useless Hydra base, yet Ultron came all this way for it? Doesn't make much sense. Maybe it's a decoy, or maybe Ultron thinks there's something important here. I should take a look around."
He first located the computer terminal and the archive room, only to discover that nearly all files had been burned and all the computers formatted. Not a single useful clue remained.
Peter didn't even know what was left in the base, so he continued exploring. The base was small in scale, but it went very deep. He wasn't sure if digging this deep served any practical purpose.
Soon, he reached an area with several operating tables. It was obvious human modification experiments had taken place here, as bloodstains still remained in quite a few spots.
Inside a trash can in this area, Peter spotted stacks of charred documents burned by Hydra. They had likely stuffed them all in and set them ablaze out of laziness. Peter carefully sifted through the ashes and found only a few scattered words that were still legible.
"Looks like research data on test subjects... So many... Lord, how did they get their hands on this many test subjects without anyone worldwide noticing they were missing? The words here are still readable... A thousand-fold induction effect for the Erskine Serum, theoretically... Okay, everything after that is completely charred. Test subject cryo-stasis pod..."
There was a hibernation pod for test subjects here? Did that mean when Hydra left, there were still subjects alive inside?
At that thought, Peter wasted no time searching the Hydra base once more, but he found nothing.
Except for a bottomless elevator shaft.
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