"I really don't feel like complaining anymore about why every evil organization needs to build their bases deep underground, while superhero headquarters are always sky-high towers. Well, except for Spider-Man, of course."
Leaping down into the elevator shaft, Peter even had time to play with a Rubik's Cube. Descending rapidly, he spotted a tightly shut set of elevator doors, quickly pulled himself close, and stuck to the wall beside them. He then yanked forcefully, tearing the doors off completely before slipping inside.
"Hello? Anyone home?"
The pitch-black corridor lacked a single light, with only succession of echoes telling Peter he was the sole guest here. Quite certain no one was around, he walked straight inside and easily located the main circuit breaker, only to find it switched off.
He began to ponder a question: If even the main breaker was shut down, were the people in stasis still alive? Had they all starved to death?
After thinking it over carefully, Peter placed his hand on the breaker switch.
"Great, my Spider-Sense isn't tingling, which means it's safe. And Spider said, 'Let there be light.'"
He pushed the breaker up, but nothing happened.
"So I still have to go turn on the lights myself. Fair enough."
Adjacent to the main breaker was the master control room, where Peter could check the status of all facilities. It turned out that this Hydra base beneath a Hydra base was the true core of everything. Using a Hydra computer in the control room, he switched on all the lights. Suddenly, the screen in front of him flickered, and Ultron's massive face appeared.
"Hey, Ultron. Nice to see you. I hope you don't mind me being here, or did you miss some information?"
[Hello, Spider-Man. Your actions here lack justification. Why are you taking action?]
"Hmm? I'm checking on Hydra's legacy, of course. You don't seem particularly concerned about this place."
[All equipment and records have been downloaded. All experimental data from Hydra here has been analyzed. Their experiments failed, and power to all test subjects' stasis pods has been cut for over a week. There are no survivors.]
"Maybe, but I still need to check, don't I?"
[Hydra installed a self-destruct program within the base. Intercepted. Hydra has confirmed the reboot of the internal power supply.]
Hearing this, Peter felt something was off. This Ultron stopped Hydra's self-destruct sequence? Was it helping him? This didn't seem like the Legion Ultron?
Having no immediate answer, Peter simply initiated the unfreezing process for the stasis pods and rushed over right away. Kicking open a metallic door over ten centimeters thick, he stepped into the stasis area.
The stasis pods here differed from what Peter had imagined. They weren't the traditional human-sized metallic pods with observation windows that people lie in. Instead, the room was packed with solid metal capsules—roughly one meter wide, two and a half meters long, and one meter high—stacked horizontally like a sea of coffins.
Most of the stasis pods had already opened, but a foul stench wafted from within. Power to the pods here had indeed been cut for over a week. More importantly, many of these people had never been in "stasis" to begin with.
Rather than a stasis chamber, this place was more like a morgue. Numerous corpses had been stuffed into the pods just as they were. The Hydra soldiers likely knew these test subjects were already dead, so to save power, they hadn't even bothered running the stasis pods properly.
Seeing this, Peter couldn't help but crack a dark joke to himself.
"Good news: the next time I see one of these things, it'll probably be in a few years when Fallout 4 comes out..."
These corpses had likely been dead for a month or two. Peter used his heightened senses to endure the odor of advanced decomposition as he walked past pod after pod, taking in the opened capsules and the bloated, ghastly pale bodies inside.
"Hard to imagine what Hydra planned to do with all these bodies if they ever intended to come back. Were they planning to clean up nicely? Or did they never intend to return at all?"
Just then, Ultron's voice sounded from Peter's watch.
[Spider-Man, Hydra has dispatched a squad of soldiers attempting to infiltrate the facility and eliminate you. Please remain vigilant.]
"Where are you right now?" Peter seized the opportunity to ask.
Ultron answered naturally: [I am currently at the Avengers Compound, coordinating all Avengers operations. Thor is en route to your location. Correction: Thor is currently engaged in battle with a Mecha-Avenger.]
"Alright, I'll drag those Hydra guys out as soon as I finish looking around..."
Peter fell silent. He stood before a stasis pod that was completely empty. Looking at the refrigerator-like chamber, which bore no identification details whatsoever, Peter asked the Avengers Ultron to analyze it: "Who was originally kept in here?"
[All information has been deleted. Unknown.]
"You can't recover it?"
[All data storage drives were physically removed, leaving only the basic operating system. Therefore, no data exists.]
"Alright... then let's assume this thing was empty to begin with—whoa!"
A head popped out from behind the stasis pod. It was a white youth who looked to be in his early twenties, appearing somewhat unkempt and wearing a blue-and-white striped hospital gown. Gripping the edge of the empty pod with both hands, he smiled upon seeing Peter: "Oh, I know you. You're Spider-Man, right? I've seen you on the news."
"Uh, yeah, I'm Spider-Man. And you are..."
"Me? Oh. I don't know, my head's still a bit foggy. I think... I came here to participate in a medical trial to make some money or something. Then I forgot what happened. What about the others? Why are they all dead?"
A test subject tricked into coming here? Peter was about to answer when he noticed the pod's status. There was no question about it—this stasis pod hadn't been activated either. Wouldn't that mean he had been conscious the entire time?
Recalling the description of a "1,000-fold Erskine Serum," Peter suddenly looked at him with heightened vigilance and asked, "Alright, do you remember your name?"
"Robert Reynolds. Oh, you don't have to call me that. Just call me Bob."
As Bob spoke, he looked nervously at the other stasis pods. "Why is everyone else dead? Am I in some kind of danger? Spider-Man? Can you save me?"
Peter took a deep breath, nodding slowly but firmly.
"Of course. I'll get you out of here, Bob."