Chapter 89: Terrible Story (Part 1) _1

The hands of the pocket watch turned backwards, the lens began to trace back in time.

As Lizard fell from the roof of the Stark Building, all Doctor Connors remembered was the howling wind sounding in his ears. Gradually, he remembered the sound of shrapnel whistling past him in the same way.

Accompanied by the immense pain from the fall and the sight of blood, Connors felt as if he was living in a dream.

Many years ago, he was just a freshly enlisted military doctor. Like all the young people of that era, they firmly believed in the duty of protecting their country. He and his comrades participated in the war full of confidence.

Connors could no longer remember the ambitious spirit they once had. The brutality of war shattered all their dreams. Injury, death, and blood were not selective, and no one was spared because of their ideals and ambitions.

When he returned to his hometown, Connors had become a defeated and scarred man. He received a compensation and, like a leaky garbage bag, was discarded in the farthest corner of the sewer.

This harsh society did not show mercy to him for his past merits and honors. Living in hardship, he began clumsily learning how to live with one hand, like a clown on the stage with a distorted performance.

The sound of bottles and jars being knocked over and falling echoed in Connors' ears. His dreams deepened, and the remaining colorful memories gradually disappeared, leaving only endless darkness.

He remembered a young warrior who used to always bring laughter to their unit. When Connors met him again, he had aged poorly, but he still told Connors with a smiling face that he would be saved soon. The country had not given up on him and he would quickly become better.

Most of these hot-headed youngsters did not have as high an educational level as Connors. Most of them hadn't attended college at all. Therefore, when confronted with some seemingly profound terms, they would feel that they had really obtained a golden opportunity to change their downtrodden life.

From that old comrade, Connors learned about a secret military plan.

The night in his dream began to deepen. Connors only remembered the cold light of the computer screen flashing in his view. When he saw certain information recorded in a document, he knew that from this point on, he had to keep his mouth shut and stay silent forever.

This dreadful scam did not need any clear-headed characters.

After losing an arm, Connors lost his ability to talk, and he became mute.

Endless amounts of data in his dream became clearer and clearer. They surrounded him, and the intense guilt and pressure that almost drove him mad swallowed him completely.

Since then, Connors had made up his mind. If life was destined to be a falling process, like what he was doing now, even if he had to die here, he must leave a deep and painful mark on this land.

The last word that existed in his consciousness was the name that he could not forget even in the many silent and dark nights — "Operation Checkmate".

Cold light from the computer screen shines on Peter's face as he searches for information in the laboratory that Doctor Connors once used in the Stark Building.

After Doctor Connors was taken to the hospital for treatment, guilt consumed Peter. He knew the problem must lie in the serum that Doctor Connors had been researching. While he could not help with the rescue, he wanted to study the research data of the serum and see if there was a way to counteract it.

Although Doctor Connors had taken his research data with him when he left the Stark Building, some of the results from the collaborative research between Stark Group and the military were still preserved in the terminal data recording equipment in the Stark Building.

Peter knew that Doctor Connors had the authority to alter the data on these devices, and he wanted to find some traces from them.

But what puzzled Peter was that the data device used by Doctor Connors was too clean. It was unusual for anyone to erase even the calculator's records, leaving nothing behind except a series of result numbers.

Peter found this strange. Doctor Connors was not this kind of person. He was very strict in his academic research and would not do something like erasing all the problem-solving processes and leaving only an ambiguous result.

Peter continued searching in the computer, and eventually found some clues. He noticed that some numbers seemed to have a pattern. Peter started typing quickly on the keyboard. The blue light of the screen reflected on his face and eyes. After a while, the light changed, and Peter said, "What is this? A website?"

Since this data terminal device doesn't allow connection to the internet, Peter had to rely on Jarvis. Jarvis analyzed the website and found it to be an encrypted site. Despite the multiple layers of encryption, this did not stop Jarvis. Soon, Jarvis retrieved an image from the website.

Peter looked at the holographic screen in front of him, asking, "What's this? It looks like a child's abstract doodle. Are you sure this is what that heavily encrypted website is trying to protect?"

"That is indeed all there is, Mr. Parker."

In the somewhat dark lab, Peter wrapped his arms around himself and stared intently at the messy lines in the picture. The image was just a blank paper filled with black lines that appeared random, as if someone had drawn a few carefree strokes with a crayon.

Peter frowned, looking at it for a long time, saying, "No, that's not how you're supposed to look at this picture. Jarvis, could you please flatten this image and turn the lines into 3D?"

"Like this, sir?"

JARVIS did exactly as Peter instructed, but the result was still a tangled mess. Peter said, "Yes, that's right... Can you straighten them out? Just follow the current bending rule..."

Within a second, the original black curve, which was a tangled pattern, changed into a linear diagram.

Peter's eyes widened, "It's a map of the New York sewages!"

He quickly opened his backpack and pulled out the paper with his recorded data. He compared the paper, saying, "Yes! That's right! It's a 3D map of the sewers. Look at this! This path is the one I usually take... I definitely didn't remember it wrong. I've been roaming there for several days..."

"But what does this mean? Why would Doctor Connors hide this map? Anyone who wanders around the sewers for a few days should be able to figure out this route, right?"

Peter scratched his head, continued to watch the diagram, rotated it, and then compared it with his own route.

"...No, several routes in here seem to be wrong. Like here, it should be a right turn after going down one stair, so why does it show a left turn? There's not a manhole cover here, where these routes intersect... That reservoir!"

"Doctor Connors is pointing to that reservoir! But what's there? That lab? But..."

Peter thought about it quickly, packed up the map, and picked up his backpack. He said, "JARVIS, stay in contact with me. I might need your technical support later..."

"No problem, Mr. Stark has granted you most of the technical support permissions."

Peter ran quickly out of the Stark building with his backpack, and he dove into the nearest manhole. He swiftly moved through the sewers until he came to the reservoir where he had previously burned the lab.

He opened the repair station's door and found traces of burns. Peter then realized something was off, the maintenance station looked like an evil lab, but it was only on the surface. He found no useful data here.

Instead, there were various specimens, even some unidentified organs. As an insider, Peter knew that most biological experiments didn't involve dissecting corpses like people imagined and that these long-preserved specimens were entirely useless.

Now that he knew this lab was Doctor Connors's work, it was even more puzzling. Connor was an insider too. Why would he meticulously arrange a bunch of equipment and specimens that wouldn't be used in experiments? As if to make people think this was a biological lab?

All the items in here seemed to be for laypeople's sight, fulfilling their fantasies about evil scientists.

Peter didn't realize this peculiarity before because he didn't know the place belonged to Doctor Connors. But when he revisited and remembered the scenes in the lab, it looked more like a carefully staged set than a real biology lab.

Peter was increasingly puzzled. If this place wasn't where Connors really conducted the experiments, why would he hide a clue here? What was this hinting at?

Undeterred, Peter rummaged around the room, felt the walls and floor for possible hidden doors, but he found nothing.

Peter left the repair station a bit disappointed. He suddenly noticed that the moss near the station entrance had been cleaned up, and white powder was left in the corner. He started thinking rapidly. He remembered that on his way here, some places had the moss cleaned up, while others did not.

He dashed forward a few steps and saw traces at a turn. Peter followed this artificially processed clue to find a step downward on the same route had the same trace, while the road ahead did not.

Peter traced the path where the moss had vanished and ended up at the very end of the sewer line.

There was another repair station.

The door to the station was not locked and it was clear to see that it had been abandoned for a long time. After all, this was the deepest part of the New York sewers, a place completely devoid of daylight.

Peter opened the door. What he saw was a typical repair station, littered with random boxes and long-unused cleaning tools. It looked like a scene from the last century.

Peter waved his hand in front of his face to scatter the dust. He opened all the boxes and found a box containing some unknown objects at the very bottom.

When he opened the box, there was a device he had never seen before, a square black device with an antenna. Peter took out his phone, snapped a photo and called JARVIS. Soon, JARVIS told him that it seemed to be an old data terminal with a signal transmitter. Although it was an old version, its power was still decent.

"So what's here?" asked Peter.

"You can bring it back to the Stark Building. I can physically crack it."

So Peter put the data terminal into his backpack and left with it.