A Bad Story (Part One)

The hands of the pocket watch turned backward, and the scene began to rewind through time.

When Lizardman fell from the rooftop of Stark Tower, all Dr. Connors remembered was the howling wind in his ears. Gradually, he recalled the sound of shrapnel whistling past his ears in much the same way.

Amid the tremendous pain of hitting the ground and the sea of red before his eyes, Connors felt as if he had fallen into a dream.

Many years ago, he had been nothing more than a newly enlisted military doctor. Like all young people of that era, they firmly believed in defending their homes and country. So he had gone to war with his comrades, full of confidence.

Connors no longer remembered the lofty ambitions they had held back then. The cruelty of the battlefield had shattered all their dreams. Injury, death, and bloodshed spared no one for their ideals or aspirations.

By the time he returned home, Connors had become a scarred and beaten stray dog. He received some compensation, then was tossed into the deepest corner of the sewer like a garbage bag leaking from every side.

This cruel society would not make allowances for his difficult, helpless life because of his past achievements and honors. He began awkwardly learning how to live with One Hand, like a twisted clown onstage performing for laughter.

The sound of jars and bottles crashing to the floor after he knocked them over echoed endlessly in Connors’s ears. His dream sank deeper and deeper, and the last memories that still held color gradually faded away, leaving only endless darkness.

He remembered the young soldier who had loved joking most in their squad. When Connors saw him again, the man had aged beyond recognition, yet he still told Connors with a broad smile that he would soon be saved. The country had not abandoned him; he would soon get better.

Most of these young men who had once been so full of passion were not as well educated as Connors. Most had never attended college. So whenever someone threw around a few lofty-sounding terms, they believed they had truly been granted a heaven-sent opportunity to change their miserable lives.

From that old comrade, Connors learned of a secret military project.

The night in his dream grew ever deeper. Connors only remembered the cold glow of a computer screen flashing across his vision. When he saw the information recorded in a certain document, he knew that from then on, he had to keep his mouth shut and remain silent forever.

There was no need for any clear-headed supporting characters in this terrible scam.

After losing an arm, Connors lost his ability to speak as well. He became mute.

Countless documents and data grew clearer and clearer in his dream. They surrounded and enclosed him, while the crushing guilt and pressure that nearly drove him mad swallowed him whole.

From that moment on, Connors had made up his mind. If life was destined to be a process of falling downward, then, just as he was doing now, even if he died here, he had to leave a scar painful enough upon this land.

The final word lingering in his consciousness was the name he still could not forget through so many silent nights—"Project: Desperate Measures."

The cold glow of the computer screen shone across Peter’s face. He was searching through files in the laboratory Dr. Connors had once used in Stark Tower.

After Dr. Connors had been rushed to the hospital, guilt swallowed Peter. He knew the problem had to lie with the serum Dr. Connors had been researching. He could not help with the rescue efforts, so he wanted to start with the serum’s research materials and see whether he could find a way to neutralize it.

Although Dr. Connors had withdrawn from Stark Tower with his materials, the results of this collaborative research belonged to Stark Industries and the military. Some of them still remained in the terminal data-recording equipment at Stark Tower.

Peter knew Dr. Connors had the authority to alter the data on those devices. He wanted to find some clue there.

But what puzzled Peter was that the data device Dr. Connors had used was too clean. No one would delete even the calculator history entirely, leaving nothing but a string of final numbers.

Peter found it strange. Dr. Connors was not that kind of person. He was extremely rigorous in his academic research; he would never erase every step of a solution and leave behind only a dubious answer.

Peter kept searching through the computer, and eventually he found something suspicious. He noticed that certain combinations of numbers seemed to follow a pattern. Peter began typing rapidly, blue screen light reflecting off his face and in his eyes. After a while, the light shifted, and Peter said, "What is this? A website address?"

Since this type of data terminal was not allowed to connect to the internet, Peter could only turn to Jarvis. Jarvis analyzed the address and discovered that it led to an encrypted website. The site was encrypted layer upon layer, but that could not stop Jarvis. Before long, Jarvis retrieved an image from the website.

Peter looked at the holographic screen before him and said, "What is this? It looks like an abstract doodle a kid scribbled at random. Are you sure this is what that heavily encrypted website was protecting?"

"This is indeed all there was, Mr. Parker."

In the dim laboratory, Peter crossed his arms and stared carefully at the tangled lines in the image. It was simply a sheet of white paper covered in black lines that appeared completely random, as though someone had casually drawn a few strokes with a crayon.

Peter frowned and studied it for a long time. Then he said, "No, this picture isn’t meant to be viewed like this. Jarvis, please flatten the image and turn those lines into 3D."

"Like this, sir?"

Jarvis did exactly as Peter asked, but what appeared was still a tangled mess. Peter said, "Yes, that’s right… Can you straighten them into lines? Follow their current turning patterns…"

In less than a second, the tangled pattern of black curves became a pattern composed of angular lines.

Peter’s eyes widened. "It’s a map of the New York sewers!"

He hurriedly opened his backpack and pulled out the sheet of paper on which he had recorded his route. Comparing it against the map, he said, "Yes! That’s right! This is a 3D sewer map. Look here! This route is the one I use all the time… I definitely remember it correctly. I wandered around in there for days…"

"But what does this mean? Why would Dr. Connors hide this map? Anyone who wandered around in the sewers for a few days should be able to work out this route, right?"

Peter scratched his head and continued studying the pattern, rotating it back and forth before lowering his head to compare it with the route he had recorded.

"…No, several routes in here seem to be wrong. Like here—after going down the next staircase, you should clearly turn right. Why does this show a left turn? There isn’t even a manhole here, and where these routes intersect… that reservoir!"

"Dr. Connors is pointing to that reservoir! But what’s there? That laboratory? But…"

Peter thought for a moment, quickly tucked away the map in his hand, then grabbed his backpack. "Jarvis, stay in contact with me at all times! I may need your technical support later…"

"No problem. Mr. Stark has granted you access to the vast majority of technical support permissions."

Peter slung on his backpack and raced out of Stark Tower. He found the nearest manhole and climbed inside, speeding through the sewers until he soon reached the reservoir where he had previously burned down that laboratory.

When he opened the maintenance station door, scorch marks still remained inside. Only then did Peter realize something was wrong. This maintenance station looked like an evil laboratory, but only on the surface. Peter had not found any useful information here.

Instead, it contained samples of all kinds of things, even some unidentified organ specimens. As someone knowledgeable in the field, Peter knew that biological experiments were not, as ordinary people imagined, simply playing with corpses. These specimens that had been soaked for so long were completely useless.

Now that he knew this laboratory had been Dr. Connors’s work, it seemed even stranger. Dr. Connors was also an expert, so why would he carefully arrange equipment and samples here that would never be used in an experiment? It was as if he had deliberately wanted people to think this was a biological laboratory.

Everything here seemed designed for outsiders, satisfying their fantasies about evil scientists.

Previously, Peter had not known that Dr. Connors was the owner of this place, so he had not paid attention to what felt wrong. But now that he had returned, recalling the scene in the laboratory, he realized that compared to a real biological laboratory, this place was more like a carefully arranged stage.

Peter grew increasingly confused. If this was not where Dr. Connors truly conducted his experiments, why had he hidden a clue here? What was it pointing to?

Unwilling to give up, Peter searched the place thoroughly, feeling along the walls and floor for possible hidden doors, but he found nothing.

Peter left the maintenance station in disappointment. Then he suddenly noticed that the moss around its entrance had also been cleared away, and some white powder remained in the corner. Peter began thinking rapidly. He remembered that, on his way here, moss had been cleared away in some places but not in others.

He ran forward a few steps and saw the same traces at a corner. Peter followed these signs of deliberate treatment and discovered that, along the same route, the markings appeared on a staircase leading downward, but not on the path that continued ahead.

Peter followed the trail where the moss had disappeared, and eventually the marks led him to a dead end at the farthest reaches of the sewers.

There was another maintenance station there.

The door to this maintenance station was unlocked, and it had clearly been abandoned for a long time. After all, this was the deepest part of the New York sewers, a place that truly never saw daylight.

Peter opened the door. Before him was an utterly ordinary maintenance station, piled with miscellaneous boxes and cleaning tools that had not been used in ages. It all looked as though it had been left there since the last century.

Peter waved a hand in front of his face to disperse the dust. He opened every box, then found one at the very bottom containing an unknown object.

Inside was a device Peter had never seen before: a square black machine with an antenna. Peter took a photo with his phone and called Jarvis. Jarvis quickly told him that it appeared to be an old data terminal combined with a signal transmitter. Though it was an outdated model, its power output was still decent.

"So what’s here?" Peter asked.

"You can bring it to Stark Tower. I can crack it physically."

So Peter put the data terminal into his backpack and carried it away.