Chapter 213: Gaia's Mission
"Damn it! Who ruined my plan again?!" A bloated, bald man was furiously slamming his desk on the screen.
"Kingpin?" Peter remembered the fake Kingpin he had caught before. This man on the screen looked exactly like him.
"It's over... we're all going to die." Seeing the furious Kingpin, every thug in the room looked as if they were staring at their impending doom.
"Run!" the terrorist leader was the first to shout. At this point, whether they were caught by Kingpin's people or the police, they were finished.
Hearing them scream about running, Peter immediately spoke up: "Now we can start the game. But the rule is: no one leaves the lab."
With his hands finally free from the console, Peter had no trouble dealing with these terrorists. In a matter of seconds, he took down every thug except for the leader.
Thwip!
Peter fired webs from both hands, weaving a massive web across the laboratory door to prevent any escape.
"Spider-Man! Don't push it! If we have to, we'll all go down together!" Seeing his path blocked, the leader pulled a grenade from his belt.
"Uh... should we have banned certain items for this game?" Peter hadn't expected the man to go to such extremes.
The leader placed his thumb on the pin and snarled, "If you don't open that door right now, I'll blow us all to hell. Don't forget..." He tilted his head toward the shivering researchers tied up nearby.
If the grenade went off, the scientists would certainly be injured or killed.
"Okay, okay, stay calm. It doesn't have to end like this," Peter said, trying to soothe him. He had to protect the hostages. If he were as ruthless as Silas, taking this guy down would be effortless.
"Good. Now tear down those webs." The leader backed away, grabbing one of the researchers. "You! Come with me!"
"No! Please!" the scientist cried. He wasn't stupid; if he went with the thug and the grenade went off, he'd be the first to die.
"No? Fine! Then I'll pull the pin right now!" The leader had reached his breaking point; he was ready to die.
"I'll go!" A researcher with a determined expression stood up, volunteering to be the hostage.
"Fine." The leader didn't care who it was. As long as it wasn't Spider-Man, no ordinary person could escape a grenade.
The leader dragged the hostage to the door and glanced at the webs. "Spider-Man! Get rid of them!"
"Right away. Take it easy, man. You know how it is—it's much easier to shoot these things out than to put them back in." Peter jumped to the door and began forcefully tearing the webbing apart.
It took Peter nearly a minute of intense effort to clear the path.
The leader, terrified of a sudden attack, made the hostage press the door release button. As the door slid open just wide enough for a person to pass, the leader slipped through like an eel. He pulled the pin and tossed the grenade toward the researchers.
"Go to hell! Haha!" he screamed.
The grenade tumbled through the air. Just as it was about to land among the scientists, Peter fired a web, caught it, and threw it straight into a portal to the Shadow Kingdom.
"Sorry, fellas," Peter muttered to the Shadow Khan.
The Shadow Khan's silent response: It's fine, we're used to it.
"Hey~ are you okay?" Peter walked over to the brave researcher who had volunteered.
"I'm fine." The man took off his glasses and wiped them. He had truly thought his life was over. "Thank you for saving us, Spider-Man."
"You were very brave," Peter praised.
"Someone had to stand up," the scientist replied, putting his glasses back on. "Otherwise, we all would have died."
The Ambush
Outside the door, the leader was laughing hysterically at his "escape." Suddenly, something hard and cold pressed into the small of his back.
"Phew~ young people are always so reckless. Don't move."
It was Mike the veteran Captain. He was pressing the double barrels of his shotgun into the man's waist.
"F***!" the leader screamed. His heart sank. He was one step from freedom, only to be caught by a beat cop.
"What?" Mike said. "Did you think you were going to take a flight to Thailand and then a boat to Myanmar or Cambodia?"
"I was so close..." The leader fell to his knees in despair, his suicidal resolve completely gone.
"You thought you were making a 'King's Return'?" Mike mocked him. Just then, John ran up.
"Captain, nothing on my end—" John stopped, seeing his Captain had already subdued the leader. "Captain, you really are a hidden master."
"No, just an old dog with a few tricks left," Mike said. Ever since he started following John today, he had truly found his spark again.
Peter stepped out of the lab at that moment. "Hey! What are you guys doing here?"
"The Captain said to follow his lead, and we ended up here," John explained.
Mike took the cigarette from his mouth, exhaled, and said, "Hello, Spider-Man. Glad to meet you. I'm Mike."
"Hi, I'm... Spider-Man," Peter replied, obviously not giving his real name.
Mike put his cigarette back in his mouth and showed his badge. "We'll take it from here, Spider-Man. You get back to whatever you need to do."
"Well... okay." Seeing they were police, Peter felt comfortable leaving the scene in their hands. He leaped into a vent and disappeared.
"Captain, you are so cool," John said admiringly.
"Stay humble, kid," Mike replied.
The Real Theft
Back inside the lab, Gaia had used Peter's access to infiltrate the massive database. She was currently auto-copying every useful piece of experimental data.
This was Silas's true plan.
While everyone thought he was there to stop Kingpin, he was actually there to raid Oscorp's data. The database was so vast that even an AI like Gaia had to spend time filtering through it.
"Oh no! The system is infected! Data is being exfiltrated!" The researchers, taking back control of the lab, immediately noticed the breach.
"Quick! Cut all external connections! Don't let them take the files!" another shouted.
They couldn't stop the copying process, but they hoped that by cutting the network, the "virus" wouldn't be able to transmit the data out. However, Gaia wasn't a virus—she was an AI with the highest system privileges granted by Peter's suit.
Which meant... the data was already home.
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