The escalating battle topside had completely drained Viper Security's internal guard rotation. It left the primary elevator shaft wide open. Since Felicia couldn't adhere to the sheer concrete walls, Peter wrapped one arm tightly around her waist. He anchored a web-line to the steel crossbeams overhead. They repelled smoothly into the suffocating darkness. The air grew damp. The faint sloshing of water echoed up from the bottom of the abyss.
Once they hit the water level, Peter released his grip. Felicia was more than capable of swimming. Peter reached into his belt pouches. He pulled out two compact rebreathers. He had requisitioned them from the Avengers Tower lab. Felicia had brought her father's vintage diving gear. One look at the sleek Stark tech changed her mind. She took the mouthpiece without a word.
They submerged. The water was freezing. They kicked down through the flooded lower section of the shaft. They finally reached a heavy industrial elevator door set into the concrete.
Peter tapped the side of his mask. He turned on his built-in tactical light. He flashed a quick hand signal to the Black Cat. He braced his feet against the wall, jammed his fingers into the seam of the doors, and pulled.
The steel groaned. The doors parted.
Water violently surged into the dry corridor beyond. Felicia shot through the opening like a torpedo. Peter scrambled in right behind her. He slammed the doors shut. He sealed the breach before the entire Hudson River could drain into the facility.
Felicia pulled out her rebreather. She wrung a stream of dirty river water from her silver hair. She glared at him.
"Yesterday, I dragged myself through a moldy ventilation duct," she coughed. "Then I took a shower. Now I'm scuba diving in a flooded elevator shaft. Is this just what hanging out with Spider-Man is like?"
"I consider that pure slander," Peter whispered. He shook the water from his lenses. "Spider-Man is a creature of the sky. I swing between majestic skyscrapers. I do not hang out in sewers."
Felicia smirked. She didn't say another word.
They moved down a long, stark-white corridor. The passage seemed to stretch for miles. Peter ran the spatial geometry in his head.
"We're directly under the Hudson River right now," Peter noted.
Felicia's boots squeaked on the wet floor. "Are you sure?"
She realized the tactical disadvantage immediately. If they failed to clear the Hydra forces inside, fighting their way back out meant swimming up from the riverbed. They would have to dodge bullets underwater.
"Spiders have a flawless sense of direction," Peter said. He stepped toward the heavy blast doors at the end of the hall.
His spider-sense slammed into the base of his skull like a railroad spike.
Peter threw his arm out. He caught Felicia in the chest and tackled her hard to the metal grating.
A blinding pulse of laser energy blew a crater through the blast doors. It vaporized the exact spot where they had just been standing.
Felicia rolled onto her back. She stared at the glowing, melted slag. "They know we're here."
"Yeah, I picked up on that," Peter said. The optical camouflage washed over his suit, and he vanished into thin air.
"Get to the holding cells," Peter's disembodied voice echoed in the corridor. "I'll keep the welcoming committee busy."
"Don't get yourself killed, Spider-Man," Felicia said. She scrambled toward a side maintenance hatch.
Peter leaped through the smoking doorway. He dropped into a sprawling, multi-level laboratory. It was the size of a football stadium.
The guard who had fired the laser wasn't holding a rifle. He was a massive, heavily mutated freak. He had human arms and human legs, but a gigantic, cybernetic snake tail bolted to his spine. The tail's tip glowed with residual thermal energy.
"Hello, friend!" Peter quipped. He clung to the ceiling directly above the mutant. "What's your name? Actually, never mind. If you tell me, I'll definitely have nightmares."
The snake-man snapped his head up. Peter dropped like a stone. He slammed his palms into the mutant's shoulders. He discharged a blinding burst of bio-electricity.
High-voltage current arced over the guard. He seized, smoke pouring from his uniform, and collapsed. Peter grabbed the guy's mechanical tail. He tried to rip it off. The surgical mounting was too heavily reinforced.
Instead, Peter used the unconscious guard as a giant, scaly mace. He spun in a tight circle. He swung the heavy mutant by the tail. He bowled over three incoming Hydra soldiers in a single sweep and tossed the dizzy guard aside.
His optical camouflage fizzled out.
A massive shape slithered out from behind a server rack. This mutant didn't have legs. His lower half was a thick, bionic serpent tail. It whipped forward. It coiled tightly around Peter's right leg. The mutant reared up. Retractable, venom-dripping blades popped from his mechanized forearms.
"I am the Giant Viper!" the mutant roared. He flexed his bionic arms. "Prepare to die, Spider-Man! I am not afraid of your electric shocks!"
"You don't look like a viper," Peter observed calmly. He caught the downward strike of the poisoned blades. He locked his hands around the mutant's thick mechanical wrists. "Snakes don't have arms."
Peter planted his feet. He pulled.
With a horrific screech of tearing metal, Peter ripped both bionic arms entirely out of their shoulder sockets. Sparks showered the floor. The Giant Viper shrieked in agony. Peter tossed the severed metal limbs over his shoulder.
"There," Peter said. "Now you look like a snake."
Another super soldier charged from the left. Peter threw a fast right hook. The soldier caught it.
The man didn't introduce himself. Instead, his jaw unhinged. The flesh of his face split open. He revealed a mutated, gaping maw lined with razor-sharp fangs. It was large enough to swallow Peter's head whole.
"Oh, wow. Do you guys even own toothbrushes?" Peter yelled. He leaned away from the rancid breath. "What's your code name? Stinky Snake?"
Peter chambered his left leg. He delivered a brutal front kick to the man's chest. The impact launched the mutant thirty feet backward. He crashed into a heavy server terminal.
Spider-Man didn't pause. He fired twin web-lines at an automated machine-gun turret. The weapon was just popping out of the floor plating. He ripped the heavy gun from its mountings. He spun and hurled it directly at the big-mouthed mutant.
The turret smashed into the man. Incredibly, the mutant didn't go down. He roared. He snapped his massive jaws forward. He literally bit a chunk of steel out of the auto-turret.
"You actually eat metal?" Peter asked, thoroughly disgusted. "I don't even want to know what your digestive tract looks like."
"Spider-Man! You're mine!"
Peter pivoted. A woman in a brown tactical suit lunged at him from a catwalk. She slashed the air. Long, wicked steel claws protruded from the backs of her hands.
"I'm pretty sure you owe Wolverine some royalties for those!" Peter quipped.
He fired a thick web-net. He wrapped her tightly mid-air. She hit the floor. She struggled to slice through the webbing with her metal claws.
"Just a quick science lesson," Peter said. He casually stepped up to her. He pressed his knuckles against the exposed steel blades. "Metal conducts electricity."
Peter unleashed another surge of bio-electricity. The current traveled straight through her steel claws. It lit her up like a Christmas tree until she slumped over, completely unconscious.
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