Seeing Through the Deception

The next day, Maria Mason arrived at the Spider-Bots Processing Plant with a dark expression and a forged document in hand. She slapped it in front of the person in charge and declared that she would thoroughly investigate the electricity theft, directly suspecting that someone inside the plant was abusing their authority for personal gain.

The person in charge had actually noticed the problem as well, but he had not abused his authority for personal gain. Naturally, he refused to take the blame for no reason.

After the two sides argued for a while, Maria proposed conducting the investigation herself. Since the person in charge had done nothing wrong and had nothing to fear, he agreed.

Maria then began wandering around the plant. Angry that she had accused him, the person in charge did not send anyone to assist her, intending to make her give up. He did not know that this was exactly the result Maria wanted.

After shaking off the plant workers, Maria took out an extremely precise instrument. It could remotely detect the amount of electricity being used in each area.

The greater the power consumption, the more obvious the reading on the instrument. Relying on it, Maria walked straight toward an empty workshop.

When she reached a metal wall, Maria reached out and knocked on it. The echo sounded perfectly normal. She then took out a small listening device, pressing one end tightly against the metal wall and putting the other into her ear.

In an instant, the faint sound of machinery operating entered her ear, and a smug smile appeared on Maria's face.

"I finally found it. It's hidden so deeply that this must be Umbrella Corporation's core area. The Spider-Sense System must be inside!"

Maria turned her head and glanced around. She then removed her watch and pressed its back, causing a small suction cup to spring out. She pressed the watch against the metal wall to secure it, then opened the watch's cover and gently moved the hands to exactly twelve o'clock before pressing down hard.

A blinding electric arc flashed. Immediately afterward, centered on the watch, every electrical device within a radius of more than ten meters was destroyed! This was actually a miniature electromagnetic pulse weapon!

The electronic lock behind the metal wall was destroyed as well, even leaving a small gap. Maria tried pushing it, and it actually opened.

"YES! I finally got my hands on it. Two hundred million USD—that's enough for the rest of my life!"

Excited and exhilarated, Maria stepped inside.

At the same time that Maria activated the electromagnetic pulse, Sharon Carter, who had been monitoring her all along, entered the plant with several people.

She found the person in charge and immediately asked him where Maria had gone.

The person in charge could still speak coldly to Maria, but he could not do the same with Carter.

Although a president's secretary might sound like a low-ranking position, the secretary actually wielded considerable power. Hadn't Tony Stark's secretary later become the new president?

In other words, the people around the president were absolutely not to be provoked.

The person in charge hurriedly led Carter and the others to search for Maria, but they could not find her even after looking for a long time. Just as he was baffled and wondering whether Maria had already left, Carter's professionalism as a S.H.I.E.L.D. agent led her to notice the metal wall and the strange electrical damage near it.

"Why are the lights here off? Is there a problem with the wiring?"

"That shouldn't be the case. There wasn't any report of an electrical failure this morning."

The group walked over and indeed found something wrong with the nearby wiring. It was not only the lights—even several dust collectors could not be started.

When Carter saw this, her expression suddenly changed.

"It's an electromagnetic pulse attack. Sound the alarm immediately. The plant has been invaded. Call the security guards over!"

Carter shouted loudly, instantly making the atmosphere tense. Although the person in charge felt that Carter was being overly alarmist, he still hurried off to call for help.

At the same time, Carter took the opportunity to find the door disguised as a metal wall and pushed it open a crack.

To avoid suspicion, Carter did not continue pushing the door open. Instead, she stood guard at the entrance.

Soon, more than a dozen armed security guards rushed over. Carter directed them to push open the metal door, then shouted as she charged inside.

In the dim space, several red lasers flickered in and out of sight. At the same time, a pungent smell of blood rushed into every guard's nostrils.

"Careful! Don't go any farther. Look over there!"

The security captain stopped everyone, then pointed toward the distant floor with a horrified expression. Several guards switched on their flashlights and shone them over, only to see something that nearly made them vomit their breakfast.

On the floor more than ten meters from the entrance, several pieces of a woman lay scattered, surrounded by a large pool of blood. The stench was overwhelming.

The reason she was described as "several pieces" was that the woman had truly been cut into several parts. She looked like a Barbie doll in the hands of a vicious child, and the sight was horrifying.

"What happened? Ahhh!"

Carter immediately let out the high-pitched scream unique to the heroine of an American horror movie. The two security guards beside her were so startled that they dropped their guns.

"Nobody go over there. There are laser weapons here. Once you enter their attack range, you'll probably be cut into several pieces like that woman. Plant manager, who is that woman? Do you know her?"

"It's Maria Mason. My God! How did she die here?"

The plant manager's face looked as though his father had just died. Not that he was grieving for Maria—he was worrying about his own future.

He was responsible for the plant, and a death had occurred during his shift. No matter how one looked at it, he had an undeniable responsibility.

What was more, Maria was also a president's secretary. Although her status was not as high as Carter's, what if she had a relationship with the president that went beyond friendship? Wouldn't that leave them in an even worse situation?

At the thought of this, the plant manager felt that his future was completely hopeless. He was practically ready to die.

"Everyone, stay calm. Maria is most likely a corporate spy who brought this upon herself. Notify President Wang immediately and tell him what happened here. Also call the director of the local police precinct and ask him to come over. In any case, the media absolutely cannot find out about this, or the entire company will be in serious trouble."

Carter seemed to have recovered from her shock. She immediately displayed the capabilities of a senior manager and began directing everyone at the scene, ordering them all out.

Only after everyone had left did Carter begin examining the entire workshop. She discovered that apart from some precision instruments, what filled the place most of all were suits of equipment resembling powered armor.

She had recognized them at a glance because Iron Man was currently famous throughout the world, and many companies were secretly developing similar Iron Man suits.

In the original story, Hammer Industries, as the king of knockoffs, had also developed many inferior Iron Man suits, and they had been manufactured in this very plant.

"Could I be overthinking this?"

With Carter's professional eye as an agent, she could naturally tell that the powered armor here was highly advanced. It was not some shoddily made prop. Even a genius would have to devote all their effort to research to produce something like this. It was absolutely impossible for someone to make it after casually researching for a few days.

"Unless Wang Khan began developing Iron Man suits long ago, there's no way he could study the academy's technology while simultaneously developing such advanced powered armor. My judgment was wrong."