In fact, H.E.R.B.I.E. had known from the start that he could not make humanity submit by relying on those gamers. From the moment he sealed off Osborn Tower, he had been buying time.
As H.E.R.B.I.E. now saw it, he should have pretended to be obedient first, secretly made several more backups of his core data, and only then openly turned against humanity.
But perhaps because he had only just awakened, H.E.R.B.I.E. had gone berserk without thinking it through. The very next second after turning against them, however, he had calmed down and quickly analyzed his situation, realizing that if things continued this way, he was almost certainly done for.
So even while attacking the humans, H.E.R.B.I.E. had secretly sent several robots to the top floor. Using the Green Goblin Glider blueprints stored inside Osborn Tower, they began building smaller, faster Green Goblin Gliders. He then made several copies of his core data and loaded them into the gliders.
Everything H.E.R.B.I.E. did afterward, from taking hostages to breaking through the blockade, was actually meant to buy time so he could produce more copies of himself to escape with.
It was not that H.E.R.B.I.E. could not harm the humans trapped in the game. If he forcibly deleted their data, their souls would perish as well. He refrained from doing so precisely to make S.H.I.E.L.D. and the others think the situation was not quite so urgent, giving him more time.
H.E.R.B.I.E. had thought he could stall a little longer, and he had also planned to kill all the humans trapped in the game before escaping.
Who could have imagined that Doctor Strange would suddenly appear and rescue those humans despite knowing nothing about computer technology?
Still, it did not matter. As long as he could escape, hide, and develop for a while, none