The streets of New York are still noisy in the evening, and the neon lights reflect colorful spots on the wet streets.
Benjamin walked into Queens a slightly remote street with familiarity, and opened the door of a cheap pizza shop that exuded a rich aroma.
"Boss, here are three Italian Sausage Pizza of the largest size. Add more cheese and more meat. They are freshly baked and should be hot."
Benjamin slapped the two banknotes earned through labor on the greasy counter.
After waiting for more than ten minutes, he walked out of the store carrying three heavy square cardboard boxes.
The freshly baked pizza exuded an astonishing aroma of heat and grease, reaching right into his nose through the carton.
He took a deep breath and turned into a dark alley covered with graffiti.
Deep in the alley, there was still the rusty iron manhole cover that he didn't want to remember anymore.
Benjamin looked around to make sure no one was paying attention, grabbed the edge of the manhole cover with one hand, lifted it effortlessly, and jumped down.
The sewers are still filled with the sour smell of fermentation and putrid moisture.
Benjamin fell down the ladder to the bottom, and his thick leather boots made a splashing sound when he stepped on the shallow sewage.
He did not go deeper, but came to the city heating pipe that exuded warm smell.
It was here, when he was at his lowest, his eyes were black from hunger and he even thought he was about to freeze to death, that he received half a piece of leftover pizza with muddy water.
He placed the three steaming pizza boxes steadily on the pipe, then took two steps back, leaned against the moss-covered brick wall, raised his heavy boots and stepped hard on the ground a few times, causing a dull echo.
The sewer was quiet for a while.
Not long after, rustling sounds came from the depths of darkness.
Benjamin put his hands in his sweater pockets and stared calmly in that direction.
A few weak glow sticks lit up, and Big Rat, wearing dark red rag strips, still holding the short wooden stick in his hand, cautiously poked half of his body out of the shadows.
Big Rat's nose twitched hard several times, obviously smelling the smell of grilled cheese and meat in the air that was too strong to ignore.
Behind it, Little Green Turtles, whose four heads were tied with blue, red, purple and orange strips of cloth, was looking out.
Especially the little guy tied with an orange cloth strip. Looking at the pizza box on the pipe, his two little paws were waving in the air excitedly, and his saliva almost flowed to his chin.
Big Rat saw clearly that the big man with a bad temper was leaning against the wall. His originally tense body relaxed a little, but he still did not completely let down his guard.
Benjamin looked at these strange mutant creatures and smiled stiffly.
"Don't be nervous, Mouse."
Benjamin broke the dead silence of the sewer with a hoarse voice. He raised his chin and pointed at the carton on the pipe, "It's just out of the oven, it's not cold yet."
The Little Turtles tied with an orange strip of cloth couldn't bear it any longer, so he ran out from behind Big Rat and headed straight for the pizza box.
Big Rat sighed and did not reach out to stop him this time.
Little Turtles struggled to open the lid of the carton, and a strong heat instantly rose up.
The four little guys immediately swarmed over and grabbed the pizza with long strings on it. They didn't care about burning their mouths and stuffed it into their mouths, making grunting sounds of satisfaction.
Benjamin Watching them wolfing down their food, the scene of me chewing the cold and hard pizza edge that night came to mind.
"Even if I owe you the half piece of expired garbage from last time, I never owe anyone else anything."
Benjamin put his hands back in his pockets, turned around and walked towards the iron ladder.
Big Rat held a piece of sausage pizza in his hand and looked at the man's broad back quietly.
Benjamin walked to the bottom of the ladder, grabbed the cold iron railing with both hands, and was about to climb up when he suddenly stopped.
He looked back at the four little guys who had their mouths full of ketchup, and then climbed up the ladder to the light on the ground using both hands and feet.
A nondescript black sedan parked in the shadows a few blocks away.
The car window was lowered just a slit, and Madelyn was sitting in the back seat, holding a cup of steaming coffee in his hand, quietly looking at the slums in the distance.
"Have they all been distributed?"
Madelyn took a sip of coffee.
The assistant sitting in the co-pilot nodded:
"It has all been distributed according to the plan. The drug addicts in the slums and the gangsters who were driven to a dead end by loan sharks heard that this was a magic medicine that could help people reach the sky in one step, and they almost tore open the refrigerator box."
Madelyn smiled with satisfaction.
The lives of poor people have always been worthless.
Just draw a Superheroes pie for them, and they will gratefully serve as Vought International's perfect free guinea pig.
What's more, the people in this quagmire are not clean at all, and no one will care if anything happens.
Of course, this piece of pie is poisonous.
In order to ensure that these mice will not become a troublesome problem after demonstrating the destructive power of the new medicine, Research and Development Department added some special condiments to this batch of medicine.
A Neurotoxin that can set the attack time.
No matter how strong these people become after being injected with the drug, whether they go to rob banks, kill enemies, or plan to change their minds and become civilian heroes, after a few hours, their brains will melt into a puddle of foul-smelling mud on time.
A carnival with a shelf life of only a few hours is enough to provide the Washington politicians with the most perfect practical data.
The car window slowly raised, Madelyn leaned on the back of the chair and closed his eyes to relax.
The show is about to begin.
At the same time, in a dead-end street only two blocks away.
A middle-aged man named Eddie (not the Venom one) was paralyzed in the mud like a dead dog.
The cheap jacket he was wearing had several big holes in it, the bridge of his nose was broken, and his face was covered with nosebleeds mixed with rainwater.
Just five minutes ago, Viper Gang, a nearby loan shark, had just kicked two of his ribs into pieces.
If he can't pay the debt before dawn tomorrow, which has become Astronomy, they will take away his child who is still in junior high school and sell him to an underground red light district to pay off the debt.
Eddie was panting heavily, and every breath pulled his broken ribs, making him tremble with pain.
His life is like a joke.
When I was young, I went to the police station for robbery. After I got out, I couldn't do any work well. My wife ran away, leaving only a daughter.
He thought about starting a new life, but at the bottom of this quagmire-like Queens, he couldn't even find a job serving dishes, so he had to rely on loan sharks to survive, and finally fell deeper and deeper into it.
He is a complete rotten person, but he doesn't want his daughter to be dragged into this quagmire.
Eddie tremblingly stretched out his hands covered in mud and blood, and took out a small glass refrigeration tube from the torn pocket on the inside of his jacket.
He just took advantage of the chaos to get this from a black marketeer who was hacked to death by Viper Gang.
The tube contained a dark red liquid, which exuded an alluring shimmer in the dim alley.
Word on the street is that this is the magic medicine leaked by Vought International.
As long as you break in, you will have super strength and be able to trample those high-ranking figures under your feet.
Eddie didn't know if this was true. He didn't even know if this thing would kill him directly if it penetrated it.
But does he have any other choice?
He gritted his teeth and used his mouth to remove the needle protective cover from the refrigeration tube.
He looked at his arm that was shriveled due to long-term malnutrition. Without any hesitation, he directly inserted the needle into the vein and pushed down the piston with force.
The dark red liquid instantly flowed throughout the body along with the blood.
At first, I felt nothing. Eddie even thought that he had been cheated. It might just be a tube of dyed sugar water.
But only a few seconds passed.
An indescribable burning sensation suddenly erupted from his heart, as if a ball of liquid magma had been forcefully poured into his blood vessels.
"Uh-huh-"
Eddie covered his chest in pain and rolled crazily in the muddy water.
He felt his muscles tearing and his bones making a numbing friction sound.
The broken ribs were forcibly restored within seconds and became stronger than steel.
Large swaths of gray-brown scales emerged from under his skin, instantly covering his neck, arms and torso.
Accompanied by a muffled sound of bones breaking, a sharp horn dripping with green venom forcefully broke through the scalp and grew out.
The pain comes and goes quickly.
When Eddie stood up from the mud again, he was no longer the loser who allowed others to bully him.
He looked down at his hands, which were covered with scales and whose nails became as sharp as daggers, and felt the terrifying power in his body that seemed to be able to punch through the entire building.
There was a sound of car engines outside the alley, as well as the unbridled laughter and curses of those Viper Gang gangsters.
Eddie slowly raised his head, his originally cloudy and cowardly eyes were now filled with ecstasy.
He felt that he had finally come through. He wanted to make those who bullied him pay the price. He wanted to take his daughter back, buy her a big house, and eat the best food.
He feels that his future has unlimited possibilities and good days are just around the corner.
The rain fell harder and harder, hitting the hard scales of Eddie with a crackling sound.
He twisted his neck, stepped out on his thick legs, and walked out of the alley step by step.