The S.H.I.E.L.D.. safe house is located beneath an abandoned garage in Manhattan's West Side.
Felicia led the way, with Wanda following behind. The two moved close to the shadows of buildings, avoiding main roads and instead navigating alleyways, climbing over fences, and squeezing through the back doors of half-collapsed shops.
Felicia's route was meticulously chosen; every turn avoided the gray figures loitering on the streets.
Half an hour later, several figures suddenly appeared on the rooftop of the building behind them.
The Zombie Falcon's mechanical wings cut in from the east, its metal feathers stained with dried brown dirt.
Following closely behind were two quieter figures—one with red hair, and the other holding a bow.
Natasha Romanoff crouched down, her fingertips brushing against the rooftop floor.
She wasn't interested in the two patches of marks that had been crushed into thin pieces; her attention was drawn to the concrete floor next to the ventilation duct.
A small patch of polished dust, shaped like a person sitting with their back to them, and next to it, a fainter mark, is a shoe print left while standing.
There were two people, one sitting for a long time, and the other standing.
Natasha's nostrils twitched slightly. Her gray-green pupils lacked any luster that a living person should have, but in her rotting brain, the Black Widow's analytical instincts were still at work.
"Two living people. One has been here for at least three days, the other is new."
She stood up, her chapped lips curving into a smile.
"Found them. I haven't had a proper meal in ages."
Hawkeye Clint tilted his head, the arrow shafts in his quiver clinking together.
The left side of his face was completely rotten, revealing his grayish-white cheekbone underneath.
Before the Falcon could even get a command, its mechanical wings unfolded, and the airflow forced the rubble off the edge of the rooftop outwards.
He ejected directly into the air and began to expand the search outwards from the building.
Ten minutes, twenty minutes.
The Falcon's flight path covered every street and the top of every building within a ten-mile radius, but it found nothing.
It's not that he wasn't careful enough.
Instead, Wanda immediately erected a barrier of Chaos Magic around the two of them the moment she left.
It doesn't distort light or create illusions; it simply causes all senses that try to lock onto them—sight, hearing, smell—to automatically slide away the barrier the moment they come into contact with it, like water flowing around a stone.
This technique doesn't consume much energy, but it requires extremely precise control over Chaos Magic.
The Falcon eventually landed back on the rooftop and shook its head.
Natasha stood still, her grey-green eyes slowly rotating once.
"It can be hidden."
She didn't order another chase. Zombies have a different kind of patience than the living. If they can't find them, they can't find them. Anyway, the prey can't escape this dead city. Sooner or later, they'll run into each other.
--
Felicia stopped in front of a garage door.
The roller shutter door was rusted shut, and the side door next to it was also blocked from the inside by something.
The entire garage was dilapidated, indistinguishable from the surrounding abandoned buildings.
Wanda glanced at it.
What an ordinary person would see is a dilapidated garage, but her Chaos Magic perception tells her that the structure of this place is wrong.
The wall thickness exceeds normal values, and the foundation depth far exceeds the specifications that a typical garage should have.
"This is S.H.I.E.L.D..'s safe house?"
Felicia nodded, walked around the garage, and finally stopped in front of an inconspicuous electrical box on the side.
She opened the cover of the electrical box, inside which was an iris scanner and a fingerprint recognition panel.
Peter was bitten.
Felicia's hand stopped at the edge of the scanner, but she didn't touch it.
"He sent me this address and told me to bring Aunt May and Mary Jane here for refuge."
Wanda remained silent.
"It was too late when I got there."
Felicia tightened her chin slightly, and the muscles on the side of her neck taut out a line.
" Peter has changed. When I arrived, he was..."
She didn't finish her sentence, but the implication was clear.
Wanda waited two seconds, and after confirming that the other party did not intend to continue, she directly brought the topic back.
"So how do we open this base?"
Felicia snapped out of that brief pause so quickly that Wanda almost thought she had misread the momentary stiffness.
"I don't know. He only gave me the address, not how to open the door. I guess he needs Peter's iris or fingerprints."
Wanda glanced at her.
"You're a bit of an amateur at being a superhero."
Felicia turned and glared at her, a hint of annoyance flashing in her gray-blue eyes.
I was never a hero.
Wanda didn't reply; she closed her eyes.
Chaos Magic extended downwards from within, penetrating the cement floor, the soil, and the reinforced concrete layers.
Fifty meters, a full fifty meters underground, a space of nearly a thousand square meters unfolded in her perception.
It features an independent power supply system, a water circulation system, a medical area, a storage area, three independent rest pods, and an emergency food reserve sufficient for two people to eat for at least three months.
Spider-Man Peter Parker, a street hero, actually has a shelter of this caliber.
But thinking about it, it makes sense. Tony Stark even considered grooming that kid to be his successor, so having a shelter like this is quite normal.
Wanda opened her eyes and extended her right hand toward Felicia.
"Pull me up."
Felicia looked at the hand, and without hesitation, grasped it. Her fingers were icy cold, her fingertips calloused, and her grip was stronger than Wanda had expected.
"What, the Sorcerer Supreme has a solution?"
Wanda didn't answer. Crimson energy spread from beneath their feet, enveloping their bodies. The next second, their bodies began to sink.
The concrete flowed through their bodies, cool to the touch but not hard, more like passing through a thick curtain of water.
The fifty-meter distance was covered in three seconds, and the two men's feet landed on the metal floor inside the base.
The emergency lights automatically turned on after sensing a human body's heat, illuminating a cleaner space than expected with a dim, warm glow.
Felicia released Wanda's hand, looked down at her unharmed body, and then looked up at the ceiling above her, which showed no signs of damage.
"Won't we have to use this method every time we go out and come back from somewhere in the future?"
"Well, there's nothing I can do about that; you don't know how to get in normally anyway."
Felicia opened her mouth, but found that she really couldn't refute it.
The two spent twenty minutes going through the base.
Emergency food supplies were piled up in one corner of the storage area, bottled water was neatly stacked in boxes, and medical supplies were categorized and organized.
Felicia moved swiftly and her categorization logic was clear—anti-inflammatory drugs and tourniquets were placed together, antipyretics were in a separate category, and bandages and gauze were arranged by size.
After the backup power was activated, the base's air circulation system began operating, slowly drawing away the stale, musty smell that had lingered for who knows how long.
Felicia went straight to the nearest rest pod, opened the door, and glanced back at Wanda.
"Keep an eye on it for me for a while. I haven't slept for days."
Wanda nodded. "Go."
The hatch closed.
Wanda stood alone in the empty underground space, the dim yellow light of the emergency lights casting a long shadow over her.
It was quiet, really quiet.
Fifty meters overhead, the concrete and steel bars blocked out all sounds from the ground—no low growls of zombies, no muffled thuds of distant buildings collapsing, no wind.
She pulled the Eye of Agamotto from her collar.
The pendant rotates under the light, revealing two gemstones set in a silver base, one in front of the other.
One is emerald green, the other deep red; these are the Time Stone and the Reality Stone that she is responsible for safeguarding.
Originally, the Eye of Agamotto only had one slot, which could only hold one gem, but Thor helped her make a small modification.
I wonder if Thor, with his power, could open a portal to this universe?
Wanda didn't think twice and infused the Time Stone with Chaos Magic. A green light shone, but it was at least three shades darker than it would be in her universe.
It works, but it's sluggish, reacting a fraction of a second slower.
The Reality Stone is the same; its red glow can be activated, but its energy output is reduced.
This is probably for the same reason that the dimensional barriers of this universe have been reinforced, which also weakens the universe's compatibility with external forces.
Gems are useful, but they can't be used to tear open the way home.
Wanda tucked the pendant back into her collar and leaned against the wall.
The cold metal against her spine brought her to her senses slightly.
Current situation: Trapped in a Zombie Universe, unable to open portals, Infinity Stones on sale, and only an ordinary human partner by my side.
The ground is basically overrun with zombies, and in space, there's a group of zombie heroes who've acquired Cosmic Energy.
Meanwhile, Chthon, who threw her in, is probably watching the show from some other dimension.
Wanda closed her eyes and began making a list in her mind.
First, survive. Second, find the weak point in this dimensional barrier of the universe. Third—
Click-
The door to the rest cabin was suddenly pushed open from the inside.
Felicia stood in the doorway, her expression troubled.
"There's a signal in the base." She held up a communicator she'd found inside the cabin; the screen displayed a series of encrypted waveforms. "Someone's broadcasting. It's playing on a loop, the coordinates point to—"
She paused, a complex emotion that Wanda couldn't decipher flicker in her grey-blue eyes.
Latveria.