Chapter 851: Stakeout

Chapter 851: Chapter 851: Stakeout

Gwen Stacy had come to visit Sky, once again seeking help with modifying a program they were using for class. She wanted to consult a girl around her own age.

Ever since Henry had shown up empty-handed at her graduation ceremony, his relationship with Gwen Stacy had made no further progress. It wasn’t that he’d offended the tall girl. She was simply swamped with the demands of her freshman year at college.

Her supervising professor, Kurt Connors, was giving her special tutoring and treating her like a doctoral student despite her being a freshman. To keep up with the research, it was easy to imagine just how much knowledge she needed to acquire.

For doctoral students in applied sciences, the academic environment was much like the workplace. People who dragged the team down might not be eliminated as readily as they would be in a company, but they could end up failing to complete their graduate studies. In some ways, that was an even more frightening prospect.

Yet despite facing the same pressure as any other college freshman, Gwen Stacy hadn’t been crushed by it. Instead, she absorbed knowledge from everyone around her like a sponge soaking up water, steadily making it her own.

No one else could do that work for her. However, whenever the tall girl felt overwhelmed by stress, she would come over to pet the tabby cat and unwind. So Henry had no choice but to lend her his pet, much to Kitty’s chagrin.

"ROAR!" (Screw you.)

Because she was Sky’s tutor, and because she was herself in that gray area of adulthood under American law—

In most U.S. states, the legal ages for voting, sexual consent, and marriage were all eighteen. However, the legal drinking age was twenty-one, a restriction that applied nationwide.

The legal age for possessing firearms also varied by state and depended on the type of weapon.

In other words, from the perspective of American law, an eighteen-year-old was considered an adult, but wouldn’t enjoy the full range of legal privileges until turning twenty-one.

Incidentally, in the early days of the United States, citizens had to be at least twenty-one to vote.

And because she had also joined the Hepburn family in taking refuge at their seaside villa in Fenwick, Connecticut, during the air pollution crisis caused by the 9/11 attacks, Gwen Stacy had become quite familiar with the household.

So on occasions like this, she would stay for dinner. Then, in the evening, she’d keep an eye on Sky’s schoolwork or ask her for help with programming problems.

As for boyfriends, the tall girl had started college, and George Stacy had finally given her permission to date. Naturally, she’d tried going out with a few guys.

Most of them, however, had been rejected after the very first date. They never even made it to a third date, when a couple might test their physical and emotional compatibility.

Part of the reason was her heavy workload. The other part was that none of these guys had really sparked anything in her. Gwen could always find some intolerable flaw in the behavior of the young men she dated.

Henry hadn’t deliberately eavesdropped on these complaints. The two girls were simply whispering to each other in a room, and a Kryptonian with superhuman hearing couldn’t help overhearing things...

Tonight, however, Henry had no intention of staying home. After dinner, he handed his plate to BB to clean up and prepared to head out.

Seeing Henry change into his going-out clothes, Sky ran out of her room. "Where are you going? I’m coming too!"

Apparently, she still remembered the information she’d extracted from the street punks after school.

Gwen, standing behind her, didn’t quite understand what was going on, but her big, watery eyes were just as full of eager curiosity. She clearly wanted to join in on the excitement.

Of course, Henry had no intention of letting either girl come along. He pushed Sky away as she crowded up to him.

"I’m just going to the apartment in Tribeca to sort through some things I left there."

The excuse wasn’t entirely false. When he’d been looking after the mutant students staying with him, Henry had bought quite a few supplies, including sleeping bags. He hadn’t given those things to the students as gifts when they returned to school. Instead, he’d piled them up in the empty apartment on the twelfth floor.

Naturally, though, that excuse wasn’t going to fool Sky, who had been directly involved in the whole affair.

"I don’t believe you!" she declared, glaring at him indignantly.

"What’s going on?" the old lady asked, turning away from the television in the living room.

Henry was quick to get his side of the story in first.

"Kate, this little brat wants to go out and play late at night instead of staying home. What do you think? Should we ground her, or cut her allowance?"

"Ugh, you’re the worst! My allowance is already pitifully small, and now you want to cut it even more? Do you have a conscience at all?"

Henry grabbed Sky’s face with his claw-like hand and held her at arm’s length. He wasn’t about to indulge the little troublemaker.

"Be good. At night, you stay home. Otherwise, I’ll talk to Kate about putting you into the full-time working world early, with your allowance reduced to zero."

"You might as well let me quit school and get a job outside!"

"What kind of decent job could someone your age get? Waiting tables? Delivering pizza? Don’t be ridiculous." Henry gently pushed Sky away and continued, "Look at Gwen. She’s a talented student who’s expected to join Osborn Enterprises. And what about you?"

Gwen Stacy had been hit by friendly fire and turned into someone else’s example of a model child. Her cheeks puffed up, and she glared at Henry with a pout, looking just as indignant as Sky.

Realizing that if he didn’t escape now, he’d soon be facing a double assault, Henry gave an awkward laugh.

"Come to think of it, I might have left a fish in the kitchen over there. It could be rotting by now. I’d better go clean it up."

With that, he put on his shoes and left.

Henry’s actual destination, of course, wasn’t his apartment in Tribeca. It was the rendezvous point he’d learned about that afternoon from the street punks who had cornered Sky—the place where they were supposed to deliver their captive and make the handoff.

The punks and the person financing them hadn’t established many ways to communicate. Perhaps their employer thought that a group of street toughs who might not even have graduated middle school couldn’t handle anything too sophisticated. All they had to do was bring the target to the designated location, and someone would show up to take over from there.

Henry’s original plan had been to get the street punks to cooperate in a little act, using them as bait to lure out whoever was behind the operation.

Unfortunately, Spider-Man had once again disrupted someone else’s plans. The punks who were still mobile enough to put on a performance had all fled, while most of those left behind were injured—and Henry himself had inflicted those injuries.

Without suitable actors to help him fish for the mastermind, Henry had no choice but to stake out the location and see who eventually showed up.

In addition to keeping watch himself, he had redirected two groups of Sparrow spy drones to monitor the rendezvous point. It was an outdoor container storage yard beside the New York Harbor docks, where large numbers of empty shipping containers were kept while waiting to be loaded with cargo.

Considering that the other party might be staking out the area just as he was, waiting to make sure the right person had arrived—or to confirm that the target was present—Henry didn’t limit his surveillance to the agreed-upon meeting spot. He kept an eye on the surrounding area as well.

While waiting, Henry considered who might appear. Even if the mastermind didn’t show up in person, he might still be able to glean some clues from whoever acted on their behalf.

If Sky really was the target, then the most likely suspect was her deranged biological father, Calvin Zabo, better known by the nickname Mr. Hyde. He had gained superhuman strength by developing his own enhancement serum, but the process had also turned him into a volatile, emotionally unstable monster.

If the real target was Henry himself, and Sky had only been taken as a hostage to use against him, then... the list of suspects would be much longer.

Had the Green Goblin resurfaced to cause trouble again?

Or was someone in the U.S. military—a successor to William Stryker, or one of his admirers—trying to get even with Henry?

Or was someone coveting his technology, hoping to use this method to "persuade" him to join their side?

This time, however, Henry waited in vain throughout the entire night.

Not only did nobody show up at the rendezvous point, but no one approached the container yard at all.

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