SPIDER GWEN: EXPOSED CH7: DEMON'S LAIR

F.E.A.S.T. The Food, Emergency, Aid, Shelter and Training center, a homeless shelter owned and operated by Martin Li, located in the Chinatown area of Manhattan. At some point, Martin Li set F.E.A.S.T up to assist the homeless people in New York, even providing assistance when calamities struck. Even post-Outbreak, F.E.A.S.T. Volunteers coordinated by Li himself provided help to the people of New York that had no place to stay. Everyone was seeing Li as this wealthy businessman giving back to the community, but not aware of his true self.

Arriving on the roof of the shelter, Spider Woman was unsurprised the place looked quite welcoming, filled with people in need. However, this was just a cover for the public, knowing very well Martin Li’s actions as Mister Negative, something she found rather disgusting, using people in need as pawns for his criminal acts.

“I’ve met some really despicable people, but Martin takes the crown in this leaderboard…” said the heroine as she switched into her civilian attire, looking for a way to infiltrate the building without being seen, knowing the place will have cameras and not willing to alert any potential Demon gang members in the area. The last thing she wanted was to have a standoff here while being exposed, and much less with civilians and homeless people in the area that could be used as potential cannon fodder…

When she made sure that no one was near or looking at her, she pulled out a balaclava mask in order to conceal her face, crawling up to the rooftop of the facility in order to reach the ventilation system.

Working her way through the ventilation system, all she could see was regular stuff, such as people being given food, shelter or treatment for various addictions. Everything looked normal, she couldn’t see anything that pops out as strange or out of the ordinary. Nobody working there even had the appearance of someone that might be hiding something. At some point, she recognized some of the volunteers as former high school classmates or people from her neighborhood.

“Better get to the offices on the upper level. Maybe I can find something there…” she whispered, as she was crawling as silent as she could. The ventilation system was a bit old and creaky, making odd noises might attract unwanted suspicion. Moving as slow as possible, she was able to get to the upper level and snoop on the offices from the ventilation grilles. “...nothing. Looks like a day off for bureaucrats. Maybe Martin’s office will yield results… that is if i can find it.” 

Carefully crawling further through the system (and getting her clothes quite dirty from the dust and cobwebs, much to her annoyance), she was able to locate Martin Li’s personal office. It was at the end of the system, with only one grille that was providing access into.

Much to her disappointment, even Martin’s personal office seemed completely normal, although it looked like nobody entered the room in a while. Everything was covered in a thin layer of dust, some cobwebs here and there. It looked like Li went into hiding after the bombing, anticipating someone might try to link him to his activities and his Mister Negative alter ego.

Beginning her investigation, Spider Woman searched the desk for any clues that might help her with finding him or why he was doing all this. Apart from normal F.E.A.S.T.-related documents and generic papers, there was nothing that could incriminate him. One thing that sparked her interest was an old picture that showed a young Martin Li and his parents. She remembered that his parents died in an accident when he was young, but nobody knew what happened, as Li didn’t talk about it and there were no news reports regarding their deaths back then.

“Guess he at least cared about his parents… shame they died so soon. Maybe he wouldn’t have turned into such a scumbag if he’d still have them…” said Spider Woman, putting the picture back on the desk and resuming her search.

Examining all the files in his drawers also led to nothing, but one letter that was put on display near his Chinese shrine caught her attention. It was in an envelope and by the way it was put in a letter holder, she was sure Li put it there, so it can be found at a later date.

“Alright, Li. What do you want to tell the world…?” she whispered as she opened the envelope and took out the papers: It was a collage of reports regarding alleged human experimentation conducted by Oscorp’s science division. Much stuff was redacted or censored, so she couldn’t figure out exactly what the hell was going on. She did know though that Oscorp was into several things, either legal or barely legal. Either it was scientific discoveries for the aerospace or automotive industry, or weaponry and war equipment. They were even direct rivals to Stark industries, Alchemax or Roxxon on conventional or bio-weaponry research and development. 

One of the pages contained a list of human test subjects, for unknown experiments. And among them, one name stood out: Martin Li. Apart from the list of test subjects, nothing else was mentioned regarding the nature of the experiments they participated in.

“Wait… OsBank robberies by Demons and Shocker, the bombing at Norman’s ceremony… Martin Li is doing all this to target Oscorp or even Norman himself.” said Spider Woman to herself while looking at the papers. It looked like Li put all of this to hint at a possible motive on why he is doing this, like leaving a single clue. But after she put all the papers back in the envelope, something caught her attention: the blinking shine of a Chinese shrine, where some ceremonial sticks still smoked a bit, sign that this shrine was used recently. Approaching and examining it, she saw it was a memorial for Li’s deceased parents. Just then, while examining it by touching it everywhere, her hand caught something from behind it: it was a key, one that fit in the large closet door. Opening it carefully, her jaw dropped underneath her mask when she saw what was in fact inside.

“What the…” as she stepped in the closet, she found herself entering a secret room, filled with monitors, computers, a map of New York along with several sketches of various plans and even mentions of the previous bank robberies, attacks on some Oscorp-owned facilities that went unreported and even evidence connected to the City Hall Bombing. “...hello smoking gun.”

Looking around, she saw one item that would undeniably tie Martin to the Demon Gang: a sword infused with a lot of negative power, glowing in a very creepy manner. Next to it, it was another Demon mask, one that she never saw. The gang members wore different masks resembling Chinese demons, but this one was more disturbing than the rest. It made her skin crawl just looking at it.

“F*ck. His face must be incredibly ugly to think putting this on will make things better…” she mumbled while examining the mask. Turning it around, Spider Woman found another piece of the puzzle: a voice recorder. Looking at the device, she saw it contained several recordings. As she was listening to them, she could feel Martin’s anger radiating through the recording device’s speaker, as he expressed his hatred for Norman and ‘what he has done to him’, although he didn’t elaborate. 

“Damn, you really got some serious issues…” whispered Spider Woman as she listened on how Martin was recollecting his struggles with the ‘demon within craving to come out and unleash completely’. The recording got increasingly disturbing and sinister, until she could hear clearly Li admitting his involvement in the bombing as the mastermind. He did it as part of a bigger scheme, to ruin Mayor Osborn, first politically, then financially, destroy all his connections and in the end, to kill him after he loses everything. 

Listening into more audio logs, she uncovered another clue of Li’s interest: in a file taped underneath the large table there were several photos of what looked like a large room stacked with loads and loads of servers. It was Oscorp’s main server farm, located at his main building in downtown Manhattan. What was more disturbing was how he got the photos: he corrupted an employee with access to stakeout the farm and then forced to kill himself after he outlived his usefulness. This revelation made her anger boil inside, feeling the symbiote’s presence acting up due to her emotional state, as much as she could… ‘Somewhat’ understand Li’s motivation,but, even if this was a revenge crusade against Norman. However, his disregard for human lives, innocent people that didn’t have anything to do with all this nullified any sort of sympathy that she could have for his struggles. 

"What would I give to be with him in a room with no way out… and make him pay for everything he has done with my bare hands…”

Before her anger could have made her do something VERY reckless, her spider sense immediately went off, warning her of immediate danger. Out of instinct, she immediately made a leap and stuck to the ceiling. Moments later, several electrical arcs were discharged through the floor. It didn’t need a multimeter to realize these were more than enough to electrocute her to death, as whatever device Martin installed as a “failsafe trap” was still functioning, as it was still discharging electrical arcs all over the floor. 

“F*ck! This is a burn room. Wired to destroy evidence. Can’t let this happen…” she said while hanging upside down using her own web “... there must be a way to disable the trap.”

Looking around, she saw a series of thick cables that were all feeding into the floor. With her limited knowledge about electrics, she was able to trace the cables to a junction box at the opposite side of the room. Wasting not one second, she immediately ripped it off the wall, disabling the trap, but also causing a blackout in the entire building. 

“Imagine anyone stepping into this place… they would have been dead in an instant…” she said as she dropped from the ceiling and dialed her phone “Marc, get someone to the F.E.A.S.T. shelter. I got the evidence we need.”

“What am I going to find?”

“A room full of really creepy and incriminating stuff in the back of Li’s office. All the evidence that he planned the bombing, along with other stuff that I cannot talk about over the phone, as it will take all my battery.”

“Alright. I’ll send Agent Thompson and my forensics to collect. If this evidence stands, I’ll be able to put out an APB. Listen, come to Janet’s lab in order to discuss what you found.” replied Marc over the phone, before hanging up, fully aware about the urgency to concoct a plan in order to find Li. Spider Woman on the other hand, was curious about the server farm and why Li was willing to go to such lengths to hit the mayor. Nobody will know how big this case will turn out to be.

To be continued…

Previous chapter: https://www.patreon.com/posts/spider-gwen-ch6-149063507

The hunt to take down Martin Li is going forward, straight into the Demon's lair... in the most unexpected place possible.