But… It’s me! The real Spider-Man!

After waiting for me to recover enough to get back on my feet, she escorted me to the room next door to the lab. Here, behind the long glass wall, I had a great view of the huge, state-of-the-art room. In addition to the doors leading to the laboratory and the panoramic window, there was another exit, and there were a couple of women on duty, wearing identical uniforms to those worn by the attackers on the school.

We went to the glass to have a closer look at the technology room. Surprisingly, there were no visible personnel in the room, though the numerous pieces of equipment were in continuous operation. In the center of the room, a seat like the one in which I had woken up a few minutes earlier was perched. Numerous manipulators, with a variety of surgical instruments at their ends, were attached to it. At the headboard the bed was flooded with blood, which at the moment was being actively washed away with a powerful jet of boiling water by a mechanical arm descending from the ceiling.

The level of automation is impressive, but the purpose of this room gives me a healthy suspicion. It doesn't take a genius to collate the facts and figure out what's what. But my supervisor decides to chew on the details:

"As you can see, this is the room in which the future is extracted..." she hesitated choosing a word.

"You combine several human consciousnesses into a neural network by this barbaric method."

"Hmm... yes, you wouldn't expect anything less from a man of your intelligence, but you're not quite right. You see, to merge minds, consciousness, if you will, is not essential, or rather, it is even superfluous. All you need is a brain, like a neuron in a future chain... during the first unification, it was the disconnection of consciousnesses that caused the system to disintegrate. So in the instructions left to us, God gave clear instructions on how to avoid repeating the failure."

"God?" I ask.

"Yes, God of Two Minutes... during one of the Hydra scientists' experiments, you know what Hydra is, right?" she looked me in the eyes, waiting for an answer, and I nodded, "so, during one of the experiments of Hydra scientists, who tried to decipher the records of the alien civilization that fell into their hands, there was a successful integration of three thousand human consciousnesses into a single network..."

That is, all this was created in an attempt to comprehend the technology of imaginary aliens, though what else would I expect from a bunch of psychotic fanatics who believe in a man-made God.

"... in fact it was lucky that during the experiment the network created was not isolated from the building infrastructure and internet, even luckier that besides the prisoners that would be killed in any case, the test subjects in the experiment were also ten members of Hydra itself, seriously guilty before the superiors, for which they were offered a choice - death or voluntary participation in the fusion of the minds."

The woman paused to clear her throat, and then continued her story again:

"God existed for only two minutes before he began to disintegrate into separate minds, a consequence of the wrong approach to fusion. But in those two minutes he did many things, including leaving instructions and directions in the minds of the apostles-those ten volunteers-on how he could be revived. Over the next twenty years, the apostles created it all! Because of God's actions during those fateful minutes, they were all able to elevate themselves to important positions, all in order to build this place and gather the perfect candidates here."

At this moment, a girl enters the room behind the glass, the same Chinese woman who had taken my tests. Determined to approach the seat, she looks directly at us.

"The glass is one-way transparent," the guard tells me confidentially, "she can't see us."

Meanwhile, the girl, Li Yun, if I heard correctly, climbs into the chair, herself, without any coercion. Her limbs quickly lock into place, her many manipulators coming into motion.

"Yun," my probation worker begins to tell me, "is the leading specialist of this project, her IQ is quite high and she, as you see, will also become part of God... you know, she has dreamed about this moment all her life... never understood her... well, I mean, I have nothing against serving for God, but I prefer to do it as a human rather than part of him... anyway, my brain wouldn't be suited for that anyway. I'm too dumb."

As she spoke, the bed with the fixed Chinese woman had moved, and she herself was already sound asleep, drowsy with sleeping pills injected into her vein by one of the manipulator arms. Further was quite predictable - the artificial limbs opened the girl's skull and carefully extracted her still alive brain, which was then placed in a special vessel with a turbid liquid.

But the body was not treated so gently - as soon as the brain was healed, the clamps loosened, and the remains of the Chinese woman fell to the laboratory floor, where another metal hand picked them up to throw them into an open hatch like a garbage can. To top it off, a jet of flame erupted from the hatch. Stunned by what I saw, I lazily remarked that it was a bit too theatrical to get rid of the body.

"Do you have to do it that way?" I asked, pointing to the hatch. I don't really care about the remains of the Chinese woman, I guess I'm just too shocked to think straight... or the fact that, if I don't think of anything, my own body will be disposed of in this way.

"Oh, and this isn't for her either. It's for you, everyone who becomes part of God is shown the whole procedure beforehand," Daisy told me with a smile, "so you won't have any doubts that there's no going back, it's a guarantee that you'll become part of the whole... sort of a psychological trick."

"And you're telling me this..."

"Whether you realize it or not, the method works, as do all of God's instructions and predictions."

I think I'm beginning to understand what she means. Apparently, when connected to this network, the human brain may retain a personality capable of thinking. Such a mind would not be part of a coherent system, on the contrary, it would only interfere with it. Each connected brain must be something like a neuron. Is a neuron conscious of itself? Does it have an opinion or perhaps fears and hopes? No, it simply processes the signal and passes it on, which is what is required of the future constituents of this God.

We are shown exactly what awaits us. The whole process of removing the brain and disposing of the rest of the body is demonstrated so that no doubt is left - there will be no turning back. Thus, even if the victim retains the ability to self-identify and think after being plugged in, he will simply have no other way but to merge with the general consciousness.

"Have you already made many of them part of... this?" I ask, while I'm feverishly searching for a way out.

How do I get out? What can I do? Nothing, as long as I'm wearing this collar, then I have to take it off somehow, am I strong enough to break the metal?

"More than you can imagine, countless people have been on this table in fifteen years."

As I recall, forcibly removing the collar should cause an explosion that kills the mutant, with the mineral contained in the suppressor entering the open wound, which prevents people like Wanda from relying on their strength. But what happens to me?

"So your God is already functioning? Then why go to so much trouble to capture me?" I keep procrastinating, meanwhile the preparation of the hall for the reception of the next candidate to become part of the collective mind has begun.

I've been sensing since my awakening that the Lizard is ready to break free. I'm on the verge of transformation, and all I need is a push. I don't know if I'll survive the collar explosion, but I'd rather do that than go under the knife. I hope I don't get my head blown off.

"Of course not, the network needs an element capable of uniting, directing all the others. A kind of central processing unit. We call it the core. You need not just a good brain for that, but a genius at an unprecedented level..."

Well, that's what I'll do. Of course, there are too many weaknesses in my plan, and even if I succeed and finally transform into a Lizard... in which case, I just hope that Gwen, who has dealt with this sort of thing before, can find me and save me, because I'm not likely to want to revert to human form myself.

"... and this genius, as you may have guessed by now, is you," the woman continues, "your existence has been carefully concealed, even I only became aware of you a few weeks ago, I can't imagine the effort it took to keep you from the shield especially in recent months... I always wondered how you ever managed to overcome the effects of the drugs?"

Suddenly everything fell into place. Peter's strange, apathetic behavior before I got here and the inaction of the shield after. These scum had controlled my whole life, raised me like cattle, to slaughter me at the right time. And no one but Aunt May would even pay attention to my disappearance, the headmistress would be a little upset, that's all. Who knows, maybe they also had a hand in the fact that Aunt May paid so little attention to me!

Then the walkie-talkie on Daisy's belt comes to life:

"Attention, code red, base entry, repeat, base entry. Intruders: Spiderwoman and Venom," an alarmed male voice from the speaker, music to my ears.

I feel anger building up in my chest... not just anger - hatred, real black hatred. That anger would fuel the Lizard, the monster that had suddenly become my last chance at salvation.

Giving myself over to the rage that washed over me, I grabbed the collar with my hands.

"Hey, don't be stupid!" Daisy yells at me.

The battery in the collar hummed, sending a powerful electric shock through my body, but that wouldn't stop me, on the contrary-the involuntary contraction of my muscles gave me enough force to tear the metal. The collar cracks obediently, the metal resists for a while, stretches, and then there is an explosion and my world is filled with darkness.

And cold rage.