The next day at school, Zed caught up on his sleep, trying to shake off the fatigue from the previous night.
He woke up just in time for lunch. As he was waking up, Zed overheard Peter and Ned talking. They were discussing Uncle Ben's heroic act from the night before.
"Uncle Ben encountered a gang trafficking people on his way back from working late last night. He actually grabbed a broken wooden stick and tried to save them! Aunt May was nearly driven crazy when she found out!" Peter explained to Ned.
Ned was very curious and quickly asked, "What happened then? Is Uncle Ben okay? What about the people who were being trafficked?"
"Uncle Ben only had a cut on his clothes, he wasn't hurt. He said that a Clockwork Armor Man saved him and the girl who was being trafficked," Peter said, still shaken by the mention of the cut on the clothes.
Peter and Aunt May were terrified when the police brought Uncle Ben back last night. They were afraid they would never see him again. Fortunately, Clockwork Hero was nearby and saved Uncle Ben, otherwise, Peter didn't know how he would have handled it all.
Peter's tone was very excited when he spoke of Clockwork Hero, as if he had made a decision.
Zed, still a bit dazed from just waking up, didn't notice these subtle emotional changes. He quickly ate his lunch and began to think about the next step in his plan for Skye.
After finishing his afternoon classes, Zed rode his sports bike towards the small warehouse, stopping to buy a pizza and some snacks to use as a gift.
This time, Zed didn't plan to transform and enter from the rooftop. Instead, he intended to meet Skye in his normal form. With Skye's hacking skills, she could find out who rented the warehouse at any time. It would be better to be upfront and appear sincere.
After composing himself at the door, Zed entered the warehouse with the pizza. However, he found the whole place a mess.
The emergency food and water were completely gone, and Skye was lying on a folding bed, reading her favorite magazines.
"You! You really don't treat yourself as an outsider!" Zed said, gritting his teeth.
"High schooler! You're actually a high schooler!" Skye jumped up from the folding bed when she saw Zed's true face, yelling, "I was played by a little kid for a whole night! Ah~ah!"
"Don't step on my bed and break it! Also! My name is Zed, stop calling me 'high schooler'."
Zed finally managed to calm Skye down, and the two sat facing each other at the workbench. Zed ate the fragrant pizza and drank soda.
Skye's stomach was about to burst; she really couldn't eat anymore, even though the pizza smelled much better than those cold, hard breads.
Skye broke the silence first: "You said last night that your goal was that watch face, and that you wanted to help me activate it. What did you mean?"
Zed slowly swallowed the pizza in his mouth and said, "To put it in my friend's words, activating the watch face is a display of talent. Those who can activate the watch face are all worth taking seriously. I think you might be able to activate it, but you're too weak and immature right now."
Skye, having calmed down a bit, asked seriously, "No more jokes! Since you chose me to activate the watch face, you must have investigated me already, right? I don't need to introduce myself, do I?"
"Hmm! I know your name is Daisy Johnson. Hmm! This pizza tastes really good!" Zed replied while licking his fingers.
"What Daisy Johnson! My name is Skye! Wait! What do you mean? That's my name?" Skye was completely stunned.
Seeing the effect was good, Zed continued, "Tony Stark's superpower is money, and my superpower is related to time. When I say you might be able to activate the watch face, I'm referring to the future you, and Daisy Johnson refers to the past you."
"The past me? I used to be called Daisy Johnson? How can you prove you're not lying to me?" Skye was a little flustered, and her eyes were starting to redden as she spoke.
"I don't need any evidence, believe it or not!" Zed was now certain that the plan to recruit Skye was more than half successful.
He continued, "It's not that I don't want to tell you, it's that you can only handle as much as you're capable of carrying. You… are too weak! You don't have the ability to face the truth. All I can say is, your parents didn't abandon you!"
Tears streamed down Skye's face upon hearing this. Her search for her parents wasn't just about reuniting with them; it was also about asking them directly. Had they abandoned her? And if so, why?
Skye wanted to believe Zed, or rather, this was the only answer she was willing to accept.
Seeing Skye in tears, Zed knew what to do, but was still hesitating when she commandeered his shoulder.
Skye cried louder and louder, soaking Zed's shoulder. When she finally calmed down, Zed looked at his shoulder and wondered if Skye would cry herself into dehydration.
Skye, fighting back tears, wiped her eyes. "You mean you'll help me get stronger, and once I can activate the watch, you'll tell me about my parents?"
"More accurately, the stronger you become, the more you'll know." Zed pulled out a napkin from the pizza he bought and handed it to Skye.
Skye, after wiping her tears with a tissue, said in a coquettish tone, "Really, you can't just tell me?"
"I think with your way of thinking, you'd just rush right in, and then I'd have to save you to get the clock face. Isn't that troublesome? There's no room for negotiation on this!" Zed was completely resolute when it came to collecting the clock faces, showing no mercy.
"Fine, I won't ask! Then let's start training now. I want to activate the clock face as quickly as possible." Skye was truly determined this time.
"Not so fast! Haste makes waste. Let's handle the current issue first. Why were you being chased by those gangsters last night?"
Skye didn't directly answer Zed, instead retorting, "Isn't your superpower related to time? Can't you guess?"
Zed rolled his eyes at Skye. "If I could see anything I wanted, why would I be here arguing with you instead of buying lottery tickets?"
"…"
Skye stared at Zed for a long while before saying:
"Alright, alright. I came to New York to see a friend. We worked together to break through the firewall of that big philanthropist, Wilson Fisk's company. We found out he was connected to the gangs in New York. As soon as I arrived in New York, those gang members came looking for me."
"What specific intelligence do you have?"
Zed naturally knew that Wilson was Kingpin, the kingpin of New York's underworld. Furthermore, Kingpin was an indispensable figure in Matt's plan to activate the watch face.
Skye glanced at Zed, then reached into her clothes and pulled out a USB drive, waving it in her hand. "It's all on this USB drive."
The contents of the USB drive were mostly about property acquisitions, explosives transactions, and excavation equipment deals, with only a small amount of information about the gangs.
Seeing Zed's silence, Skye thought he was disappointed with the contents of the USB drive and quickly explained, "This stuff is enough to prove that the big philanthropist Wilson isn't clean. And I'm sure he has more crimes."
"Wilson is Kingpin."
"What?"
"Wilson is Kingpin himself, the biggest mob boss."
"What? You knew all along! Then why haven't you taken him out!"
Zed turned his head suspiciously towards Skye: "Why would I take him out? He still has value alive. He can't die until I've squeezed everything I can out of him. Besides, I'm not some hero. Why would I go around playing the part of a righteous partner!"
"Then why did you use your body to block the bullet for that uncle last night! Can't you be a little more honest? A little more genuine?" Skye thought Zed was a bit of a tsundere on the inside, just too embarrassed to show it, and was kindly trying to understand him.
Zed continued browsing through the files, answering Skye's questions at the same time: "Uncle Ben is a friend's uncle, and he's been good to me. I just went to save him! I couldn't just let him get shot in front of me!"
After Zed finished speaking, Skye smiled and ran her index finger up and down Zed's shoulder: "So, you're saying! You didn't specifically go to save me last night?"
Hearing this death question, Zed suddenly shivered. This question was not easy to answer. If he messed up, it could all be for nothing.
He didn't need to be nervous, but he was inexplicably flustered. Maybe these kinds of questions really do inflict psychological damage on men!
"Uh~ of course, I specifically went to save you. Uncle Ben was just a bonus. Really! Look! When I left with you yesterday, I just left Uncle Ben there. If I had specifically gone to save Uncle Ben, how could I have forgotten him?" Zed finished speaking smoothly and didn't feel anything was wrong.
But out of instinct, Zed chose to change the subject. "The files in here are useful, especially the records of property acquisitions and the purchase of excavation equipment. Although it doesn't specify what they're up to, I know Kingpin and his people are planning something big!"
Skye was also drawn in by the word "big" and asked curiously, "What's big? What are they planning?"
"Archaeology!"
"Say that again!"
"Archaeological excavation!"
"What's so big about that? We're investigating things related to crime, and archaeology doesn't sound like it has anything to do with the mob!"
"They're digging for dragon bones! Not dinosaur fossils, real dragons!"
------------------------
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(End of Chapter)