Chapter 779: The Secret Factory

Chapter 779: Chapter 779: The Secret Factory

Henry had thought he had found the Green Goblin’s secret base. Unfortunately, he discovered that he had merely found a secret factory belonging to Osborn Industries.

Judging from the nuclear radiation symbols and warning signs visible everywhere, the facility should be storing large quantities of sealed nuclear waste or radioactive materials.

Henry switched the Sparrow spy drone’s visual mode to a Geiger counter display. Sure enough, although the radiation levels were not seriously elevated throughout the entire facility, the movement patterns of the radioactive materials being transported around were clearly visible.

Watching workers in protective suits bustling around large machines, Henry inferred from the equipment that this was probably a secret tritium production facility. It might even include research and development of new technologies.

As one of the most important raw materials for nuclear fusion projects, tritium was an unavoidable component whether one wanted to build a hydrogen bomb or advance nuclear fusion research with the eventual goal of generating electricity through commercial fusion power.

Since tritium had a half-life of only 12.33 years, there had long been virtually no naturally occurring tritium left on Earth. Only when high-energy neutrons from cosmic rays happened to pass through Earth and collide with deuterium nuclei could extremely small quantities of tritium be produced.

But collecting those tritium nuclei scattered throughout the atmosphere was extraordinarily difficult. According to scientists’ estimates, the total amount of tritium existing on Earth at any given time might be only a few kilograms. Therefore, all the tritium used on Earth was artificially produced.

And the factory Henry had discovered was very likely Osborn Industries’ secret manufacturing facility. No wonder its security was so tight.

Aside from tritium being an important ingredient in hydrogen bombs, the safety concerns involved in its production, along with its extraordinarily high price of thirty thousand dollars per gram, meant that once this factory was exposed, it would face threats ranging from protests by nearby residents to sabotage by hostile forces.

Suppressing the urge to personally come over and take advantage of the situation, Henry carefully controlled the spy drone as it maneuvered through the narrow ventilation ducts.

The ventilation ducts were nowhere near wide enough for an adult to crawl through. Fortunately, the Sparrow spy drone was even smaller than the Little Duck auxiliary drone. Otherwise, getting inside would have been quite a challenge.

Norman Osborn, who valued his own life, naturally had no reason to enter the factory floor personally for an inspection. He simply stood outside the isolation zone, watching the activity inside through the glass curtain wall while listening to the factory manager’s report.

Although the spy drone could reconstruct their conversation through lip movements and sound-wave vibrations, they were merely discussing matters related to the company’s operations. Henry was not here to conduct industrial espionage, so there was naturally no need for him to pay attention to that.

Meanwhile, the Sparrow spy drone searching the Osborn mansion sent back new information. Although it had failed to find a computer port connected to the company’s internal network, the Sparrow had discovered a secret room inside the mansion.

It had found the location by tracing the electrical wiring inside the walls. The wires elsewhere were only 1.6 or 1.8 millimeters in diameter, with the largest being no more than 3 millimeters.

So when there was a place that required a cable to supply power, yet was not an electrical substation, there had to be something fishy inside. Otherwise, it would be practically insulting Superman’s Kryptonian superbrain.

Although the spy drone could use cross-analysis of magnetic fields and temperature to determine the routes and specifications of the wires inside the walls, even after switching through several observation modes, it still could not see what was inside the room connected to that cable.

Was it protected by lead plates? Or were there other security measures preventing the spy drone from seeing inside?

Henry circled the area several times but could not find an opening through which he could enter. This secret space was one of the few places in the Osborn mansion that he had discovered but could not see through.

The other places were small safes whose thick walls blocked most of the spy drone’s detection methods. In other words, this secret space could essentially be regarded as a large vault.

Henry positioned spy drones in three locations that were most likely to be entrances or exits to the secret space, fixing them in inconspicuous corners of the ceiling and preparing to wait patiently for his prey.

These locations were not only outside the blind spots of the indoor surveillance cameras, but with their optical camouflage activated, it was highly unlikely that anyone would notice or discover them.

If he had guessed the locations wrong... he would just have to figure out another way to deal with it.

As for his idea of infiltrating the internal network, Henry realized that he had oversimplified things. It was 2002. Although the USB interface specification had been established back in the 1990s, it had yet to be widely adopted.

It was not until 1998, when Apple’s iMac G3 burst onto the scene, that it not only helped rescue Apple’s stock price but also marked a major turning point in computer history by popularizing the USB interface.

That trend simply had not yet blown strongly enough onto personal PCs. The most advanced servers did have a need for hot-swappable hardware, but even if someone constantly pursued the latest PC models, what kind of idiot would upgrade their home server hardware every single year?

Simply put, in a mansion this enormous, Henry could not find a single USB port that would allow him to carry out a physical intrusion.

And the use of hubs was even more frustrating. Every available port was occupied, leaving Henry unable to find an empty slot into which he could plug a network cable from a spy drone and carry out an intrusion.

In short, as far as exploring the Osborn mansion was concerned, unless someone opened that secret space whose interior the spy drones could not penetrate, giving a Sparrow an opportunity to slip inside, there was essentially nothing left to investigate within the mansion.

At this moment, Norman Osborn was riding in his own luxury car, passing through the Midtown Tunnel in Queens and returning to Manhattan.

The car was moving rather quickly inside the tunnel, and the three-Sparrow formation was struggling somewhat to keep up. It seemed that the spy drones were not particularly well suited for this kind of tracking.

Henry recorded this minor shortcoming in his notes, intending to research and improve it later.

After inspecting the tritium production facility, Norman Osborn did not head to the headquarters of his own company. Instead, he returned to his mansion near the United Nations Headquarters.

As soon as Norman Osborn returned home, he went alone into the secret room where Henry’s spy drone was lying in wait.

Sure enough, inside was a complete set of Green Goblin equipment and weapons, a flight glider charging on standby, and rows of Green Goblin serum.

The equipment was supported by various technological devices for maintenance and inspection. There was even small-scale weapons-manufacturing equipment capable of producing pumpkin bombs and other ammunition. The Green Goblin serum had refrigerators and corresponding chemical equipment for storage and preparation, and even for ensuring that it could be used safely.

At this point, Henry discovered his second misconception.

Norman Osborn’s activities disguised as the Green Goblin were themselves a secret within the Osborn household. Perhaps the old butler who was close to the family knew about it, but he had merely been unable to keep it from him; Norman Osborn had not voluntarily told him.

Therefore, when accompanied by outsiders, Norman Osborn would not transform into the Green Goblin and go out to cause trouble. And since he always traveled in a private car with a driver, it was impossible for the Green Goblin’s base to be located anywhere outside his own mansion.

Judging from the equipment in this secret space, there was probably little doubt that Norman Osborn genuinely possessed a doctorate. At the very least, he had designed and built his Green Goblin helmet himself, and he had personally modified his armor. It was unlikely that he had left such work to employees at Osborn Industries.

Having such hands-on ability proved that Norman Osborn was no ordinary businessman. In the comics, after taking over the assets of Tony Stark, who had resigned as Director of S.H.I.E.L.D., he was able to put on an Iron Man suit and transform himself into Iron Patriot.

That said, Norman Osborn was still a step behind Tony Stark in terms of ability.

At the very least, Tony had locked away all of the arc reactors before leaving, so when Norman obtained the Iron Man armor, he not only had to change its paint job, but also had to replace its power source. Otherwise, the armor would simply be a useless piece of metal.

And Norman Osborn had not entered this secret space for routine equipment maintenance, of course.

He quickly changed into the Green Goblin armor, stepped onto the flight glider, and secretly departed through another passage, ready to go cause trouble.

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