With Venom’s food problem temporarily settled by the sacred authority of chocolate, Leon turned his attention back to what actually mattered.
Revenge.
Compared with everything else, finding the people responsible for Ben’s death took priority.
Leon sat at his desk and dragged a hand through his hair.
“This is frustrating.” Venom’s head rose beside him.
“All this anger, and I don’t even know who to point it at.” Leon leaned back.
“We don’t have a name.
We don’t have an address.
We don’t even know who ordered the hit.” Venom didn’t answer.
Instead, a tendril stretched toward the desk.
It wrapped around a pencil.
Leon watched curiously as Venom pulled over a blank sheet of paper and began drawing.
The pencil moved at an almost absurd speed.
Lines appeared.
Facial structure.
Hair.
Eyes.
Nose.
Jaw.
Within minutes, a detailed portrait of a man had appeared on the page.
Leon stared at it.
“Who’s that?” Venom dropped the pencil.
A tendril brushed away some loose graphite.
“The truck driver.” Leon immediately straightened.
“The one who hit us?” “Yep.” Venom pointed at the portrait.
“This is the guy I sensed after the crash.” Leon picked up the paper.
The likeness was almost photographic.
Venom continued.
“Unfortunately, I only managed to extend my senses properly after your emotions went completely out of control.” The symbiote sounded slightly annoyed by the limitation.
“So I got his face.” A pause.
“That’s about it.” Leon studied the portrait.
“If you’d been able to sense things earlier…” “We could probably analyze everyone you’ve interacted with recently and narrow down who had a reason to target you.” Venom nodded.
“But your mind had me locked up tighter than a prison vault back then.” Leon gave it a sideways look.
“Sorry.” “You should be.” Leon almost smiled.
Still holding the portrait, he examined Venom.
“This is ridiculously accurate.” Venom puffed itself up.
“If the pizzeria ever goes bankrupt, we could always become street artists.” Venom immediately pretended not to be impressed with itself.
“This is a trivial skill.” “Of course.” “Barely worth mentioning.” “You look very humble.” “I am extremely humble.” Leon looked back at the portrait.
At least now they had something tangible.
“A face.” His expression hardened.
“Next step is attaching a name to it.” That was easier said than done.
Leon couldn’t exactly print thousands of copies of the sketch and start handing them out across New York asking whether anyone recognized the man.
Venom wasn’t much help either.
The symbiote’s primary interest seemed to be whether the driver had enough accomplices to provide a satisfying meal later.
Hopefully he has a lot of friends, Venom thought eagerly.
One head isn’t much of a feast.
It imagined one criminal after another.
Fresh brains.
Plenty of energy.
Its grin slowly widened.
“Heh…
heh…” Leon looked up.
“Venom.” No response.
“Heeeey.” Leon slapped the side of its head.
Venom snapped back to reality.
“What?” “I’ve been talking to you.” “Oh.” Venom cleared its throat.
“Sorry.
Got distracted.” “By what?” “Nothing important.” Leon stared suspiciously at the enormous teeth.
He decided he didn’t want to know.
“I said we should check police records.” That got Venom’s attention.
Leon placed the portrait on the desk.
“The police should have records on plenty of people who’ve been arrested before.” “Especially repeat offenders.” “Exactly.” Leon tapped the sketch.
“The officer at the hospital said they were searching for the hit-and-run driver.” At the time, Leon had subconsciously assumed the police knew who they were looking for.
Now that he thought about it, that assumption didn’t make much sense.
Someone had planned the crash carefully.
Traffic along the route had somehow been reduced beforehand.
The truck had appeared at exactly the right moment.
The driver had fled immediately.
Whoever organized the attack had clearly prepared for it.
A person capable of arranging all that probably wouldn’t be careless enough to drive a truck registered under his real identity.
“The police might know who the truck is registered to,” Leon said, “but that doesn’t mean the registered owner was actually driving.” Venom nodded.
“The real owner could be fake.” “Or dead.” Leon said it without emotion.
Venom considered that.
“Which means the driver probably believes nobody knows what he actually looks like.” Leon looked at the portrait again.
“He doesn’t know you saw him.” Venom grinned.
“Exactly.” Leon leaned forward.
“And someone willing to deliberately murder two people with a truck probably didn’t begin his criminal career yesterday.” “A record.” “That’s what I’m hoping.” Leon looked toward the window.
“If his face is somewhere in an NYPD database, we might be able to identify him.” Venom’s grin became predatory.
“And once we have a name…” “We find him.” “And ask nicely.” Leon looked at Venom.
Venom’s tongue slid across its teeth.
“Very nicely.” Leon knew exactly what that meant.
Still, he couldn’t disagree with the underlying point.
Once they found the driver, getting answers probably wouldn’t be difficult.
Leon turned toward the window.
Night had already fallen.
The city outside was dark.
He checked the time.
“This is actually perfect.” Venom tilted its head.
“Why?” “It’s late.” Leon stood.
“Police headquarters should be much quieter now.
Mostly night-shift staff.” Venom’s eyes brightened.
“We’re breaking into the police station?” Leon glanced at it.
“We’re borrowing information.” “That sounds like breaking in.” “Temporarily borrowing information without permission.” Venom grinned.
“I like your version better.” Leon looked down at the portrait one last time.
Then he made his decision.
“Let’s go.” Black material spread across his body almost instantly.
Venom formed the hooded suit they’d designed together.
Leon walked toward the window.
He opened it.
Cold night air rushed inside.
Then he stepped onto the ledge.
And jumped.
Thwip!
A strand of webbing caught a distant building.
Leon swung out into the darkness.
To maximize the chances of finding a useful record, Leon went straight to NYPD headquarters in Lower Manhattan.
At this hour, the building was considerably quieter.
There were still officers on duty, of course.
New York didn’t stop producing crime simply because it was late.
But the records area was far less active than it would’ve been during the day.
Leon remained in the shadows and watched.
Several officers occasionally walked through the area with flashlights.
Patrol.
Wait.
Another patrol.
Wait.
Leon studied their timing until a pattern became clear.
When the next officer disappeared around a corner, he moved.
His hands and feet adhered silently to the building.
Leon crawled straight up the exterior wall.
The black suit made him almost invisible against the shadows.
Someone looking directly at him from close range might’ve noticed the two pale eyes beneath his hood.
From farther away?
He blended into the darkness.
Leon soon reached a window overlooking the records room.
He peered inside.
Large shelves filled most of the space.
Boxes.
Paper files.
Archived reports.
Several computers sat closer to the entrance.
Leon tested the window.
Locked.
“Of course.” A thin strand of Venom extended from one fingertip.
The tendril slipped through the narrow gap around the window and reached the latch inside.
Click.
Leon opened the window and slipped silently into the room.
He closed it behind him.
For a moment, he simply looked around.
Paper records could wait.
The computers would be far faster.
“If the digital files don’t have what we need, then we start searching the shelves.” Venom groaned quietly inside his head.
“I hope the computers work.” “So do I.” Leon sat down.
His fingers moved across the keyboard.
It didn’t take him long to get past the system’s basic protections.
Soon, a database of criminal records appeared on the monitor.
Leon rubbed his hands together.
“Finally.” He opened it.
Then stared.
His expression collapsed.
“You’ve got to be kidding me.” Venom emerged slightly from his shoulder.
“What?” Leon pointed at the screen.
“The search function expects a name.” Venom stared.
They looked at the portrait.
Then back at the screen.
They had a face.
No name.
Leon scrolled through the records.
Pages.
More pages.
Far more entries than he could reasonably inspect manually.
“So what?” Venom asked.
“We look at every mugshot?” Leon rubbed his forehead.
“That could take forever.” He wasn’t ready to give up.
There had to be some kind of image-comparison tool.
Police regularly worked with surveillance footage.
Security cameras didn’t conveniently print suspects’ names beneath their faces.
Surely there had to be some way to compare an unknown face with criminal records.
Leon searched.
Nothing obvious.
He searched again.
Still nothing.
After considerably more digging, he leaned back in disbelief.
“Seriously?” Venom looked at him.
“They don’t have one?” “Not anything useful enough for what we need.” Leon stared at the computer.
The technology available in this world was noticeably behind what he remembered from his previous life.
It wasn’t primitive.
But some of the tools Leon had taken for granted simply didn’t exist yet—or weren’t nearly as mature.
His frustration slowly turned into thoughtfulness.
“Interesting.” “What?” “This could actually become a business opportunity later.” Venom stared.
Leon gestured toward the computer.
“Software that helps law enforcement compare unknown faces against existing records.” He considered the idea further.
“Sell them the software and make money.” Venom nodded.
“Excellent.” “And potentially gain legitimate access to certain systems in the future.” Venom’s grin widened.
“Even more excellent.” Leon looked at the clock.
Business plans could wait.
He had a murderer to identify.
“If they don’t have the tool I need…” His fingers returned to the keyboard.
“I’ll make one.” Venom watched.
“Right now?” “Right now.” Leon wasn’t trying to build a commercial product.
It didn’t need a polished interface.
It didn’t need to be scalable.
It didn’t need to survive years of use.
It only needed to perform one job tonight: Compare Venom’s portrait against the images in the criminal database and produce possible matches.
Even with Leon’s ability, putting together a functional prototype still took roughly two hours.
Eventually, he leaned back.
“That should do it.” He scanned Venom’s drawing and loaded the image into the program.
Then he started the comparison.
The computer immediately protested.
Its fans spun loudly.
The machine struggled under the workload.
Venom looked toward the tower.
“Is it supposed to sound like that?” Leon listened to the strained hardware.
“Probably not.” The machine continued churning through the records.
Leon sighed.
The problem wasn’t necessarily his program.
The computer itself simply wasn’t designed for this kind of workload.
Technology in this era had a long way to go compared with what Leon remembered.
Still— The program was running.
Slowly.
But running.
Leon stared at the screen.
Somewhere inside that database might be the first real lead to the people who had murdered Ben.
Now all he had to do was wait for the machine to find it.
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