After breakfast, Daisy chatted with the hotel receptionist and mentioned her concerns about local security.
The receptionist recommended a local gun shop.
After spending 1,100 U.S.
dollars, she walked away with two Glock 18s and two boxes of ammunition.
The pistols were easy to carry: one tucked into the waistband at the small of her back, the other concealed inside her backpack.
In theory, they would be enough to deal with ordinary trouble.
Over the next few days, she immersed herself in local legends, historical accounts, libraries, and online forums, searching for clues about the ancient city.
For three consecutive days, she visited the San Juan police station, claiming she had read online about a couple who had lost their daughter there eighteen years earlier and that she had come to follow those clues in search of her biological parents.
After verifying her U.S.
passport, the officers patiently assisted her investigation over the course of those three days.
Searching for her parents was merely a cover story.
Daisy needed a believable reason for openly investigating Puerto Rico, and more importantly, it allowed her to plant a Trojan horse in the police computer system.
Using the police database, she obtained the architectural plans of Old San Juan.
Although she had no background in architecture and couldn’t identify anything unusual on her own, she combined the plans with her memories and a fair amount of educated guesswork to identify several key locations.
Originally, Old San Juan had been known as San Cristóbal, a massive fortress built by the Spanish to control the Caribbean Sea.
Over the centuries, it had played a significant role in resisting invasions by the Dutch, the British, and later the United States.
Everything pointed to one conclusion.
The ancient city of the Inhumans lay deep beneath the fortress.
For a large organization, reaching this stage of intelligence gathering meant the hardest part was already over.
The next step would simply be clearing the site and bringing in heavy excavation equipment.
According to her memories, S.H.I.E.L.D.
had used high-speed cutting machines, while HYDRA had deployed plasma drills.
Daisy, on the other hand, didn’t even own a shovel.
As for buying one and digging the place out herself—like starring in a real-life version of ‘Ghost Blows Out the Light’—that hardly seemed realistic.
A brute-force approach simply wasn’t an option.
Instead, Daisy buried herself in the San Juan library, searching through every document she could find.
Pressure truly was the greatest motivator.
While conducting her research, her Spanish improved dramatically.
Although she still spoke somewhat haltingly, reading and writing no longer posed much difficulty.
Among the local folklore, she came across an account that sounded like nothing more than an urban legend.
According to the story, a watchtower once stood on the fortress’s northern side, overlooking the sea.
For generations, no one had dared remain stationed there.
Historical records listed eleven soldiers as missing, while local legend claimed that an ancient demon slept beneath the tower.
Daisy felt a slight chill.
Did demons exist in the Marvel Universe?
Yes.
But they weren’t supposed to be here.
The historical records stated that none of the missing soldiers had ever been found, dead or alive.
To Daisy, that strongly suggested the existence of a passage leading directly into the Underground City.
Without Inhuman blood, those soldiers had entered but never returned.
For someone working alone, this so-called urban legend was actually excellent news.
August in Puerto Rico was unbearably hot.
San Juan wasn’t a particularly large city, and its streets were narrow.
Contrary to the violent image she had imagined beforehand, she saw no shootouts or gang warfare.
Local residents peacefully set up umbrellas and roadside stalls, going about their daily lives without disturbance.
Daisy purchased several lengths of rope, a dagger, and a handful of glow sticks.
She remembered that the Underground City possessed a unique magnetic field capable of disabling electronic devices.
Many of her supplies would become useless once she entered, but she still packed a flashlight.
It would at least be useful during the early part of the journey before eventually becoming disposable.
She also bought compressed rations and bottled water.
On television, exploring the city had taken only forty minutes.
Reality, however, would almost certainly be different.
After all, it was an enormous underground city, and she would have to cross it entirely on foot.
Remembering the misery of military training, she also bought a large package of sanitary pads.
They could serve as makeshift shoe inserts and, if necessary, for their intended purpose.
Either way, they were indispensable.
The existing city blueprints offered little help once she entered the Underground City, but Daisy still copied them by hand and carried the sketches with her, leaving both her notebook and her phone behind at the hotel.
She wore a beige shirt over a camisole, rolled up the sleeves, paired it with jeans and sneakers, strapped a mechanical watch to her wrist, and stuffed a jacket into her backpack.
It wasn’t exactly comfortable attire for Puerto Rico’s summer heat.
Still, she expected the Underground City to be cold, damp, and filthy.
Being overprepared was preferable to the alternative.
After eating her fill and making one final equipment check, Daisy took the obelisk and slipped into the supposedly haunted watchtower on a bright afternoon.
She had no formal counter-surveillance training.
Whether she entered during the day or at night made little difference.
If someone happened to be following her, daylight would actually make them easier to notice.
She quietly turned onto the narrow path leading to the tower.
The structure had long since fallen into abandonment.
It barely even had a functioning door.
Dust covered every surface inside, and the air was noticeably cooler.
She immediately put on her jacket.
Completely focused, she began searching.
Before long, she found a hollow concealed beneath a pile of weeds and cautiously descended the stone staircase with her pistol drawn.
It turned out to be an old wine cellar.
Apparently, the soldiers stationed there had dug it out themselves to store wine and escape the loneliness of their post.
She tapped each floor tile and every section of wall until she finally discovered a concealed opening beneath the western wall.
The last guard had apparently sealed the passage before leaving, but the work had been crude.
It took only a few moments for Daisy to pry it open.
Having read more than her share of tomb-raiding novels, she stood outside for a while before cautiously reaching toward the opening.
A steady current of cool air flowed across her fingertips.
She tied her long hair into a ponytail, mounted the flashlight onto a miner’s helmet, put it on, and carefully crawled into the tunnel.
The passage had clearly been excavated by the guards stationed at the watchtower.
Their motives were obvious enough.
They had probably believed treasure lay hidden beneath the fortress.
The tunnel was extremely narrow.
Daisy spent nearly an hour crawling through it in an awkward prone position.
There was only one word to describe the experience.
Exhausting.
Wilderness survival was far from comfortable.
She regretted wearing an ordinary bra instead of a sports bra.
After crawling for an hour, the discomfort was almost impossible to describe.
Fortunately, that stretch of tunnel wasn’t especially long.
After climbing over a gentle slope, the passage suddenly widened.
A broader path sloped gently downward before her.
Just as she had expected, her flashlight died.
Covered in dust, Daisy knew she had entered the boundaries of the ancient Underground City.
Facing the pitch-black corridor ahead, she felt an overwhelming sense of silent fear.
And beneath that fear…
A trace of excitement.
Instead of activating a glow stick, she instinctively reached into her backpack and grasped the obelisk.
The object’s previously mirror-smooth surface suddenly revealed countless glowing orange-red lines.
Having spent days studying the layout of San Juan, Daisy recognized it immediately.
The markings formed a map.
All of the glowing lines converged at a single location.
Her destination.
The obelisk continued to radiate warmth and light.
At the same time, it conveyed a simple, unmistakable message.
Follow.
The sensation came from nowhere, yet felt completely natural.
Its faint glow illuminated the passage just enough for her to see her surroundings.
Only a few steps away lay seven or eight skeletons.
They had apparently been immobilized the moment they crossed into the city’s boundary and had eventually died where they fell.
Farther ahead, even more skeletal remains littered the passage.
Judging from their clothing, they belonged to Spanish soldiers, Indigenous people, and various small animals.
Confirming the direction indicated by the obelisk, Daisy continued deeper into the Underground City.