After settling the "chocolate ration" agreement, Ethan and Venom shifted focus to something far more important—revenge. Every other matter paled in comparison.
"Ugh… I'm burning with rage, and I've got nowhere to unleash it. No trace of the guy who did this," Ethan muttered, raking his hand through his hair, clearly agitated.
Venom didn't respond verbally. Instead, one of his tendrils extended from Ethan's side, picked up a pencil from the desk, and began sketching furiously on a blank sheet of paper.
Ethan leaned forward. "Who's this?" he asked, watching as the figure took shape.
Venom set down the pencil, blew the graphite dust away, and replied, "This is the man I saw behind the wheel—the one who hit you."
"I only got a clear glimpse during the moment when your emotions flared after the crash. That surge allowed me to push my perception outward, just enough to capture his face."
"If I'd had more time, I could've combed through your past memories and made a clean match—but your mind was a mess of pain and adrenaline."
Ethan studied the portrait. It was eerily lifelike. "Damn… if pizza delivery ever goes under, we're opening a street portrait booth."
Venom gave a smug, toothy grin. "This is a minor talent. Not worth boasting about." His tone was humble, but his flex was obvious.
With the sketch in hand, Ethan murmured, "Well, we've got the guy's face. That's something. But how do we track him down? We can't just hand this out like some lost dog flyer."
Venom remained silent, uninterested in detective work. His focus was elsewhere—on his favorite topic: food.
"If this guy has backup… more enemies… more heads…" Venom thought to himself, his body practically trembling with anticipation. "So many fresh brains, rich in phenylethylamine…"
He bared his teeth in a slow, giddy grin.
"Hey!" Ethan snapped, nudging him. "Why do you always zone out with that creepy grin? What are you thinking about now?"
Venom flinched back into awareness. "Ah—sorry. I was… temporarily distracted."
Ethan sighed and continued, "I said maybe we should try the police department's facial recognition database. The cops must've started looking into the hit-and-run by now. The guy's probably in there, especially if he's got a record."
"True," Ethan added, "The officer who took my statement said they were searching for the truck's driver. But now that I think about it… if this guy really planned the accident, he wouldn't be careless enough to get caught on camera. He probably used a false ID—or he's already been silenced."
Venom tilted his head, his tone growing serious. "Then this guy was likely a professional. Not some drunk driver. A hitman or a mercenary. Which means… there's a good chance he's already in the criminal database."
Ethan nodded slowly, processing it. "Yeah… if he's not new to this, he's probably popped up before. Fingerprints, mugshots, gang affiliations—something. That sketch might give us a hit."
"And the best part," Venom added, voice low and gravelly, "he has no idea I got a clear view of him. He thinks he's safe. That makes him vulnerable."
Ethan's jaw tightened. "Then let's hit the police database. Tonight."
The two fell silent, the tension between them heavy but unified. In this moment, they weren't bickering partners—they were a weapon being sharpened.
The city lights outside flickered in reflection against the window. Somewhere in those shadows, Ethan's attacker was walking free. Not for long.
Then Ethan glanced out at the pitch-black night beyond the window, turned back toward Venom, and said calmly, "Now's the perfect time. There should only be a skeleton crew on duty at the precinct this late."
True to his word, he acted without hesitation. With a simple thought, Venom surged from within and coated his entire body in seconds, forming the black living armor that clung to him like a second skin.
Ethan slid the window open, crouched, and leaped out into the cool night air, disappearing into the urban darkness.
To ensure the data would be thorough and access unrestricted, he headed straight for the New York City Police Headquarters in One Police Plaza, Lower Manhattan—the nerve center of all NYPD operations. If the information existed anywhere, it would be here.
At this hour, the headquarters was a ghost town. Only a few officers on the night shift roamed the halls, occasionally emerging with flashlights to patrol.
Carefully observing their inspection patterns, Ethan identified a window of time between passes. Then, silently, he clung to the wall like a shadow and began climbing upward—his grip enhanced by both the symbiote's adhesive ability and his own strengthened musculature.
Thanks to the Venom suit's sleek, matte-black finish, he was nearly invisible in the dark. Unless someone was within ten feet with a flashlight, they'd never spot him pressed into the side of the building.
Ethan quickly reached the window of the Records and Reference Room. Inside, rows of massive bookshelves stood stacked with physical files. Near the entrance, several desktops sat idly on desks—each one potentially loaded with valuable data.
He tried the window. Locked.
Without hesitation, he extended two fingers, and Venom formed narrow tendrils, slipping through the window's small seal. The tendrils manipulated the latch inside, and with a soft click, the lock gave way.
Ethan eased the window open and slipped through like a wraith, landing with barely a sound. He crouched, surveying the room.
"Let's start with the computers," he whispered. "If those don't work, then we dig through files the old-fashioned way."
He sat at the nearest terminal. The NYPD database had at least some form of internal network—archaic, but functional. Typing rapidly, Ethan bypassed the password screen using basic command-line overrides, exploiting vulnerabilities that should've been patched decades ago.
The screen blinked. He was in.
He navigated to the criminal records archive and clicked a random profile—just to test the database.
A mugshot popped up, complete with biometric data.
"Jackpot," Ethan murmured—then frowned.
"Damn it. It's all name-based search. No reverse image recognition at all?" His expression fell. "All I've got is a face. No name, no ID…"
He scrolled through dozens of files and sighed. "Don't tell me I've gotta go through these one by one?"
He leaned back in the chair, rubbing his temples. But something didn't sit right. "Hold on. This is the NYPD. There's no way they haven't got facial recognition, especially with citywide surveillance cams."
His fingers flew across the keyboard again. He searched every system folder, auxiliary protocol, and sub-directory he could find—but nothing. No facial search. No image-based AI.
"Unbelievable," Ethan muttered. "It's 2025 and these guys are running on Windows XP with a badge. I could probably make better tech in my sleep."
Venom stirred. "You could sell it to them later. Make money and build a backdoor for future access."
Ethan grinned. "Exactly what I was thinking."
Even under pressure, his instincts as a systems engineer from his past life resurfaced. He opened the local compiler and began coding a bare-bones facial recognition program—nothing fancy, just a one-time-use search tool.
No fluff, no UI—just raw function. Scan and match.
He worked silently, save for the tapping of keys and the low hum of the CPU. Two hours passed.
Finally, with a satisfied nod, he said, "That should do it."
He pulled out the sketch Venom had drawn earlier, scanned it using the office printer's flatbed scanner, and uploaded the image into the new program.
"Let's go."
The moment he launched the executable, the old workstation groaned like it was dying. The fans spun up to full blast, and the screen flickered.
"Jesus," Ethan winced. "This thing's built like it's from the Stark Expo 1999."
It wasn't surprising. Compared to the advanced computational systems from his original world, Earth-616's tech—even with geniuses like Tony Stark and Reed Richards—was wildly inconsistent depending on who was in charge of the department.
This station was not one of the lucky ones.