Looking at the blood and minced meat scattered across the floor, Dr. List remained calm.
The facade of the patriotic scientist he had worn when facing the young man was completely gone.
He merely waved his hand with slight disgust, signaling the staff waiting on the side to go in and clean up the mess.
After it was washed clean, a second youth of similar age was brought into the laboratory.
In this disaster-stricken land, people who disliked or even hated Tony were everywhere on the streets.
Just by saying a few words on the street, one could lure a large group of anti-Stark youths.
After all, Sokovia had suffered from war for years, and since Tony was once the World's largest arms supplier, no matter which faction was attacking Sokovia, they all used Bombs manufactured by Stark Industries.
From a certain perspective, this could be considered a form of recognition for Stark Industries...
Look at Hammer Industries; they didn't have this much nonsense.
Take the twins Wanda and Pietro, for example; their parents were killed by a Stark Bomb.
Now, this pair of vengeful siblings was already on the List of experimental subjects selected by Baron Strucker.
Su Modie could understand why these Sokovian youths hated Tony, but seeing this hatred being exploited by HYDRA to turn them into cheap consumables to fill the laboratory's voids was truly hard to watch.
Dr. List and his research team were also a bunch of geniuses; the method they adopted was the most primitive brute-force approach.
They dragged these civilians in one by one to test them, observing just how far the Mind Stone could amplify human emotions.
But the final results were horrific.
The youths participating in the experiment would watch the news on the screen, becoming flushed with anger and gnashing their teeth.
Under the influence of the Scepter, their emotions would inflate and spiral out of Control. Mortal bodies could simply not withstand this overload of energy erosion, and they would explode in uncontrollable rage, turning into piles of minced meat and remains, finally being mercilessly flushed into the trash.
Makima didn't feel it was particularly cruel; she just thought Dr. List was stupid.
Playing brute-force like this, even if they killed every youth in all of Sokovia, they wouldn't get a result.
This was purely hoping for a blind cat to catch a dead mouse, yet they actually happened to stumble upon a pair of "dead mouse" twins.
One could only say that HYDRA had some dumb luck on their side.
But now Su Modie finally understood; although HYDRA had more people, more money, and more equipment, and seemed more efficient than the scavenger Vulture in New York, when it came to brains, they were truly inferior to Vulture's ragtag group.
By comparison, HYDRA played even wilder; they were truly a bunch of geniuses.
Su Modie couldn't bear to watch any longer. Although these youths hated Tony, and she had a pretty good impression of Tony, having opposing stances didn't mean she wouldn't treat people like human beings.
"Let's help them," Su Modie said silently.
Upon hearing this, Makima raised no objections and turned to walk outside.
Before she had taken a few steps, a splash of scarlet blood splattered against the one-way glass behind her with a "pop."
The snowstorm outside had lessened slightly over the past two days, making the snow-covered roads barely passable.
Otherwise, Dr. List wouldn't have been able to transport so many young experimental subjects into the mountains, one truckload after another.
Makima simply took Bronski and left the castle, driving to Sokovia's capital—Novi Grad.
On the street, several HYDRA soldiers were disguised as government workers, handing out flyers.
Actually, it couldn't really be called a disguise; the extent to which the Sokovian government was infiltrated by HYDRA was by no means less than that of S.H.I.E.L.D. on the other side of the ocean.
They wore kind smiles, distributing food and water to the young people protesting against Tony, acting like good-natured gentlemen, when in reality, they were just building trust before taking them back to the fortress for human experimentation.
Makima couldn't be bothered to expose their tricks.
She stood on the side of the road, looking around, searching for her target.
Several rats under Control crawled out of the sewers, scattering through the streets and alleys of Novi Grad, acting as her eyes and ears.
Not long after, in a remote and damp alley, the rats' vision transmitted back two familiar figures.
Wanda and Pietro, in their early twenties, were sitting under the cold wall.
Because of that missile, the two had lost their parents early and became orphans.
Now they relied entirely on odd jobs to make money, barely surviving in this economically depressed city.
Come to think of it, although in Su Modie's impression, the current Wanda and Pietro were just half-grown children who didn't know anything, like blank sheets of paper, if one calculated carefully, their actual ages were four or five years older than Su Modie.
The half-grown children in her impression actually saw her as the half-grown child... who could she reason with about that?
In the alley, Wanda was wearing an old men's jacket that was clearly a size too big.
She held the water and food she had just received from the government personnel and handed it to Pietro beside her.
"Pietro, what do you think about that Project Miracle the people were talking about?" Wanda asked softly, her tone thoughtful. "I suspect the government is paying people to test new drugs. There's definitely risk, but it shouldn't be too high."
"And the flyer said they provide food and accommodation."
Wanda and the others still seemed to trust the Sokovian government quite a bit.
Su Modie, who was eavesdropping through the rats, almost couldn't hold back when she heard this.
Yeah, they provided food and accommodation, and they'd even take care of the burial.
Pietro took the water bottle, took a big gulp, and then pushed the bread back to Wanda.
"We really should go check it out."
He wiped the corner of his mouth, his expression serious. "But I'll go test it out first. If there are no problems after a week, you can come."
Although Pietro was only born twelve minutes before Wanda, in these days of relying on each other, he had always tried his best to fulfill the responsibilities of an older brother.
Wanda shook her head, feeling that there was no need to act separately.
Listening to their conversation, they clearly really thought it was just a clinical trial for a new government drug.
Just as the siblings were sitting in the alley, whispering about whether or not to sign up together, the shadows at the alley entrance were suddenly blocked by two figures.
Makima, wearing high heels and accompanied by Bronski, walked slowly and unhurriedly into the narrow, cramped alley.
Seeing Makima walk into the alley, Wanda and Pietro simultaneously shut their mouths.
The two subconsciously shrank their bodies against the wall, trying to make room in the already cramped passageway.
The inferiority and timidity of living at the bottom for so long couldn't be hidden at this moment.
It was mainly because the woman in front of them was too dazzling.
That stunningly beautiful face, combined with an aura that felt as powerful as if she were six feet tall, plus that high-end coat which, just by looking at the material, was clearly expensive.
Walking on the streets of a gray and dilapidated city like Sokovia, she was like a walking Sun.
While being completely out of place, she also made people afraid to look directly at her.
They had assumed such a big figure was just passing by.
But unexpectedly, the woman walked straight up to them and stopped.
Makima hooked the corners of her mouth, revealing a smile that felt like a spring breeze, and spoke softly.
"I just heard that you seem to be talking about Project Miracle?"
Wanda and Pietro were stunned for a moment, and after exchanging a glance, they nodded hesitantly.
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