First Cause • Spider-Man: Homecoming [Unedited]

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Following the directions displayed on the dimmed screen of her timekeeper, Gadea makes short work of getting to the Slingshot ship's cockpit.

The entrance is as insipid and as mundane as the rest of the ship has proven to be; all grey metal paneling and a white coat of paint where the wall is exposed underneath the all grey metal paneling. Even so, Gadea suspects that whatsoever lurks behind the doors will be anything but insipid and mundane. As her adventure through the ship thus far has been quite an exciting one, of the life-threatening variety.

The absence of other natural life is one thing. But to be coupled with an aircraft predesigned to operate under the control of not one but two pilots, functioning fairly swimmingly seemingly without them gives Gadea cause for concern. And caution.

Umbra's Grip, unlike so many other criminal groups terrorizing the galaxy, stresses the importance of keeping their android and robotic service delegation to strictly menial tasks. Opting instead for the enslavement and indoctrination of persons with a more biological makeup, the Grip holds on to their traditional stance of flesh and blood over nuts and bolts. Believing there's something sacred about the loyalty given by those of an organic constitution over cold, unfeeling algorithms and programing.

Gadea snorts. Such bollocks.

But that's what they believe. That's what Umbra has always believed—allegedly. The leader of the organization has been missing in action for as long as Gadea's been her employee.

If her timekeeper is to be trusted over her prior knowledge of the workings of the Grip, quite the opposite is in play. Behind the doors to the cockpit operates something emitting a substantial signal no carbon-based lifeform is capable of emitting.

A robot is piloting this ship, and if Gadea's mother wit is of as high a caliber as she swears it is, that robot has been watching her every move from the second the tractor beam sucked her up from the roof of the Staten Island Ferry.

It's been watching her since she blasted her way out of the Collection room and as she ran through the halls, from the surveillance cameras mounted in the nooks of every corner she turned. It most likely sent those C-6's after her when it deemed her progress would not be inhibited by simple exhaustion or any other biological factors its software might have taken into consideration when running its equations.

A software all ship artificial intelligences are equipped with.

The robot probably sees her right now, paused outside of the cockpit. Right there in that narrow hallway, with a path at her back and the closed doors at the very end of the corridor.

A surveillance camera installed at the very top of the wall to her right watches on. It doesn't perform as normal cameras do: a never-ending sweep of the perimeter in its line of sight. Instead, the camera stays fixed on her. Watching her watch it. Waiting for her to make the first offensive move and break into the cockpit, which is exactly what she's about to do.