05.13 pm Central time, Houston, Texas

Dan Truman paced nervously around the large room. He had not been able to stand still since a phone call woke him up two days ago. He looked around and watched the men and women in the room working. The room was huge, probably 55ft in width and 30ft in length with a high ceiling. Fifty work stations were arranged in two rows with five computers in one line. The people at the computers faced the back of the room; each line was sitting on a step that was about one foot lower than the last one so nobody's view was blocked by the person in front of him. Truman walked up and down the stairs between the rows, hoping for something to happen.

"I think I got something", a man on the other side of the room said.

Truman stopped immediately and turned in the direction the voice came from.

"You think?" He asked.

"Um, well, I am pretty sure I found him. The scans showed a large amount of metal in and around his body."

"How much metal?"

"About 45."

"Good enough. Put it on the large screen."

At this command the blank wall on the end of the room first turned black and after a few seconds showed a crowded street in birds-eye-view. A lot of cars moved slowly street the two different directions. All people on the sidewalk seemed to be in a hurry, they moved a lot faster then the cars. It was rush hour in New York.

"Where is he?"

A small square with a white outline appeared in the upper right corner on the screen. Zooming in on the square several people became visible. A mother hurried along the street dragging her child on one hand behind her, a business man with the latest newspaper tried to avoid crashing into people while reading at the same time, two young women chartered. Normal people doing their business during the day, only one person didn't seem to fit in, a large man standing alone on the sidewalk, the people around him seemed to avoid him.

"Can you go closer?"

The camera focused on the man and zoomed in on him till the image of the man filled the whole screen. He had brown hair and was wearing a long worn trench coat that had an undefined color of something between black, brown and green. He was wearing sunglasses.

"What do you think?" Truman said into the room not addressing anyone in particular.

"I think it's him", a woman behind him answered. "Me too", a man to his right agreed. He looked around and saw several people nod in silent agreement.

"Okay! Let's get him!" He turned around and started walking towards the door to leave the room, his hand already on the doorknob he turned his head back to the screen and took a last look at the man, who had no idea that Truman was watching him.
Maybe we have at least some luck today. He opened the door sighing and walked out of the room.

09.34 pm Eastern Time Manhattan, New York City

This had not been a good day for Otto Octavius. It had began this morning when he had woken up and looked directly in the face of a rat sitting next to his head starring at him. He had hardly been able suppress a scream. His hideout had become rat infested, again. Then around noon a gang of thieves had decided to use the warehouse he had been hiding in as theirs. He had figured they would not leave any time soon and the only way to get them out any earlier had been to reveal himself and kill or frighten them, but neither of it had been a good option and so he had just decided to leave. He now did not even have a place to sleep at night and, to make it one of the worst days of his life(?) several newspapers, the Daily Bugle was one of them, stated that the police suspected him of committing murder on some guy downtown, which he had not done, of course. He had not even been near downtown the last week, but there was no way of proving them wrong without turning himself in and that was the last thing he needed today.

And now he stumbled down the street with a half-empty vodka bottle in his right hand, slightly drunk. People moved out of his way to avoid crashing into him. Walking straight was not exactly one of his best exercises even when he was sober, but he guessed that everybody would have problems with it when 116 pounds of metal were attached to their back. And that was another reason why he was drinking, the actuators. Four metal arms with artificial intelligence that had been fused to his spine in an accident several months ago and since the inhibitor chip that had been created to keep the AI out of his mind had been destroyed in said accident, they had started to talk to him, what had brought him more than ones close to the border between sanity and insanity.

"My life is a living hell!" Otto sighed. He slowly walked to the nearest wall and leaned against it. He was roving around the city all day long having no place to stay anymore and his feet hurt. He took a sip from the bottle, feeling only slightly better. The actuators under his coat moved nervously, he had kept them still the whole time, but they were curious and wanted to see everything what happened around them. The few things they saw through their hosts eyes was not enough for them. One peeked out from under Otto's coat and looked around; its red light glowed bright in the dark street. Before Otto could notice, it was soon joined by three more.

"Get back under my coat", Otto said aloud. "You will be noticed!" He was too drunk to notice that it looked like he was talking to himself for the people around him.

There is so much to see.
So many people.
They look at us.
Why are they looking at us?

Otto sighed. His life has become even worse when he discovered that the AI was evolving and the actuators were slowly developing personalities.

Right at that moment a black van pulled to the curb and two men in black suits climbed out of the side of the vehicle soon followed by a third men in a grey suit. On top of the van was a big searchlight that now turned and after a few seconds it pointed at Otto.
It was switched on and Otto felt a sharp pain in his eyes and shut them immediately, covering his face with his left hand. He was wearing dark sunglasses but the beam of the searchlight was even with shades too much for his damaged eyes, another outcome from the accident. He slowly lifted his hand from his face still blocking most of the light and squinted at the three men. The actuators tensed. They felt they no longer needed to obey his order.
"What the - !" Otto was taken aback by this situation.
One of the men in black suits moved to the right and started to block the pedestrians from coming any closer, the other man did the same on the left. The man in the grey suit took a step in Otto direction and just looked at him.

Otto felt exposed. If he had been sober he would have probably asked himself how they found him or what they want from him, but at his current state of mind, he just wondered why they were pointing with such a bright light at him. The man in front of him began to speak.

"Doctor Otto Octavius, I assume."

Otto did not answer, but the man already continued, he obviously did not need an answer.

"Dr. Octavius, my name is Dan Truman. I have to ask you to come with us and not to ask any questions."

Otto finally overcame his first shock and was now eyeing the man in front of him. He must have been in his late forties maybe early fifties. Besides the grey suit the man wore a white shirt with a red tie which had come loose. His hair was slowly turning grey and his face looked like he had not slept for the last week. The upper two actuators rose over his head making Otto struggle to keep his balance. He was not prepared for the sudden shift of weight and had to take a step forward in order not to fall. The two actuators now arched over his shoulders focusing on the man in front of him. The lower two kept an eye on the two men that blocked the pedestrians.

He is not armed. The upper two said.
But the other two are.
They have guns under their jackets.

As Dan Truman stepped out of the van he wondered if this was the right thing to do. The man in front of him was probably the most dangerous man in the world and if he did something to anger him it might be the last thing he did in his life. Truman knew that this man had killed before and he highly doubted that he would hesitate to do it again, but then you never know. Otto Octavius had kept a low profile the last month and had been hardly seen around the city, it was sheer luck they had found him so soon. Truman tried to appear as calm as he could but his hands were shaking. During the helicopter flight from Texas to New York he had been thinking of ways to accomplish the task that lay in front of him, but he had not been very successful. How do you talk to somebody that was pronounced insane by everyone, but is probably the last hope of mankind? Truman was not sure how to answer that question, in fact, he was not sure about a lot of things lately, but one thing he certainly knew.
If he did not talk to the man in front of him and convince him to come with them then ...Truman did not want to think about what happened then.
He tried to hide his shaking hands behind his back and took a step forward facing the man in the trench coat. The two men who had also been in the van with him did their job and kept the pedestrians away so Truman could talk without interruption.

"Doctor Otto Octavius, I assume." Truman started. It was an unnecessary phrase, he already knew who the man was and so did everybody who could see him. The four artificial arms that poked out the front of the coat of the man were hard to ignore.
He did not answer.
"Doctor Octavius, my name is Dan Truman. I have to ask you to come with us and not to ask any questions." He had little hope that Octavius was that easy to persuade.
Octavius still did not say anything. Then two of the actuators disappeared under the coat to reappear over their hosts shoulder only seconds later. Octavius took a step towards Truman, who felt that his nervousness slowly turned into fear, as he watched the mechanical arms rose and imagined what they were capable of doing. He had seen pictures of Octavius before but standing only about seven feet away from him was not what he had imagined. The two heads of the metal arms that were arching over Octavius' shoulders seemed to look directly at him.
Truman could not help staring at the two red lights in the middle of each head. They frightened and fascinated him at the same time.
Then, finally, Octavius spoke.
"What d' you want?" He asked and Truman dropped his gaze to look at the man. Something seemed to be odd, but he could not quite explain what. Then his look fell on the bottle in Octavius' right hand and suddenly could not help asking:
"Are you drunk?"
From what Truman could see from his face that was partially covered with his left hand Octavius looked confused. It took him a few seconds to realize the words Truman had said. He lifted the hand with the bottle and stared at it like he saw it the first time then his head turned to Truman again.
"Maybe?! I don't know."
Truman was stunned. He had expected a lot of things to happen, but that was definitely not one of them. He wondered if this new situation was going to make things better or worse, he could not decide yet.

Octavius could still not think clearly, the bright light confused him. As he stared at the bottle in his hands he realized for the first time how much he had actually drunk today and it was far too much. The alcohol was doing its job, his brain was about to shut down, but luckily the actuators were not. The AI of the arms was not affected by the alcohol; they were machines after all, although they acted very human sometimes.

Focus, Father.
You can not think clearly.
We'll help you to get out of this situation.
Just do what we say.

Okay. Under normal conditions Otto would not have liked to follow the orders of the AI, but right now he was just glad that they were doing the thinking for him.

Ask why he is here.

"Why are you here?" To his surprise the words came out of his mouth more clearly than he had thought.

"Doctor Octavius, in your current condition I highly doubt that you would understand the urgency of the issue. I just want you to come with us and I'll explain everything to you, when we are on our way."

"I am not going anywhere until you explain everything." He hissed and with a more pleasant tone he added: "And can you turn off that light please, it hurts my eyes."

Truman sighed and said nothing for a moment.
"Doctor, I am here because we need your help, this is an issue of national safety. I have to ask you to come with me, please. This is very urgent!"

"Who is 'we'?" Octavius asked. Truman bite on his lower lip.
"I will tell you if you come with us."

Otto tried another question. "What issue?"
"I will tell you if you come with us." Truman repeated.

This is not leading anywhere.
He is not going to tell us anything...
...unless we go with them.
We should leave now.

"I'm gonna leave now, if you don't have anything to say." Otto started to turn and suddenly became aware of the people that were watching them. There were about a dozen people on each side of them. Some tried to come closer, but the men in the black suits hold them back. Most of them just watched.

Truman knew he was running out of time, Octavius wanted to leave and so he did the only thing he could think of. He leaped forward in an attempt to grap the mans arm but before he could even touch the cloth of the sleeve, a metal arm snapped forward and closed its claw around Truman's wrist, bruising it badly.
"What do you think you are doing? "Octavius slowly turned towards him and looked him in the eye. At least that was what Truman thought he did, but could not say for sure, because the man's eyes were hidden behind dark lenses.
Truman thought carefully about his next words.
"Please, Doctor Octavius, we need you, you are the only person who can help us. This is not an everyday issue, this is much bigger and soon the whole world will know about it and soon... it will be too late. Please, this is a matter of life and death and I am talking about the big scale here, not only a few thousands...I am talking about billions, that will die if you don't help us. Please, Doctor Octavius. What do you have to loose?"
Octavius stood silent for a moment.
Truman was not sure what affect his little speech would have or if it would have one at all.
Then Octavius spoke.
"Okay, I'll come, but if I don't like what you want..."
The mechanical arm let go of Truman's wrist and returned to its former position over his host's shoulder.
Truman, who overheard the thread, let out a sigh of relief.
"Thank you."