Ok so here's Chapter 3!
Disclaimer: I Don't Own anything! :(
Rating: PG-13 for language and a sequence of violence
Dinner went by pretty fast, considering I wolfed down my food. After hugging my Aunt and giving her a kiss on the forehead and hugging Uncle Will, I raced upstairs and locked my room again. Then I spent all night researching online everything about Dr. Carl Howell, the delayed alteration algorithm, and tried to piece together everything about how it connects to my parents. I guess I passed out at my computer because when I woke up, my head was sideways on my keyboard and my hands slapped down on the number pad and the rest of the keys that weren't covered by my head.
"Greeattt," I groaned, going into the bathroom and quickly showered and pulled on a pair of black straight leg jeans, my Etnies, and a simple dark red t-shirt. I slipped my jacket on, through my backpack on my shoulders, and ran out of the house board in hand. All I could think about all day was going to OsCorp and talking to Dr. Carl Howell and tell him who I am. In most of my classes I just had my head down and was sleeping. But of course Santana had to make sure I was okay in history and of course I told I was, I just didn't get alot of sleep last night. That satisfied her and she went back to her work, with her earbuds in. I was beyond thankful when the end bell rang and I quickly ran out of the room and out the front doors of the school because I already had the books I was gonna need for tonight. Last night during my research I found out that OsCorp was a couple blocks from the Rockefeller Center, so I hopped on the subway and went up to Grand Central.
The board ride from there took all of ten minutes and soon I was outside of OsCorp Tower. I put my skateboard under the straps on my backpack and tightened them so the board wouldn't fall. Then I walked up the marble steps, passing many men and women dressed in suits or short skirts and blouses and heels. All had security cards clipped onto their breast pockets and all looked serious. Normally, it would've intimidated me but I don't know, maybe I was too anxious to be intimidated. Quickly I made my way to the glass front doors, looking up at the tower. It was all made of glass and then there was an outer shell made of black steel or some type of metal that was shaped into hundreds of different hexagons. It truly was a work of art in modern buildings. I watched the front doors slide open and as I stepped in and gazed around the lobby. I saw security guards checking people for ID cards and I suddenly knew this wasn't going to be easy. Then I remembered how I had seen something about internships being filled up.
"Excuse me?" A voice said and I turned looking around for the source. I spotted the receptionist and she was giving me a 'what the fuck?' look.
"Ummm hi," I said nervously and she cocked an eyebrow.
"Are you here for the intern sign in?" She asked and once it was processed, I nodded slowly. She just continued watching me like I was high or something.
"Ok well find your security card and meet your group upstairs." She told me and again I nodded then looked over at the cards. I tried to find a believable name.
"Um miss, are you having trouble finding yourself?" The woman asked and I shook my head.
"Nope uhhh I'm right here," I said, grabbing a random ID that was for girls and held it up, grinning nervously.
The receptionist nodded slowly, still staring me like I was insane but motioned for me to head on up. I nodded and smiled a little then headed off. When I got to the stairs, a security guard checked my card and then allowed me through. I hopped on the escalator and looked down watching all the people. When I got to the top, I found a group of interns and walked over to them and stood in the back. Then you will not guess who strutted up to our group in a long white lab coat, her hair pulled back with her bangs out and wearing a short black skirt, knee high socks, and a pair of black flats. She had a high tech tablet in her hands and was scanning through the list. The girl I am talking about is none other than Santana Lopez, the girl that I have liked since seventh grade.
"Ok guys I am Santana Lopez, Dr. Carl Howell's senior intern and I'm gonna be taking you on a tour of the facilities, telling you what we are going to be doing, and telling you what happens if you aren't welcome anymore." Santana told us, giving us a small smile. A commotion erupted downstairs and all of us looked over the railing to see two guards dragging a lanky blonde girl out of the front entrance while she yelled about being an intern. Guess I just found who's ID I stole.
Santana clapped her hands, "Okay well now that that is over you know what happens if you decide to not listen to what people here say. Let's start on that tour." Then she led us off and talked and talked about everything that we would be doing. When we got to the main research room, I stared around in wonder as with much of the other interns. Santana stopped and turned around to address all of us.
"So, this is the main research lab. This is where most of your time will be spent helping our scientists and working on the Doctors research." Santana started when a man came up behind her. He was wearing a white lab coat of his own, along with having slicked back midnight black hair, a pair of glasses, and he was missing his left arm from the elbow down. This must be Dr. Carl Howell.
"Thank you for the great introduction Santana. Now, does anyone have any guesses as to what we're researching here?" The man said, patting Santana on the shoulder and turning to address the rest of us. Most interns shook their heads, I just stayed in the back keeping my hood up and face hidden so Santana wouldn't recognize me.
"Well, as you can see I lost my left arm. Tragic story really but it's neither the time nor place to go into the details of that. But I've been looking for some type of cure to this and help regrow my arm at a relatively fast rate. Does anyone have any guesses as to how we've been trying to accomplish this?" Dr. asked and a small Asian kid raised his hand in front. Go figure to that.
"Stem Cell research?" He asked and Howell shook his head.
"No, that would take too long of a process and that wouldn't really help."
A couple guesses later and it seemed as though the doc was losing hope, so I slowly raised my hand as I stepped forward. Santana's eyes widened and she looked down at her tablet, no doubt checking to see if my name was on the list. When she didn't, she narrowed her eyes at me but didn't say anything. Howell called on me and looked expectant.
"Cross species genetics right?" I said, looking at him. His eyes widened, along with Santana's.
"Yes, how did you know?" He said and I shrugged.
"I think I read it somewhere," I told him and he smiled softly.
"Well, good to know that you know what we're doing here. Now, I must be off I have an important meeting but it was nice meeting all of you." Dr. Howell said, giving me a long look then turning and heading off down the corridor. I watched him leave then turned my gaze back to Santana, who was tapping away at her tablet. Then infront of all of us popped a holographic screen that a had tree with all type of different animals on the branches. The spider is what caught my eye but I tuned into Santana as she spoke.
"This is OsCorps Tree of Biology. These are all the animals we have worked with and are still working with in our cross species genetics. It's very important to learn everything about these mammals, for they are what you will be working with most in your research." Santana explained then shut the program off.
"So, let's take you to your research room and get started," She said and pointed the group down the hall and pulled me off to the side.
"So, you're now Sierra Kie?" Santana asked sarcastically, gesturing to my card clipped to my chest.
"Yeah..." I said, trailing off as Santana looked me over.
"Why are you here Rachel? Are you stalking me now or something?" Santana asked, joking the last bit. I rolled my eyes and grinned.
"Totally, I have nothing better to do than stalk you Santana." I said, cocking an eyebrow. Her face grew serious again though.
"Serious Rachel, why are you here?" She asked and I looked around.
"I love science," I told her and she raised an eyebrow, not believing me one bit.
"Seriously, I love science so much and just had to get in here and check out all the different machines." I insisted and she gave me another once over than sighed, muttering something under her breath.
"Ok here's the deal. You listen to whatever I tell you to do and no wandering off from the group. I don't need to be getting in trouble for allowing someone who wasn't on the list in, let alone letting you walk around all on your own." Santana instructed then strutted off, not looking back. I guess she assumed I was going to listen.
Quickly, I slipped down the hall that Dr. Howell had gone and walked inconspicuously a little farther behind him, looking out the windows and looking in the different research areas. When I saw him turn the corner, I pressed my back to the wall and peeked around the corner, watching as he did the security code on this touch screen. The doors control pad turned green and he pulled it open, just so two men in hazmat suits step out and start talking to him about something in a manilla folder. I couldn't see what it said but as they walked away and the door shut and locked, I checked that no one was around, strolled over to the control panel, and did the code like the doctor did. The panel turned green and quickly, I opened the door and stepped into the room.
Inside it was abnormally cold but for some reason I didn't shiver. I stepped farther in and saw different machines moving these metal block things the size of my pad of my thumb into these metal sheets that held twenty of them. I scrunched my eyebrows together then looked to the center of the room, which was encased in this circular metal case. I walked to the door and it slid open with a light hiiiiisssss. I stepped in and looked around in complete awe. All around me were spider webs being criss crossed and twisted by these metal arms that were spinning slowly. Thousands of spiders climbed the spider webs on the inside of the machine and I stepped in next to them. Then I reached forward and lightly strummed one of the taunt webs. It made a light noise and then a blinking red light started going off and suddenly all the spiders were falling on me. I started panicking, flapping around and smacking the creepy little things off me, while trying not to scream bloody murder. Finally the damn things stopped falling on me and I calmed down, brushing the last of them off. Or atleast that's what I thought. Quickly I moved out of the room and down the hall back to where I had come from, only to come face to face with Santana. And man did she look like she was trying to hold back her pissed offness. She held out her hand and with a sigh looked at me.
"I need you to leave now," She murmured and I nodded, taking my card off and placing it in her hand. She then turned on her heels and walked off. Then a stinging pain, like a bee sting but like ten times worse hit the back of my neck and I winced, yelping lowly. Santana looked over her shoulder in confusion but kept walking when I gave her a weak smile. I reached back and felt around until I grabbed a line of something. I pulled softly and it wouldn't come off so I took a deep breath and yanked. Pain ripped through my neck and I hissed, holding whatever it was in my hand and bringing it around. My eyes widened when I saw it was some spider web and one of those spiders were dangling from it. I looked around to see if anyone saw it, then put the bug carefully into one of the small pockets in my backpack and made my way out of the building. I walked to the subway and halfway there I started feeling woozy and everything was starting to spin. I ground my teeth together and kept going. When I got on the train, I laid down on one of the seats and closed my eyes. I blacked out within ten seconds.
My dreams were filled with images of intricate, faintly glowing blue spider webs, spiders, and memories of my parents. Plus a little bit of blackness and blood. Then I felt something cold on my forehead and then something drip onto my nose and my eyes snapped open and I jumped into the air, legitly landing on the ceiling. I looked down and saw a group of people, two girls and three guys all staring at me in fascination. I looked at myself and saw that I was stuck to the cieling by my hands and feet. I yelped and hopped off, landing on the floor. One of the girls was shrieking about me getting beer on her. I stepped forward.
"Oh my God I'm so sorry I don't know what came over me," I said, reaching forward and putting patting her shoulder. Except when I tried to pull away, my hand wouldn't come.
"Dude get your hands off my girl," this bald Puerto Rican guy growled, looking downright pissed. I looked at him helplessly.
"I'm trying," I pleaded then yanked. Good news: my hand came off, bad news: her shirt came with it.
The girl started yelling and I started flailing my hands as I tried to get her damn shirt off my hand.
"You're so dead," the guy yelled, coming at me.
"No man c'mon," I said, and without thinking jumped around and grabbed the pole, swinging around it and kicking the guy square in the gut. He flew back and hit the ground, groaning.
"I'm so sorry!" I said, only for his blonde friend to come and swing at me. I ducked and head butted him and threw a punch. He stumbled back and groaned, sitting back down on the chair. I turned and saw the last guy holding my board and raising it getting ready to swing.
"C'mon not my board," I begged, only for him to swing and crack it against the pole. The wood snapped in half and I literally yanked the pole out of the ground and ceiling and swung it. It hit the last guy across the face, sending him to the ground. I tried removing the pole but it wouldn't come off my hands and I kept hitting the idiots as they stood. I kept saying, "Oh My God I'm so sorry," whenever I hit them. The stupid pole finally fell off right at my stop and when the doors open, I grabbed my backpack and the broken pieces of my board and rushed home.
I quietly slipped in the front door and my hunger was getting to me. I could eat like five different cows right now and not be full. Plus my vision was disoriented and I felt like I was completely and totally stoned. But I knew I wasn't so I was wigging out. When I stepped into the living room, Aunt Shelby stood up and rushed over to me while Uncle Will sat in his chair.
"Where have you been?" Aunt Shelby asked and I brushed her off, walking to the kitchen and opening the fridge.
"I was out with some friends skating," I said absently, rummaging through the fridge until I just started stacking food. By the end, I had a steak, carrots, a couple microwave Mac n' Cheese things, ice cream, and potato chips. I looked over at Aunt Shelby and Uncle Ben, who seemed to be trying to decide if I was high or drunk or both.
"Well, night!" I said brightly, walking past them with my food as Aunt Shelby held my skateboard in her hands with a look of wonder.
I quickly rushed upstairs, locked my bedroom door and went to work looking up everything about spider bites while I ate my food. When it was all gone, I was still hungry and it was two in the morning. I called it a night and went to bed, not bothering to change. The minute my head hit the pillow, I was out with a pounding headache, nausea, and hunger still firmly in place. Plus the stinging of my spider bite.
R&R! Thanks for all the following and reviews, I love ya guys and I hope you love the story thus far!
LaxChick69 out :)
