JMJ

TEN

"Chill …"

An informal term.

It was that informality which made it feel all the colder and more lifeless from the lips of Hammerhead, and although the word was not directed at him and a freak of science was raging on the other side of a mere pane, Otto Octavius felt it. The word ran down his spine like a million icy insects, sending a shiver which cut to the marrow as though "chill" had been a literal command to him. For a moment he felt more afraid of Hammerhead than the monster they had created.

No.

That he himself, Otto Octavius, had created with his own work, his own hands.

He slowly pried his eyes off the unbelievable life form which had once been a normal man, even if a crook. He looked instead without knowing how he gaped at the monster disguised behind human flesh. Nausea filled him as he came to the conclusion that he was not too far behind however. An Igor and a scientist at the same time cowering beneath a pair of vampires thirsting for destruction and with no care for men—enjoying the suffering of men, in fact. They could almost be said to be feeding off the suffering of life they felt to be beneath them. Even Victor Frankenstein could utter in his defense that his life form had been created from flesh already dead, but for the three who had been responsible for this debauchery to say they had created a monster from a full, healthy, strong individual in the prime of life …

So deep within his own stupor, Otto hardly realized when Hammerhead took his leave and the monster with him so that perhaps the mistake they had made could still be put to use for the Big Man of crime. The empty space into which Otto now stared where the subject had been was now destroyed in Marko's pain and then wrath. The sand and dust which settled there made it seem as though these were the ruins of an experiment made long ago, but he could still hear the scream. He could still feel the vibrations of the room where he, Mr. Osborn, and Hammerhead had stood on and watched and heeded not his agony. The sight of what had happened would be seared into his mind forever, and as he thought about what happened, replayed it again and again in his mind, he felt himself begin to shake.

"Octavius."

Otto let out a squeak and jumped as he returned to the present. He realized how heavily he had been breathing and how tightly his teeth had been set. In the reflection of the glass, he first made out himself and how lost and ill he looked. Lifted his eyes he could make out Mr. Osborn's frame behind him looking as straight and stiff as ever it was.

How did a man ever become so devoid of feeling? A part of him longed to know.

Turning slowly from the reflection to the true man, he said hesitantly, "Y—yes, Mr. Osborn?"

"Have this place picked up and ready again within the next couple days."

Without knowing what he did at first Otto nodded. Then he paused and found his voice a little stronger as he said, "But surely he will be enough for them to use for their purpose. He still will not be able to feel pain or be harmed by Spiderman. Heh. I doubt he'll be able to feel anything physical ever again." He paused wringing his hands little. "A—at least … at least, I think so … it's technically impossible that he should even be alive so—"

"Exactly," Mr. Osborn cut in. "You only think so. You're paid to know not think." He meant that last phrase in more ways than one and Otto gulped before his master continued. "We know nothing about what we've made with the Sandman: if he'll live, if he's controllable. So we have to be prepared for another run in case this fails. I'm going to count on you to fix the mistake that happened today for when we may need the technology again."

Well, perhaps if everyone had listened to me and waited until everything had been safely tested first, he found himself thinking darkly, but outwardly he only gave a sluggish nod and his face betrayed nothing of anger and little of his frustration.

"Yes, Mr. Osborn."

Mr. Osborn studied the pitiful mass before him with about the same disgust he had regarded the pile of sand before they realized sentient thought still existed in it.

"I—I—I'll find out what went wrong," Otto added quickly and clearing his throat.

"That's a good Doctor Octopus," Mr. Osborn muttered.

Otto remained unmoved too upset still to even protest the distasteful pet name Mr. Osborn had given him as though he was some little organ grinder monkey performing tricks for him. But then that was all Otto Octavius was, was it not?

Taking his leave Mr. Osborn paused and before shutting the door behind him he added, "Before you leave, lock everything up."

"Yes, Mr. Osborn," Otto murmured and to himself he added to his thoughts, Except that little monkeys don't feel sick when they are told to do something wrong …

When he at last reached home that evening Otto almost did not see the mail he stepped on through the doorway. As in a trance he reached down and picked it up, tossed a bill or two onto the kitchen counter and glanced over an envelope marked from England.

It was from his sister Mandy. Mandy, who had studied abroad at Staffordshire University, married a young English video game designer, went on a diet that soon had her as slim and lovely as a girl in a chocolate bar commercial, and with her joint degree in communication design and early childhood studies she earned a job as a layout designer for a children's magazine stationed in a beautiful little building overlooking a park. She had been to London, Paris, and Tokyo. She bore then three children who went to private school, and every evening after work she would go home to a cozy little stone house between two others just like it and behind which she grew a flower garden and in which she owned a pair of parakeets. She received also sufficient time off to be with her lovely family and often did work from home.

In the past, the only thing that had kept Otto from feeling bitter resentment of her fairytale life was the fact that she was that she had never forgotten him. She was the one person who encouraged even if only in letters and e-mails. It was a stress relief if nothing else to have someone to talk to who would answer back and care about his opinions. Naturally, though envy crept up now and again, he had to be grateful for her.

She tried so hard too to patch up things between Otto and their mother. He usually wrote back courteously and usually ended up at their mother's for Christmas and Thanksgiving, but he never went to Mandy's. He always had an excuse for that. He did not want to feel more envious of her than he already did. It was not as if he could not afford to go to England if he wanted or even that he did not have time off, but he could always claim that as a top scientist at a very busy company he needed to be there whenever Mr. Osborn needed him so leaving the country could be considered out of the question.

So he could perform illegal and immoral experiments …

Now as he stared down at the envelope, he was not sure he was even going to open it. He certainly was not going to respond.

What was he going to say?

"Dear Mandy, I'm glad to hear all well with you and your family. I just performed a mad science experiment on a most imprudent person that was tricked into volunteering without knowing the extent of what he was getting into before it was too late. We're thinking of trying for a second monster out of the living within the next few weeks in the misfortune that our client is unhappy with his new mercenary against Spiderman. Surely you must have heard of him. No doubt by the time you receive this letter you'll have already caught a glimpse of our monster if he survives. I do hope to hear from you soon. Sincerely yours, your brother, Otto …"

"Oh …" groaned Otto rolling his head to the ceiling, and he threw the letter aside before collapsing onto the kitchen table with his head in his arms.

The outside world was quickly forgotten.

Never reaching a chair, he was on his knees upon the plastic tile floor with the table his rest as though he was imploring some unknown god of the refrigerator. The images of the creation of Sandman whirled like a delirious storm inside of him. Removing his glasses he rubbed his eyes and messaged his temples as to rub the images out of his head. It was to no avail. The nausea he had felt earlier returned and became a burning in his stomach.

He had eaten little until just a couple hours before when he had consumed greedily those two or three cups of coffee and all those sweet rolls at a café before returning home, and they were coming back to him now with a vengeance.

With a loud moan and a burbling from his stomach, he pried himself upright and tore the garbage can out from beneath his sink just in time to throw up,

#

As Doctor Octopus looked out into the bedroom from the time pod, the memories of the following day passed casually through his mind like the nightmare of a child who as an adult had grown out of fearing them. Though, he did feel a great disgust for pre-Doctor Octopus Otto and he had an unmistakable urge to destroy his little hovel a second time, but he had more pressing matters at hand.

It would not matter if he kidnapped his past self or brought him anywhere. If he brought him to the moon, his future self would appear within the next few hours. Thus, the only option he had was to catch his future self off guard when he appeared.

He glanced down at his past self lying in that low bed, and he felt almost as much repulsion for him as he had for his future self lying in the hospital. The only difference was that he knew this version of himself would pass on and he would become who he was in his own present time.

Lines of light like prison bars made from the shadows of the half-closed blinds caged in the sleeping Otto as a visual sign of his self imprisonment in his own akrasia. His brow began to wrinkle like a baby about to cry in his crib. His eye lids twitched as he began to rouse from the sound of the open hatch.

In no hurry Doctor Octopus allowed past Otto to wake on his own, to blink in surprise at the light from the cracks of the now closed pod hatch, and to feel that he was not alone. Making an odd little sound of confusion he reached for his glasses on the table, but he did not have time to reach for the lamp as at the sound of a familiar mechanical arm slinking by his ear a claw turned on the light.

"Wah!" cried Otto nearly leaping over the side of his bed in his shock to see Doctor Octopus.

"Good morning, Dr. Octavius," said Doctor Octopus dryly.

Trembling and clutching his covers, at first Otto had no voice with which to respond. Then slowly he began to squeak, which in time formed into something close to intelligible speech. At this point he stammered out, "Wha—wha—who are you!?" Then, although still frantic he managed an angry enough expression to go with his feeble exclamation: "You stole my arms!" He squinted. "And my coat! And—But you—what—I—I—I'm going—I'll—!"

He reached suddenly, though still shaking, for his phone to dial 911, but a gentle persuasion of a tentacle had Otto placing the phone back down again.

Otto gulped and asked a little quieter, "What do you want?"

"Just you," said Doctor Octopus calmly. "Now. Why don't you get dressed and have some breakfast. Coffee? We'll decide what to do with you."

Otto winced. "What?" He glanced at his clock on the nightstand and then back at the intruder. He shook his head. "It's over," he muttered to himself and clutched his head. "I don't understand. I must be having a nervous breakdown. Yes. Yes. That's it."

Doctor Octopus closed his eyes.

"I've been stressing out!" gasped Otto shakily. "I've been stressing out so much that I don't know what's going on. I'm hallucinating! Hallucinating a disturbing vision of myself with a space pod and I—"

"Oh, Dr. Octavius," said Doctor Octopus rubbing his temple with some irritation. "We don't have all day, and if you think I'm the worst of your troubles you should see what's coming."

With his signature pout, Otto stopped panicking and glared at his future self.

"I am the future of Doctor Otto Octavius," said Doctor Octopus plainly. "Yes, this is a time machine, and although I've no doubt that you will continue thinking through the entirety of this event that you are suffering a nervous breakdown—"

"You're not me!"

Doctor Octopus snorted. "No, I can certify that I am not. Get dressed and come into the kitchen."

He lifted his very neatly folded clothes from a nearby chair with a mechanical arm and shoved the pile into Otto's unwilling hands as his past self watched the arms carefully.

"Why do you have my arms?" he pressed.

Doctor Octopus ignored him and left the room, but did not shut the door before warning, "Don't touch that machine."

Again Otto pouted like an angry child.

In the kitchen with a dry but leisurely atmosphere about him, Doctor Octopus started up the coffee on the stove and reached for some hot cereal and a strawberry pop tart; both he made for his past self the way he knew Otto liked it best, and he waited for him to appear. He did, after some time in the bathroom, in full attire save for a lab coat and only approaching hesitantly as though he had hoped that Doctor Octopus had been a dream that should now be passed. He continued in a fog towards the table looking about as perturbed as like a cat at the vet.

He looked down at his breakfast as he seated himself with care before it, and he seemed uncertain what he was looking at until Doctor Octopus threw out a claw carrying a spoon over towards the confused little man. After swallowing hard on his dry throat and fixing his eyes upon the claw and the spoon in its clutches he took it and began to eat and guzzle his cream filled coffee with full anxiety.

Doctor Octopus then sat down with a mug of coffee as black as his mood, and he watched with eerie interest every bite and sip that Otto made so that it did not take long for Otto to feel uncomfortable about it.

Clearing his throat he bit his lip and after a moment began, "So …" He glanced down, drummed his fingers once on the table, and looked up again. "If … if I'm … I'm to believe that you're not … uh, a figment of my troubled mind, then you are …"

"The improved Otto Octavius," muttered Doctor Octopus.

"Improved, heh. Yes. Well. What's coming after me now? You're warning me of something from the future, I'm assuming, like some movie on the SciFi channel?" He paused and sighed. "Why are you—er, why am I dressed …"

Doctor Octopus sneered. "Now we don't want to spoil the future that much, do we?" But he shook his head. "Hmm. I need to get me to a place where I can catch me off guard. I have to count on me not remembering this. Anyway, I would prefer to save my apartment for me to destroy it later in my proper time."

"Proper time?" demanded Otto. "What do you mean destroy my apartment?"

Again Doctor Octopus shook his head. "More to your interest is you're future self coming here to destroy you."

Otto stiffened in alarm. Gasping through clenched teeth he rose suddenly from his chair.

"Not me now," muttered Doctor Octopus sipping his black coffee and settling his past self back into his chair with a firm but gentle claw positioning him at his hunched shoulders. He opened his mouth to explain further, but just as his voice began to utter the next phrase a sudden sound broke the focus of the moment.

Otto jumped; Doctor Octopus closed his eyes with annoyance and crossed his arms over his chest.

It was only the phone ringing, and after a moment of the pair of Otto Octavius remaining unmoved in his seats, Doctor Octopus said, "You had better go and answer that. It's Mr. Osborn."

"How can you be sure?"

But regardless, Otto jumped out of his seat and tore the phone to his ear.

"Uh, he—he—hello?" asked Otto practically coddling the receiver in his apprehension. "Yes, yes … I'm sorry, Mr. Osborn …"

At the table Doctor Octopus let out a queer sort of sigh quite noted by his younger self he looked at him with fretful annoyance before returning to the phone. Pouring himself another cup of coffee with a claw Doctor Octopus did not look up but blew over his cup gently and took another sip.

"Yes, of course. I … I'll be there as soon as possible …"

Doctor Octopus smiled. "Hmph."

As Otto left off with a parting word to his superior he put the phone back on the hook and turned slowly and painfully back to his future self.

"I have to go to work," he said. "I'll lose my job."

"Tragic, truly."

"But I need to be there, especially when he makes it clear it's an off-site project. And so sudden too. It needs to be done by tomorrow. It's going to be an unrecorded project for an unorthodox client."

"No doubt, but you won't be going to Oscorp or anywhere else with Mr. Osborn or his breed of ravaging rats at present," replied Doctor Octopus. "You're older self is coming. I've already seen me nearly kill me once already about three hours from now. I don't plan on taking chances for a second round."

"But why?! Why would I want to kill myself in the past?" gasped Otto wringing his hands and shrinking into shoulders.

"You're not yourself," retorted Doctor Octopus.

"I can see that," said Otto. He paused. "Really? Three hours from now?" He glanced up at the digital stove clock nervously.

"Tch," said Doctor Octopus taking another sip of coffee. "I have a place in mind where we can go. I've just thought of a plan."

"I'm not going with you."

"Do you want to die, Dr. Octavius?" demanded Doctor Octopus now rising from his own chair with the magnitude and presence of a great bear. His spine was arched in such a way that one could almost hear the bristling hair, but it was only the sound of the arms hissing as they arched dangerously over Doctor Octopus' head to make him look bigger and more menacing than he would normally. "Weakling! I don't plan on dying however spineless you may be. I plan on living indefinitely if I can help it, and I don't need your consent. Do I make myself quite clear? Doctor Octopus will be eternal!"

A claw then snapped very near Otto's face, and the little round figure who seemed so much smaller than his future self nodded. It seemed to take all his strength just keep himself upright as though he truly was spineless and would melt into a puddle of flesh upon the floor.

"Good," said Doctor Octopus withdrawing his arms and his gaze. Lifting a blind with a claw he glanced outside over the street. "Now. You might want to finish your breakfast."

Otto squinted and pouted again as he dared to ask after a moment, "Doctor Octopus?"

Doctor Octopus did not respond.

"Does all this have to do with Mr. Osborn?" asked Otto.

"Certainly not. Eat. I insist. You're going to need all the strength you can muster, as modest as that may be. We're going to have a big day together, Dr. Octavius. Just … me."